Overcoming the Limitations of Traditional Media

Thus far, we have provided an overview of how speech, text, and images each present a unique profile of strengths and weaknesses not experienced equally by all individuals. In the classroom, each medium poses barriers for some students, while offering particular opportunities to others. None works optimally for every student or for every situation, which means that several media options should be available.

Unfortunately, many classrooms continue to be dominated by a single medium—usually printed textbooks. This dominance prevents teachers from reaching all students and instead forces them to cater to those who find text accessible and create barriers for those who do not. There are further consequences. Even students able to access text are missing out because we know that there are other media more suitable for communicating particular kinds of material. Finally, students' preferences and proclivities for certain media and tools can play an important role in deepening their engagement and enhancing their success, even if they are capable of using a variety of media.

What is the alternative? Is the answer simply for teachers to incorporate more text- and image-based instruction? To make multiple presentations of the same content—using text for some, speech for others, and images for still others? This just isn’t very feasible. Collecting and maintaining a sufficiently varied assortment of traditional media that would allow us to create an optimal instructional environment for every student in every unit of curriculum would be incredibly costly, consume too much space, and create nearly insurmountable logistical problems. No, more media is not a reasonable alternative. Teachers don’t need more media; what we need is better media.

Fortunately, we don’t have to wait for better media to come along. Digital media—available now—can help overcome the limitations of traditional instructional formats.