Examining 25 Years of Ed Tech: 1994 – 2001

Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash

Weller’s (2020) history of ed tech is a fascinating read, especially since it starts around the same time as I entered the online realm. Earlier in the MALAT program, we explored our digital identity and presence through our networks and communities. I re-traced my own digital footprints which began with Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) in 1993, using SoftArc’s FirstClass system – regarded by some as the first LMS. This led to email and the web, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), and subject-matter driven online forums through the late 1990s and early 2000s (Wilson, 2022). I realized how much I took for granted the amount of learning taking place in those environments (which were not designed as spaces for learning) until I looked back on it through a learning lens.

In his introduction, Weller points out the “historical amnesia” of ed tech, where every new innovation is seen as the “invention” or “reinvention” of digital learning. He calls this the “year-zero mentality” (p. 4) and points out the fallacy of the “inventor/start-up” recounting of history, which goes against the philosophy of neutrality in the study of history. I am reminded of the old adage of “history is written by the victors,” a phenomenon explained by Mukharji and Zeckhauser (2019) as explanation bias, which tends to value certainty over complexity in determining causality of events or phenomena.

Weller draws upon lessons from the study of art history, which only in recent decades began to examine art (and the process of art making) in a broader cultural contexts. This shift moved art history from the study of the history of individual artists and into the study of art as the documentation and expression of complex historical contexts. Weller examines ed tech not as a series of isolated “inventions,” but as a complex, interwoven series of developments that evolved out of interdependent social, cultural, and technological influences.

The structure of Weller’s book, with one technology featured per year (loosely coinciding with when that technology rose to prominence) is a very approachable way of breaking down the subject matter, which affords the reader a tighter focus on the context(s) from which the technologies emerge, offering clear and concise insight into the complex circumstances that gave rise to them. This focused approach makes it easier to understand the problems being solved, and sometimes the problems they created along the way. (Attempts at developing interoperable and modular “standards” such as IMS, SCORM, and various other metadata models are examples of the latter.)

Weller suggests that the introduction of learning technologies built on computer-mediated communication (cmc) prompted post-secondary educators to investigate learning theories and teaching practices, and to question the dominance of lecture format as the default delivery method (p. 32). I find it fascinating that ideas which seem so obvious today were initially met with such resistance.

The emergence of the collaborative web seemed to be the catalyst for the emergence of “e-learning,” though it’s also interesting to note that e-learning was also criticized as a commercialization of higher education through technological means (p. 44). Much of that criticism came from the United States, which has a substantial number of private and for-profit post-secondary institutions (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022), which may have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

Building ed tech platforms, communities, and resources is hard work, as these early years make clear. I am looking forward to the next chapters where we will learn about the emergence of the “modern” concept of ed tech.