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Jonassen, David H. (Ed.) (2003). Handbook of Research on
Educational Communications and Technology. Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum, Inc.
1224 pp.
$225 ISBN 0805841458
Reviewed by Yong Zhao & Jing Lei
Michigan State University
February 24, 2004
Educational uses of technology have evolved into a legitimate
field of scientific inquiry. There are national and international
organizations of individuals who make a living by studying the
use of technology for educational purposes. There are national
and international conferences that are attended by people who are
interested in using technology to improve education. There are
also national and international journals that publish articles
about the uses of technology in education. There are a growing
number of graduate programs at both the masters and doctoral
levels devoted to the preparation of professionals who try to
make a career out of practicing or studying technology uses in
education. And more tellingly, there is a Handbook, a 1200
page handbook, in its second edition.
A handbook is a handy reference, a comprehensive source of
information about the past and the present of a field. The
compilation of a handbook is thus both symbolic and practical. A
field of study must have a long enough history, a broad enough
range of issues, an active enough community of practitioners, and
strong enough growth to warrant such a large undertaking. The
publication of the 2nd edition of the Handbook of
Research on Educational Communications and Technology is a
clear indication of the maturation and growth of the field of
educational uses of technology.
But the value of a handbook is much more than symbolic. The
value of a handbook also lies in the practical purposes it serves
or attempts to serve: summarizes where the field has been,
highlights promising trends, identifies effective practices,
points out blind alleys, and identifies projects that the field
might undertake. A good handbook helps newcomers to a field by
serving as a historical and conceptual orientation to important
thoughts, studies, methodologies, and problems. It helps
experienced scholars in a field by serving as a comprehensive
review of efforts and the results that have been established
during a certain historical period.
The Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and
Technology is a useful tool. Being the only comprehensive
source of summaries of research on issues in educational uses of
technology, the Handbook undoubtedly can help both
newcomers and experienced members of the community of educational
technology. Its impressive collection of 41 chapters covers a
wide range of topics, from research on old technologies such as
the television and film to newer and emerging technologies such
as the Internet, from studies of “hard technologies”
such as language labs to “soft technologies” such as
hypertext, from formal school education to informal learning
environments such as “mass media,” and from reviews
of theoretical inquiries to methodological concerns and
experiments. The Handbook organizes the many topics into
seven parts.
Part I: Theoretical foundations for educational communications
and technology. Behind various educational technology practices
are different theories, perspectives and beliefs about how
students best learn. The first section covers almost all the
major learning theories: behaviorism, systems inquiry, cognitive
perspectives, sociology of educational technology, situated
learning, ecological psychology, conversation theory, activity
theory, and the like. These chapters provide a useful theoretical
foundation and practical guidelines and principles for design.
One may notice that one thread through the chapters is an
emphasis on the socially contextualized nature of cognition and
learning and the connecting of educational technology use with
context.
Part II: Hard Technologies. This section discusses technology
infrastructure, including some technology applications in
education such as television, film, distance education, CMC,
Internet-based learning, virtual realities, library media,
language labs, and emerging technologies. The chapters in this
part provide summaries on the design and use of these
technologies and theoretical foundations of these applications,
and reviews research on the effects of these “hard
technologies”.
Part III: Soft technologies. The chapters in this section deal
with the “soft” aspects of technology—different
applications of hard technologies, theoretical support for each
application, and research studies evaluating these different
approaches. This section includes software applications where
learners play a relatively passive role, such as hypertext and
Programmed Instruction, and more interactive software such as
games, simulations, and Microworlds where learners play a more
active role in the process of learning.
Part IV: Instructional Design Approaches. The four chapters in
this section can be viewed as learning theories applied in
educational technological settings. This part introduces four
approaches to instructional design: conditions theory, adaptive
instructional theory, automating instructional design, and
user-design, theories underlying these approaches, models that
adopt these theories and approaches, research that evaluates
different models, and suggestions for future application and
research.
Part V: Instructional Strategies. This section reviews some
strategies on how to organize instruction, such as generative
learning, cooperation, cognitive apprenticeship, and case-based
learning aids in technology-supported environments. Chapters in
this section define each strategy, introduce the principles
behind them and the history of their applications in education,
and provide recommendations for future research.
