The Future of Media in Instruction: From Consumers to Creators to AI Explorers

Gloria Doherty, Director of Digital Learning at George Fox University

Gloria Doherty, Director of Digital Learning at George Fox University

Remember the days of analog videos and rolls of film and then the emergence of the first iPhone in 2007, followed by the iPad in 2010, when the floodgates opened, and we were awash in apps? It was the arrival of digital life in the palms of our hands. How can educators manage the continuing proliferation of apps in a way that accommodates our spectrum of users? One method that helps us move beyond the allure of technology for technology's sake is the SAMR Model created by Dr. Ruben Puentedura. SAMR gives us a focused measure of how an application impacts learning as it integrates into instruction.

For example, the advancement of personal media production apps now allows educators and their students to produce media on their own terms. This has taken educators on a journey through the levels of SAMR:

SAMR Level 1 Substitution—Direct substitute with no functional change—brings instructional media into the local classroom. Before digital life emerged, students consumed media that instructors curated. In the 1970s, VHS gave us the ability to be direct consumers of video programming. In 2007, Netflix introduced media streaming to consumers. Personal curation became possible and continues to expand for students.

SAMR Level 2 Augmentation—Direct substitute with functional improvement—transfers instructional media into interactive digital learning spaces. This advancement allows educators to tailor media to learning targets organized in learning management systems. Students can engage in the content on a more flexible schedule of repeatable viewing, which empowers them to fill learning gaps as they review. Instructors use applications that enhance student engagement by embedding questions in video presentations to help students check their understanding. Apps that provide group annotation and discussion around media objects can increase interaction and strengthen critical thinking.

"Applications empower us to move with greater speed in building more robust learning environments and to become more agile in exploring what works"

SAMR Level 3 Modification—Allows for significant task redesign—places students in the driver's seat of media production in the learning experience. In 2005, YouTube launched and quickly received millions of video uploads while capturing the eyes of millions of viewers. Consumers became producers. Today, our students can produce media on a single device using select features in a sea of apps. Students focus on their app adoption, and they become experts in their chosen digital spaces. Students are influencers who can communicate fluidly when they have a purpose. Our instruction can mentor students in creating high-impact media that makes a real-world contribution.

SAMR Level 4 Redefinition—Allows for the creation of new tasks, previously inconceivable—turns the tide toward a new technological era that we are now entering. Today’s students are using generative artificial intelligence (AI) apps to enhance how they learn. In terms of media consumption, students submit lecture video transcripts in an AI app, which produces summaries and offers additional contexts. Students report that this expands the scope and depth of learning. In terms of media creation, students report that they are using AI apps at work and in their personal lives. They ask, ‘How could we not use AI in coursework?' As AI apps continue to present new media production capabilities, we need a disciplined approach to exercising personal and social judgment about fair use and understanding when an object is created to influence vs. misinform. Instructors and students must motivate each other to exercise analytical thinking and creativity in constructing assessments that give agency to students, with constraints designed by instructors, to guide authentic growth in using AI responsibly. We do not want AI to circumvent critical thinking and integrity.

We struggle under the weight of how to manage AI in today’s learning activities, but we must be mindful that our decision-making today will strengthen or diminish the role education plays as AI incorporates into our work and carries us ahead in this societal shift. Today, AI is embedded in core applications that education and the workplace use on a daily basis. The AI era has arrived. How we interact and adapt will directly influence the evolution of AI, just as we have influenced the current generation of applications born out of identified educational needs. Educators, researchers, employers, policymakers, and the communities we serve need to create stronger networks so that we can collaboratively influence this shift and give every person in the community a path to move forward.

Education moved slowly and haltingly forward in the progression of the internet, with measured risks that brought us into deeper investigation and investment. When we held back, we fell behind. Applications empower us to move with greater speed in building more robust learning environments and to become more agile in exploring what works. Perhaps our experience of the internet’s disruption can give us more confidence to engage in AI disruption by meeting it with more purposeful participation in this societal shift.