Educational Technology :: Past and Future
An article from the Journal of Interactive Media in Education provides some useful information about the history of Educational Technology. That article quotes Allan Collins in saying,
“Technology provides us with powerful tools to try out different designs, so that instead of theories of education, we may begin to develop a science of education.”
Now before anyone gets bent out of shape about education being turned into science, Collins goes on to say,
“But it cannot be an analytic science like physics or psychology; rather it must be a design science more like aeronautics or artificial intelligence. For example, in aeronautics the goal is to elucidate how different designs contribute to lift, drag manoeuvrability, etc. Similarly, a design science of education must determine how different designs of learning environments contribute to learning, cooperation, motivation, etc.” (Collins 1993, p. 24)
This is an interesting way of looking at the same issue that Andy Gibbons was talking about in his article, “The Practice of Instructional Technology: Science and Technology”. While at some point the terminology becomes a question of semantics, we can say that Educational Technology has evolved into a design science - one that is different in purpose from other physics and biology, but has at its heart some of the same basic methods.
So what does the future of Educationl Technology look like? Well, for one thing we now it’s not going away. According to the US Department of Education’s Report on Technology, The use of technology in education must remain a national priority. It must be at the core of the educational experience, not at the periphery.”
Add article from Ann Igoe (at ASU) here.