(SUMMARY) Resources in Educational Technology

Table of Content
Introduction to Educational Technology.................................................................................................3
Technological Resources Overview....................................................................................................3
Traditional Media in Higher Education ..............................................................................................3
Role of Educational Technology.........................................................................................................3
Effectiveness and Efficiency Considerations......................................................................................3
Types of Educational Resources .........................................................................................................4
Historical Development ......................................................................................................................4
Early Visual Education........................................................................................................................4
Evolution of Educational Films ..........................................................................................................4
Growth of Audiovisual Instruction .....................................................................................................4
Post-War Development .......................................................................................................................5
Computer Revolution in Education.....................................................................................................5
Internet Era and Distance Learning ....................................................................................................5
Tools, Materials, and Devices.............................................................................................................6
Analog vs Digital Media.....................................................................................................................6
Integration of Technologies.................................................................................................................7
Digital Media and Computing ............................................................................................................7
Web-Based Learning...........................................................................................................................7
Learning Management Systems..........................................................................................................8
Emerging Technologies.......................................................................................................................8
Educational Technology Specialists....................................................................................................8
Ethical Considerations ........................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................10

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Resources
Anthony Karl Betrus
Universitas Negeri New York di Potsdam
Introduction to Educational Technology
Educational technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning
and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological
processes and resources. The term "technological" refers to the tools, materials, devices,
settings, and people that learners interact with to solve learning and performance problems.
The evolution of these resources and the impact of emerging technologies distinguish
educational technologists from similar efforts in other fields.
Technological Resources Overview
Technological resources are primarily tools, materials, devices, settings, and
people used to solve learning and performance problems. While digital resources have gained
prominence in recent literature, analog resources like textbooks, overhead projectors, and
videocassette recorders (VcR) are still widely used in corporate and educational settings. In
corporate training, manuals and workbooks are used in over three-fourths of all training
programs, while video recordings are used in over one-half.
Traditional Media in Higher Education
In higher education, traditional audiovisual (AV) media, such as chalkboards,
whiteboards, and overhead projectors, continue to be used for subjects where high-definition
images are critical. While current trends indicate an increased use of digital resources,
instructors will continue to use and demand support for these traditional media.
Role of Educational Technology
Educational technology plays a crucial role in facilitating learning and improving
performance. The term "appropriate" refers to the selection of hardware and software used in
education, considering their suitability for and compatibility with educational goals. This
includes observing professional standards, such as copyright laws and intellectual property
rights, and following sound professional procedures for evaluation and selection of materials
and equipment.
Effectiveness and Efficiency Considerations
When considering resources for instructional lessons or programs, other issues
come into play, such as effectiveness and efficiency. Effectiveness refers to the suitability and
compatibility of a given resource with regard to particular instructional objectives, like the
likelihood of yielding positive results and sustainability in the local setting. Efficiency refers
to the wise use of time and resources, including the effort of educational technologists
themselves. In the private sector, productivity considerations must be given high priority, as
purchasing decisions must consider which hardware and software will provide the greatest
benefits for the most learners or the greatest benefits to the success of the organization.

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Types of Educational Resources
Resources by design and resources by utilization are two distinct types of
resources available to help facilitate learning. Instructional materials or resources are
specifically designed for learning purposes, while real-world resources exist as part of the
normal, everyday world but can be discovered, applied, and used for learning purposes. These
resources become learning resources by design and others become learning resources by
utilization.
In summary, appropriate resources play an integral role in facilitating learning
and improving performance in educational technology. They should be selected based on
professional standards, ethical guidelines, and political, social, and cultural expectations.
Resources by design and resources by utilization are essential components of educational
technology, as they play a vital role in facilitating learning and improving performance.
Historical Development
The field of educational technology emerged in the early 1900s as a loosely
formed group of practitioners with a common interest in using new technological resources as
an alternative to traditional education. This differentiation has persisted even today, as new
technological resources emerged and faded away. The emergence of educational resources after
the chalkboard and textbook can be viewed as the catalysts for the establishment of educational
technology as a distinct field.
Early Visual Education
The use of hand-drawn illustrations in textbooks is among the oldest examples
of the use of educational resources and is considered by some to mark the early origins of the
field of educational technology. Johannes Amos Comenius' work, orbis Sensualium Pictus (The
Visible World Pictured), was a primary school textbook that included illustrations of common
concepts to complement the words. The visual instruction movement, also known as slides,
was characterized by the emergence and use of still picture and motion picture technology as
teaching resources. Initial efforts to make these resources widely available throughout school
districts included the collection and organization of visual materials into educational museums.
Evolution of Educational Films
Silent films were the direct ancestors of educational films that began to emerge
around 1910. British and French cinematographers exhibited films showing amazing sights
such as microscopic creatures, insects in flight, and underwater seascapes. By the 1920s,
educators could find many types of films to use—theatrical films edited (often badly) for
special purposes, industrial films (often providing biased depictions of their subjects),
government films, and a smaller number of films produced specifically for the classroom.
The National Education Association’s Department of Visual Instruction (DVI)
emerged in 1923 as the preeminent organization of professionals concerned with using images
to improve instruction. Audiovisual instruction, which uses sound and video to enhance
instruction, has been a significant aspect of educational technology since its inception.
Growth of Audiovisual Instruction

