Nostalgia

One lesson I learned from our summer classes is to never underestimate the craftiness of a researcher. The chapter we read from Chet Bowers’ Ideological, Cultural, and Linguistic Roots of Educational Reforms to Address the Ecological Crisis annoyed me and I forgave it because he was writing from the viewpoint of an elderly person, so I thought. Later, we found out that he wrote in a manner to instigate debate. It was another example of the importance of researching the researcher or writer. Although I adhere to the International Baccalaureate’s mission statement which recognizes “that other people, with their differences, can also be right”, an opinion drastically different from what I find reasonable is still annoying. Finding the historical and socioeconomic situation under which articles are written is as valuable as understanding the viewpoint of a historical text.

The Clark-Kozma media debate originated in the early 1980s and the articles assigned were published in the early 1990s. During this time, I was in my early years of my teaching career and computers were being introduced into schools. To frame the time period for younger readers, in the mid 1980s, I crashed our home computer with a fourteen-page document. (Luckily, I had printed it out before saving so then I typed it back in, separating it into two files.) Our daughter was born in 1992 and by the age of 3 was manipulating the mouse on our home computer to play McGee and read Mercer Mayer’s Just Grandma and Me through Living Books. Her fascination with our book reading had already resulted in us making alphabet flashcards for her (since it gave her something else to play with than just the opening page spread of alphabet in Dr. Seuss’s ABC). The Living Books series helped her learn sight words and phonetics, though we also had access to series of books for emergent readers and an extensive library of children’s books at home. Yes, she could have learned to read just through the static media, but the interactivity of the computer games motivated her to focus as we limited her computer time. Thus she learned quickly. Oh, and we also limited her time on static media as we wanted her to spend time physically playing with people as well as with physical objects. Clark’s summation in his 1994 article does not take into consideration the cost of the time spent to use the simpler, less expensive media:

 “Whenever you have found a medium or set of media attributes which you believe will cause learning for some learners on a given task, ask yourself if another (similar) set of attributes would lead to the same learning result. If you suspect that there may be an alternative set or mix of media that would give similar results, ask yourself what is causing these similar results. It is likely that when different media treatments of the same informational content to the same students yield similar learning results, the cause of the results can be found in a method which the two treatments share in common. . . . . requires that you choose the least expensive solution and give up your enthusiasm for the belief that media attributes cause learning.” (Clark, 1994).

He also disregards the motivation our daughter experienced by being able to learn and show us what she had accomplished ‘all by self’ through using the technological media.

To generalize our daughter’s experience, the most common programs used by students in schools in the mid to late 1990s were The Oregon Trail and the Carmen Sandiego programs. Oregon Trail had the player heading westward to homestead and students had to make choices similar to the settlers. The Carmen Sandiego games placed the player as a detective, travelling through the world or through time based on hints to track down thieves and the stolen article. Both games would not have been nearly as enjoyable without the options available through being computer games. As described in the interviews of the creators of Oregon Trail, the plan was to make a board game, but with two roommates that were programmers, the student teachers went way beyond. They were able to incorporate “randomness tied to geography” and the uniqueness of the programming language BASIC (Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) so that the speed and accuracy of typing ‘BANG’ when hunting affected the success of the hunt. The success of the program was that each time a student played it, they had a different result, based on choices they made. Students were learning about the westward movement AND improving their reading and typing skills as this caused them to be more successful in the game. Playing Carmen Sandiego helped students learn about different countries and historical times as well as learning logic. There were many different computer programs used by teachers in the mid to late 1990s. All were used because of the motivational factors, the opportunity to practice skills that were boring (such as Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing and Number Munchers), and the interactivity that customized learning for each student.

Kozma and Clarke started their debate before there was sufficient development of educational software or software that would benefit education. Companies like Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC), The Learning Co., Humongous Entertainment and Broderbund were just getting going and the impact of their programs was not yet available. Kozma at least saw that there was going to be a huge potential for the media used to affect learning. Many of the companies creating the media were using teachers to help create the programs, so the methodology that concerned Clarke would be integrated into the media. “The “technology” of Educational Technology (i)s vastly different now and discussing the effectiveness of media, potential or otherwise in 2007 using reports from more than ten years ago is like discussing today’s traffic issues using data from 1820.” (Becker, 2010).

Another factor Clarke did not take into consideration is the amount of technology current students are exposed to, so the use of static media does not engage their attention to the extent that it would have in the 1980s. My students will willingly do an extra ten-minute math skill practice through an app or computer game but forget if it is questions from a textbook. Strangely enough, if I upload a picture of the text page to my Google classroom, and they are asked to submit their homework electronically (instead of me doing a homework check) they are more likely to complete the practice and show it through a picture of the work in a notebook, with markers on a table or whiteboard, or chalk on the pavement, or by submitting an electronic document. Engagement with more sophisticated tools motivates current students.

Robert Kozma started his career as an elementary maths teacher whereas Richard E. Clark began his teaching career at Stanford University after completing a bachelor’s degree in political science and history, a master’s degree in mass communication, working as a head of broadcasting and then completing a doctorate in educational technology with a minor in educational psychology. This may be why Clark does not focus on motivational factors. Adults are learning because they are motivated by careers and potential pay increases, but youth are motivated by things that are fun and make them feel good. Technological media, either created with attention to teaching methodology or used with good teaching methodology and considering what motivates certain age groups in their current socioeconomic situation, has a positive impact on learning motivation in youth. The same can be said for adults, but whatever affects the speed in acquiring the knowledge is what I would consider is the motivational factor.

Resources:

Background Information on Richard E. Clark: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Daniel_Robinson7/publication/284019119_An_Interview_with_Richard_E_Clark/links/568befe008ae8445f58dc587/An-Interview-with-Richard-E-Clark.pdf

Background Information on Robert B. Kozma: http://www.debats.cat/en/speaker/robert-b-kozma

Try Oregon Trail: https://adellefrank.com/blog/how-to-play-oregon-trail-game-on-computer

Readings:

Becker, K. (2010). The Clark-Kozma Debate in the 21^stCentury. Paper presented at the Canadian Network for Innovation in Education 2010 Conference. Published under Creative Commons. (http://mruir.mtroyal.ca:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11205/143/clark_kozma_21century.pdf?sequence=1)

Bowers, C. A. (2018). The Digital Revolution and the Unrecognized Linguistic Colonization. In Ideological, Cultural, and Linguistic Roots of Educational Reforms to Address the Ecological Crisis (pp 192-198). New York, New York:  Routledge.

Clark, R.E. (1994). Media will never influence learning. Educational Technology Research and Development. 42 (2),  21-29. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02299088

Kozma, R.B. (1994). Will media influence learning? Reframing the debate. Educational Technology Research and Development. 42 (2), 17-19. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02299087