Lesson 7 - Choosing Media

Ever since the invention of the Gutenberg press, print has been dominant teaching technology, arguably at least as influential as the spoken word of the teacher. Even today, textbooks, mainly in printed format, but increasingly also in digital format, still play a major role in formal education, training, and distance education. Many fully online courses still make extensive use of text-based learning management systems and online asynchronous discussion forums.

Why is this? What makes text such a powerful teaching medium, and will it remain so, given the latest developments in information technology?

Presentational Features

Text can come in many formats, including printed textbooks, text messages, novels, magazines, newspapers, scribbled notes, journal articles, essays, novels, online asynchronous discussions and so on.

The key symbol systems in text are written language (including mathematical symbols) and still graphics, which would include diagrams, tables, and copies of images such as photographs or paintings. Colour is an important attribute for some subject areas, such as chemistry, geography and geology, and art history.

Some of the unique presentational characteristics of text are as follows:

• Text is particularly good at handling abstraction and generalization, mainly through written language.
• Text enables the linear sequencing of information in a structured format.
• Text can present and separate empirical evidence or data from the abstractions, conclusions or generalizations derived from the empirical evidence.
• Text’s linear structure enables the development of a coherent, sequential argument or discussion.
• At the same time text can relate evidence to argument and vice versa.
• Text’s recorded and permanent nature enables independent analysis and critique of its content.
• Still graphics such as graphs or diagrams enable knowledge to be presented differently from written language, either providing concrete examples of abstractions or offering a different way of representing the same knowledge.

There is some overlap of each of these features with other media, but no other medium combines all these characteristics, or is as powerful as text with respect to these characteristics.

Earlier I argued that academic knowledge is a specific form of knowledge that has characteristics that differentiate it from other kinds of knowledge and particularly from knowledge or beliefs based solely on direct personal experience. Academic knowledge is a second-order form of knowledge that seeks abstractions and generalizations based on reasoning and evidence.

Fundamental components of or criteria for academic knowledge are:

• Codification: knowledge can be consistently represented in some form (words, symbols, video).
• Transparency: the source of knowledge can be traced and verified.
• Reproduction: knowledge can be reproduced or have multiple copies.
• communicability: knowledge must be in a form such that it can be communicated and challenged by others.

Text meets all four criteria above, so it is an essential medium for academic learning.

Skills Development

Because of the text’s ability to handle abstractions, and evidence-based argument, and its suitability for independent analysis and critique, the text is particularly useful for developing the higher learning outcomes required at an academic level, such as analysis, critical thinking, and evaluation.

It is less useful for showing processes or developing manual skills, for instance.