A Differentiating Definition of Instructional Technology and Educational Technology
Bruce W. Jones
May 4, 1999
West Texas A&M University
Canyon, Texas
A Differentiating Definition of Instructional Technology and Educational Technology
Abstract
Understanding the definition of Instructional and Educational Technology is fundamental to the performance of either. Technology in the classroom has been around for a long time in the form of blackboards, pencils, slates and more recently movies, radio, overheads and even newer technologies. With the beginning of this century technology became complicated enough to require its very own set of caretakers. With technology moving into the classroom, schools required a cadre of persons able to function with and repair the new equipment. Some understanding of the educational process was required to better understand what the teacher wanted and to assist in media selection. During the years of the Second World War, mass training became essential to the war effort and the learning process began to be studied. With this study theories and models of learning began to take shape and a new profession, Educational Technologist, began to appear. This was a person with intimate knowledge of technology and learning theory. A person with the skills to analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate educational programs using appropriate technology required for the job.
Introduction
To understand instructional and educational technology we must first define and differentiate between instruction and education. Webster’s Desk Dictionary of the English Language 1990 defines instruction as ‘the knowledge imparted’ and defines education as ‘the science or art of teaching’. Gagné, Briggs and Wager (1992) defined instruction as ‘a deliberately arranged set of external events designed to support internal learning processes.’ A definition of education is implied by Roblyer, Edwards, and Havriluk (1997) when they state ‘…. Educational technology must focus on the process [sic]….’. From these statements we can derive that instruction is the act of imparting learning and education is the process used to impart that learning. According to Roblyer, Edwards and Havriluk instruction began with the Shamans and tribal elders during the early stages of human cognizance. As they began to systemize their growing body of knowledge and pass it on to the next generation, technology played a role in the process. The technology of the time was paintings and pictographs on cave walls. Granted, a large proportion of these early artifacts of education dealt with religion and other metaphysical phenomenon, there are some that may have been used to instruct in more common everyday living. The art of the caves of France are prime examples of this possibility. On the walls of a South Texas canyon there is a series of pictographs on sexuality and reproduction, a common class of today’s curriculum, placed there by Native-Americans, over 4000 years ago.
By studying the various references used in this paper, the term educational technology doesn’t appear in the titles of any literature until about 1969. It appears, almost as a slip of the pen, in an instructional technology survey piece by Allen and Coombs (1970), when Albert Hickey, commenting in Accomplishments of Instructional Technology states, "Perhaps a new point of view is that educational technology is drawing into educational concern, or concern with education, a new class of people…". It appears obvious that the distinction between educational and instructional technology begins to cloud the arguments and views of the people involved around this time. Where Hug defines instructional technology as a systematic process he defines educational technology as a systematic identification, development, and evaluation process. What is the difference? Are they related or separate disciplines? How do you train persons in the intricacies of either discipline? What competencies are required for each? In order to answer these questions instructional technology must be understood.
Instructional Technology
In the late nineteenth century the government began developing training manuals and instructional material to train members of the Army, Navy, and Marines in the growing complexity of a modern fighting force. The Navy’s Blue Jackets’ Manual was first printed in the late 1800s as a basic training and instructional aid. In the opening to the 1946 edition the statement is made: "…. [D] evoted to information, such as deck seamanship, Navy weapons, etc.….", and "As a training manual, The Blue Jackets’ Manual is designed for clarity." This manual was designed to convey information in an orderly and concise manner, and to instruct Navy personnel on how to perform in a highly technical profession. There was not a great deal of change in the Blue Jackets’ Manuals after 1936. The manual was revised in the mid 1930’s to reflect a more modern Navy and to instruct and train Naval personnel more easily and more rapidly. The Army and the Marines, also starting in the late 1800s, had similar manuals. More intensive training during the Second World War augmented these manuals. This was one of the turning points for modern instructional technology. The rapid training requirements and the large numbers of personnel that had to be trained led to the development of innovative methods of training through the use of such new technologies as the movie camera, overhead projector, animation and the radio. The study of these instructional aids and their impact on the process of instruction became known collectively as Instructional Technology.
