Seeing parallels between educational technologies and the underlying learning theory of Constructivism was the most compelling aspect of the first third of 25 Years of Ed Tech<\/em> (Weller, 2020). Just like in research, where methodologies are informed by a paradigm, or worldview, educational technology choices are also made based on an instructor’s lens of how learners learn (Weller, 2020). I will be stepping into the role of a sessional instructor at a post-secondary institution in January and have found myself reflecting on my own beliefs about learning as an integral part of preparing my course syllabus. These beliefs will directly impact my students, from the educational technology that they will engage with and perhaps even their relationship to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A surprising point made by Weller (2020) was the causal connection between technology in 1997 and post-secondary instructors considering educational theory for the first time. I was unaware of the increased reflexivity of educators as an outcome of technology prior to my engagement with this text (Weller, 2020). This seemed to be a pivotal moment for ed tech with important ramifications for contemporary post-secondary classrooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was also surprised by Weller’s (2020) assertion that had technological affordances been greater, such as mightier bandwidth, the constructivist <\/em>approaches to e-learning favoured at the time may not have been adopted. Instead, more instructivist<\/em>,<\/em> authoritarian approaches that the author identified as having “resilience” may have been encouraged (Weller, 2020, Chapter 4, para. 1). This was interesting because unlike my earlier observation that the paradigm informs the tech, this example showed that the tech, in fact, guided the paradigm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Weller (2020) described “educators sought to match the nature of the environment of the web to education” (Chapter 4, last paragraph). Weller\u2019s discussion in this chapter caused me to consider Artificial Intelligence (AI) as fundamentally at odds with a constructivist approach. This left me wondering whether AI will give rise to new paradigms in education or will new paradigms in education give rise to AI?<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n