Page 28 - Educational Technology A Primer for the 21st Century

1.2 The Scope of Educational Technology 15
among others, content experts, technical specialists, teachers, and administrators,
who have different backgrounds and formal training. For an elaboration of a cur-
riculum for advanced learning technology, see Hartley et al. (2010).
For the instructor: Before discussing education systems, consider a class dis-
cussion on the notion of a person as a system—that is to say, a collection of related
and interacting components with different kinds of relationships among those
components. Consider identifying subsystems and discussing one or more of those
in some detail. If possible, identify delayed effects within the human system as well
as nonlinear relationships among some of the components.
One way to elaborate the scope of educational technology is to consider the life
cycle of a representative education system or learning environment. First, consider
that you have vacation time coming and you and your family are discussing where
to go and what to do on the vacation. How might that discussion proceed? You
might begin with wishes and desires, or you could begin with constraints (time,
money, distance, etc.). Either way, the discussion has to start somewhere and both
kinds of considerations are relevant—desires and constraints. In a sense, both of
those considerations are likely to narrow the choices. At some point, the discussion
might involve specific activities or sites or experiences that could become the basis
for some consensus. Each person involved is voicing a point of view and expressing
an opinion. In such a situation, it is quite natural to include those involved in the
discussion to ensure that the vacation will be as successful as possible. Compro-
mises are likely to occur as the discussion evolves. When a decision is reached, it
might then be desirable to distribute the various tasks associated with implementing
the decision (e.g., making reservations, collecting and packing appropriate clothes,
notifying friends). Keep vacation planning in mind as a model as the much more
complex enterprise of educational technology planning is elaborated.
For the sake of this discussion, let us suppose that a new course has been
mandated for all high school students—namely formal and informal logic. There is
no requirement to have any knowledge about the subject of logic to follow this
discussion. Indeed, an educational technologist recruited to support the effort might
well have no subject matter knowledge at all. How might the process evolve? The
sections that follow indicate some of the concerns, questions, activities, and pro-
cesses that might be part and parcel of the life-cycle planning and support of this
course from the perspective of educational technology. It is worth noting [and
probably worth discussing/challenging in class] that some form of technology is
involved in nearly every course, so this discussion naturally involves educational
technology. The perspective represented below is not necessarily what is typical
when a new course is being planned. In many cases, the content expert or teacher is
the primary person leading the way. However, the more that technology is critical
for the effort and the larger the scale of the effort, the more important it is that
educational technologists and instructional designers play leading roles.