Reflective, Critical Thinking andTechnology

Are you ready for a thinking with technology reality check?
In an Education Digest article, Tarlow and Spangler (2001) wondered whether or not our "high-tech kids" would be able to think critically and reflectively in the future. They acknowledged that children (and adults for that matter) are able to think multidimensionally and do have multiple intelligences. They even pointed to the issue of people gasping because children can play computer games and build Web sites but cannot read and comprehend written text efficiently.Tarlow and Spangler asked that we respect and learn from these children while making sure that children get the "benefits of our oral and literate traditions." It's time for a reality check! Hello, Tarlow and Spangler, are you out there? You have failed to make the case for the benefits of oral and literate traditions beyond merely listing them as involving things such as hands-on activities, pretending, and physical activities. You also spoke of maintaining the "reflective advantages of present, nontechnological literacy." You gave no support for if and how our methods for developing literacy were indeed effective. Instead, you turned to questioning technology's role in literacy development and thinking. What's nontechnological literacy anyway? Did you forget that some type of technology has always played a role in literacy and thinking?

What's the real deal?
To me, the issue isn't for us to have newer technologies drive where our children "end up" and then wonder what happened. As educational professionals, we should indeed look at costs and benefits of any instructional method or tool. There's a danger in letting the novelty of certain technologies overwhelm us and overshadow the real deal. The real deal is that we need to foster critical thinking and information literacy skills for life-long independent learning with the most effective technologies available. The real deal is that we've always used some form of technology to teach literacy and foster thinking skills. We can help children learn with technology (Jonassen, Carr, & Hsiu-Ping, 1998). The real deal is that the technologies of today and tomorrow are merely tools that have the potential to help us communicate more effectively and efficiently with a greater number of input sources and with a greater variety of people.

Easier and better for whom and how?
Some of the things that Tarlow and Spangler criticized about technology's potential threat to deeper thinking could be resolved by educators and instructional designers creating better interactive, constructivist computerized learning environments and instruction. There isn't any cogent reason why, designers can't offer better software that provides children opportunities to reflect, pretend, draw, read or sing. Tarlow and Spangler should have also considered that their voice to text arguments are actually meeting deficiency needs of some visually impaired children. This technology might be a key motivator in these children's eagerness to develop better literacy and thinking skills in order to communicate with others. Why have these students struggle when easier is indeed better?

References
Jonassen, D. H., Carr, C., & Yueh, H.-P. (1998). Computers as mindtools for engaging learners in critical thinking. TechTrends, 43(2), 24-32.

Spangler K. L. & Tarolw M. C. (2001). Now more than ever: Will high-tech kids still think deeply? The Education Digest, 67(3), 23-27.

Where McLuhan Meets Maslow

Ahh...a late winter mid-Atlantic snow storm...The perfect condition for blogging! Lately, I've been engaged in discussions with educators, designers, researchers, and graduate students about Marshall McLuhan's thoughts concerning the impact of media and increased connectivity on both society and the human psyche. You might remember Marshall McLuhan for coining the term global village or his contention that the medium is the message (or was it massage?). What you might not be as familiar with is his "tetrad."The tetrad was designed to help us think and talk about the relationship between media and society. He posed four questions that we could ask of media such as television. 1) What does the media extend? 2) What does the media make obsolete? 3) What is retrieved? and 4) What does the media revert into if it is over-extended?

In this blog, I'd like for us to muse together about the relationship between McLuhan and Maslow. Specifically, let's muse over possible answers to the tetrad asked of various instructional technologies (e.g. games, simulations, tools software) and relate them to Maslow's hierarchy of needs--the deficiency needs and growth needs. Important note: I'm utilizing Maslow's expansion of the self-actualization need into two lower needs and one higher need (learn more here). We'll reflect on our own (and perhaps our students') motivations for utilizing and implementing certain technologies in various learning environments.

For example, are we utilizing technologies to extend deficiency needs in greater or lesser frequency than growth needs? Which needs, if any, are we making obsolete when we use communication/collaboration technologies and tutorials? Can technologies such as the Information Superhighway be over extended to the detriment of any of our growth needs such as aesthetics (beauty, symmetry, order) or self-transcendence?

With Maslow's hierarchy in mind, I conducted a content analysis of six blogs which related the following technologies to the tetrad questions: Information Superhighway(ISH), Collaboration/Communication tools(CCT), Tutorials(T), Games(G), Simulations(S), and Tools Software(TS). Here's some of what I discovered. Deficiency needs were associated with each technology at a higher frequency than growth needs. I linked the following deficiency needs to bloggers' comments at a greater frequency (in descending order): Esteem needs (achievement, competentence, approval or recognition), Safety and security needs (the familiar, comfort zone, low risk), Belonging and love needs (intimacy, association, affirmation) and finally Physiological needs (bodily comforts).

