While I believe that many of us agree with the notions put forth by Kozma in ‘Will media influence learning? Reframing the debate’, I believe that Clark puts forth some legitimate concerns regarding the ‘jump’ into new media.

Often we as consumers get sucked into the latest craze (i.e. a certain new phone that was released today) and overlook the actual value of the product to our daily life. This can translate to our role of educators in the classroom as well. Often we can get caught-up in the latest craze and if we don’t spend the time understanding the value of the technology in terms of the way that it fundamentally changes the learning we are throwing money away. Technology in education should net really be about making things easier, but it should be about making things different. There will always be some new device that will be able to do things faster or just a little bit better – does that mean we spend the rest of our lives ‘upgrading’?

I think that whatever the technology we use, we need to be teaching the skills associated with using the technology. How has the computer changed the way students research, interact, communicate, socialize? These skills are what will prepare them for lives outside of school. As stated in the last module, technology is not the ‘stuff’ we use, but rather the learning that occurs because of the stuff.

Clark notes that the results of using media can be attained by some other learning process or method of instruction, what he does not account for is how the student has been changed because of the experience with the technology. Will they be able to acquire knowledge differently in the future? Do they have different insight into problems as a result of their experience with technology? Have we made them better learners? I think we would all answer yes, and that is the real effect of ET.