Jedes neue Medium orientiert sich zunächst an einem älteren, bevor es seine eigenen Möglichkeiten entdeckt und gewissermaßen zu sich selber kommt.

As with any new media technology, there has been a tendency to imitate previous educational paradigms, such as the "electronic classroom", for example.

As any new technology arrives, it will inevitably be used initially to continue doing many of the same things that the old technology could do, gradually moving on to reinvent some of the old things in new ways.

All new technologies go through the same pattern of development. Their first uses are to do in a new way what was already being done; for example, the earliest movies wer theater," and many of today's ideas about using Computers in education simply see school's old methods through a computerized lens. It takes time for a new culture to emerge with new categories of people - in the case of cinema, the great directors, stars, and special-effects wizards - performing functions that were unimagined and largely unimaginable.

New technologies mimic old technologies, at least at the outset. When the motion picture camera was invented, folks pointed it at theater performances. However, after a while Hollywood figured out that motion picture cameras could tell a new kind of story and movies were invented. Similarly, we have seen that during the first year of using handhelds, teachers use them just like their paper and pencil cousins; but in the second year of use, teachers tell us that they "just think handhelds" as they adapt their lessons to more effectively incorporate handhelds.

Jede neue Technologie wird zuerst zur Imitation von Bisherigem verwendet. Das war mit dem Radio so, mit dem Fernsehen, mit dem Internet. Erst allmählich erkennt man die neuen Möglichkeiten. Bei der Einführung neuer Medien in der Schule ist zu beobachten, dass sehr oft das didaktische Niveau sinkt, wenn die Technik ansteigt, weil die Lehrpersonen zuerst mit den technischen Schwierigkeiten zu kämpfen haben, unsicher sind und sich dabei an Methoden festklammern, die sie schon gut kennen. Und da brauchen sie eben eine Begleitung, die ihnen den Mut vermittelt, Dinge auch anders zu machen.