November 2005 — School Perspective
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The Rise and Fall of Educational Technology: Did We Miss the Point?
Internet killed the software star. Back in the pre-Web world, educational software was valued; independent companies and individuals were creating educational software. The world had gone graphic, and although many of our programming and authoring environments were underpowered when it came to graphic implementation, we wrestled to create visuals to enhance learning. Instructional technology gurus of the day were groping for interface design rules to follow, or inventing the rules themselves. Of course, Tim Berners- Lee made all of those discussions moot when he invented HTML and created text pages full of links. The effect of the Web was staggering. Everyone started cranking out hyperlinked pages, mostly text, of course, since bandwidth wasn’t what it was today. Soon, we stopped talking so much about the application of graphics in the interface; we were too busy surfing the Web. Cool sites began appearing, and we had all we could do, examining clever pages. In fact, we became more absorbed with new media than we were with education.
Constructivism, reflection, and talk. But not everyone was enthralled. In fact, many educators had never looked at software or opened a Web page. Most had never tried creating media others would use, and this is an important point: Thinking about hypermedia interfaces adds a dimension to the communication stream that g'es beyond building convincing textual arguments. It forces one to think about the vast number of variables associated with perception. More importantly, it challenges the notion that the author is in control. In colleges, constructivism was, and still is, the rage. People construct their own knowledge, build schemes and frameworks to house that knowledge, and massage it through reflection. But building explanations and conceptualizations is very different from trying to imagine how the world at large would respond to them. Such development empowers learners by putting them in charge of hundreds, perhaps thousands of decisions. The “product” represents the instantiation of all of those decisions, and it can provide pride not granted by a mandatory, directed writing assignment.
We never taught administrators anything! Educational technologists have often had the sometimes flattering, but dubious, distinction of developing the technology budget. In some cases, this job became a raison d’être. Of course, the creator of any budget has a forum in which to apply a vision, to buy the products that take the institution to the next level. When technologists talk to administrators, they talk about next year’s budget, or budget cuts, or hardware, or security problems. The discussion centers on technological support rather than academic computing. By losing their academic focus, educational technologists have lost academic credibility.
At the collegiate level, administrators have seen their jobs become more and more computer related. They hire network people,Webmasters, database personnel, support staff, training staff, consultants, and others with very little knowledge of what these people really do. Once hired, these people become “technology people” who are asked for their opinions on everything technological. Groupings related to job function (e.g., academic support, administrative support, and technical support) seem to be appropriate, and managing technologists requires different skills than managing teachers. School administrators are poorly prepared to handle the challenges of running and administering a wired (or wireless) facility.
