In what ways does technology-mediated learning change both learning in person and learning at a distance?

I had an opportunity to lay down my thoughts on the optional discussion about technology mediation, both learning in person and learning at a distance, and here, to discuss more, let me introduce my discussion with the gist of what I have posted already in Scholar. I gave it a post title: Learning Preferences of the Learners Today.

In this post, I honestly expressed that I am more inclined to person-to-person learning. I find it more human and productive, and may I add: I find person-to-person learning more penetrating and memorable when it comes to acquiring knowledge and experience. On the other note, distance learning has a huge impact also on the world, especially when a pandemic hits the world. We truly appreciate and become independent in technology understanding and take the fact that it is convenient and accessible to the digital world to never stop learning despite the fact that we cannot see physically to learn inside the school institution.

NOW, let me highlight the learning preferences that we have today. They are not enemies but actually complementary.

First, the traditional way of learning, the classroom discourse inside the physical classroom. We know the fact that learning in tangible ways brings stronger memory and learning because anything that can be experienced and those that pass through our senses are indeed factors to acquire quality learning.

Next, to emphasize the strength of the distance learning, it helps the learner to study and gain knowledge anywhere in the globe as long as there is an internet access and gadgets. Distance learning is inclusive in the sense that it opens safe space to everyone – you can express your thoughts and answers the tasks and test with your written output and that, anybody from the platform you are engaged with can interact and say something about your expressed thoughts and ideas. This one is ideal, especially to our co-learners who are more productive in working alone and even those who have special needs. On a study made by Amin, M. R. M., Ismail, I., & Sivakumaran, V. M. (2025), they brought out the revolutionizing impact on education of what we so-called call “artificial intelligence." They found out that this transformative technology holds the potential to make distance learning personalized and adaptive and create an intelligent tutorial system to tailor educational experiences to the students. Real-time feedback and the customization of the learning pathways add to the learner’s capability to grasp and adapt new knowledge with the technology.

Above all, technology-mediated learning involves also the capability of the learner to adjust the scope of their learning process – either in a traditional way or digitally, both will come to fruition. Because we cannot deny that with the advancement of our days today, even if we learn in a traditional way, we still make use of the technology today, a powerful tool for learning.

At this point, let me identify a powerful learning technology that, for me, genuinely makes a difference to the dynamics of learning: Google NotebookLM. This learning technology provides stronger, more features, and defined help for the convenience and easier learning of the learner in both reading and writing aspects. I had just started my Chapter 1 when my colleague introduced me to this Google app. It had given me good assistance to proceed with my literature and references. A good prompt will lead you to a good response.

To conclude, again, technology mediates learning, either in person or at a distance. This powerful tool helps the learner to acquire a wider scope of knowledge using access to the World Wide Web. It destroys walls and helps us learners to learn beyond the pen, paper, and textbooks. Moreover, like Google NotebookLM, it serves as a good technology assistant for more dynamic learning.

Therefore, I realized that proper use of technology and correct utilization of it will complement and support a strong learning strategy, and again, may I add – this will advance more our learning process and will help progress the education technology and business industries.

References: Amin, M. R. M., Ismail, I., & Sivakumaran, V. M. (2025). Revolutionizing education with artificial intelligence (AI)? Challenges, and implications for open and distance learning (ODL). Social Sciences & Humanities Open, 11, 101308.

Technology Changes How We are Learning Today