23.7.6 Technology and Research
You may have noticed something conspicuous in its absence, especially in a book on research in instructional technology-the absence of any discussion about technology in its hardware form. If you go back and look at the definition of REALs, you won't even find the word technology in the definition. Although we argued earlier that research needs to focus on methods and not media, this does not preclude research into technology to determine its potential usefulness and ways to integrate instructional methods within technology. (Part 11 of this text deals with a number of hard technologies and media-related research.) REALs are gaining more attention because technology has developed to an extent that helps teachers give more time to individuals, and because it provides tools to help learners become more independent. In the past, AV delivery systems depended on discrete audio and visual channels that transmitted separate message content. These constraints encouraged people to think about their designs as tools, either audio or video (Allen, 1994). Allen states that thinking in terms of information channels is artificial:
Humans in unmediated environments do not seem to frame their perceptions or actions in terms of information channels; rather, they appear to organize both their perception and their reasoning in terms of objects and agents of action. In spite of separate pathways for sensory information dictated by different cranial nerves for vision, olfaction, and audition, our capabilities of perception, memory, and language integrate across sensory modalities and our minds attend to avenues for exploration and action (p. 34).
Therefore, the human-machine relationship is more than discrete sensory inputs. The machines are tools that facilitate processes. So, how can we design machines to help people learn and think? Does this mean that machines need to replicate human processes or that machines support processes? Can we use machines to help make the thinking and learning processes visible and more accessible? Allen (1994) says that I need to think more about how to design media systems as livable environments, and this will require much rethinking about what it means for humans to be intimate with their media machines" (p. 34).
Besides the nature of technology and its interfaces, we need to look at specific tool uses for technology. (For a much more detailed treatment of this topic, see Chapter 25.) Lajoie (1993) describes four uses for cognitive tools in learning environments: (1) to support cognitive processes, (2) to share the cognitive load by providing support for lower-level cognitive skills, (3) to allow learners to engage in learning activities normally out of reach, and (4) to allow learners to generate and test hypotheses. These uses are related to scaffolding and metacognitive issues, and again emphasize the importance of working with technology in the context of a strategy rather than as the cause of learning.