Part VI: Instructional Message Design. Chapters in this
section deal with issues on how to present instructional content
with technology. This section is very well balanced in terms of
content coverage: visual, text, audio, and multiple-channel
communication. Chapters in this section clearly demonstrate how
broad “technology” can be: text, static pictures,
animation (chapter 33), textbooks (chapter 34), telephone,
phonographic recordings, loudspeakers, radio, audiotapes, disc,
audio conferencing, audio graphics, Internet (chapter 35), film,
TV, computers (chapter 35, 36), multimedia, hypermedia, slides
(chapter 36), and more.
Part VII: Research Methodologies. This section includes a
chapter discussing the importance of philosophy for research in
education, and one chapter on experimental research methods,
qualitative research methods, conversation analysis, and
developmental research respectively. We find that the two
chapters on experimental and qualitative research methods are
especially helpful in that they not only introduce key concepts
and concise research procedures, but also provide clear
directions for their effective use in education technology
research.
The broad coverage of the chapters gives one a good sense of
what the field has been concerned about over the past several
decades. The detailed accounts of each topic indeed provide
readers a historical sense of what has been done and what we have
learned about technology applications in education. The
Handbook is, thus, undoubtedly a valuable source of
information for researchers and practitioners who are concerned
about the use of technology in education.
However, we feel the Handbook would be even more
valuable if it had not included certain chapters and in their
stead included chapters on some emerging topics. For example,
the whole section of Part I could be omitted without damaging
much of the integrity of the book. Although one cannot talk about
educational technology without discussing teaching and learning,
such extensive coverage of the various learning theories is
unnecessary for a handbook on educational technology for two
reasons. First, students of educational technology can obtain
general information about learning theories from other, more
specialized sources, such as the Handbook of Research on
Educational Psychology or the Handbook of Research on
Teaching. Second, the utility of learning theories for
educational technology can be more effectively discussed in close
connection with the actual application of learning theories in
the context of educational technology. In fact, much of the
application of learning theories is covered in other sections of
the Handbook anyway.
We regret to report that a large group of very significant
issues concerning the uses of technology are missing from this
Handbook. For instance, with all these “hard
technologies” and “soft technologies” in
classrooms, there is an increasing interest in how well teachers
and students make full use of the opportunities these
technologies provide. Educators and researchers have made great
efforts to investigate how technologies are used in classrooms
(e.g., Collis, Knezek, Lai, Miyashita, Pelgrum, Plomp, &
Sakamoto, 1996, Ager, 1998), why technologies are not used in
schools (e.g., Cuban, 2000, 1999, Becker, 2001, Shofield, 1995),
what conditions influence teachers’ technology use (e.g.,
Zhao, Pugh, Sheldon, & Byers, 2002, Zhao and Frank, in press,
Becker, Ravitz, & Wong, 1999, Harris & Grangenett, 1999,
Honey & Moeller, 1999), how technology innovations are
integrated or rejected (e.g., Bruce, 1993, Cuban, 1986, Tan, Lei,
Shi, & Zhao, 2003), how technologies transform and are
transformed by existing practices (e.g., Peyton, & Batson,
1993, Schofield, & Davidson, 2001) , and what teachers need
to know to use educational technology (e.g., Margerum-Leys, &
Marx, 2003, Zhao, 2003, Urban-Lurain, 2003). A collection of or
review on these studies could have helped not only improve our
understanding of the nature and process of technology integration
into schools, but could also have provided practical suggestions
for policy makers, school boards, and most importantly, teachers
who, to a great extent, control whether, what, when, and how
technologies are used in schools. However, this important issue
is only very briefly mentioned in two of the 41 chapters.
Moreover, although most chapters included in the
Handbook recognize the importance of students’
active role in the process of learning, as all fields related to
or about education do, this volume does not include any research
on how students learn with and about technologies. Neither does
it include any review of research on teachers in technology
supported settings. Having left the main players out, this
Handbook is not about or for teachers and students, and
its value is thus correspondingly limited.
There are some other minor omissions. For example, educational
ICT (Information Communication and Technology) policy plays an
important role in educational communication and technology
because the successful ICT use in education depends to a great
extent on a supportive policy environment. Over the past a few
years, information and communication technology policy has been a
great facilitating force in improving technology use in
education. Many countries have developed national ICT policy and
ICT standards for students and teachers. In the United States,
two national ICT policies have been publicized, and most states
now have their own ICT standards. An analysis of these ICT
policies and standards would have helped readers understand the
interconnection and mutual influence between policy and the
development of educational communication and technology.