The development of this new educational discipline was defined by Hug (1978) as:
"Instructional technology…. is the identification, generation, application,
and evaluation of processes which create a purposeful, facilitating structure
from available resources."
Hug goes on to quote the definition of Instructional Technology from the President’s Commission on Instructional Technology (1970):
[Instructional Technology]…. Is a systematic way of designing, carrying
out, and evaluating the total process of learning and teaching in terms of
specific objectives, based on research….
Hug’s definition appears to be more specific and is supported by various implied definitions found in Allen and Coombs:
From R. Carpenter; "…. technology has invaded education…. technology
which has a direct bearing on instruction."
From G. Harley; "…. tremendous opportunities - if we can now really demonstrate the kind of efficiencies and relative savings that can be achieved
through the appropriate application of technology."
From A. R. Molnar, a prediction of the future as seen in 1970; "And I think it is going to be necessary to have computers, it’s going to be a necessity to have television, and what we do with it will emerge after we get it."
Instructional Technology appears to have been originally designed as a partner to the classroom teacher to assist in the delivery of educational material. In the early 50’s to mid 60’s there was a general push for technological degrees from Junior Colleges. These associate degrees were given in the areas of media and media applications. The degrees gave the expertise in the technical aspects of current technology, which could be applied to the classroom.
During this time, classroom research dealt with the use of the current technologies. This is the time when the blackboard lost its blackness and became green. Overhead projectors were being studied for their effect on learning efficacy. Movies, animation, radio and learning machines were other areas of technology being studied for utilization in the classroom. Television exploded into the classroom in the late 60’s and early 70’s. Instructional Technology was coming into its own.
Chalkboards have been a technology of education for many years but research on the chalkboard did not become available until the early 60’s at the beginning of the instructional technology. The blackboard was being studied to get the most out of its addition to the classroom with titles like, "Know the ABC’s of Proper Chalkboard Maintenance" (National Scholar, 1969). Articles on how to maintain the life of your chalkboard and get rid of those ‘ghostly’ lessons that do not erase well became common place. A title that indicated an awareness of the most basic of technologies; Legibility in the Lecture Hall, (Bartlett, A. & Thomas, M, 1983), is a comprhensive study on the preparation and use of blackboard technology in the teaching of math. There were studies on the use of contrasting colors and how they effected the ability of students to read and comprehend what was written on the blackboard (Chen, Yih-Wen, ). In this study the variables of vision, color and pedagogical practice are brought together in a study of one of education’s oldest technologies. As a result of this and similar studies, the traditional blackboard and white chalk became the greenboard and colored and off white chalk. One of the statements made has been discussed, argued, and researched in all visual media including computer presentations. "… the brightness contrast between the target and the surround is more important than the hue and contrast in influencing the accuracy of visual discrimination." This study is the basis of the green chalkboards seen in many of the classrooms today and many of the visual practices used today in other visual media. Another study, as stated by Chen, dealt with the use of black and white motion pictures and colored motion pictures and their effect on education in the classroom. As technologies have emerged since the late 30’s there have been many studies on their effectiveness and actual contribution to the learning process. With the growing popularity of radio, Thomas Edison said that radio would relieve the teacher of the mundane chores of everyday tasks and allow them to provide individualized instruction. When television was introduced in the late 40’s there were many that indicated the teachers’ days were numbered. The computer has raised the question of teacher roles and whether or not teachers are needed in the classroom. Other technologies have been introduced this century that have not had the same impact of radio, television, and the computer but has affected the delivery of education in the classroom.
