These new media hold an abundance of materials, including text, voice, music, graphics, photos, animation, and video. But they provide more than abundance. Bringing all these media together means that we can vastly expand the range of learning experiences, opening up the social and natural worlds. Students can explore the relations among ideas and thus experience a more connected form of learning. Perhaps most importantly, these new media are interactive and conducive to active, engaged learning.
Students can choose what to see and do, and they have media to record and extend what they learn.
Learning is thus driven by the individual needs and interests of the learner. They emphasize that when technology is used as a tool to complete a task, the task itself becomes central in importance and the technology is merely a means to approach the task. As students gain knowledge, they also need to be able to think through technology in order to express the concepts they have synthesized. Thus, the traditional lines between learning about technology and learning through technology are beginning to blur. All rights reserved.