Giving the students too much control over the learning experience.

One criticism related to the student experience and integration of computers that was listed was: Giving the students too much control over the learning experience.

1- Do you believe that computers are capable of this?
2- Is it possible to give students too much control over their learning experience?

Yes, I believe so.

Though computers - the hardware - is only a kind of media, it does offers tons of opportunities to the users/students, especially surfing on-line through computers.

Before the students are exposed to such a huge amount of information, they must have the ability of "self-control", "self-regulation" or "self-discipline". You know what you are doing and what you want from the internet, as well as what you should not do and "learn" from it. However, not every student, especially for little kids, have this kind of abilities. And I believe that it's not a good idea or proper way for them to use computer to surf on-line as a learning experience. There are just too many things the teachers can not control, and giving too much choices is not a good idea for small kids.

But, what age is good to handle these choices and control themselves? There is no exact answer as well. Otherwise there won't be "bad guys" in the world. There is no absolute "method" to "control" the thoughts of a human-being. So, the key point is that the "inner-control" plays the most important role EVERYWHERE.

I think more education or teaching on "self-control" and the righteous values may improve or at least make up for this gap. In addition, this is the most efficient and powerful way.

What went wrong?

A very good bad design example I face EVERY DAY is my flash disc.

I have 2 or 3 flash discs. The trouble-maker is the oldest one I bought several years ago. Back to the time when flash discs are still expensive in the market, my friend gave this 256MB flash disc as a present. I was so excited to have a cute one like that. It has a fancy shape with a round end, and in the center of the round end, there is a flash light to show you it's working when you plug it in your computer. Well, this is where the problem is.

Most of the hi-tech products, like video camera, digital camera, palm, microphone, my mouse are required to use the USB ports. My laptop has 4 USB 2.0 Ports. But because of the fancy shape, I can only use 2 of them when using this flash disc. The shell of it is either too thick to plug another product in under or above it, or too wide to use another port on its left or right. I have to unplug other 2 ports next to it to use it, leaving only the mouse plugged. Or if sometimes I need one more thing to use the port, like if I'm printing something or on a video conference, I have to unplug my mouse as well to use that flash disc. That annoys me a lot!

So, finally, I retired it before I got mad, and bought another 4GB flash disc. It's nothing fancy, just the regular shape, and slim. Since it's a gift from my best friend, I'm not gonna throw it or give it to other people, I just save it in one of my drawer and have the big-butt beauty sleep for a looooong time.

The Great Debate : Media v.s. Method

does media really influence learning?

Generally speaking, everything influences learning, good or bad. The living environment, learners' emotions, characteristics, personalities, family structures, cultures, and even your mom or the orange juice you just had influences your learning. So does media. Absolutely.

However, if talking about "is media an essential component cannot be substituted in learning to cause a better learning outcome?", I'll take it a no. I'm a supporter of Clark, and I'm happy to be assigned to defend for him.


 personal experiences

1. Instead of learning by using the computer, students are working on the program or system, not really the content.

2. I may happen to try something using media, but when I figure it out how the system or program is like, I lost interest of using it to learn as well, which indicates that media could be a stimulus or motivation to encourage learning to happen, but it doesn't really change one's own mind or attitude "whether I want to learn".

Learning happens everywhere and anywhere, part of it is based on personal interests (a history/mathematic fan), some part of it is because the learners are required to do so (to pass an exam to enter a good university and find a good job to earn more money to buy a bigger house to live in and to save more money when you get old......).

I would say, it doesn't matter using which media when learning occurs out of your own wish. You like reading? Printed papers, limited classical hardcover edition, on-line text, stored in your palm, an audio CD, etc, etc, you name it, whichever media really doesn't matter, you just want to READ.

For the same reason, when learning occurs because of the outer drive, media doesn't influence a lot as well. Suppose you are going to take the GRE test, options in front of you are official instructional textbook, CD, instructional video,on-line learning, distance instruction classes, no matter how fancy the format is, you have to memorize those 20,000 words and do some or a lot of practices to get an ideal score. It's boring and tiring and time-consuming to reach the goal, but you are required to do so, no matter you like it or not.

Computer is just to help you to increase your interest on continuous learning.

I may like to put method as the essence and media as appearance.