Fed 314
Fed 314
Fed 314
Educational Technology like other technologies is a practical discipline. It has become a catalyst and
an engine of social, economic, and political growth and development worldwide. It is dynamic and
keeps on expanding and dominating the lives of men and women in education. Educational
technologies are not single technologies, but complex combinations of audio, visual, and audio visual
media.
Educational Technology is the use of technology devices that are directed to improve education. In
this course material, educational technology is describes as the technology we use for teaching and
learning.
Now, let us take some definitions of educational technology.
Educational technology, according to Hooper and Rieber (1995), is the applications of ideas
from various sources to create the best learning environments possible for students.
Luppicini (2005) describes educational technology as an umbrella term used to describe the
field of study “concerned with the design, development, utilization, management, and
evaluation of processes and resources for learning.”
The Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) reviewed the
definitions of educational technology and defined it as a “complex, integrated process
involving people, procedures, ideas, devices, and organization for analyzing problems and
devising, implementing, evaluating, and managing solutions to those problems involved in all
aspects of human learning”
Looking at various definitions, we can easily summarize that Educational Technology is the use
of technology to improve education. Educational technology further includes aspects such as:
instructional technology, instructional design, and instructional development.
Basically, Technology in Education embraces the use of audio-visual media, information and
communication technology (both hardware and software). This implies that this dimension of
educational technology involves the use of:
1. hardware machine or equipment such as : (audio- cassette player, video cassette
player, overhead/slide/film strip projector and other projectors) and;
2. software or materials such as : (audio-cassette, video- cassette, transparencies, slides,
filmstrips) in education and training.
Technology of Education
This is an aspect of educational technology that is concerned with the application of theories
and laws/rules in education and related disciplines. Technology of education is directed at
quality of instruction using systematic and scientific procedures in educational
practices. Technology of education is also seen as a component of educational technology
that is involved in the use of systems approach to promote high quality education. This
implies the methodology aspect of how, when and what to use various tools, equipment and
devices for in teaching and learning.
Furthermore, if finds its relevance in the use of systematic and scientific procedures in
educational practice. The technology of education also 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. 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.
1nformation and Communication Technology (ICT)
Information and communications technology (ICT) refers to all the technology used to handle
telecommunications, broadcast media, intelligent building management systems, audiovisual
processing and transmission systems, and network-based control and monitoring functions.
Although ICT is often considered an extended synonym for information technology (IT), its
scope is more broad. ICT has more recently been used to describe the convergence of several
technologies and the use of common transmission lines carrying very diverse data and
communication types and formats.
Having learnt that ICT has penetrated every walk of our lives, it is important to understand
why ICT has such a penetration. Some features of ICT that have facilitated this widespread
use include:
Speed: The innovations in internet and broadband have made the communication
instantaneous. Modern mobile applications have allowed people to communicate with
each other in real time. There is no time lag between two places which are thousands
of kilometers apart.
Precision: The information that is communicated through ICT is very precise. Since
there is no time lag in the communication, there is less chances of
miscommunications.
Versatile: ICT can help in doing multiple tasks. Data can be gathered, verified,
processed, and managed. Information can be communicated. ICT provides a multi-
media platform for such communication.
Cost: ICT tools seem very expensive. But when we account for their reach, they come
out to be very cheap. For example, the cost involved in printing text books is very
high economically as well as environmentally. On the other hand preparing and using
digital form of the book need high one time investment in creating. But once created,
it can be used by any number of users without incurring additional cost.
Though, ICT provides us with so many options of utilizing it, there are also growing concerns
associated with it. Some concerns are listed here.
Digital divide: Digital divide refers to a large difference between two or more groups
in a population in the distribution and effective use of ICT resources. For example, the
internet penetration in urban and rural India is quite different. From one perspective,
ICTs are considered to bridge the gap between subgroups of a population. But off late,
it has been said that ICT is contributing towards widening the gaps.
Hacking: The access to our various accounts is through user ids, and these services
are provided through internet. Through internet people steal and gather security
passwords of others, get access to others’ accounts. This is termed as hacking.
Hackers also get into users’ banking accounts and inflict financial losses. Not sharing
password with others and frequent change of password has become a necessity for
safe internet usage.
Unauthorized content use: Internet and digital form of the data has allowed easy
duplication of the content without attributing/acknowledging the source of the
content. High speed internet and high capacity storage devices have made it easy.
Appropriate attribution needs to be done as an ethical ICT use.
Trolls and abuses: Internet is also a platform to express personal enmity in the form
of trolling and abusing people online. Since it is easy to conceal identity in internet,
people resort to this practice more frequently.
Pornography: A lot of adult content is accessible through the Internet. This is in
digital form in various media that can be easily stored in storage devices. Child
pornography is a criminal activity mainly happening through the internet medium.
