If we build it, they will come! Exploring the role of ICTs in curriculum design and development: The myths,miracles and affordances

Abstract

This audience will remember this classic line from the 1989 movie ‘Field of Dreams' in which an Iowa farmer (Ray Kinsela played by Kevin Kostner) is convinced that if he builds a baseball field in his cornfield, many of his long deceased baseball heroes would come to play in it. Well, Ray Kinsela did build that field in his cornfields despite being ridiculed by fellow farmers – and his heroes including the likes of Shoeless Joe Jackson and his compadres did come to play – although only Ray and his family could actually see them play – much to the disappointment and chagrin of the others who also came to watch the game. Somewhat similar to Ray Kinsela's premonitions – about the dawn of the 20th Century, with Thomas Edison's invention of the kinetoscope (which was a motion picture
projector), many educators believed that the introduction of the motion picture in the
classrooms would make schooling more attractive for children. This sentiment was
powerfully depicted in the classic cartoon titled ‘The Changing World' in the Chicago
Tribune in 1923, which suggested that with the help of Edison's invention, the introduction
of the motion picture in the classroom would make schools a lot more attractive
for children to attend (see Heinich, Molenda and Russell 1993, 196). Instead of not wanting to go to school, children would want to rush back to school and instead of rejoicing when school was out, they would be very sad to be leaving school. Well, we now know that the motion picture did not have quite that kind of presence and impact in the classroom. Some of the reasons for it had to do with the state of the movie projection technology that was available at that time. But even now with much better projection devices, the motion picture is still not something that stands to make or break schooling. Schools did, and still do show movies, but that doesn't seem to have too much of an impact on school attendance of children, does it?

South African Journal of Higher Education Vol. 21 (6) 2008: pp. 672-683