Educational Technology – A Cycle, a Model, and a Theory
Throughout the years, there are some basic “tools” that I’ve
used to guide me through the consideration, adoption, and implementation of
educational technologies.
Gartner Hype Cycle
During my career I’ve found the stages of this cycle to be
almost dead on accurate and I keep it in mind when I read about the next “greatest”
technology. The five phases of the Gartner (1995) Hype Cycle
are:
- Technology Trigger – breakthrough, product launch, and events create an interest
- Peak of Inflated Expectations – there are publically generated over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations, often from having only a superficial understanding of capacities and logistics. The technology, which is still in its infancy of development, becomes a fad. More failures than successes with the first generation technology occur.
- Trough of Disillusionment – expectations of the technology are not met, the media abandons the hype, and the public’s embracing of the technology as being trendy dissolves.
- Slope of Enlightenment –individuals, groups, businesses, and institutions that thought beyond the media spectacle and who have a more complete understanding and vision for the technology, continue to develop the benefits and practical application of the technology.
- Plateau of Productivity – the tangible benefits and applications of the technology become widely accepted and embraced. The technology becomes more stable and is perceived as being user-friendly as it evolves through second and third generations of development.
A rendition of a generic hype cycle with more detailed explanations
of the various points along the timeline can be found on the DigitalTonto website.
Technology Acceptance Model
Having an awareness of human psychology and tendencies when adopting
new technologies has also proven to be useful for me. Moving forward with the selection
and implementation of an educational technology should include an awareness of
end-user needs, expectations, and usage behaviors. A simplified model for this
can be seen in the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1985):
Other aspects that can be assessed during such an evaluation
process would be the educational and social perceptions of the technology, the learning
curve, complexity of the user interface, effort required to produce an
educational experience, the level of required support, differences due to age
and gender, and learning community behavior patterns. These variables coincide
with a more complex acceptance model, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (Vehkatesh, Morris, Davis, and
Davis, 2003):
Theory of Diffusion of Innovations
An additional premise which had implications in my
evaluation plan was the Theory of Diffusion of Innovations which addresses how, why, and at what rate new
ideas and technology spread through cultures. According to Rogers (1995) there
are groupings of adopters (realize that all group characteristics are
generalizations and do not necessarily apply to all individuals in a group):
- The first 2.5% of the adopters are the "innovators". Innovators are willing to take risks, youngest in age, have the highest social class, have great financial lucidity, very social and have closest contact to scientific sources and interaction with other innovators.
- The next 13.5% of the adopters are the "early adopters". These individuals have the highest degree of opinion leadership among the other adopter categories. Opinion leadership is created by an active user of innovations providing interpretations and explanations to those who are lower-end users. Early adopters are typically younger in age, have a higher social status, have more financial lucidity, advanced education, and are more socially forward than late adopters.
- The next 34% of the adopters are the "early majority". Individuals in this category adopt an innovation after a varying degree of time. This time of adoption is significantly longer than the innovators and early adopters. Early Majority tend to be slower in the adoption process, have above average social status, contact with early adopters, and show some opinion leadership
- The next 34% of the adopters are the "late majority". Individuals in this category will adopt an innovation after the average member of the society. These individuals approach an innovation with a high degree of skepticism and after the majority of society has adopted the innovation. Late Majority are typically skeptical about an innovation, have below average social status, very little financial lucidity, in contact with others in late majority and early majority, very little opinion leadership.
- The last 16% of the adopters are the "laggards". Individuals in this category are the last to adopt an innovation. Unlike some of the previous categories, individuals in this category show little to no opinion leadership. These individuals typically have an aversion to change-agents and tend to be advanced in age. Laggards typically tend to be focused on “traditions”, have lowest social status, lowest financial fluidity, oldest of all other adopters, in contact with only family and close friends, very little to no opinion leadership.
Reflection Point – “Good,
bad or indifferent, if you are not investing in new technology, you are going
to be left behind.” Philip Green
References
Gartner Organization (1995). Understanding hype cycles.
Davis, F. D. (1986). A technology acceptance model for
empirically testing new end-user information systems: theory and results. MIT Sloan School of Management.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, 1986.
Rogers, E. (1995). Diffusion of Innovations, 4th Edition. New York: The Free Press.
Venkatesh, V., Morris, M.G., Davis, F.D., and Davis, G.B. (2003)
User Acceptance of Information Technology: Toward a Unified View. MIS
Quarterly, 27(3), 425-478.