Furthermore, I categorized more deficiency needs as either being obsolete or retrieved with the aforementioned technologies. Only three technologies--ISH, S, TS--showed evidence for making some growth needs obsolete. Interestingly, simulation bloggers did not identify anything with the obsolesence question that I could associate with a deficiency need. Concerning growth needs, the most disturbing (but not surprising) association with Maslow was came from games (G). Bloggers noted violence as an over extended use of games. That over extension threatens what Maslow calls the self-tanscendence need (helping others and finding fulfillment beyond self).

It was also unsettling to find that bloggers thought simulations could make abstract thinking obsolete (fewer field trips, real-world practice). With this, a certain degree of cognitive growth needs (knowing, understanding, exploring) or even aesthetic needs (symmetry, order, and beauty) are hampered. Finally, I found safety and security needs, belonging needs, cognitive needs, aesthetic needs, and self-actualization needs threatened by an over extension of technology. Interestingly, TS (tools software) targeted the greatest variety of these needs over any other technology. Tutorials (T) and CCT had the greatest number of deficiency needs threatened by over extension.

Continuing the Media Effects Debate?

Educational research has engaged in contradictory media comparison studies for decades (Tripp & Roby, 1996). Whenever I read about the history of technology and media in education (such as Bishop, n.d.), I notice the common theme of a lack of guidelines: guidelines for the instructional design of media and guidelines for the implementation of media. Instead of trying to resolve the media effects debate, I think that providing designers, educators, and learners with effective guidelines is the more productive conversation for us to have in 2006. After all, Clark (1994) admitted that his claim that instructional methods and not media account for learning gains is a hypothesis and not a conclusion. Therefore, I contend that researchers might find it more worthwhile to focus on guidelines. One possible approach is for researchers to focus on organizing and interpreting media comparison findings in light of the "new" information we have on things such as learner-centered design approaches, multimedia learning, and, dare I say, the unique, attributes of computers.

Updating the Debate with New Information
Learner-centered, constructivist designs generally employ different assessment methods from those employed in behaviorist designs. For instance, student learning outcomes could take the form of collaboratively designed artifacts or multimedia portfolios based on a student’s desired learning goals. These assessment methods reveal the irrelevance of effects arguments that have behavioral assessment roots. In fact, Kozma (1994) argued that the studies that Clark (1994) cited about media’s influence were based on a stimulus/response paradigm. Learner-centered designs would also challenge Clark’s instructional method as “active ingredient” claim. From a learner-centered, constructivist framework, a designer’s instructional method cannot be the key ingredient. The “active ingredient” must be something relevant, meaningful, and unique to the learner. Furthermore, we have new information about multimedia learning. Mayer (2001) has proposed a viable cognitive theory of multimedia learning that accounts for both “structural” and “surface” features of various media. His theory is the result of organizing and interpreting the findings of various media comparison studies conducted over the years. Concerning unique attributes, Hastings and Tracey (2005) made a cogent case for the non-replicable capabilities of computers. (They also made a good case for refocusing the conversation from if to how media affects learning.) In short, they maintained that only computers can give 24/7 access to databases all over the world and create the conditions for the development of virtual classrooms.

Gaining Insight into Research Design from the Debate
As I look back at the Clark (1994) and Kozma (1994) debate from a 2006 vantage point, I see a useful contribution to current and future research design. For example, researchers are reminded to take care in attributing changes in learning outcomes to media alone. Clark contended that variations in methods are connected to outcomes, and it is difficult to control for all other variables. This is an important caution to researchers. Further, Kozma did a good job delineating the implications for both theory and research. Overall, it seems that both of their arguments are more relevant to us today as critiques of past media comparison studies, pointing to design weaknesses that we can learn from. For example, Clark made the case that we can learn from “negative evidence.” It’s good for us to not only look at what worked as well as what did not. From Clark, researchers can learn not to make the mistake of letting the enthusiasm for a medium overshadow building a substantive research design. In conclusion, our energy in 2006 is best spent devising guidelines that, as Kozma (1994) expressed, define the appropriate uses of a medium’s capabilities in ways that influence learning for particular students, in particular contexts, performing particular tasks.

References
Bishop, M. J. (n.d.). A short review of the history of technology in education. Unpublished manuscript.

Clark, R. E. (1994). Media will never influence learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 42(2), 21-29.

Hastings, N. B., & Tracey, M. W. (2005). Does media affect learning: Where are we now? TechTrends, 49(2), 28-30.

Kozma, R. B. (1994). Will media influence learning? Reframing the debate. Educational Technology Research and Development, 42(2), 7-19.

Mayer, R. E. (2001). Multimedia learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tripp, S. D., & Roby, W. B. (1996). Auditory presentations and language laboratories. In D.H. Jonassen (Ed.), Handbook of research for educational communications and technology (p.821-650 ). New York: Macmillan.