The Roles of Educational Technology in Learning

Benefits of instructional media in the teaching process

delivery vehicles for instructional lessons
Technology serves as a teacher.
partners in the learning process
Technology is a learning tool to learn with, not from.

From a constructivist perspective, the following are the roles of

technology in learning: (Jonassen, et al 1990)

Technology as tools to support knowledge construction:

For representing learners ideas, understandings and beliefs
For producing organized, multimedia knowledge bases by learners

Technology as information vehicles for exploring knowledge to support

learning-by-constructing:
For accessing needed information
For comparing perspectives, beliefs and world views
Technology as context to support learning-by-doing:
For representing and stimulating meaningful real-world problems,
situations and context
For representing beliefs, perspectives, arguments and stories of others
For defining a safe, controllable problem space for student thinking
Technology as a social medium to support learning by conversing:
For collaborating with others
For discussing, arguing, and building consensus among members of a
community

 For supporting discourse among knowledge-building communities

Technology as intellectual partner (Jonassen 1996) to support learning-byreflecting:
For helping others to articulate and represent what they know
For reflecting on what they have learned and ho w they came to know
it
For supporting learners internal negotiations and meaning making
For constructing personal representations of meaning for supporting
mindful thinking