The Reiser (2001) articles were an excellent overview of the history of instructional design and technology, and I appreciated the comprehensive definition of the field. Weller (2018) mentioned Audrey Watters from Hack Education (as well as she was on the reading list), and I enjoyed her articles even more where she highlighted lost opportunities, and the continued failure of learning institutions to embrace educational technology and utilize it to its fullest potential to support learning. I also liked the Wellers (2018) article: Twenty Years of Edtech (and having a print engineer and magazine publisher background I admired the editing and the illustrations of the print/pdf version). The dates though were confusing, seemingly for others as well, as they raised this issue in the comments. Weller (2018, p. 36) states in his preamble that the list is personal, and he has “been rather arbitrary in allocating a specific year: the year is not when a particular technology was invented but, rather, when it became—in [his] view—significant.” Mentioning both dates for every item would have been advisory.
After reading the Reiser articles, it becomes apparent the instructional media affected instructional design throughout history. In my mind, and in my definition educational media is part of the instructional design and not equal partners. Are there many examples of instructional design influencing instructional media? It was not emphasized in the Reiser articles though I assume learning management systems were created and shaped that way, and Weller’s (2018, p. 39) article sort of supported this notion:
“Prior to the LMS, e-learning provision was realized through a variety of tools: a bulletin board for communications; a content-management system; and/or home-created web page. … As e-learning became more integral to both blended-learning and fully-online courses, this variety and reliability became a more critical issue. The LMS offered a neat collection of the most popular tools, any one of which might not be as good as the best-of-breed specific tool but was good enough.”
Other examples of instructional design influencing instructional media could be the mentioned Second Life and Virtual Tools, PLE and few others (Weller, 2018).
There were several ‘lessons’ in these articles; many apply to my work, some contradicts my experiences.
Reiser (2001a, p. 60) stated that an increased presence of technology in the schools does not necessarily mean increased use of that technology for instructional purposes. A few years back, our web development program purchased ten smartphones to use them in team projects to test website responsiveness. It was great to have these smartphones but turned out to be an impulse buy as the instructor used them once or twice only… and those smartphones got outdated without any use, and the fascination with new technology distracted the instructor from his strategic objectives and course design. Reiser (2001a, p. 61) describes that when any new medium enters the educational system, the initial response is great interest and a feeling that it will revolutionize education, only to eventually have interest subside and the medium have no lasting effect on education. This was the case in the same program when it included iPad into the tuition for reading e-books and watching Lynda.com video tutorials. Although there was considerable interest from each faculty members, most of them did not integrate these tools into their curriculum and instructions.
At the same time, this next one somewhat contradicted Reiser point: After careful consideration, surveys and brainstorming session, the iPad model has been changed. Earlier an iPad Mini was included for reading and watching the tutorials, and also testing a website’s cross-browser compatibility. But all of the reading/testing/watching can be done with the help of other tools; thus, it was not necessary to carry that iPad. Currently, a regular iPad with iPencil is given to the learners, and the tool is integrated into the curriculum by teaching sketching, wireframing and prototyping on it directly and using it while working in teams on the same wireframes sharing the documents on Educational G-Suite, present ideas to the project clients on them etc. The use of the iPencil makes it relevant, useful and unique, as well as exciting. So, in this case, it contradicts the same lesson as shiny new items can have a lasting effect with careful instructional design to provide meaning.
As Weller’s (2018, p. 48) concluded in his article: “[s]ometimes [technology innovations] come with strong accompanying educational frameworks, but other times they are a technology seeking an application.”
Illustration credit: Mark Allen Miller, © 2018, used for only educational purposes from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2018/7/twenty-years-of-edtech#fn1
References
Reiser, R. A. (2001a). A history of instructional design and technology: Part I: A history of instructional media. Educational Technology Research and Development, 49(1), 53–64. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02504506
Reiser, R. A. (2001b). A history of instructional design and technology: Part II: A history of instructional design. Educational Technology Research and Development, 49(2), 57–67. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02504928
Watters, A. (2014). The History of the Future of Ed-Tech, Chapter 1. In The monsters of education technology. Licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA.
Watters, A. (2014). Un-fathomable: The Hidden History of Ed-Tech, Chapter 2. In The monsters of education technology. Licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA.
Weller, M. (2018). Twenty Years of Edtech. Educause Review, 53(4). Retrieved from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2018/7/twenty-years-of-edtech
Thanks for this post, Beata. As I read this I wonder what distinguishes the first lesson from the second. You indicate that the iPencil was useful and relevant, but it seems that this was true of the smartphones. What do you, or others reading this post, think were some of the factors that made one technology more prone to be integrated and used compared to the other?