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Educational technology has evolved significantly over the years, with various
technological resources playing a significant role in the development of educational
institutions. The phonograph record, invented in 1910, was the first widely available format for
recorded sound, used almost exclusively for music. Sound films, developed by the late 1920s,
became the winning technology for "talkies," but there was considerable resistance to this in
the education community. Radio stations were also developing, with many American
universities obtaining licenses to operate them in the early 1920s.
Audiovisual media, such as lantern slide projectors, radio receivers, 16mm silent
film projectors, 35mm silent film projectors, filmstrip projectors, opaque projectors, microslide
projectors, 16mm sound film projectors, and 35mm sound film projectors, were added to the
growing base of visual resources. In 1947, the Department of Audiovisual Instruction (DAVI)
was changed to DAVI due to the addition of an audio component to existing motion picture
technology and the mushrooming of educational radio stations.
Post-War Development
In the post-WWII period, economic prosperity and the aging of "baby boom"
children led to a period of rapid expansion of schools and the educational media needed to
support modern education. AV equipment and materials were at the heart of the field, with
public schools in the United States owning approximately 7,000,000 film strips, 3,000,000
phonograph records, 1,000,000 slides, 700,000 films, and 400,000 tape recordings. Television
programs began to be broadcasted to school audiences, with some parties experimenting with
radio and television, essentially replaying the radio scenario.
The Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) was
established in 1971, reflecting the organization's broader emphasis on traditional AV efforts,
learning theories, communications theory, and systematic approaches to education. By the late
1960s, James D. Finn's promotion of the concept of instructional technology merged with B.
F. Skinner's followers' popularization of the term "educational technology" to describe
reinforcement-centered learning environments. This shift from a product-centered view to a
process-centered view was signaled by the change of the name of the national organization to
the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT).
Computer Revolution in Education
Educational technology has evolved significantly since its inception in 1959,
with the introduction of computers and other resources for teaching and training. The PLAto
and TIccIt projects in the 1960s and 1970s explored various pedagogical methods and subjects,
including computer-assisted instruction (cAI) for college students. Early explorers like
Seymour Papert developed a programming language called "LoGo" to help young children
think mathematically, which later extended to building virtual structures of LeGo® blocks. The
popularization of stand-alone personal computers in the 1980s released users from being
connected to a wired network, creating a market for entertainment and educational products on
floppy disks, CDROMs, DVDs, and later the Internet.
Internet Era and Distance Learning
The growth of the Internet in the late 1990s brought users back into the
networking mode, and the World Wide Web provided a linkage among scattered networks and

