This week, the heart of the topic is about method and media, and that our experiences and conditioning may change the ways we view them. Different media may be better for different people, places and topics. The accessibility of media and the constraints of the activity may also play a role. For example, we tell people a lot in training to have a number of methods prepared, as you may turn up to a drafty scout hall where there is no power – and so technology cannot be used.
Do I prefer different forms of representation over others?
After my initial statement, obviously my experience will be different from others. I think that I was lucky that in school we were taught a number of different ways. I remember in primary school when we covered a subject, we would do everything about it. So for Egypt, we had lessons, but we also did art, and plays and made Egyptian masks, did a number of trips to exhibitions, thus using a number of media to bring the subject alive. This was also true of secondary school, where many of our teachers used TV programmes and films (probably because in the 80s education film was big).
In the forum I recounted the story of catharsis. When being taught Classical Civilisation, we studied ancient greek dramas. We talked about catharsis, the purging of emotions that aims to make the audience feel what the actors feel. Well, we saw a live performance of Medea (with Diana Rigg – amazing). IN the scene where she kills her children I understood what catharsis was, I felt it, it made sense. Since then I have used the term often, especially when watching films or theatre. So I know how powerful different mediums can be for me.As an aside, I recently went to Athens for the first time, and it was truly amazing to see all the pottery and artefacts that I had seen pictures of when studying. It reprised my knowledge and fascination.
The course notes tell us that research has yet to prove that one medium is better than another – mostly because it is hasn’t conducted tests that are comparative enough. The ‘grocery truck analogy’ is used, to suggest that the media are just the vehicles that deliver the learning and don’t influence student achievement. I think I would disagree. Clearly, some students respond to some media better than others. Or maybe it’s about the learning activities that take place afterwards, that consolidate the ‘goods’.
Of mind and media
Saloman (1997) tells us that ‘technology’ has been employed as a metaphor to explain human nature throughout the ages. Saloman is an educational psychologist who specialises in research on cognition and instruction. From being the potters clay, to the watch, to the steam engine, now to the computer. He tells us that the blackboard and chalk is a good metaphor for the ‘absorbing’ nature of education currently and that instructional television fits well with the concept of learning as passive absorption of concrete information. Saloman pulls on the experiences of other writers to ask whether we should be using technology to support learning in new ways, rather than just using it to convey current kinds of learning in a more effective way.
“Different symbolic forms of representation address different aspects of the world around us and thus afford us the opportunity to learn something different about the world from each form of representation.”
How we perceive or take meaning from things, depends on the mental activity we engage in, the knowledge structures we possess and how we interpret these to form new meaning for ourselves. It’s a bit ‘expansive’, but how we view media will depend on our experience.
Going back to my childhood learning, with it’s variety of methods, maybe this is why I now like to have a variety of different media and activities to engage with. It gives me a breadth of knowledge across the subject in different ways, making me feel I have attained a more rounded understanding of a subject. So different forms of representation can have an effect on what we know, as well as how we know it and understand it.
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