Lesson #3 Roles of Educational Technology in Learning

Technology can play a traditional role, i.e., as delivery vehicles for instructional lessons or in a constructivist way as partners in the learning process.

• From the traditional Point Of View, technology serves as source and presenter of knowledge -David H. Jonassen 1999.
• Technology like computer is seen as a productivity tool.
• With the eruption of the INTERNET in the mid 90s.
• From the constructivist Point Of View, educational technology serves as learning tool that learners learn with.

From a constructivist perspective, the following are roles technology in learning: (Jonassen, et al 1999).
Technology as tools to support knowledge construction:

• for representing learners' ideas, understandings and beliefs
• for producing organized, multimedia knowledge bases by learners

Technology as information vehicles for exploring knowledge to support learning by constructing:

• for representing and simulating meaningful real world problems, situations and contexts.
• for representing beliefs, perspective, arguments, and stories of others
• for defining a safe, controllable problem space for student thinking

Technology as a social medium to support learning by conversing:

•  for collaborating with others
• for discussing, arguing, and building consensus among members of community
• for supporting discourse among knowledge building communities

Technology as intellectual partner (Jonassen 1996) to support learning by reflecting:

•  for helping learners to articulate and represent what they know
•  for reflecting on what they have learned and how they came to know it
•  for supporting learners intellectual negotiations and meaning making
•  for constructing personal representations of meaning
•  for supporting mindful thinking\\