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individual users, allowing distance education to take off on a steady climb in popularity. By the
end of the 1990s, virtually every university and many school systems were offering menus of
distance learning courses via the Web.
The changes in modes and delivery systems wrought by the computer revolution
have had a deep impact on professional life in the fields related to educational technology. The
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has changed its discourse within the
association, with the vast majority of publications and conference sessions devoted to
considerations of instructional computing.
Alternative views of educational technology as resource-driven have emerged,
with some people and organizations maintaining a narrower focus on resources as hardware-
driven rather than theory or processes. This approach is exemplified by the International
Technology Education Association's (IteA) definition of educational technology: "The use of
technological developments, such as computers, audio-visual equipment, and mass media, as
tools to enhance and optimize the teaching and learning environment in all school subjects,
including technology education."
Predictions of the potential influence of emerging technologies on education
have consistently been made as new technologies have emerged. Understanding the broader
systems in which resources are deployed and used, along with the factors that influence change
in these systems, would help to soften these types of overstatements. It is likely that we have
not yet seen the last of the "end of education as we know it" prophecies.
Tools, Materials, and Devices
Educational technology has evolved over time, utilizing tools, materials, and
devices as resources. Tools are used to create and manipulate materials, which are then accessed
by devices. Devices are simpler than tools and are most often used primarily to access materials
through viewing and interacting with them. The relationship among these terms is not always
clear-cut, but it can be useful as a general way of looking at the relationship among these terms.
Analog vs Digital Media
Media is another term used in educational technology, which refers to mass
communication enterprises, instructional materials, and physical devices that store data. In
everyday use, analog means something that resembles something else, and analog signals are
continuously variable in both time and amplitude. Analog sound recordings are made by
translating variations in air pressure striking the microphone into a corresponding variation in
voltage amplitude. Analog television pictures are similar to film projections in that the entire
image is painted on the screen with each frame.
Analog tools, materials, and devices are used to augment the teaching and
learning process over the past century. Analog tools, materials, and devices are valued for their
high fidelity of reproduction and usability without the intermediation of computers. For
example, a training video example illustrates the relationship among tools, materials, and
devices in educational technology.
In summary, educational technology utilizes various tools, materials, and devices
to enhance the teaching and learning process. While digital technologies have replaced analog

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tools, they continue to be valuable for their high fidelity of reproduction and usability without
the intermediation of computers.
Integration of Technologies
Educational technology has a long tradition of combining the functions and
features of multiple tools, materials, or devices into one, integrated technology. An extensive
collection of historic analog tools, devices, and materials is housed at the University of
Northern Illinois in the Blackwell History of Education Museum and can be accessed via the
World Wide Web through the Aect Archive equipment Virtual tour. The affinity of educational
technologists for such new, cutting-edge devices has traditionally defined the field.
Although current advances in the field are clearly centered on the use of digital
resources, the legacy of the field is in the use of analog resources to improve education. Analog
resources, such as the overhead projector, VcR, and locally compiled printed materials, remain
an integral part of most instructional settings. Critical attributes of analog resources—including
high definition, ease of creation, customizability, and lower knowledge barriers for use—will
likely ensure that they will continue to be used in a variety of teaching and learning
environments well into the future.
Digital Media and Computing
Digital media are those that are stored and transmitted by means of digital codes,
usually binary codes—0 or 1, off or on. The advantage of digital storage is that the data are
generally easier to manipulate, more compact to store, and the resulting presentation can be
transmitted or reproduced any number of times without loss of quality.
Currently, the most commonly used integrated technology from a hardware
perspective is the personal computer. The computer offers the potential of ease of use and
convenience that other integrated technologies had lacked, leading to the proliferation of the
computer in society at large as well as in education and training. The societal trend toward the
increased use of the computer is very likely to continue into the foreseeable future, and as
educational technology is inextricably tied to the technology of the day, it is likely that the
educational resources of tomorrow will be increasingly digital and computer-based.
Web-Based Learning
The Internet and World Wide Web have significantly expanded the potential for
sharing information at a distance, with the advent of graphical user interfaces and the World
Wide Web becoming the most popular Internet protocol. As the World Wide Web became the
de facto standard platform for sharing resources, it displaced the earlier concept of hypermedia
programs residing in a local computer system.
Instructional materials for the World Wide Web include educational software,
educational games, instructional simulations, education software, instructional videos,
reference materials, audio recordings, and movies. Current trends point toward an increased
emphasis on creating instructional materials for the World Wide Web, with a variety of tools
available for this purpose.
Interactive environments, such as simulations and simulation games, allow
learners to explore complex dynamic situations, such as conflicts among individuals and

