The typologies used by Nickerson (2005) and Salomon and Perkins (2005) provide frames for explicating the reciprocal relationship between educational psychology and educational technology. Nickerson distinguishes two uses of technology in amplifying cognition: “Tools can amplify cognition either by facilitating reasoning directly or by reducing the demand that the solution of a problem makes on one’s cognitive resources” (p. 6). In the latter case — using technology to reduce cognitive demands — one can trace an influence of educational psychology on educational technology. As psychologists came to understand which cognitive tasks were burdensome and routine, technologists developed tools to allow the mind to focus on higher-level tasks. This parallels Salomon and Perkins’ effects *with* technology. In the former case — using technology to facilitate reasoning — one can trace an influence of educational technology on education technology. As tools unburdened the mind to focus on new tasks, the kinds of cognitive work we do evolved. For example, the focus of schooling is shifting from rote tasks to 21st century skills, largely due to the influence of technology. This parallels Salomon and Perkins’ effects *through* technology.
The Salomon and Alamog (1999) piece illuminates what technology facilitates for research and practice. They point out that technology makes available new kinds of tasks for students, such as the creation of Web pages. Thus technology facilitates new activities to be used in practice. They also note, however, that research is needed to justify the use of these tasks. Technology thus facilitates new areas of exploration for research.
Your comment about ‘effects through technology’ reminds me a lot of Papert’s views on how technology or computers have shaped the way we think (debugging, for instance). I also agree that as tools have unburdened our minds, we have been able to think in new ways. It makes me wonder though if there will ever be a plateau effect or do you think it’s more of an exponential thing? How much can we unburden? I’m probably going off on a bit of a tangent here, but it makes me wonder about the limits, capacities, and complexities of human minds. If there indeed a saturation of sorts, would technology stop influencing cognitions?
Sukanya,
What an interesting question. Three responses come to mind. First, when I consider just an individual, I do think we might eventually run into a plateau. The “unburdening” I’m imagining has mostly to do with issues of memory space and routine tasks, and I think at some point we might reach a place where we’ve run out of things to offload. Second and relatedly, though, I am less able to imagine a plateau when I think about cognition in a distributed or collective sense. The ways that tech might enable us to communicate without worrying about language differences, logistics, etc seem limitless in potential for enabling us to collectively think in new ways.
Lastly and more pessimistically, though, even if there is an individual plateau, I think it’s going to be a long and slow journey to reaching it, especially in a practical sense in schools. Calculators have existed for decades and we still insist on teaching kids to do long division. There’s some cultural and societal change necessary to move toward a plateau.
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