Didactic Technology Applications

Didactic technology applications are educational technologies that are designed to teach specific facts or skills, typically in a lecture-like or workbook-like format in which the system controls what material will be presented to the student. Didactic modes include the following:

• expository learning, in which the system provides information.

• demonstration, in which the system displays a phenomenon.

• practice, in which the system requires the student to solve problems, answer questions, or engage in some other procedure.

Didactic technology applications are based on a transmission rather than constructivist model of instruction. For this reason, although they have found their place in education and have the greatest rate of adoption of all types of technology within schools thus far, they are unlikely to serve as a catalyst for restructuring education. The focus of drill-and-practice computer-assisted instruction (CAI) on basic skills allows little room for the presentation of complex tasks, multistep problems, or collaborative learning. Intelligent computer-assisted instruction (ICAI), on the other hand, has the potential to deal with complex domains, to provide models of higher-order thinking, and to probe students' understanding, but it is seldomly well integrated into a school's mainstream curriculum (Schofield, 1995).

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