美国教育传播与技术协会主席的一番讲话

The  Greek  Philosopher  Heraclitus, who  lived  in Ephesus  in  the 6th  century  BCE,  argued  that the  fundamental  nature  of  everything was change – all things change; paradoxically, he also argued that all things  are  in  some  sense  the  same (Vlastos,  1955).  Ihave argued that the fundamental nature of learning is change – alllearning involves change (Spector, 1998). To defend the claim that aperson has learned something, it is necessary to establish that aperson now knows or can do something that he or she did not know orcould not do previously. While this is not a new idea, it is commonlyoverlooked. Typically,  there  only  post-learning measures,  and  all  too  often  those measures are only aimed at declarative  knowledge  (e.g.,  recalling  facts and definitions).

    Educational technologists and instructional designers are interested infacilitating and improving learning and performance. As  a  consequence, our  profession  takes  the  notion  of change seriously; we are typically trying  to  establish  that  a  particular  instructional approach or use of a particular technology will result in improved learning.    In  short,  whereas  many educators need only establish that students know certain things, educational technologists  need  to  establish  that students  have  learned  certain  things, and,  more  importantly,  that  theirlearning can be improved through the use of a particular instructionaldesign or technology. Not only do we need to establish that a changehas occurred, but we need to find ways to make the process resulting inchange more effective and efficient.

Establishingthat changes in knowledge and ability have occurred and identifying thecauses for particular changes are challenging tasks. Life as aneducational technologist is a constant challenge.  However,change is what makes things interesting. In the paradoxical world ofHeraclitus, change is also that which made things what they are. A  river would not  be  one  and  the  same  river were it not for the fact that the water fowling in it is always changing, as are the river  banks  and  even  the  course  of the river. Okay, that river of thought is  probably  too  deep  for  my  short legs, but  I do believe  that people are continually learning – changing – yet a person remains, in some sense, the same  person  in  spite  of  these  ongoing changes. Moreover, in some sense our  identities  are  associated  withwhat we know and are able to do, as in: (a) “She is great at creatinganimations; if you really need an animation to support that unit ofinstruction, go see her;” or (b) “He is an outstanding Java programmer;  see  if you can get his help with that application.”

There is a more serious challenge in the world of educational technology, though.  Changes in animation software and programming languages occur frequently.  New sofware and programming languages arrive frequently.  New  and  powerful  digital devices  capable  of  supporting  learning  and  instruction  become  available almost on a daily basis. How is one to maintain one’s knowledge and ability as an educational technologist?  It is a real challenge to keep up with the tools of the profession and to master one or two useful tools.

Technology changes.  Technology changes what people do.  Technology changes what people can do. On  ac-count  of  these  changes,  instructional designers  and  educational  technologists  should  remain  flexible  in  their thinking. We should be willing to revisit  and  revise  previous  solutions  as new  technologies  become  available, and as we come  to know more about learning and what works best  to support learning in various situations.  

Are  there  not  things  that  rarely change  about  which  an  educational technologist  could  be  doctrinaire? Well,  there  is  the  fact  that  learning involves  change  –  an  educational technologist or  instructional designer could  be  doctrinaire  in  insisting  on  pre-  and  post-intervention  measures to  determine  what  changes  have  occurred.  Isuppose that one could be doctrinaire about the role of the individualin learning. We interact with our environment. We experience a varietyof things. Occasionally, we need to make sense of those interactionsand experiences (e.g., when something out of the ordinary occurs). Tomake sense of our experience, we construct internal  representations  or  mental models  and  then  externalize  them in  order  to  interpret  our  experiences (Johnson-Laird,  1983).  Perhaps the process of creating internal represent tations is something about which we can eventually become doctrinaire.