Lesson 3 - Implementing Online Learning

6.3. Strengths and Limitations of the Model

First, I was unable to find any research that validated this model. It has a powerful feel of common sense behind it, but it would be good to see it more empirically validated, although there are many examples of its actual use, particularly in teacher education in the k-12 sector (you can find some examples collected by Kelly Walsh here. For a more critical response to the SAMR model, see Linderoth, 2013).

Second, while the model is a useful means of evaluating whether the use of technology merely enhances or radically changes teaching, it doesn’t help much with the hard part and that is imagining the transformative ways in which technology could be used in the first place. Nevertheless, it is a good heuristic device to get you to think about the best way to use technology in teaching.

Third, there will be situations where substitution and augmentation will still be a perfectly justifiable use of technology, for instance for students with disabilities, or to increase accessibility to learning materials.

On balance, it is a very useful model by which an instructor can evaluate a potential or actual use of technology. In particular, it focuses on the way students will need to interact with the technology and the ways technology can be used to assist the development of 21^st-century skills. At the same time, we still need to understand how and why media and technology could be used to transform teaching in the first place.