The follow excerpt is from Educational Technology: Media for Inquiry, Communication, Construction and Expression by B.C. Bruce and J.A. Levin.
"In addition, we wanted to emphasize the mediative aspect of technologies. That is, we view the effects of technologies as operating to a large extent through the ways that they alter the environments for thinking, communicating, and acting in the world. Thus, they provide new media for learning, in the sense that one might say land provided new media for creatures to evolve. This view of media encompasses, but extends, the familiar idea of media as a place to put information. Today, interactive, multimedia technology provides us with a new way to draw upon children's natural impulses. These new media hold an abundance of materials including text, voice, music, graphics, photos, animation, and video. But they provide more than abundance. Bringing all these media together means that we can vastly expand the range of learning experiences, opening up the social and natural worlds. Students can explore the relations among ideas and thus experience a more connected form of learning. Perhaps most importantly, these new media are interactive, and conducive to active, engaged learning. Students can choose what to see and do, and they have media to record and extend what they learn. Learning is thus driven by the individual needs and interests of the learner."
This paragraph portrays technology as a tool for creativity and to inspire life long learning. It is emphasizing what Dewey posits in that educators need to encourage the impulses children have in order to encourage constructive thought and knowledge development. The "educational challenge is to nurture these impulses for life long learning" (Bruce, B.C. et al., 1997).
