Lesson 7 - Choosing Media

2.2. First Steps

Embedded within any decision about the use of technology in education and training will be assumptions about the learning process. We have already seen earlier in this book how different epistemological positions and theories of learning affect the design of teaching, and these influences will also determine a teacher’s or an instructor’s choice of appropriate media. Thus, the first step is to decide what and how you want to teach.

This has been covered in-depth, but in summary, there are five critical questions that need to be asked about teaching and learning in order to select and use appropriate media/technologies:

• What is my underlying epistemological position about knowledge and teaching?
• What are the desired learning outcomes from the teaching?
• What teaching methods will be employed to facilitate the learning outcomes?
• What are the unique educational characteristics of each medium/technology, and how well do these match the learning and teaching requirements?
• What resources are available?

This lesson focuses on the fourth of these questions, but they are best not asked sequentially but in a cyclical or iterative manner, as media affordances may suggest alternative teaching methods or even the possibility of learning outcomes that had not been initially considered. When the unique pedagogical characteristics of different media are considered, this may lead to some changes in what content will be covered and what skills will be developed. Therefore, at this stage, decisions on content, and learning outcomes should still be tentative.