An overview of the debate can be found at http://www.coe.tamu.edu/~mbastian/Clark-Kozma/CK-Debate.htm The resources and synopsis below come from this site.
Clark's position was that "studies clearly suggest that media do not influence learning under any conditions". Kozma responded seven years later with findings that media selection does indeed impact learning... The debate was off and running....
Other resources about the debate can be found at :
http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/The_media_debate
Clark, R. E. (1983). Reconsidering research on learning from media. Review of Educational Research, 53(4), 445-459.
Clark, R. E. (1985). Confounding in educational computing research. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 1(2), 137-148.
Clark, R. E. (1994a). Media and method. The media influence debate: Read the fine print, but don't lose sight of the big picture. Educational Technology, Research & Development, 42(2), 7-10.
Clark, R. E. (1994b). Media will never influence learning. Educational Technology, Research & Development, 42(2), 21-29.
Kozma, R. B. (1991). Learning with media. Review of Educational Research, 61(2), 179-211.
Kozma, R. B. (1994a). A reply: Media and methods. Educational Technology, Research & Development, 42(2), 11-14.
Kozma, R. B. (1994b). Will media influence learning? Reframing the debate. Educational Technology, Research & Development, 42(2), 7-19.
Outdated?
With the advent of Web 2.0 tools, I felt that the debate really was outdated at this point. So much has changed in terms of how we look at learning, the learner, and the interface...that I felt as if the question was really moot... Also, the question of preference never came into play. Sure we CAN learn without multi-media support, but why should we have to try? To me, we have crossed a line of no return - We've tasted what it's like to be creators, participants, and collaborators and there's no going back now... Below is the posting I added to our course discussion with my thoughts on the subject.
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I have to say that media definitely does impact learning in several important ways. I believe the visual aspect of media helps to immediately make some difficult concepts more clear – take a look at a rap video on particle physics that just came to my e-mail – I have to say that watching that video (while it didn’t make me an expert) definitely made the concept easier to get an initial handle on - http://news.aol.com/article/no-jive-particle-physics-rap-is-web-hit/155074 So in terms of access to comprehension of content, I think it can provide huge support. And who is going to read a 1000-page report by Al Gore on global warming? But a well crafted multi-media display created an impact (i.e. learning) around the world!
The use of media has played a role in the evolving definition of literacy. For the most part, we still think about literacy, and therefore how we learn, in traditional terms – reading and writing (especially in higher education) . Is this notion changing with the advent of Internet and easy access to tools to use and create multi-media? Lawrence Lessig, a copyright lawyer and professor at Stanford was our keynote speaker at our annual Teaching and Learning with Technology Symposium and his presentation really rocked the house – because he was challenging us to re-think our assumptions about all of this – Why do we ask people to read and write in college? To learn, to improve critical thinking skills, to gain content knowledge? Are there new ways to “read” and “write” with new media tools? I believe so! Check out his presentation – just amazing I think – but fast forward to about 10 minutes to bypass the President of PSU J ) http://symposium.tlt.psu.edu/topics/keynote
Even the sacred ground of Bloom’s Taxonomy is being fiddled with to account for the impact of media!!! Bloom’s revised Taxonomy for the digital age (http://www.techlearning.com/shared/printableArticle.php?articleID=196605124 ) … gets us to think about higher-order skills in a new age – What might “evaluation” look like today when we have so much more than just paper and pencil to play with? When we ask students to be creators (“writers”) using other media, we can create motivation, excitement, and enthusiasm for learning (for us and our students!) When students are actively engaged in the creation of their own knowledge then we have set the stage for life-long learning, rather than a study for the test mentality.
What does it mean when the new media tools make it easier than ever to collaborate, copy/paste, show and share what we have created! All of our ideas about who owns what and what can things on the Web be used for need to be re-examined. One of my favorite videos – out for a while – you probably have seen this one – but it captures this in a nutshell and I think is now a classic! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE
The initiatives by MIT and other universities to make all of their content open to the world I think is a shattering plan!!! – Who owns the knowledge – Who should have access – media opens the door, levels the playing field when access is assured for all….
But beware….we as educators need to help our students acquire these new skills as Henry Jenkins states in a really important paper he wrote for the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Learning Initiative, we have to teach kids to not only be skilled users of media, but ethical ones as well! http://digitallearning.macfound.org/site/c.enJLKQNlFiG/b.2029291/k.97E5/Occasional_Papers.htm
Can you tell I’m excited about this? I guess we all are or we wouldn’t be in this class! I firmly believe that media has huge impact on learning – from access to information and people, to new ways to create and share content, to user-friendly tools and multi-sensory input, I think we are living in a truly exciting age for teaching and learning.
Resources
Particle Physics rap video - http://news.aol.com/article/no-jive-particle-physics-rap-is-web-hit/155074
Lawrence Lessig keynote http://symposium.tlt.psu.edu/topics/keynote
Bloom’s revised Taxonomy for the Digital Age - http://www.techlearning.com/shared/printableArticle.php?articleID=196605124
The Machine is Us/ing Us video -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE
Henry Jenkins’s white paper on new skills for the age of Digital Learning - http://digitallearning.macfound.org/site/c.enJLKQNlFiG/b.2029291/k.97E5/Occasional_Papers.htm
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