Introduction

Traditional media for teaching-speech, text, and images-are so ingrained in our methods and curriculum that we rarely pause to consider their use. Instead of thinking carefully about which medium to use in a given situation, we usually select what we have chosen in the past or what is convenient now.

What few of us recognize is that these media have very different things to offer. The inherent communicative strengths and weaknesses of speech, text, and images determine their suitability for different instructional purposes. As teachers, when selecting a medium for teaching, we should consider its appropriateness for the particular content or activity. But the selection process does not stop there. We also need to weigh the characteristics of our students. Each individual's facility with a medium is a function of the proclivities, strengths, and weaknesses of their learning networks and the particular demands each medium makes on these networks.

This analysis is not usually a part of how we understand and appraise our students' capacities, how we teach, and how we evaluate learners' progress. Unwittingly, we have allowed traditional media to shape these practices. Instead of considering students individually, we operate on a one-size-fits-all mindset. When we set goals, we often tie them to particular media without considering alternatives. When we evaluate children's abilities, it is often on the basis of their performance within a single medium. We categorize as disabled those students for whom a printed textbook, a lecture, a chart, or a videotape is difficult or impossible to use. We then prescribe for them special goals, teaching methods, and materials-often with a remedial focus. Students are assessed according to standards and standardized tests with little regard for how the chosen medium affects their learning or their ability to demonstrate that learning.

This situation has developed in part because traditional instructional media and materials are inflexible and not amenable to individualization. New electronic media offer the opportunity-and we believe, the obligation-to re-examine old assumptions about teaching media and tools and reconsider their impact on learners.

The first half of this chapter focuses on traditional fixed media: speech, printed text, and still or video images (as opposed to their new digital counterparts). We outline the nature of each as a means of communication, discuss advantages and drawbacks, show how each places certain demands on learners' brain networks, and explain how each interacts with individual differences. In the second half, we focus on digital media, highlighting their inherent wealth of flexibility and illustrating how this flexibility provides teachers a new and better approach to understanding and addressing learner differences.