Information transmission

‘Information transmission’ is a popular phrase used to denote the mechanistic communication of expert knowledge that is one way only. The critique of this mode of teaching has become increasingly sophisticated over the years as knowledge about the complexity of communication grows. The phrase was first coined in 1949 by Shannon and Weaver who wanted to mirror the functioning of radio and telephone technologies in human communication.

However, Crawford and Sobel (1982), pointed out that information transmission only works when the expert speaker is motivated to give a full account of their expertise and when the learner has a common interest in the knowledge being offered and is, therefore, prepared to listen. Without common interests, information transmission is heard as ‘noise’ by the learner who does not retain the information given. Chandler (1994) complained that the information transmission model assumes communicators are isolated individuals. No allowance is made for differing purposes, differing interpretations, unequal power relations and situational contexts (often called differentiation). Information transmission is still the most widely implemented method of teaching in schools across the world. 

The traditional role of expert educators around the world is to pass on their expertise to students who learn the information and reproduce it for examinations and tests (Biesta, 2015). However, in the case of  ICT, Pachler (2005) warned of a general tendency to perceive the value of the new technologies only in terms of traditional information transmission: that is as a means of delivering facts to students. The key disadvantage of using this model with educators, who are the subject of this study, is that it reinforces the ‘deficit’ model of expert teacher of teachers giving new information to teachers who are only students with no experience in the topic being covered. This mode of CPD makes little concession to what the educators may already know.

This emphasis on the ‘sage on the stage’ pedagogic approach was beginning to change to the ‘guide on the side’ when digital technologies started to emerge in schools and universities in the 1980s. Digital technologies were a strong catalyst for breaking out of the information transmission mode because resources for teaching and learning were made more available not only to the teachers but also the learners who had primary access to learning materials on the developing World Wide Web. This opened the window of opportunity for access to research information that could inform practice within schools, colleges and universities with or without the help of expert support. However, a more interesting and potentially significant development has been the emergence of practice-based research in which practice is both informed and provoked research within educational settings, bringing together practitioners, as both consumers and producers of research material, with academic researchers themselves.

However, this requires a different pedagogical model resulting in a shift from knowledge transmission to a more constructionist and/or constructivist model as facilitated by social interaction supported by educational technologies which has led to a model of collaborative co-construction of knowledge.

We now trace how the interest in practice-based learning/research began to alter the views of teachers who were exploring the opportunities offered by edtech as  new forms of technology became available, joining groups of professionals in the UK in organisations like Technology, Pedagogy and Technology Associations (TPEA) as well as the MirandaNet Fellowship and Naace, all three organisations of edtech professionals