Proceedings ascilite Singapore 2007: Full paper: Strampel and Oliver 973 Using technology to foster reflection in higher education Katrina Strampel and Ron Oliver School of Communications and Contemporary Arts Edith Cowan University Technology-facilitated learning is quickly becoming mainstream in most higher education institutions. Simultaneously, although not necessarily related, tertiary administrators are calling for students exiting university to exhibit the capacity for reflection and higher order thinking. Instructors, therefore, are faced with two challenges: implementing technology and increasing reflective learning. This paper argues that technology can be used to help instructors in this feat. Technology-facilitated learning offers many opportunities for students to engage in reflective tasks, if implemented properly. Ensuring conditions for promoting reflection, as outlined in the literature, are present, will yield successful changeovers for instructors beginning to use technology, instead of traditional face-to-face methods, to foster high levels of reflection and deep learning in their classrooms. Keywords: reflection, technology, higher-order learning, higher education Introduction The perceived value of reflection as a means of enhancing students’ learning has been prominent in educational literature for many years. Indeed, Rogers (2001, p. 37) suggests that since Schön’s The Reflective Practitioner was published in 1983 “numerous articles and books on the topic of reflection have appeared.” The published studies regard reflection, or critical reflection, as pertinent to creating learning experiences, where meaning is generated from experience by bringing into consideration one’s thoughts, feelings and actions (Brockbank & McGill, 1998). It follows that this process enhances “one’s overall effectiveness” by allowing one to make “better choices or actions in the future” (Rogers, 2001, p. 41). With the influx of technology in the tertiary classroom in recent years, special attention has been paid to using these technologies to foster reflective thinking. With mixed results, studies have used learning management systems, computer conferencing, email, chat, online discussion, and ePortfolios as tools to enhance reflective thinking among university students. This array of technologies has been used to replace the traditional face-to-face, paper and pen teaching methods, namely; group discussion, writing, rewriting, and journaling, which are believed to encourage critical reflection. These studies suggest that although there may be merit to using these learning technologies in teaching, they do not always successfully foster reflection. This paper argues that reflection is a complex process that strongly influences learning by increasing understanding, inducing conceptual change, and promoting critical evaluation and knowledge transfer. When instructors do not generate reflective learning opportunities in the classroom, prospects are lost for better learning outcomes. Much research has been devoted to conditions that must necessarily be present when fostering reflection. With the increase of technology-mediated learning in today’s classroom, it is imperative that instructors understand how to ensure these conditions are present when using technologies to create optimal reflective learning environments. Reflection in education One of the earliest cited definitions of reflection in education comes from John Dewey (1910, p. 6), according to whom reflective thought is the “ active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends. LaBoskey (1994) adds that the analysis begins with a problem, or uncertainty, which causes the individual to carry out an “active exploration”, identify the nature of the problem, and generate possible solutions. Furthermore, Kemmis (1985) suggests reflection is a “dialectical process” that looks both inward at the individual’s thoughts, and outwards at the situation and is thus ‘meta-thinking’, where the