Kozma and the Capabilities of Media | W2 Q1 | Forum

As Robert Kozma:

Media is not merely a vehicle that transports and delivers information. Continuing to conceptualize media as separate from instructional methods and disregarding the social and cognitive processes by which knowledge is constructed prevents researchers from ever understanding the potential relationship between media and learning. Rather than asking the question, “Do media influence learning?” perhaps, the more appropriate question to pose is “Will media influence learning?.” This reframing is necessary as technological and media innovation will inevitably make its way into classrooms and other social settings. As such, education technologists must seek to establish a relationship between learning and media. To understand the role that media plays in learning, media and instructional methods must not be studied as separate entities; rather, media design and methods must be confounded and integrated with the educational context. Traditional notions of media and instructional design do not attend to the complex, interconnected relationships among medium, method, and situation and are incompatible with constructivist and sociocultural models of learning. Understanding how media, instructional methods, and cognitive processes interact in complex social situations will allow education technologists and researchers to take advantage of the capabilities that media can offer to learning.

As Brittney:

At the time of this debate, Kozma had the foresight to see that media was more than just a delivery mechanism. Kozma pushed researchers to reframe the conversation on media and learning and to forwardly think about the future potentialities and capabilities of the relationships between media, learning, and society. Kozma’s consideration of the importance of the interaction between media, instructional methods, and educational context account for the social process for which cognition is engrained. I found this argument to be compelling as it acknowledges the complex interrelationships that exist between the learner, media, content, and instruction. While each of these elements might not have the same individual impact on learning, they are all working pieces that, together, influence how a learner accesses, acquires, and cultivates content knowledge. Kozma saw the direction that media and learning was taking and urged researchers to reexamine the assumptions foundational in the field.