Book Review: What Every Teacher Should Know about Media and Technology

Title: What Every Teacher Should Know about Media and Technology
Author: Donna Tileston
ISBN: 0761931252

Rating: 1 out of 5 Stars

While this book has a good aim and a general structure that could be beneficial, it falls far short of being a good resource for educators.

The Good: The focus was more on how to use technology well, not on the technology itself. The book first examined some research on cognition and its interaction with media and technology. Then, it discusses integrating media in different aspects of education: planning, teaching, and in students' products. Finally, the book points out some on-line resources and a few tips on keeping track of student mastery. This final (5th) chapter is probably the best due to the number of resources mentioned.

The Bad: The author makes some bold claims without backing them up. For example "Using media is the key to moving students to higher-level thinking." So how did our higher-level thinkers learn before now? In addition, most examples of using technology are more for adding "flash" or "bells and whistles" to something already being done rather than a deep integration of media and technology to the learning process. While not necessarily bad, we can do much more with technology in the classroom.

The Ugly: The author does not seem to have a strong understanding of cognitive science. I have some background and I recognized very few of the concepts discussed - nor did they correspond well to current theory in cognitive science. Of the relatively small number of references given in the book, the majority are books and not peer reviewed journal articles. While I admire the attempt to bring in theories of cognition to a discussion of educational media, this book does not reflect a strong understanding of current cognitive science.

The Bottom Line: Don't bother to purchase it for anyone. Come borrow my copy and only look at chapter 5.