Mentors, Collaborators, Worlds or Wooden Legs: Some Images of the Role of Computers in Educational Contexts

Abstract

For most users, including students, the choice of interface metaphors defines the nature, purpose and capabilities of both the computer and its software. In educational contexts the choice of interface metaphors includes consideration of beliefs and theories concerning the nature and purpose of education and the way in which learning takes place. These understandings are modified over time, resulting in changes to the types of metaphors which are felt to be appropriate for educational software. In addition to the choices made deliberately by software designers, most metaphors carry with them a legacy of extraneous understandings or entailments which may not necessarily be in keeping with their intended purposes. This article critically examines a selection of the most common and arguably the most influential of those broader metaphorical conceptions concerning the role of the computer in the classroom which have been responsible for setting the tone of studenth com puter interaction. © IFIP, published by Kluwer Academic Publishers