Taylor describes three modes of using computers in education, which he labels tutor, tool and tutee.

When being used as a tutor "The computer presents some subject material, the student responds, the computer evaluates the response, and, from the results of the evaluation, determines what to present next." (p.3)

When being used as a tool the computer has some functionality that saves the learner time and allows her to focus her intellectual energy on higher order tasks.

When being used as a tutee the computer is 'taught' something by being programmed by the learner.

The framework as a whole
The framework is presented as a tool to help readers of the 19 papers in Taylor's book to make sense of what he describes as a 'complex field'. Taylor identifies that the Tutor, Tool, Tutee Framework has the potential to be used in many other contexts as well. However, he goes on to point out that his framework is only one of a number of possible frameworks and should not be used slavishly.

In order to illustrate the point about alternative frameworks being possible Taylor states that he had originally thought of adding a fourth category (Toy) to the framework, but then decided that any software that would go into the Toy category could also be included in one of the other three categories.

Computer as Tutor
Taylor suggests that good Tutor software can tailor its performance to cater for a wide range of different learner needs. He identifies a number of issues about using computers as tutors instead of using human tutors. The two he focuses on are:

• The length of time it takes to program a good computer tutor, due to the amount of detail that you need to include, particularly about the ways in which to respond to different student reactions. You would not need to specify this level of detail to a human tutor because they would improvise as they went.
• There is a greater need for individualisation when using the computer as a tutor than when a human is teaching. Humans tend to teach a whole group whereas a computer tutor tends to work with one individual at a time and thus has to tailor its tutoring to each individual.

Taylor identifies some critiques of using computers in the Tutor mode, but argues that no-one would argue that the Tutor mode did not have a significant role to play in education.

Computer as Tool
Taylor identifies that the role of the computer here is to provide some functionality that makes the learner's task easier. The three examples he suggests for software of this type are statistical analysis programs, super calculation and word processing. The key here is that some of the 'routine clerical tasks of a tedious, mechanical kind' can be transferred to the computer.

Interestingly Taylor states that:

Use of the computer in tool mode may teach the user something during use, but any such teaching is most likely accidental and not the result of an design to teach.
                                                                                 (Taylor 1980 p8)

He goes on to claim that most people involved in computers in education assume that a great deal of the time when computers are being used in education they are being used in Tool mode, but that few people would advocate this mode of use as being the most important.

Computer as Tutee
Talyor identifies three main advantages of using the computer as a tutee:

• You will learn what you are trying to teach the computer, because you can't teach something you don't know about yourself.
• As the computer can only operate within narrow confines this will force you to think about how to teach the computer and in so doing will force you to think about how your own thinking works.
• Teachers can save time and money by using computers as tutees because they don't have to locate and pay for tutor or tool software.

The basic premise underpinning the Tutee mode of computer use is that "in teaching the computer, the child learns more deeply and learns more about the process of learning than he or she does from being tutored by software written by others." (Taylor 1980 p9)

Significantly, Taylor highlights the belief that whilst using the computer as a tutee qualitatively changes the learning experience and the role of teachers within school it does not downgrade the role of the classroom teachers.

Taylor seems to believe that the Tutee mode is educationally better than the other two modes. For example he says:

Extended use of the computer as tutee can shift the focus of education in the classroom from end product to process, from acquiring facts to manipulating and understanding them.

and

To use the computer as tutor and tool can both improve and enrich classroom learning, and neither requires student or teacher to learn much about computers. By the same measure, however, neither tutor nor tool mode confers upon the user much of the general educational benefit associated with using the computer in the third mode, as tutee.
                                                                                 (Taylor 1980 p4)

It is important to bear in mind that Taylor's Tutor, Tool, Tutee framework was developed in the late 1970s, at which point personal computers were not readily available. Similarly, there was very little educational software available at the time. Thus those people involved in educational computing at that time tended to be immersed in computer programming and often in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Hence the focus on intelligent tutoring systems (Tutor mode) and computer programming (Tutee mode).

A significant weakness of Taylor's framework is its failure to explicitly state that the mode of use is not determined by the software per se and is determined by the way in which the software is implemented in any particular instance (cf Perspectives Interactions Paradigm for example). Indeed, the framework is often applied to software in isolation from its context of use, and in a way that suggests that a particular application can only fit into one of the three modes within this framework.

Another, related issues, is the lack of specificity of the categories within this framework. Whilst each of the categories and the distinctions between them have an intuitive feel to them - we think we know what they mean - it is not clear that the categories are either discrete or sufficient. The changes in the technology since 1980 have been significant and help to illustrate these problems: where for example would simulations, adventure games and hypermedia authoring reside within this framework? Taylor appears to have been at least partially aware of the problems of 'accuracy' of the framework, and presented it more as a useful analytical tool than a rigorous classification system.

The other concern I would have about the framework is the way in which it is presented, with clear indications that certain modes of computer use are better than others. This again assumes that one can pre-define 'good practice' in isolation from the context in which that practice takes place.

It would be interesting to hear your views on and/or experiences of using the Tutor, Tool, Tutee framework (or on my reporting of it) - why not email me (PeterT@meD8.info)?

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This page is maintained by Peter Twining (PeterT@meD8.info)
Last updated 7th January 2002