The purpose of this discussion is to explain and sharpen different points of view about the impact of media and attributes of media on learning, motivation and efficiency gains from instruction. This paper is an attempt to INTRODUCTION A Brief History of Media Research The claim of "no learning benefits" from media has been made and substantiated many times in the past. Many researchers have argued that media have differential economic benefits but no learning benefits. For example, in the first Handbook of Research on Teaching, Lumsdaine (1963) concluded that the benefits of media were primarily economic and that their use was "to develop the technology of instructional method" (p. 669). The Important Aspects of the Learning From Media Argument My early articles A Replaceability Challenge It may be useful to apply the following "armchair experimental criteria" to any situation where it appears that media or attributes of media have been instrumental in fostering learning gains: We need to ask whether there are other media or another set of media attributes that would yield similar learning gains. The question is critical because if different media or attributes yield similar learning gains and facilitate achievement of necessary performance criteria, then in a design science or an instructional technology, we must always choose the less expensive way to achieve a learning goal. We must also form our theories around the underlying structural features of the shared properties of the interchangeable variables and not base theory on the irrelevant surface features. I challenge Robert Kozma and other colleagues in this area to find evidence, in a well designed study, of any instance of a medium or media attributes that are not replaceable by a different set of media and attributes to achieve similar learning results for any given student and learning task. This replaceability test is the key to my argument since if a treatment can be replaced by another treatment with similar results, the cause of the results is in some shared (and uncontrolled) properties of both treatments. Of course it is important for instructional designers to know that there are a variety of treatments that will produce a desired learning goal. However, the utility of this knowledge is largely economic. The designer can and must choose the less expensive and most cognitively efficient way to represent and deliver instruction. It cannot be argued that any given medium or attribute must be present in order for learning to occur, only that certain media and attributes are more efficient for certain learners, learning goals and tasks. This allows the discussion, and our mental set as theorists, to shift from media attributes as causal in learning to media attributes as causal in the cost-effectiveness of learning. While this may seem a small shift in the representation of the problem, it would have major consequences for instructional research, theory and for design. Cognitive instructional theory can shift to a concern with instructional methods that support the structural elements of cognitive processing during learning and transfer. What is an Instructional Method, and How is it Different From a Medium? An instructional method is any way to shape information that activates, supplants or compensates for the cognitive processes necessary for achievement or motivation A Confusion of Technologies In a presentation for the Association for Educational Communications and Technology at their 1987 Atlanta convention I attributed our media research and practice problem to a "confusion of technologies" Motivation With Media

This article addresses the position taken by Clark (1983) that media do not influence learning under any conditions. The article reframes the questions raised by Clark to explore the conditions under which media will influence learning. Specifically, it posits the need to consider the capabilities of media, and the methods that employ them, as they interact with the cognitive and social processes by which knowledge is constructed. This approach is examined within the context of two major media-based projects, one which uses computers and the other video. The article discusses the implications of this approach for media theory, research, and practice. Do media influence learning? Ten years ago, Richard Clark (1983) reviewed the results of comparative research on educational media and claimed that they provide consistent evidence "... for the generalization that there are no learning benefits to be gained from employing any specific medium to deliver instruction " (p. 445). According to Clark, the results of those studies that appear to favor one medium over another are due not to the medium but to the method or content that are introduced along with the

: We review systems that support the management of collaborative interaction, and propose a classification framework built on a simple model of coaching. Our framework distinguishes between mirroring systems, which display basic actions to collaborators, metacognitive tools, which represent the state of interaction via a set of key indicators, and coaching systems, which offer advice based on an interpretation of those indicators. The reviewed systems are further characterized by the type of interaction data they assimilate, the processes they use for deriving higher-level data representations, and the type of feedback they provide to users. Keywords: CSCL systems, interaction management, mirroring, coaching collaboration 1 Introduction Over the past decade, we have seen an explosion of network-based technologies that enable traditional and non-traditional distance learners alike to learn collaboratively. These environments enhance traditional distance learning curricula by ...

There has been much interest in using software tools to scaffold learners in complex tasks, that is, to provide supports that enable students to deal with more complex con-tent and skill demands than they could otherwise handle. Many different approaches to scaffolding techniques have been presented in a broad range of software tools. I ar-gue that two complementary mechanisms can explain how a diversity of scaffolding approaches in software act to support learners. Software tools can help structure the learning task, guiding learners through key components and supporting their plan-ning and performance. In addition, tools can shape students ’ performance and under-standing of the task in terms of key disciplinary content and strategies and thus problematize this important content. Although making the task more difficult in the short term, by forcing learners to engage with this complexity, such scaffolded tools make this work more productive opportunities for learning. I present arguments for these mechanisms in terms of the obstacles learners face, and I present several brief examples to illustrate their use in design guidelines. Finally, I examine how the mechanisms of structuring and problematizing are sometimes complementary and sometimes in tension in design, discuss design tradeoffs in developing scaffolded in-vestigation tools for learners, and consider the reliance of scaffolding on a classroom system of supports. There is much interest in education reform in using technology to support learners. One aspect of the argument for technology has been that software can be used to help learners succeed in more complex tasks than they could otherwise master (Davis &

Traditionally, instructional technologies have been used as media for delivering instruction, that is, as conveyors of information and tutors of students. Whn used in this way, information is "stored " in the technology. During the "instructional " process, learners perceive and try to understand the messages stored in the technology as they

In 1996 Koschmann (1996) suggested computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) as an emerging paradigm of educational technology. After six years, how has the field developed? What does research say about CSCL to date? What is the state of the art? The aim of the present paper is to explore the foundations for CSCL, and in doing so, to contribute to the theoretical as well as empirical understanding and development of CSCL research.

This article reviews theories of organizational communication with a special emphasis on theories that have been used to explain computer-mediated communication phenomena. Among the theories reviewed, two—social presence and media richness—are identified as problematic and as posing obstacles to future theoretical development. While shortcomings of these theories have been identified in the past, some of these theories ’ predictions have been supported by empirical evidence. It is argued that this theoretical dilemma can be resolved based upon principles derived from a modern version of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection and the application of those principles to the understanding of human evolution. A new theoretical model called the psychobiological model is developed, which predicts variations in cognitive effort in computer-mediated collaborative tasks. The model proposes that there is a negative causal link between the “naturalness ” of a computer-mediated communication medium, which is the similarity of the medium to the face-to-face medium, and the cognitive effort required from an individual using the medium for knowledge transfer. The model also states that this link is counterbalanced by what are referred to as “schema alignment ” and “cognitive adaptation. ” The schema alignment construct refers to the similarity between the mental schemas of an individual and those of other participant(s). The cognitive adaptation construct refers to an individual’s level of schema development associated with the use of a particular medium. Finally, the model states that the degree to which the medium supports an individual’s ability to convey and listen to speech is particularly significant in defining its naturalness, more so than the medium’s degree of

This is a post-print of an article submitted for consideration in the Computers and

This is a revision of the chapter on the same topic that appeared in the first edition of the Handbook, published in 1995. In the intervening years, a great many changes have occurred in cognitive theory, and its perceived relevance to Education has been challenged. As a participant in, and indeed as a promulgator of some of those changes and challenges, my own ideas and opinions

Abstract not found