Technology of Education: The Concept

The term “technology of education” refers to application of theories and laws/rules in education and related disciplines for the purpose of improving the quality of education. Such related disciplines include: sociology/sociology of education, philosophy/philosophy of education, psychology/psychology of education, communication, technology, etc.

Technology of education is a component of educational technology that is involved in the use of systems approach to promote high quality education. Furthermore, this aspect of technology of education is concerned with the use of systematic and scientific procedures in educational practice. Simply put, technology of education refers to the application of the systems approach to educational enterprise. Its main concerns include issues bothering on identification of educational problem, analysing the problem, setting objectives, suggesting solution strategies, synthesizing the processes, embarking on evaluation and providing feedback.

At this junction, it is to be noted that a combination of the meaning of technology in education and technology of education will provide a fairly acceptable/description of educational technology.

Specialists Interpretation of Educational Technology

Psychological Basis of Technology of Education

As a discipline and in line with the dictate of technology of education, educational technology draws a lot from the field of psychology in general and psychology of learning in particular. The works of such Psychologists such as B.F. Skinner, Pressey and Watson greatly influenced the method and practice of educational technology. Indeed, the influence of the behaviourist psychologists mentioned above has far-reaching effect on educational technology.

The works of B.F. Skinner in the production of the teaching machines led to massive involvement of educational technologists in the production of more sophisticated teaching machines. Again, Skinner’s involvement in Programmed Instruction (Skinner, 1968) led to modern trials in production of Programmed Instructional Packages and Machines.

The behaviourists’ interest in research and experimentations in mastery learning based on the principle of individualization has metamorphosed into modern-day application of modular instructional packages as well as adoption of high technological-based distance education mode of information dissemination to a mass of populace.

The works of the behaviourists led to such theory as reinforcement that has led to propagation of reward by the technology of education experts in their efforts at designing instructional packages.

Whether in live classroom teaching or mediated instructional process, an instructional designer knows that it is imperative to build on an effective “reward” strategy.

Thus, in computer-assisted designed programme, such words like correct, right, good, splendid etc. after remittance of correct response are built into the package because such words when used have the potentiality of encouraging better performance of learners at a later time. Adherence of specialists in educational technology to the use of principle of Immediate Knowledge of Result (IKOR) was not unconnected to the work of the behaviourists or linguists. Because of this, rewards whether symbolic or not are usually provided immediately after a correct response.

Psychological laws such as “readiness” which emphasise that learners learn a task better and easier when they are mature for the task from psychological, physiological, and intellectual points of view has been found applicable in the design of instructional packages by educational technologists.

You must have discovered that the course material you are reading follows a pattern that allows you to move from a simpler concept to a more complex one. You would have also observed that by now you have been given some activities meant to assist you to recall and practice what you have learnt. This is a direct reflection of the work of experts in psychology of learning. It was said by Watson (1977) and reported by Salawu, Taiwo and Aremu (1994) that:

“Learning from reading is facilitated more by time spent recalling what has been read than by reading as students who spent 80 percent of their learning periods trying to remember what they had read surpassed those who spent only 60 percent of the time on recollection. The students who spent all the time reading and re-reading the assign­ment made the poorest record’. (p. 10)

Self Assessment Exercise 1.4:

In your study group, have a brainstorm session on the relevance of at least two psychological theories / laws / principles to technology of education.

Philosophical Basis of Technology of Education

The definition of technology of education that has enjoyed general acceptability is that which defines it as “a systematic way of designing, planning, implementing and evaluating the total process of teaching and learning based on specific objectives using human and non-human elements together with application of communication theories to achieve predetermined objectives.

It can also be defined as a systematic and scientific approach to identification of educational problems using human and non-human elements in the designing, planning, implementing and evaluating the solution strategies aimed at a better performance of the educational system.

By its very nature, educational technology is an eclectic discipline. By being eclectic is meant that the disciplines have elements of some other disciplines in it. You will remember in our definition of educational technology, we made reference to other specialised areas like philosophy, sociology and communications/ information and communication technology. Indeed, other disciplines from where technology of education shares content and methods include library science and archival studies.

However, for this purpose, attention shall be focused on philosophy and philosophy of education.

Like the sub-title has suggested, we shall briefly discuss the relationship between philosophy and educational technology. You would gain a deep knowledge of the philosophy of education in the course of your study.

Philosophy has been variously and variedly defined. Unah (2001) provided a summary of the various definitions as:

•          Philosophy is the   love of wisdom;

•          Philosophy is the   search for reality;

•          Philosophy is the   search for truth;

•          Philosophy is the   search for value or the search for the best form of life;

•          Philosophy is the   rational study of nature;

•     Philosophy is the critical discussion of received ideas, and Philosophy is the concern with human existence.

A critical analysis of all the definitions of philosophy as given showed that philosophy has a lot to offer educational technology. You may want to ask a pertinent question – In what way(s)?

Fine, if you consider educational technology as a discipline that is interested in solving educational problems using systems approach, then some philosophical questions such as:

–          What is the problem to be solved?

–          How is the problem to be solved?

–          What are the things needed to solve the problem?

–          Why do we regard the problem as such?

–          What are we going to gain by solving the problem? etc.

You will begin to understand the relationship between philosophy and educational technology.

Again, because philosophy is a discipline which is based on reflection on human experience, you will understand that human experience cannot be explained by words of mouth only. There is the need to show in concrete terms some of the abstract experiences being described.

The reality of this is felt in the writings of a great renowned philosopher such as John Amos Comenius (1652 – 1670) who wrote the book “Orbit Picture” and the Great Didactics, John Locke who was the chief proponent of functional education, Rousseau (1712 – 1788) postulated that education should be child-centred, John Lancaster was reported for the introduction of the use of bold letters in writing and the use of different colours in chart preparation, John Pestalozzi (1746 – 1827) devised the method of learning from concrete to abstract. This was re-emphasised by Edgar Dale (1964) with the pyramidal model of degree of concreteness in instructional media.

Maria Montessori (1870 – 1952) recommended that learning should not only take cognizance of the child-developmental stages but teaching-learning process should be play-centred. Suffice to summarise that the contributions of each of the above philosophers and of course, several others not mention have a lot of impact on not only the content of educational technology as a discipline but also the nature, structure and research methodology.