Photo by Dave Sebele on Unsplash

 

From reading the articles by Reiser (2001) and Weller (2018), one notion comes to mind that is common to both the successful adoption of particular technologies in education as well as the lack thereof.  That notion is control.  It appears that most of the technologies that were mistakenly thought to revolutionize education, from instructional television to LMSs, failed to do so because they were controlled technologies.  The content, as well as the applications, was controlled by the educators and therefore not as accessible to the learning community as technologies like YouTube, social media and Wikis are.  One lesson from the past that I can apply to my work is to ensure that the population that I am attempting to reach has as much opportunity to guide the development of the professional development tools as possible to allow for widespread use.  A second lesson I learned from researching the history of EdTech, one that conflicts with my work today, is that the closed and hierarchical nature of the systems that are inherent in my field are antithetical to the successful adoption of Education Technology.  To realize the potential that appears to be inherent in collaborative and shared systems, letting go of the control over content and application will be a hurdle that will have to be overcome otherwise, I fear that we will look back and see that we invested in a system that failed to reach its potential.

References

Reiser, R. A. (2001). A history of instructional design and technology: Part I: A history of instructional media. Educational Technology Research and Development, 49(1), 53-64.

Reiser, R. A. (2001). A history of instructional design and technology: Part II: A history of instructional design. Educational Technology Research and Development, 49(2), 57-67.

Weller, M. (2018). Twenty years of EdTech. EDUCAUSE Review, 53(4).