The electric light, though taken for granted at this time, was a major addition to the classroom of the early 20th century. Better lighting helped decrease eyestrain. A book by Seager (1936) made a direct connection between the amount and quality of light and the effect on learning. The addition of electricity also gave the teacher the ability to use various new presentation capabilities. The familiar overhead projector, as a new technology, allowed the teacher to make visual aids that had the ability to be "three dimensional." By laying one transparency over another the instructor could show relationships and processes to the entire class. With the addition of the copy machine to the arsenal of technology at the teacher’s fingertips, the amount and the reproducibility of the information being disseminated increased. Now a teacher could give each student in the classroom the same materials and increase the amount of knowledge available to the student. As this explosion of new and then better technologies came about there was an attempt to marry different technologies to enhance one and take advantage of the other. In an article entitled Looking Through the Chalkboard, Arthur Grosser (1979) describes a methodology used on TV cooking shows as an answer to the inability of students to see the blackboard because the instructor was in the way. By using mirrors to project the blackboard image, the instructor could write on the board without blocking any student’s view of the image and by using television, the picture could be shown to either distance students or remotely to students in the back of the classroom.
As these technologies grew so did the opportunity to explore the process of learning. The effectiveness of the learning process could be measured more exactly because of the reproducibility of the technology. One of the earliest investigators of the process of learning was B.F. Skinner, whose experiments with pigeons led to the development of learning machines for use in education. Skinner was a major contributor to the theory of Behaviorism. With this theory the learner is ‘trained’ or ‘conditioned’ to respond correctly to a particular stimulus. There are still many physiological areas of research being performed in an attempt to learn how the learning process occurs and to improve the delivery of the lessons being developed. Heiner Benking (1997) wrote a paper entitled Sharing and Changing Realities with Extra Degrees of Freedom of Movement. In this paper are attempts to investigate how we order internal data and adjust for reality. It has an impact on Instructional Technology from the point of design for use on the WEB or other CBT authoring. Other papers deal with "Interhemispheric Switching" (1999). Even though the article does not relate directly to Instructional or Educational Technology, the implications have importance to Instructional Technology. Similar studies in visual switching may lead to a ways to decrease "screen flicker" seizures or correct for dyslexia. The newest addition to the arsenal of the Instructional Technologist is the computer and since the computer is primarily a visual media, studies on the parameters of computers become important in understanding the effects of the media on the education process. A chapter from Jakob Nielsen’s (1994) book entitled Usability Engineering, discusses a study on response times to visual stimuli and the amount of delay that is allowable for an interactive system. This study gives the Instructional Technologist an idea on the concept of gaining learner attention, their attention span, and how to introduce the information into the lesson design of the Educational Technologist.
Another aspect of the research into Instructional Technology is the comparison of, and learning from other instructional technologies. In the early 60’s television was the new answer to the education efficacy problem. With the introduction of television into the classroom, educators were able to give their students not only a window to the real world but lectures and presentations by renowned educators. A whole industry grew up around the immediacy of the education potential of television. This, however, was a first attempt at research in a media that expanded commercially at a rate far faster than the expansion into the classroom. Prior media introductions had been limited to the boardroom, classroom, and movie houses. Not many people had a use for the entertainment value of overhead projectors, blackboards (greenboards), or other technologies that were being infused into education. Television, however, was being seen in the home as well as school and thus losing it’s uniqueness and possibly its education value. This was the basis of Richard Clark’s (1983) paper for Review of Educational Research discussing research being done on the media as educational tools. Clark’s premise for this statement is that the research being done on the effectiveness of the media is, "…. only the content of the vehicle can influence achievement." Clark felt that media studies were so unpredictable as to final results that if a study showed positive results, "…. that it is the uncontrolled effects of novelty and instructional method which account for the existing evidence for the effects of various media on learning gains." This paper by Clark appears to be a pivotal paper on the research on the effectiveness and use of technologies in the classroom. After this point, media research tends to focus on media as the means and not the end of educational technology. Three years later Salomon and Gardner (1986) reviewed the lessons of television as an educator as compared to the computer and to some extent heeded Clark’s warning with, "…. social and educational context in which they [computers] are embedded, and the specific ways in which they are used, need to be taken into consideration." The question now becomes who does the research on the efficacy and soundness of the educational contributions of technologies being introduced? Is the research and subsequent implementation of new technologies up to the educators themselves? If so, how do they do research and teach at the same time? What training do the teachers have that allows them to perform in this dual role effectively? Is there enough grounding in theory and research methodology to be able to do the research?
