Ed Tech Reality Checks

 

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:

1. Technology Trigger – breakthrough, product launch, and events create an interest
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.

Educational Technology Past & Future

Educational Technology - A Brief Look into Its Past & Future

Let’s first take a look at the AECT (2008) definition for 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.”

What should be realized about this definition is that it deviates from a commonplace and superficial notion that educational technology refers to the hardware, software, and devices that can be used for learning. Instead, it is a much deeper and thought-provoking reference that is focused on the theory, process, instructional systems, instructional design, and practice that are behind properly using technology to facilitate learning. But alas, all too often it’s the case that educational technology is selected and implemented along the lines of the initial rather than the latter perspective. This common approach frequently comes with much frustration and expense, and results in mediocre outcomes at best. But this is an entirely different conversation that I’ll get to in a future blog post…

Ideally, learning would occur without the recipient experiencing boring or mundane teaching practices that so often plague a classroom or learning environment, whether in a physical space or online. As Plato (The Republic, Book VII) once said:

“No compulsory learning can remain in the soul…In teaching children, train them by a kind of game, and you will be able to see more clearly the natural bent of each.”

This statement by Plato brings into consideration the early recognition of participatory experiences for learning. This approach has been persistent through time, although in practice it is taken on many forms. A modern example of interactive learning that uses educational technology is serious gaming. Wideman, Owston, Brown, Kushniruk, Ho, and Pitts (2007) assert that:

“The personally meaningful and valued social and material worlds in which game learning takes place may be ‘virtual’ from an outsider’s perspective; however, they have a psychological reality for the player that directly mediates the player’s level of immersion, persistence in the face of challenges, and intrinsic desire to learn.” (p. 11)

 

There is no question that the application of technology has played an important role in education for centuries. The study and implementation of educational technology began rapidly evolving during the latter part of the twentieth century when the microcomputer became a common device. In 1979, Barette envisioned that “teachers as well as students would be accessing huge machine readable files from their school library media centers and from home.” In the 35 years since, the use of computers for educational purposes went from being a novelty to now being a necessity that has been embraced by the academic community. 

Tim Berners-Lee at CERN

 

Today’s educational technologies enable participatory learning that benefits from interactive teamwork and social construction of information via online programs and systems.  Combining the benefits of technology with online social interaction, McLoughlin and Lee (2007) state that not only do social software tools support social interaction, but they also support collaborative learning through the sharing of concepts, ideas, and services. These new educational technology capabilities have issued in a new and evolving realm of online education that involves community-based learning and the co-creation and coalescence of knowledge. In 2001, this hypothetical concept was referred to by Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler, and Ora Lassila as the semantic web, whereas today it’s sometimes better known as Web 3.0, which continues to unfold.

Reflection Point: “The Semantic Web is not a separate Web but an extension of the current one, in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation.” ~Tim Berners-Lee

References

Association for Educational Communications and Technology (2008). Definition. In A. Januszewski and M. Molenda (Eds.), Educational Technology: A definition with commentary. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Barrette, P.P. (1979). Microcomputers in education. Compute! 1(1), p. 33. 

McLoughlin, C. and Lee, M. J. W. (2007). Social software and participatory learning: pedagogical choices with technology affordances in the web 2.0 era. Proceedings Ascilite, Singapore 2007, pp. 664-675. 

Wideman, H. H., Owston, R. D., Brown, C., Kushniruk, A., Ho, F., and Pitts, K. C. (2007). Unpacking the potential of educational gaming: a new tool for gaming research. Simulation Gaming 2007, 38(10), 10-30.

Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality - For Education?

The notion of "virtual reality" can be traced back to 1938 when Antonin Artaud, a French playwright, actor and director, used it in a book written about theater. Later, in the 1970s, Myron Krueger coined the term “artificial reality” in reference to the interaction between humans and computers. Historically, this concept of having a virtual experience within a computer-generated 3D simulated environment has been nothing more than an exercise in science fiction for the masses. Even though the virtual reality systems that would enable this would have been in development for decades, their price tags and technological requirements have been enormous. Then came the introduction of wearable virtual reality headsets the past couple of years.

Oculus Rift Wearable Headset

Affordable Virtual Reality Options

The media forerunner in this has been the Oculus Rift, which is a consumer-targeted virtual reality head-mounted display that is expected to be released in final version near the end of 2014. It made headlines recently when it was announced that the parent company, Oculus VR, was purchased by Facebook in March 2014. The current developer kit version of the Rift is available for $350 US. Similar personal computer-connected systems are under development by other companies such as the Sony Morpheus, True Player Gear Totem, Avegant Glyph, GameFace Mark IV, and Durovis Dive, thus we can anticipate a flood of this very highly anticipated technology into the marketplace during the next couple of years. Presently these systems are primarily being designed for either immersive gaming or for movie entertainment, but other uses of the system are certainly possible and are being considered.

Sony Morpheus

 

Durovis Dive

True Player Gear Totem

 

Education Potential

Imagine the advantages that these VR options would have for education. The levels of engagement, interactivity, collaboration, presence and visualization that these devices will offer can certainly be leveraged to the advantage of learning. In a recent Wired article, Brian Shuster discussed the likelihood of using virtual world environments for educational purposes. Even the Oculus Rift creator, Palmer Luckey, envisions educational uses of his creation in an article in Gamespot. In anticipation of the educational uses of VR, East Carolina University in North Carolina had established the Virtual Reality and Education Laboratory in 1992 and the university currently offers a concentration in VR within their Education Master’s degree program.

Reflection Point: Virtual reality is a medium, a means by which humans can share ideas and experiences. ~ Alan B. Craig