There is a pressure on government from religious and parent groups to ban all
pornographic material available in the internet. Alternatively, there are also many who
claim that banning such materials is against the spirit of internet freedom and
democracy.
Viruses: Viruses are relatively simple program written by people and designed to
cause nuisance or damage to computers or their files. They are also responsible for
corrupting data and data loss.
Privacy concerns: Internet is also a hub of lot of personal data. It is possible to track
individual activities in the internet. Such data on user behavior can be misused for the
marketing purposes. Many civil rights activists fear the danger of authoritarian
governments to monitor and manipulate freedom of movement, speech, political
activism and social and personal behaviors. Similarly consumer-rights advocates fear
that close monitoring of data of an individual's buying habits will allow businesses to
share market information on spending preferences and capacities.
Health: Internet and social networking addiction is a popular and identified side
effect of emergence of ICT. Excessive internet usage is also associated with low
attention problems.
. CONCEPT OF COMMUNICATION
Communication is any means by which a thought is transferred from one person to
another (Chappell, R. and Read, W.L. 5th ed., 1984).
Communication is the process by which one person (or a group) shares and imparts
information to another person (or group) so that people (or group) clearly understood
one another (Udall, R. and Udall, S., 1979).
Intrapersonal Communication
Interpersonal Communication
Small Group Communication
Public Communication
Mass Communication
1. Intrapersonal Communication:
This type of communication involves only one person. Communication process is non-
interactive as it involves an individual talking to himself in a manner that may be internalized
or externalized. When an individual externalizes his thought, his idea or feelings allowed by
talking, it is considered as abnormal.
2. Interpersonal Communication:
This is a form of communication in which two people are involved. It is often referred to as
“face-to-face communication”. It is not when such medium like the telephone is used, but two
people are still involved. Interpersonal communication encourages exchange of
idea/information in the form of dialogue and or a discussion. Since only two people are
involved in interpersonal communication, it is usually regarded as an effective form of
communication in that immediate response from both the sender and the receiver is
facilitated.
Public Communication:
This is a form of communication in which the speaker addresses a larger audience compare
with the small group communication. Typical of public communication are Organised
political or religion rally.
Mass Communication:
This refers to a situation whereby so many people are target audience of the speaker. As a
result of the population of the audience, the speaker may resort to using such mass media like
the radio and the television to reach out to the audiences in different locations
simultaneously. Other mass media include: the newspapers, magazines, sound film and the
internet.
Feedback
The communicator, the message and the receiver are the three essential elements necessary
for any form of communication to occur relating this to the classroom situation, the teacher is
the communicator (sender of message), knowledge being impacted by the teacher is the
message and the receivers are the students.
When the teacher (who is the sender) charges or encodes, his thoughts according to his
knowledge and skill (experience) into verbal, visual or stimulus symbols (messages), this
message will reach the students (who are the receivers).
Before the students receive the message, it has to go through a channel and the channel could
be the teacher himself or any of the instructional materials i.e. using during the teaching and
learning processes, such as the chalkboard, maps, charts, graphs, transparencies, films
pictures and models etc.
When this message reached the students, they will make a sense out of the message by
interpreting or decoding the message according to their experiences. Ideally, at this point the
mental image of the teacher and the students ought to match. However, the communication
may go wrong somewhere between the teacher and the students, which will cause what is
normally referred to as communication gap.
The students then will react or respond to the message in their individual unique ways. The
total response the teacher gets from his students is what is called feedback. In the feedback
process however, the students do more than decode the message, they must also encode their
thoughts for relay back to the teacher. This could be in verbal symbols by asking questions,
seeking for more explanations or it could be in visual symbols by nodding their heads or
frowning their faces etc. The teacher will in turn decode the feedback. In effect the receivers
(students) become senders and the sender (teacher) becomes receiver.
COMMUNICATION BARRIER
A communication barrier is defined as; "anything which will inhibit of block an accurate
communication". When communications are taking place in the classroom between a teacher
and his students, something may go wrong in or between any components in the
communication processes which will act as a barrier to any one of the communications.
Problem of noise
Psychological problem
Inadequate channel chosen for the communication
What is a System?
In a simple term, a system is defined, "as a collection of elements, parts or components
which work together co-operatively with the purpose of achieving some pre-determined
goals".
There are also, simple and complex systems, and we can have system within systems.
For example, society can be regarded as a multi-system which embraces the economic,
political and educational system.
Instructional System
This is made up of three major components. They are: the instructor, the students, and
the media. These three components involve using appropriate methods in their interactions to
convey the content of instruction in order to realize the desired product, such as, a new
knowledge, skills, attitudes and changed behaviour.
So to achieve the expected result or product, the instructor prepares and teach the lessons,
consider the students in terms of (abilities, interest, motivation,), as well as materials and
equipment (media) available to them.
The point we are trying to make is that for effective teaching and learning to take place, these
components must work cooperatively to achieve the desired output.