At the beginning of term, I was still struggling with the value of substitution. Now that we are looking at TELEs, I’m starting to see how substitution can be valuable especially when I recognize that we are often constrained by the medium and its affordances.
When we discussed how the current learning tools on the web are primarily instruction and drill based, there was a hint of disappointment that there isn’t much diversity in the available TELEs. Making a TELE is hard and the existing tools available should not be discounted.
When looking at the drill based tools (e.g., games), a reductionist perspective hints that this is just an online quiz. However, students like playing these games and become more engaged with them. The feelings towards playing do impact the experience.
Drill based tools are also useful. Practice is important. Improving lower order skills is important in preparing learners for higher order tasks.