Page 70 - Educational Technology A Primer for the 21st Century

58 3 Linking Learning Objectives, Pedagogies, and Technologies

Educational Technology
Educational technology is not a homogeneous intervention but refers to a broad
variety of modalities, tools, and strategies for learning. Its effectiveness, therefore,
depends on how well it helps teachers and students achieve the desired instructional
goals (Bruce & Levin, 1997).
Bruce & Levin (1997) describe a new way of classifying uses of educational
technologies, based on a four-part division suggested years ago by John Dewey
(1938): inquiry, communication, construction, and expression. Each of these is
briefly described next.

3.3.1 Technologies for Inquiry

What follows are lists of technologies, tools, and techniques likely to be appropriate
to support inquiry.

• Theory building technology as media for thinking
• Model exploration and simulation toolkits
• Visualization software
• Virtual reality environments
• Data modeling-defining categories, relations, representations
• Procedural models
• Mathematical models
• Knowledge representation and integration tools such as semantic networks, and
outline tools
• Data access connecting to the world of texts, video, data
• Hypertext and hypermedia environments
• Library resources
• Digital libraries
• Databases
• Repositories with music, voice, images, graphics, video, data tables, graphs,
text, etc.
• Data collection using technologies to provide enriched input
• Remote scientific instruments accessible via networks
• Microcomputer-based laboratories, with sensors for temperature, motion, heart
rate, etc.
• Survey makers for student-run surveys and interviews
• Video and sound recordings
• Data analysis methods and technologies
• Exploratory data analysis
• Statistical analysis
• Environments for inquiry
• Image processing