In bullet form:

• We know a more about learning with media than we think, but we have to ask the right question. Some articles and readings to ponder:
  
  • Reconsidering research on learning from media, by Richard Clark (1983) – shows that on average students do not learn more or less when using media than they do in face-to-face classroom environments. There is no difference overall – however there are differences in individual cases/experiments. So what is the causal factor?
  • We know that certain aspects of a media presentation influence better retention of content and learning performance on assessments. For example, the combination of text, sound, and images does matter in affecting the learning of content. I would recommend reading a book by Richard Mayer called Multimedia Learning.
  • Another strand of research called the Computers as Social Actors paradigm (CASA) also shows that aspects of media affect human responses to it. For example, the time between seeing an image and text, or voice, affects how well we remember a message from a commercial. We automatically, without thought, ascribe racial, gender, and other characteristics to voices in media that influence how we retain content. And movement of images on the screen affects how well we pay attention and retain content from media. It’s all very interesting, and shows that there are aspects of learning that can be understood from media research. I recommend taking a read at The Media Equation: How people treat computers, television, and new media like real people and places by Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass.
• Right now I am developing an interest in studying virtual forms of schools. There are many schools in existence that deliver schooling through the Internet. They come in many names and configurations – from state run Virtual Schools to Cyber Charter Schools – and I think are promising venues for understanding some aspects of how schools function. Some of the questions I am interested in:
  • Our current education policies are designed for brick-and-mortar schools. How does virtual schooling cause conflict with these policies, and what kinds of policies can assist new forms of schooling?
  • What kind of technology and pedagogy do virtual schools and cyber charters employ to deliver education? Are they influenced by good research (like the kind I mention above)? Would an online curriculum, designed and tested through research improve students learning performance?
  • Would a freely available, web-based, online curriculum introduce new innovations and benefits to the education system as a whole? For example, IMAGINE if students (whether they are in a traditional classroom, a virtual school, or homeschooled) could access a standards-based data-base of educational content. They could go through the content, participate in an immediate assessment, and be assessed on their meeting the standard or not. The idea is not new, and it is simple, but here are the innovations. A widely-adopted tool such as this would allow true assessment and accountability. We could keep track of kids. We could also keep track of how much content they experienced. How many times they viewed content before meeting the assessment benchmark. Compare across students and geographic boundaries on true benchmarks. We could give students two versions of a media presentation and understand definitively what factors led to better or worse learning performance. Teachers could focus on project-based learning, higher order thinking activities, and other aspects of schooling while students learned the basics through the media platform…. really the impacts are profound, and have been imagined before…. But never been ambitiously implemented or attempted.

These are my random thoughts these days. For anyone who might come across this post, I’d love any comments or questions, and help clarifying my thoughts.