Hi David

I chose to respond to your writing assignment because I liked the merging of the two. As you
mentioned both Clark and Kozma. went into the depth of a discussion tackling the issue from a
different aspect. I aligned to Kozma but my selection was not for the huge difference between
the two but that media and its influence on learning is becoming more and more obvious since
the time the discussion started. Clark in his debate mentioned, that different forms of media are
mere vehicles that deliver instruction but does not influence student achievement any more than
the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in our nutrition (Clark, 1994, p. 22). This is
a good metaphor to some extent because media is a mean of transportation of information that is
developed by the designer, so it is the designer that is influencing learning and not the
technology itself. The last point is that Clark has a strong argument that people tend to
encourage students and teachers to begin with educational and instructional solutions and
search for problems that can be solved by those solutions (Clark, 1994, p.28). It is not
uncommon that tech companies develop a technology to tackle a problem then they start
marketing it because it has limited use in real-life. These are few points that favor the discussion
towards Clark, but still I liked what Kozma mentioned is a reality, and I liked what he mentioned
that we should stop debating the issue of Do media influence learning? and instead we should
begin to think about In what ways can we use the capabilities of media to influence learning for
particular students, tasks, and situations? (Kozma, 1994, p.18).