Page 36 - Educational Technology A Primer for the 21st Century

1.3 Dimensions of Educational Technology 23

Fig. 1.3 A hierarchy of resources. Adapted from Spector (2015)

knowledge is linked to a learning goal or objective, it can be considered a learning
resource. When activities, feedback, and assessment are included with a learning
resource, it becomes an instructional object or resource.

1.3.3 Hardware Devices and Software

In addition to having to deal with so many learning resources, educational tech-
nologists have to be familiar with, understand, and/or manage a wide variety of
devices and associated software. If one focuses only on a computer to be used as the
primary delivery or support device, then there are still many things to take into
account, including a variety of workstations, personal computers, tablet computers,
handheld computers, and so on with various operating systems, software, network
configurations, cloud-based systems, and more. One might say that the price of
competence as an educational technologist is nearly constant professional devel-
opment. Openness to new possibilities created by the affordances of new and
emerging technologies is required for an educational technologist to maintain
currency and relevance as a professional practitioner.

1.3.4 Implementation

Educational technologists not only need to know about and understand how people
learn and the resources and devices that can support learning, they need to know
how to do a variety of things to make support for learning real and effective
(Hartley et al., 2010). In some cases, this may take the form of transferring a reliable