In my opinion, it is not just about the technology. In 2001, Reiser included “research and theory, as well as practice” (2001a, p. 54), as an essential part of the definition of the field of instructional design and technology. It is also notable that the field is not labelled instructional technology, but rather instructional design and technology. Merely bringing in technology (like iPad or smartphones) into the classroom, will not integrate them into the curriculum. The whole course design needs to support that new technology to ensure it will be incorporated. Reiser implies similar sentiments based on the researches in Part II: “effective use of media for instructional purposes requires careful instructional planning,” (2001b, p.64).
Watters describes in his articles “The History of the Future of Ed-Tech” (2014a) and “Un-fathomable: The Hidden History of Ed-Tech” (2014b, a tension between new tools and old practices. Watters also offers an example: “It’s simple to introduce iPads into the classroom, for example. It’s much more difficult to use them to do entirely new things, particularly things that run counter to how classrooms have operated in the past” (2014b, p.3). In case of the program, the smartphone was a new technology in the classroom, but it was possible to mimic the same functionality in a browser without the smartphone. It was cumbersome to set it up, and only a few were available for the students. Thus, as the first version of the iPad later, it was not needed, no new functions, ideas were introduced. With the iPencil and iPad combo new ways of leading client meetings and a faster way of sketching etc. are possible.
Good points. See also my comment on Anita’s post: https://malat-webspace.royalroads.ca/rru0053/technology-in-education-and-instructional-design/
Beata, your post touched upon both of my roles at Durham College. I teach web design and development, and help faculty integrate technology into their teaching practices. Your post nicely laid out the importance of meaningfully and strategically using technology in a course. It must be thought of through the curriculum design and development and tested to ensure it will meet the needs of the learning environment and the learners. Out of curiosity, is the iPad a requirement for your program, or can the students choose to use their laptop if it can perform the same technical requirements as the iPad?
Hey Brandon – how awesome you are in the same field. I might contact you later on as we just started Program Review :-).
The students’ tuition covers the iPad+iPencil (they keep them after the program ends), and in certain assignments, they are required to use them to get familiar with prototyping tools used on smaller devices… They also use it for site testing, and for general information (such as watching Lynda.com tutorials, reading e-books).
They are not required to use it in other than the above-mentioned assignments… :-).
As for using either the computers in the lab or bringing their own laptops to the class… that is a given, as the students work on normal computers (laptops) to develop the apps and websites…
Hi George, I was sifting through my notes (which at this point are a bit jumbled) and found some comments on themes of success in educational technology. I have written down notes that indicate: technologies that save time, reduce labor and widely disseminate knowledge are typically successful. (the last point is from Bates, 2014 but the first two, I’m not sure who the source was) So I would ask, was the iPencil facilitating any of those occurrences? Did it allow increased access or creativity for some individuals? Christy
Reference: Bates, T. (2014). A short history of educational technology. Retrieved September 6, 2018, from https://www.tonybates.ca/2014/12/10/a-short-history-of-educational-technology/
Interesting points. These are all valid, but the first two seem to me to focus on efficiency. And, perhaps that’s the value-add of technology, that it makes some aspects faster, cheaper, and so on… but can it improve effectiveness? Or does that come through a change of practice facilitated with technology?
We are touching on threads that we will pick up on in unit 3, so, we’ll be revisiting these questions soon!
Thanks for the great summary and post Beata! I liked the section you addressed around the ‘hasty implementation’ where too many times the ‘shiny new thing’ needs to be deployed without any proper planning and consideration. Without knowing how the educational technology hardware or software may potentially impact the learning, learner, facilitator and/or the content it seems that many times people just want to jump on the bandwagon without addressing all the challenges that could arise.
For example my organization had deployed a cost reduction strategy around digitize and go paperless and had clear savings through reducing X percentage of printing by X time we’d save X amount of money … ultimately what happened in a very short time frame was our team was mandated by to eliminate all paper distribution in classroom training. Within 2 weeks thereafter we had a delivery of 20 Surface Pro’s that were to replace any paper handouts and to be used in our soft skills training sessions.
There were several concerns we had as Learning Professionals such as the impact on the learner and facilitator. Even in the design of some of our activities where we had learners who were asked to take notes or even liked to take notes and the ease of doing that with a tablet versus pen and paper. What about the end user experience? Would the technology be too disruptive and take away from the attention of the learner and the lesson being facilitated. What if there is a steep learning curve for some? Will it impact the way we deliver certain activities? And much more…
Let’s say even though the Surface Tablets were deployed, we had them locked up for an additional 1 month, while we did look at our ILT courses and the possible impact to the learning. We also piloted it and got some insightful user experience feedback, which helped really address other issues not considered.