Page 23 - Educational Technology A Primer for the 21st Century

10 1 Introduction to Educational Technology

Table 1.1 An elaboration of educational technology
Education Technology Resources and processes
Aimed at developing basic The reasoned and effective Tools and techniques as
knowledge and skills, use of resources and well as devices, artifacts,
productive workers, effective processes to support learning environments, and
problem solvers, reflective learning, performance, and the processes involved in
thinkers, and/or lifelong instruction—broadly designing, developing,
learners understood to comprise deploying, evaluating, and
education managing are included

other learning experiences for other learners in different situations? If so, briefly
elaborate and give an example.
In summary, it is the effective use of technologies, tools, techniques, resources,
and processes to support learning, performance, and instruction that is the focus of
the discipline called educational technology. Table 1.1 provides an overview of this
discussion.
For the instructor: Ask students whether or not the slide rule is or can be an
educational technology (see http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/s/slide-rule.htm).

1.1.6 A Brief History of Educational Technology

Learning is a natural ongoing process that occurs in organized situations as well as
in everyday activities. As such, the history of learning is coincident with the history
of human beings. Teaching also has a long history that is roughly coincident with
the history of human families and tribes. Various tools and techniques have been
used to support teaching and learning throughout the ages, so one can also conclude
that educational technology has a very long history (Spector & Ren, 2015). It is
common to divide human history into broad periods or epochs such as the primitive
period, the agricultural period, the industrial period, the information age, and the
emerging era of the intelligent society (see the last chapter in this volume for more
on this emerging era).
Early in human history, it is likely that actual objects were used to support
learning. For example, an elder teaching a young child to hunt might use an actual
spear to support helping the child learn to aim and throw, perhaps initially at a tree
rather than at an animal. The abacus was an early calculating device used to keep
track of inventories, and its use had to be trained as responsibility shifted from one
person to another.
For the learner: Compare the abacus (see Fig. 1.1) and the slide rule (see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slide_rule) with regard to functionality and periods in
which they were introduced. Reflect on their use and how others were trained to
make use of them. What is especially noticeably different about using an abacus to
make a calculation and using the slide rule to make the same calculation?