Lesson 3: Roles of Educational Technology in Learning

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 a constructivist perspective, the following are roles of technology in learning: (Jonassen, et al 1999)

1. TECHNOLOGY AS TOOLS TO SUPPORT KNOWLEDGE CONSTRUCTION

–For representing learners’ ideas, understandings and beliefs

–For producing organized, multimedia knowledge bases by learners

2. TECHNOLOGY AS INFORMATION VEHICLES FOR EXPLORING KNOWLEDGE TO SUPPORT LEARNING-BY-CONSTRUCTING

–For accessing needed information

–For comparing perspective, beliefs and world views

3. TECHNOLOGY AS CONTEXT TO SUPPORT LEARNING-BY-DOING

–for representing and simulating meaningful real-world problems, situations and contexts

–For representing beliefs, perspectives, arguments, and stories of others

–For defining a safe, controllable problem space for student thinking

4. TECHNOLOGY AS 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

5. TECHNOLOGY AS INTELLECTUAL PARTNER 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’ internal negotiations and meaning making

–For constructing personal representations of meaning for supporting mindful thinking