Lesson 3

The Roles of Educational Technology in Learning

          From a constructivist perspective, the following are roles of 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 accessing needed information.

-     for comparing perspective, beliefs and world views.

• Technology as context to support learning-by-doing: 

                  -     for representing and stimulating meaningful real world problems,
                        situations, and contexts.

-     for representing beliefs, perspectives, arguments, and stories of others.

-     for defining a safe, controllable problem space for the 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 a community.

-     for supporting discourse among knowledge - building communities.

• Technology as an 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 come to know it.

-     for supporting learners; internal negotiations and meaning making.

-     for constructing personal representations of meaning.

-     for supporting mindful thinking.