Informal Learning, the Apple iPad and Richard Clark

I recently participated in a class debate on the affects of rich media on learning. Richard Clark authored one of the position paper for the debate in 1983. Clark’s research is based on the statement, “What affect does different media have on learning?” In his findings, he states, “there is no learning benefits to be gained from employing any specific medium to deliver instruction” (Clark, 1983) and I asked was this the correct question to ask for today’s generation of students?

I my initial debate reply I stated, “the Internet is a phenomenon that has allowed individuals to transcend traditional barriers of location and time. As a species our success has been defined by our ability to pool talent, knowledge and resources within a social network. Our entire understanding of life and the universe comes from our ability to gather and develop concepts within a social an “arena-of-ideas”. It stands to reason that the vehicle of that connection would have some effect on learning. Broadcast media once primarily dominated our society, but today’s culture now operates in an interactive, information-on-demand world. Has changes in society and its preferred media usage, the Internet, relegated Clark’s research to a bygone era of a society dominated by broadcast learners obtaining their information in a passive media via the lecture, newspapers, and television sets watching the nightly news?”

I still stand by the thoughts and another new technology just released makes me think Clark's observations are correct for a different era. I would like to transport the Clark of 1983 to the present and hand him the Apple iPad. Over the past two days the amount of informal learning and instruction that I participated in because of and on this device is interesting. Over the past 48 hours simply ‘playing’ with this device I have learned more about gesturing on computers, read Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Author’s Court” and conducted numerous informal sessions with individuals, including administration where I was able to preach the good word of instructional technology. I am not sure what affect the device has had on my learning, but it is hard to think there has been no affect.