Technology means the systematic application of scientific knowledge to practical tasks. Therefore, educational technology is based on theoretical knowledge drawn from different disciplines (communication, education, psychology, sociology, philosophy, artificial intelligence, computer science, etc.) plus experiential knowledge drawn from educational practice. Educational technology aims to improve education. Technology should facilitate learning processes and increase performance of the educational system(s) as it regards to effectiveness and/or efficiency.

Definitions

Educational technology is a very wide field. Therefore one can find many definitions, some of which are conflicting.

• Technology means the systematic application of scientific or other organized knowledge to practical task. Therefore, educational technology is based on theoretical knowledge from different disciplines (communication, psychology, sociology, philosophy, artificial intelligence, computer science, etc.) plus experiential knowledge from educational practise (Natalie Descryver)
• Educational technology is the use of technology to improve education. It is a systematic, iterative process for designing instruction or training used to improve performance. Educational technology is sometimes also known as instructional technology or learning technology. (Wikipedia: Educational_technology)
• The study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using and managing appropriate technological processes and resources. A definition centered on its process: “A complex, integrated process involving people, procedures, ideas, devices, and organization, for analyzing problems, and devising, implementing, evaluating and managing solutions to those problems, involved in all aspects of human learning”
• “One definition of Educational Technology is that it is a systematic, iterative process for designing instruction or training used to improve performance” (Encyclopedia of Educational Technology)

Educational Technology (Information Technology) according to International Technology Education Association

1. Teaches with technology (uses technology as a tool)
2. Primarily concerned with the narrow spectrum of information and communication technologies
3. Primary goal: To enhance the teaching and learning process

Terminology issue: Educational technology is a field. A educational technology refers to a technology that is particularly suited for education plus its usage/range of applications maybe. Instructional technology is sometimes used as a synonym, sometimes not.

Goals of Educational Technology

Educational technology research always had an ambitious agenda. Sometimes it only aims at increased efficiency or effectiveness of current practice, but frequently it aims at pedagogical change. While it can be considered as a design science, it also addresses fundamental issues of learning, teaching and social organization and therefore makes use of the full range of modern social science and life sciences methodology.
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. 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 maneuverability, etc. Similarly, a design science of education must determine how different designs of learning environments contribute to learning, cooperation, motivation, etc. (Collins, 1992:24).
Technology is therefore both a tool and a catalyzer and it can become a medium through which change can happen.
Educational technologists would not therefore consider the computer as just another piece of equipment. If educational technology is concerned with thinking carefully about teaching and learning, then a computer has a contribution to make irrespective of its use as a means of implementation, for the design of computer-based learning environments gives us a new perspective on the nature of teaching and learning and indeed on general educational objectives. (O’Shea 1983: 59).

Different

1. From an instructional design perspective
Besides being a field of research, Educational Technology is synonymous for Pedagogy, Learning, Instructional design, etc., along with technology and therefore also an engineering discipline, a design science or an craft (whatever you prefer). In order to define educational technology one should think about the constituents of instructional design and disciplines of those constituents.

2. From a pure engineering perspective
It doesn’t make much sense to talk about educational technology just in terms of instructional design models or instructional design methods. An instructional designer also feels concerned by more fundamental disciplines like general learning theory or pedagogical theory. These theories provide interesting insights on issues like the relation between learning type or learning level and appropriate pedagogic strategy, how affect and motivation may influence the learning process, what multimedia design can learn from theories on human information processing or cognitive load, why meta-cognition and collaborative learning is important etc.

3. From a design-research oriented perspective
More design-oriented educational technologists rather look a cross-section of several phenomena, i.e., they adopt an interdisciplinary approach that will ultimately lead to better pedagogical designs in a given area.

Owen (2008) identifies three key pedagogical facts that organise the ICT-enhanced pedagogical landscape-pedagogical strategy that describes actions and intentions, pedagogical approaches for problem based and collaborative learning and pedagogical tactics, the methods for tasks and participation. The following image presents the association each of the fact.

Source: Owen (2008) Pedagogical Underpinnings for ICT Enhanced Learning & Teaching Design

4. From a fundamental research perspective
Many researchers in the field rather adopt a more fundamental research stance and they focus on small well defined problems such as “under which conditions can multimedia animations be effective.”

5. From an institutional perspective
This field is implicitly defined by journals, conferences and study programs. The Journal of Interactive Learning Research (2006) published by the association for the Advancement of Computing in Education included the following enumeration of interactive learning environments that gives an idea on the technical scope of the field.

• authoring systems
• cognitive tools for learning
• computer-assisted language learning
• computer-based assessment systems
• computer-based training
• computer-mediated communications
• computer-supported collaborative learning
• distributed learning environments
• electronic performance support systems
• interactive learning environments
• interactive multimedia systems
• interactive simulations and games
• intelligent agents on the Internet
• intelligent tutoring systems
• micro worlds
• virtual reality based learning systems

6. From a technology perspective
Each time a new technology appears soon after it may be hailed as a new solution to education by both researchers and practitioners. Therefore, one also could argue that fundamentally speaking, educational technology research and practice is technology driven , although not many members of the community would accept this stance.