Educational Theory
By addressing the questions put forth in the last section a definition of Educational Technology may be derived. Reiser and Ely (1997) indicated that the field of Educational Technology is changing definitions as fast as it is evolving. The first definitions as reported by Reiser and Ely are found in Educational Screen 1925, "…. visual instruction involves the schoolroom use of motion pictures, lantern slides, and a ‘wealth of devices’ such as still pictures, wall maps, charts, and the actual objects." This definition holds true for both instructional technology and educational technology until about the mid 40’s early 50’s. At this time the principles and theories of education as a process of learning and not the end product of teaching started to come into being. Beginning with Pavlov and the theory of conditioned reflex then moving to Skinner and his Behaviorism. These theories of learning and instruction were the beginnings of the modern movement of education. This use of theory, procedure and a systematic approach to education began to shape the field of Educational Technology. The technology was in place, the teachers were willing to use it, the personnel capable of working with and repairing it were in place but there was no methodology for implementation because no one truly knew how to use the technology effectively. Many theories arose at this time to fill in the gap in the knowledge.
Theory, in education, focused more on how a person learns than on the process of teaching. The rationale for this is that if you know how learning takes place you can teach so that learning takes place. The problem here lies in the fact that each theory of learning addresses a different problem in education. As an example: Gibson put forth a theory called ‘Information Pickup Theory’. This theory states that information will be retained based on the "stimulus array" or as a direct response to the environment. Guilford’s theory, Structure of Intellect, tries to map intelligence into a "Rubik’s Cube" to show relationships of intelligence and learning. Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance is a theory of internal stabilization when presented with conflicting or incomplete material. More and more theories are being brought forth every year, which causes a problem. Reigeluth and Squire (1998) indicated a need for theories with:
"Different instructional theories are needed to offer guidelines in
each of these diverse domains of human learning and development.
Furthermore, different theories often address different instructional
situations within a given domain."
They listed several categories for the classification of theories:
They then attempt to classify the existing theories into each of these categories so the designer of a lesson can then ask what is going to occur and use the appropriate theory to construct the lesson. In a follow up paper Phillip Duchastel (1998) tries to define theory and how the process of instructional design is affected when using specific theories. Duchastel points out that theories often cancel each other out when the instigators of the theory place emphasis on a single aspect of learning. He stresses that theory is a template and not the "Holy Grail". According to Duchastel there are three facets of theory (political, psychological and sociological) that should be considered when choosing a theory to be used in designing a lesson. This section on theory is important because it is the defining separation between Instructional and Educational Technology.
Educational Technology
The use of Technology in the classroom has been an argument since the time of Plato. Many innovations have been added to the classroom through the ages. The use of the quill pen, chalkboards, personal slates, books, electricity, overheads, motion pictures, radio, TV, copy machines, faxes, and computers have all had a controversial introduction into the classroom. The reason is usually because the technology is new and unproven. In the early 1900’s technology for the classroom exploded. Effectiveness of the new technologies became suspect and the incorporation of them into the classroom became a matter not of effectiveness but of institutional ego. "I have a radio in my classroom so we can listen to the news for current events." "This year I doubled my audio-visual budget. We now have the largest film department in the district." "We are not sure what we are going to do with them yet but we now have at least one TV in every classroom." These are statements likely to be heard in the teacher’s lounge or at a board meeting from the mid 30’s through the late 60’s. Like the old Popular Science newsreels of the times, the future was bright and technology was going to educate, entertain, and "save us all". There were, however, some educators, psychologists, and scientists who were asking the hard questions of effective delivery, efficacy, and appropriateness of the technologies being used. Some school systems had technical support for the current technologies in the form of Instructional Technologists. Teachers and Instructors could read in the professional journals how the available technologies were being used in other schools. The theorists were describing the learning process and establishing protocols for the delivery of education almost monthly. The challenge was in pulling all the resources together into a single coherent and effective package.
