{"id":301,"date":"2022-08-31T17:02:25","date_gmt":"2022-09-01T00:02:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0260\/?p=301"},"modified":"2022-09-01T17:34:14","modified_gmt":"2022-09-02T00:34:14","slug":"25-years-of-ed-tech-weller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0260\/25-years-of-ed-tech-weller\/","title":{"rendered":"25 Years of Ed Tech – Weller"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When reading 25 Years in Ed Tech<\/em> by Martin Weller (2020), I found a number of things surprising and interesting. For one, when the Internet became more affordable in the early 1990s, and more people were going online, they seemed to be just as frustrated and in need of help with using digital tools as people are today. This is something that I do not think will ever change. As each new digital tool, platform or resource is created on the backs of older forms, we will continue to need support to use them. Weller stated in the preface of his book that because we tend not to share new developments in ed tech, and the “field is remarkably poor at recording its own history and reflecting critically on its development”, we have “something of a year-zero mentality in the field” (2020, p. 4).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I also found interesting in Weller’s (2020) book, is how each iteration of a digital tool became a forerunner or at least a contributor to the next new digital development. Bulletin board systems were the forerunners of social media. The web allowed for communication and networking like never before. Computer mediated communication (CMC) incorporated bulletin board systems and other types of online communication through networked computers (asynchronously or synchronously) which made it possible to collaborate at a distance. CMCs were the forerunners to learning management systems (LMS). Web-based learning brought attention to new models of teaching or at least revisiting old ones, such as constructivism. During this time, educators were also forced to reflect on practice and for possibly the first time, they engaged with educational theory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Invented in 1994 by Ward Cunningham, wikis democratized publishing as people could jointly contribute to a page as well as collaborate on its ideas. However, even though the web, iteration 1.0, democratized communication (2020), websites, wikis and other means of digital communication have been banned by certain countries if the content is deemed to controversial or allows access to information that they would prefer its citizens did not have. So, the idea of being open that Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web in 1989 wanted, did not happen quite as he envisaged. Instead, everything or nearly everything, has become monetized, from using the Internet, to social media platforms to the evolution of learning objects (Weller, 2020) or it has become prohibited (i.e. The Great Firewall in China). Perhaps my definition of open is too simplistic, but I maintain that open educational resources along with the Internet should be free and all people should have the right to its access, not just those who can afford it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One area that Weller (2020) discusses in chapter 7 that I found problematic is the concept of learning objects (LO). This is not only because of the vague definition of LOs but that the problems listed in regard to them are also lacking in clarity. What exactly are they? Or, what were they supposed to be? Weller (2020) states that they never gained widespread adoption and that a number of issues prevented their success. One of the issues that stood out is (1) Definition Debates. In striving for a definition, educators either made too many demands on creating elements to categorize the LO, making its definition too narrow or claimed that an LO is any digitized entity that can be used, reused or referenced during technological learning making it too broad. However, this still does not answer my questions. What are they? When I first began reading about learning objects, several ideas popped into my mind about what they might be, such as Jamboard, Kahoot, Quizizz and Nearpod. These are all digital learning tools that provide a platform for assessment, collaboration or slide-based learning resources that are interactive so, could they not also be considered learning objects? Perhaps, educators should make the decision regarding what they call these tools. However, upon reflection, and after re-reading the chapter, I came to understand them a bit better. Weller stated that according to Wiley (2008), the function of LOs should be good educational content to encourage dialogue and reveal the interconnectedness of ideas in educational technology. This definition then becomes a paradox. Learning objects are meant for collaboration but only if people are willing to share (Weller, 2020).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reference<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weller, M. (2020). 25 years of ed tech (issues in distance education)<\/em> (Illustrated ed.). Athabasca University Press. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.15215\/aupress\/9781771993050.01<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When reading 25 Years in Ed Tech by Martin Weller (2020), I found a number of things surprising and interesting. For one, when the Internet became more affordable in the early 1990s, and more people were going online, they seemed to be just as frustrated and in need of help with using digital tools as people are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[20,21,19,65],"class_list":["post-301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt523","tag-malat","tag-reflection","tag-rru","tag-weller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0260\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0260\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0260\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0260\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0260\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0260\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0260\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions\/310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0260\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0260\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0260\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}