7. From a usage perspective

• Distance education
• Blended learning
• echnology-enhanced classrooms (at all school levels)
• Informal learning (of various sorts)

History of educational technology

Oral communication
In ancient times, stories, folklore, histories and news were transmitted and maintained through oral communication, making accurate memorization a critical skill, and the oral tradition is still the case in many aboriginal cultures. For the ancient Greeks, oratory and speech were the means by which people learned and passed on learning. Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey were recitative poems, intended for public performance. To be learned, they had to be memorized by listening, not by reading, and transmitted by recitation, not by writing.

Written Communication
The role of text or writing in education also has a long history. Even though Socrates is reported to have railed against the use of writing, written forms of communication make analytic, lengthy chains of reasoning and argument much more accessible, reproducible without distortion, and thus more open to analysis and critique than the transient nature of speech. The invention of the printing press in Europe in the 15th century was a truly disruptive technology, making written knowledge much more freely available, very much in the same way as the Internet has done today. As a result of the explosion of written documents resulting from the mechanization of printing, many more people in government and business were required to become literate and analytical, which led to a rapid expansion of formal education in Europe. There were many reasons for the the development of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and triumph of reason and science over superstition and beliefs, but the technology of printing was a key agent of change.

Broadcasting and video
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) began broadcasting educational radio programs for schools in the 1920s. The first adult education radio broadcast from the BBC in 1924 was a talk on Insects in Relation to Man, and in the same year, J.C. Stobart, the new Director of Education at the BBC, mused about ‘a broadcasting university’ in the journal Radio Times (Robinson, 1982).Television was first used in education in the 1960s, for schools and for general adult education (one of the six purposes in the current BBC’s Royal Charter is still ‘promoting education and learning’).

Computer technologies and computer based learning
In essence the development of programmed learning aims to computerize teaching, by structuring information, testing learners’ knowledge, and providing immediate feedback to learners, without human intervention other than in the design of the hardware and software and the selection and loading of content and assessment questions. B.F. Skinner started experimenting with teaching machines that made use of programmed learning in 1954, based on the theory of behaviourism . Skinner’s teaching machines were one of the first forms of computer-based learning. There has been a recent revival of programmed learning approaches as a result of MOOCs, since machine based testing scales much more easily than human-based assessment.

Computer networking
Arpanet in the U.S.A was the first network to use the Internet protocol in 1982. In the late 1970s, Murray Turoff and Roxanne Hiltz at the New Jersey Institute of Technology were experimenting with blended learning, using NJIT’s internal computer network. They combined classroom teaching with online discussion forums, and termed this ‘computer-mediated communication’ (CMC) (Hiltz and Turoff, 1978). At the University of Guelph in Canada, an off-the-shelf software system called CoSy was developed in the 1980s that allowed for online threaded group discussion forums, a predecessor to today’s forums contained in learning management systems. In 1988, the Open University in the United Kingdom offered a course, DT200, that as well as the OU’s traditional media of printed texts, television programs and audio-cassettes, also included an online discussion component using CoSy. Since this course had 1,200 registered students, it was one of the earliest ‘mass’ open online courses. We see then the emerging division between the use of computers for automated or programmed learning, and the use of computer networks to enable students and instructors to communicate with each other.

Online learning
n 1995, the Web enabled the development of the first learning management systems (LMSs), such as WebCT (which later became Blackboard). LMSs provide an online teaching environment, where content can be loaded and organized, as well as providing ‘spaces’ for learning objectives, student activities, assignment questions, and discussion forums. The first fully online courses (for credit) started to appear in 1995, some using LMSs, others just loading text as PDFs or slides. The materials were mainly text and graphics. LMSs became the main means by which online learning was offered until lecture capture systems arrived around 2008.

Social media
Social media are really a sub-category of computer technology, but their development deserves a section of its own in the history of educational technology. Social media cover a wide range of different technologies, including blogs, wikis, You Tube videos, mobile devices such as phones and tablets, Twitter, Skype and Facebook. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein (2010) define social media as a group of Internet-based applications that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content, based on interactions among people in which they create, share or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks.

References

http://www.tonybates.ca/2014/12/10/a-short-history-of-educational-technology/
http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Educational_technology
http://www.tonybates.ca/2014/12/10/a-short-history-of-educational-technology/# sthash.afFJmBO9.dpuf

Assignment:

1. Collect definitions for educational technology defined by different authors and enlist the elements highlighted in each of the definition.
2. Read the school/ higher educational policy of GOI and enumerate the importance given for educational technology.