What is Educational Technology?
Educational technology, sometimes shortened to EduTech or EdTech, is a wide field. Therefore, one can find many definitions, some of which are conflicting. Educational technology as an academic field can be considered either as a design science or as a collection of different research interests addressing fundamental issues of learning, teaching and social organization. Educational technology as practice refers to any form of teaching and learning that makes use of technology. Nevertheless, there are a few features on which most researchers and practitioners might agree:
Use of technology is principled: 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.
In this short introduction we will try to give a preliminary definition of the field.
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.
From an instructional design perspective
Besides being a field of research, Educational Technology is synonymous for { Pedagogy, Learning, Instructional design, etc.} with technology and therefore also an engineering discipline, a design science or an craft (whatever you prefer).
Educational technology, sometimes shortened to EduTech or EdTech, is a wide field. Therefore, one can find many definitions, some of which are conflicting. Educational technology as an academic field can be considered either as a design science or as a collection of different research interests addressing fundamental issues of learning, teaching and social organization. Educational technology as practice refers to any form of teaching and learning that makes use of technology. Nevertheless, there are a few features on which most researchers and practitioners might agree:
Use of technology is principled: 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.
In this short introduction we will try to give a preliminary definition of the field.
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.
From an instructional design perspective
Besides being a field of research, Educational Technology is synonymous for { Pedagogy, Learning, Instructional design, etc.} with technology and therefore also an engineering discipline, a design science or an craft (whatever you prefer).
From a design-research oriented perspective
From an institutional perspective
A field is implicitly defined by journals, conferences and study programs.
The Journal of Interactive Learning Research published by the association for the Advancement of Computing in Education included on March 2006 the following enumeration of interactive learning environments that gives an idea on the technical scope of the field.
Thanks for watching .....😃
Monika
M. Ed (E.T)
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