In the development of a proper definition of Educational Technology, the most appropriate format would be the ADDIE format. ADDIE is a creative process that breaks an educational task into five parts and then builds on each. ADDIE stands for:
A ….. Analysis
D …. Design
D …. Development
I …. Implementation
E …. Evaluation
Analysis
The problem is; how does a teacher, school, or district decide on which technology will be used? To put radios, televisions or computers into every classroom is expensive. Once in place how are they to be used? The Instructional Technologist’s have stated that the problems of the technology can be overcome and that the systems can be up and running in no time. The theorists are saying that the needs of the children can be met and an effective education received if particular sets of theories are used to implement the process. From these statements our goal state becomes to utilize existing and future technologies to effectively educate our children.
Design
During the design phase we are going to study each technology for indications on how best to use it in the delivery of each particular course. This process should take into consideration:
The lesson to be taught
The appropriate technology to be used
How that technology is to be used
Limitations on the technology
The ability of the technology to achieve the expected outcome
Various theories will be studied for effectiveness and appropriateness. The instructor of each subject that is to utilize a new technology or an existing technology will design a lesson plan based on the needs and requirements of the subject being taught. The technologies will be discussed, added where appropriate, and separate lesson plans developed for each application.
Development
Prior to the beginning of the school year in which the technology is to be incorporated into the curriculum, training and education of the staff will be done. Each instructor using the new technology in the classroom will be afforded time and assistance as needed to assure the successful transition of the new utilization of technology into the classroom.
Implementation
During the school year students will be instructed in all areas utilizing the newer technology in the classroom following the scripted lesson plan. Careful notes based on the observation of the teacher, feedback from the students, feedback from the parents, and administration will assist in solving any problems or making changes in the plan as needed.
Evaluation
At the end of the school year the notes from the Implementation phase will be studied and correlated with stated curriculum goals for each class and a report will be prepared on the effectiveness of the technologies utilized that school year. The results of the study will be used to "fine tune" the existing classes and develop new classes. New baseline data will be established and strategies will be developed for opportunities identified from the evaluation. A study will be initiated to discover new methods, theories, technologies and utilization schema to improve the next year’s classroom offerings. Efforts will be undertaken to recruit and train new classroom technology enthusiasts.
This is a dynamic plan necessitating a dedicated employee aware of current theory, technologies, and educational practices. This employee will have to be able to develop technologies based on the budgetary restrictions of the district with enough foresight to establish lasting technologies. This individual will have to convince and persuade reticent faculty members about the use of advanced technologies. This individual and a team of media and technical experts will have to work closely with the district and state administration, local administrators and faculties, and parents to gain support for utilization of newer technologies. They will also need to assist with the community in establishing plans, programs, protocols, and policies that ensure equal availability of technology to ALL students. The education and background of this person will have to be such that the attributes and skills described are measurable and certifiable. This person is an Educational Technologist.
Conclusion
I have attempted to establish a definition and description of both the term and the position of Instructional Technologist and Educational Technologist. At the onset of this paper I felt the two were interchangeable on an equal basis. I felt the only difference between them was that with Instructional Technology you taught the how and with Educational Technology you taught the why. I now feel that the two are separate yet definitely linked. The skills and the knowledge of each are required to perform the job of introducing and maintaining new technologies into the classroom. An Instructional Technologist needs to know theory and application so that the proper tool can be used in each classroom setting. The Educational Technologist has to have a basic understanding of the technologies to be able to make informed decisions and spot problems before they arise. They must work together as a cohesive team to analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate programs that give the highest quality education through the use of technology.
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