Relative Advantage

Describe the notion of "relative advantage" with respect to improving technology implementation methods. Identify specific teaching and learning problems that technology can help address and how it can create learning opportunities that did not exist.

The term "relative advantage," in the context of educational technology, refers to the ability of technology to enhance a particular learning task in comparison to traditional methods. All technology has some cost to implement and use. To determine whether this is a cost worth paying, one must know what improvements to the learning experience will be obtained for that price.

My own field, science teaching, is a particularly opportune one for technological enhancement. Studying science often requires teachers and students to visualize complex objects or concepts which it would be impossible to depict without computer aid. Modern computers are powerfully equipped to illustrate these objects. Because the graphics they create can be changed in real time, an instructor can show students the shape of, for instance, the electron orbitals around a hydrogen atom at 90%, 95%, 99%, 99.9%... probability, showing how the probability of finding the electron tails off into the infinitesimal as it moves away from the atom. Even a highly skilled teacher would find it difficult to illustrate these on a blackboard.

On the other hand, technology is also easily misused in the classroom. Poorly constructed graphics can confuse students, mislead them, form incorrect associations and misleading analogies in their minds. We often find that the more powerful the technology, the greater the skill required to use it effectively. Edward Tufte, the dean of graphic representation in science, has powerfully demonstrated the vast differences that effective graphics make in the presentation of data. And all of us have suffered "PowerPoint poisoning" at the hands of inept presenters. Teachers introducing technology into the classroom should be careful to correctly calculate its cost — not only in dollars and cents, but in the effort that will be required from them to properly use and deploy it.