6.2.1 The Educational Goals of Advanced Courseware
[Refer to Educational Goals column in Table 6.1.]
Successful projects went beyond providing a high quality experience,
to providing a significantly different kind of experience than was available
without the computer. They made sure that their goals were based upon
thoughtful outcomes that could not be easily achieved in more traditional ways,
rather than to use "technology for the sake of technology."
As learning environments become more powerful, they also become more
expensive and necessary to justify financially. Successful projects
were able to provide the needed justification because they used the
computer to provide better representations of knowledge in the discipline
and an increased level of involvement for learners than was available in
other formats. The trend of needing increasingly expensive technology to
support more valuable educational goals is likely to continue in the future.
Educators will be more successful if they deliberately define the unique
contributions that their use of computers will serve in the educational
process in order to justify the expense.