Lesson 7 - Choosing Media

6.4. Strengths and Weaknesses of Computing as a Teaching Medium

Many teachers and instructors avoid the use of computing because they fear it may be used to replace them, or because they believe it results in a very mechanical approach to teaching and learning. This is not helped by misinformed computer scientists, politicians, and industry leaders who argue that computers can replace or reduce the need for humans in teaching. Both viewpoints show a misunderstanding of both the sophistication and complexity of teaching and learning and the flexibility and advantages that computing can bring to teaching.

So here are some of the advantages of computing as a teaching medium:

• It is a very powerful teaching medium in terms of its unique pedagogical characteristics, in that it can combine the pedagogical characteristics of text, audio, video and computing in an integrated manner.
• It's unique pedagogical characteristics are useful for teaching many of the skills learners need in a digital age.
• Computing can enable learners to have more power and choice in accessing and creating their own learning and learning contexts.
• Computing can enable learners to interact directly with learning materials and receive immediate feedback, thus, when well designed, increasing the speed and depth of their learning.
• Computing can enable anyone with Internet access and a computing device to study or learn at any time or place.
• Computing can enable regular and frequent communication between student, instructors and other students.
• Computing is flexible enough to be used to support a wide range of teaching philosophies and approaches.
• Computing can help with some of the ‘grunt’ work in assessment and tracking of student performance, freeing up an instructor to focus on the more complex forms of assessment and interaction with students.

On the other hand, the disadvantages of computing are:

• Many teachers and instructors often have no training in or awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of computing as a teaching medium.
• Computing is too often oversold as a panacea for education; it is a powerful teaching medium, but it needs to be managed and controlled by educators.
• The traditional user interface for computing, such as pull-down menus, cursor screen navigation, touch control, and an algorithmic-based filing or storage system, while all very functional, is not intuitive and can be quite restricting from an educational point of view. Voice recognition and Search interfaces such as Siri and Alexa are an advance and have potential for education, but at present, they have not been used extensively as educational tools (at least by instructors).
• There is a tendency for computer scientists and engineers to adopt behaviourist approaches to the use of computing for education, which not only alienates constructivist-oriented teachers and learners, but also underestimates or underuses the true power of computing for teaching and learning.
• Despite computing’s power as a teaching medium, there are many aspects of teaching and learning that requires direct interaction between a student and teacher – and between students – even or especially in a fully online environment. The importance of face-to-face, human-to-human contact is probably greater the younger or the less mature the learner, but there will still, be many learning contexts where face-to-face contact is necessary or highly desirable even for older or mature learners. The importance of frequent face-to-face teacher-student interaction  is also probably less than many instructors believe, but more than many advocates of computer learning understand. It is not either/or, but finding the right balance in the right context.
• Computing needs the input and management of teachers and educators, and to some extent learners, to determine the conditions under which computing can best operate as a teaching medium; and teachers need to be in control of the decisions on when and how to use computing for teaching and learning.
• To use computing well, teachers need to work closely with other specialists, such as instructional designers and computer scientists.

The issue around the value of computing as a medium for teaching is less about its pedagogical value and more about control. Because of the complexity of teaching and learning, it is essential that the use of computing for teaching and learning is controlled and managed by educators. As long as teachers and instructors have control, and have the necessary knowledge and training about the pedagogical advantages and limitations of computing, then computing is an essential medium for teaching in a digital age.