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groups. WebQuests, created by Dodge (1995), aim for deep learning through a critical thinking
process. Web-based distance education began in the 19th century using correspondence through
the mail and continued through most of the 20th century with radio, then television. By the late
1990s and early 2000s, hundreds of universities and businesses adopted the Web platform for
their distance education and training, reaching millions of students.
Learning Management Systems
Course management systems (cMs) have given impetus to Web-based
instruction, tying together all the services previously mentioned, so that students can log in
once and have all of their communication services available at a click, without jumping in and
out of the Web. Blackboard.com introduced its first cMs, courseInfo, in 1999, and by 2006,
merged with its largest rival, Webct, dominated the field of college and university cMs.
On the corporate side, the term learning management system (LMs) is preferred,
referring to systems that not only provide instruction but also keep records of users' progress,
documenting their accomplishments and certifications they may have acquired.
Emerging Technologies
Emerging applications in the Internet and Web have great educational potential.
Weblogs, such as blogs, provide a high level of interactivity among users, allowing teachers
and students to communicate in a highly interactive online space. Wikis, similar to weblogs,
allow users to freely and collaboratively add, modify, and manipulate online information
towards a collective understanding of an idea or concept. Mobile media, such as digital phones,
watches, laptop computers, compact computers, handheld computers, and personal data
assistants (PDAs), are becoming more common and may someday supplant the desktop
computer as the primary way in which information on the Internet is accessed and interacted
with.
Electronic Performance Support Systems (EPSS) are web-accessible electronic
databases that provide information in a just-in-time fashion to employees in an organization.
Although not designed as educational tools or resources, learning can happen as users
repeatedly summon the same chunk of information. Setting as resources is critical for good
instructional design, including both internal and external settings. Constructivist-learning
theories have led to increased efforts to organize authentic, complex, information-rich learning
environments.
Community resources, such as museums, libraries, zoos, hospitals, police
stations, and fire departments, can expose learners to authentic examples of concepts and ideas
they are studying in a classroom. Field trips, which are excursions outside the classroom to
study real processes, people, and objects, are often used to justify the time, effort, and expense
associated with field trips. Virtual field trips, enabled by technology, offer the possibility of
exploring many locations that would otherwise be too expensive or logistically impossible to
visit.
Educational Technology Specialists
Educational technology plays a crucial role in creating information-rich learning
environments that support learning and understanding. These environments are rich
environments for active learning (ReAL) and are characterized by engaging learners in realistic

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problematic situations. Educational technology specialists, also known as technology co-
ordinators or instructional support specialists, play a significant role in making sense of the
vast amount of available resources.
In schools, these technical experts support the diverse technological needs of
school systems, including teachers, students, and administrators' use of technology to support
learning. They often take on the additional role of maintaining the school technology
infrastructure, such as Web servers, email servers, and the school data network. In colleges and
universities, there is a trend toward creating teaching, learning, and technology centers (tLtcs),
which combine the services of information technology support and faculty development,
sometimes adding the library.
Educational technology specialists working in these units tend to specialize in
instructional support, leaving the technical support, server maintenance, and data network
support to a group of people in a different section or department. They assist faculty in
improving their courses and looking to the expertise of these specialists for advice and help.
In corporations, governments, and other large organizations, educational
technology specialists are often maintained at central locations, satellite locations, or both.
These personnel usually work in training departments and typically carry the title of trainer,
training specialist, or the like. They directly support training and learning within their
organizations, providing broad technology support and developing and delivering training to
employees at the request of management.
Educational technology specialists play a vital role in providing technological
resources and expertise to students, teachers, employees, and members of organizations who
attempt to solve learning problems using technology. Their essential role in leveraging
technological resources has made them essential in today's rapidly changing educational
landscape.
Ethical Considerations
Ethical concerns for educational technology professionals include ensuring
equitable access to resources for all learners, particularly in the digital divide and the
implementation of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998. The digital divide is primarily
a socioeconomic issue, with disparities between wealthy and poor schools and communities.
To address this, grant money is often used to supplement technology resources in poorer
settings, with an educational technology specialist serving as the primary grant writer and
coordinator.
Accessibility and universal design are also important ethical considerations for
educational technologists. The 1973 Rehabilitation Act amended in 1998, which requires equal
access to information for all U.S. federal employees, requires that resources, especially
electronic and information technology, be made accessible to people with disabilities.
Universal design, which involves creating resources that are as broadly useful to as many
people as possible, has become increasingly popular as sensitivity to accessibility issues
increases.

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Conclusion
In conclusion, resources can take the form of tools, materials, devices, people, and
settings that learners interact with to solve learning and performance problems. The field of
educational technology has historically been intertwined with the use of emerging
technologies, and in the latter half of the 20th century, the field grew beyond the earlier, simpler,
resource-driven conception of educational technology. The shared focus remains on the
appropriate use of emerging technological resources to facilitate learning and improve
performance.
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