Additionally, coverage of another topic that would have been
helpful is the social ethical issues of technology use in
education. Technologies not only bring great opportunities but
also great challenges to education. How has technology use
influenced our lives? What “risks and promises”
(Burbules, & Callister, 2000) have technologies brought to
education? How can technologies be used wisely, efficiently, and
effectively? Questions like these have attracted great attention
in the field of educational technology. Furthermore, social and
ethical issues such as equity, copyright, spam, invasion of
individual privacy, and computer fraud are also important
concerns that must be addressed as we move toward improved
education through technology use.
In addition, the rapid development of information technology
has changed the world into a global village and education into an
internationalized enterprise. It would be helpful to look at
education communication and technology research and practices
from a worldwide view and help researchers and practitioners from
different countries learn from each other.
In the vast and loosely defined field of educational
technology, given the variety and complexity of theoretical
approaches, perspectives, topics, contexts, hardware and
software, any effort to create a handbook faces a formidable
challenge. Overall, we feel that this Handbook is a useful
and insightful source of information for researchers and
practitioners who are concerned with the design and development
of technological tools for educational purposes, with the
understanding it does not necessarily fully reflect the field of
educational technology due to its omissions of significant issues
concerning the actual uses of technology in educational
settings.
References
Ager, R. (1998) Information and communications technology
in primary schools: children or computers in control? David
Fulton Publishers.
Becker, H. J. (2001). How are teachers using computers in
instruction. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the
American Educational Research Association, Seattle.
Becker, H. J., Ravitz, J. L., and Wong, Y. (1999). Teacher
and teacher-directed student use of computers and software.
Irvine, CA: Center for Research on Information Technology and
Organizations, University of California, Irvine, and the
University of Minnesota.
Bruce, B.C. (1993). Innovation and social change. in Bruce,
B. C., Peyton, J.K., & Batson, T. (ed.) Network-Based
Classrooms: Promises and realities. Cambridge University
Press
Burbules, N. and Callister, Jr., T. (2000). Watch IT: The
promises and risks of new information technologies for
education. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.
Collis, B.A., Knezek, G.A., Lai, K., Miyashita, K.T., Pelgrum,
W.J., Plomp, T., & Sakamoto, T. (1996) Children and
Computers in School. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers
Mahwah, New Jersey.
Cuban, L. (1986) Teachers and Machines: The classroom use
of technology since 1920. Teachers College, Columbia
University, New York and London.
Cuban, L. (1999) The Technology Puzzle: Why is greater access
not translating into better classroom use? Education Week,
pp. 68, 47.
Harris, J. B., & Grangenett. (1999). Correlates with use
of telecomputing tools: K-12 teachers' beliefs and demographics.
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Honey, M., & Moeller, B. (1990). Teacher's beliefs and
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Margerum-Leys, J., & Marx, R. W. (2003) Teacher knowledge
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Peyton, J. K., & Bruce, B. C. (1993) Understanding the
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Schofield, J. W. (1995) Computers and Classroom
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Schofield, J. W., & Davidson, A. L. (2001) Bringing the
internet to school—lessons from an urban district.
Jossey-Bass .
Tan, S., Lei, J., Shi, S., & Zhao, Y. (2003). The
Adult-Children Tension: Activity Design and Selection in
After-school Programs. Paper accepted for presentation at
American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting,
Chicago, April 19-23.
Urban-Lurain, M. (2003). Fluency with information technology:
the computer science perspective. In Zhao, Y. (ed). What
Should Teachers Know about Technology: Perspectives and
Practices. Information Age Publishing. P.53-74.
Zhao, Y. (2003). What teachers need to know about Technology?
Framing the question. In Zhao, Y. (ed). What should teachers
know about technology: perspectives and practices. Greenwich,
CT: Information Age Publishing.
Zhao, Y., & Frank, K. (in press). An Ecological Analysis
of Technology Uses in Schools. American Educational Research
Journal.
Zhao, Y., Byers, J. L., Puge, K., & Sheldon, S. (2002).
Conditions for classroom technology innovations. Teachers
College Record. 104(3), 482-515.
About the Reviewers
Yong Zhao
Associate Professor
Director, Center for Teaching and Technology
College of Education
Michigan State University
115D Erickson Hall
East Lansing, MI 48824
Yong Zhao is an Associate Professor in the Learning, Technology, and
Culture program at the College of Education, Michigan State
University. His research interests include technology uses in schools
and educational technology policy.
Jing Lei
Jing Lei is a doctoral candidate in Learning, Technology, and
Culture at the College of Education, Michigan State University.
Her dissertation concerns conditions for effective technology use
by students.
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