Some may view it as such. But we must avoid the Type I Error. We cannot lose sight of the fact that it is instructional strategies that cause improvements in achievement, not media. The richness of life's contexts, its faces. fragrances, and emotions, will never be effective candidates for computer simulations. Neither will the training of a surgeon nor the handiwork of a carpenter.
Some instructional strategies are well suited for multimedia and other technologies.
Simulated outcomes of decisions impractical to experience live, literature review, and data collection are a few examples of technology applications that are consistent with sound instructional strategies. Though any of these could be accomplished using other media, multimedia and on-line technologies are clearly more efficient and economical with little if any experiential cost. More important, they are misapplications that deprive students of those human interactions and hands-on experiences that yield feeling, thinking adults. Media clearly enable us to design better instruction. For the past 30-plus years, film and video have brought the world into the classroom.