By Tony Bates. Particularly in recent years, technology has changed from being a peripheral factor to becoming more central in all forms of teaching. Nevertheless, arguments about the role of technology in education go back at least 2,500 years.  To understand better the role and influence of technology on teaching, we need a little history, because as always there are lessons to be learned from history. Paul Saettler’s ‘The Evolution of American Educational Technology’ (1990) is one of the most extensive historical accounts, but only goes up to 1989. A lot has happened since then. I’m giving you here the postage stamp version, and a personal one at that.
Technology has always been closely linked with teaching. According to the Bible, Moses used chiseled stone to convey the ten commandments, probably around the 7th century BC. But it may be more helpful to summarise educational technology developments in terms of the main modes of communication. See more...

By Tony Bates. This next post in my chapter on ‘Understanding Technology in Education’ for my book, Teaching in a Digital Age‘ is a long one, but it’s a topic I don’t want to chop up too much. This is probably going to be fairly controversial as I have a very idiosyncratic approach to the topic of media and technology in education. See more...

By Audrey Watters. Last year, I opened my look at the trend I then called “standards” by looking at the number of edits to the Wikipedia entry for the Common Core State Standards. This is what I wrote:

The “edit history” and “talk” pages of Wikipedia entries can be pretty interesting, particularly when it comes to controversial topics. The entry for the “Common Core State Standards Initiative” is a great example of this. The Common Core isn’t new (the standards were released in 2010); nor is the entry (it was created in 2010 as well). But this year, there’s been a vast uptick in the number of changes to that entry, and discussion about its content and tone. 26 edits in 2010. 65 in 2011. 40 in 2012. 127 up through November of this year.

So far in 2014, there have been 382 edits. More...

By Audrey Watters. MIT announced this week that it was removing the online courses of Walter Lewin, an emeritus professor of physics, after discovering that he had engaged in the online sexual harassment of a female student. Lewin has been an incredibly popular professor, and the YouTube videos of demonstrations from his physics courses at MIT have had millions of views. Prior to the rise of Salman Khan and Khan Academy, Lewin was the YouTube education star. All those videos are now gone as MIT has tried to scrub Lewin’s presence from the Web. According to the university, “MIT’s action comes in response to a complaint it received in October from a woman, who is an online MITx learner, claiming online sexual harassment by Lewin. She provided information about Lewin’s interactions with her, which began when she was a learner in one of his MITx courses, as well as information about interactions between Lewin and other women online learners.” More via Inside Higher Ed and The Chronicle of Higher Education. More...

By Audrey Watters. I’m halfway through my year-end review of (what I think are) the important trends in education technology in 2014. The word count for the series so far hovers around 25,000, and I have a lot more to say. More...

By Audrey Watters. I’m not a big fan of using the Hype Cycle to explain the adoption of technologies. The Hype Cycle is a great piece of marketing for the research firm Gartner, but I’m not sure of its utility beyond that. Yes, sometimes it does seem like certain trends reach a “Peak of Inflated Expectations” then sink into the “Trough of Disillusionment.” But not all trends work that way, and the Hype Cycle does nothing to explain why or why not technologies become interesting or important or mainstream. There’s not a clear timeline for adoption or rejection or “best practices” to emerge. As the annual Horizon Report illustrates, for example, some technologies – hyped or not – stay on the cusp of adoption for years. Predicted to become “a thing,” some instead simply fade away. More...

By Audrey Watters. MOOOOOOOOOOOOOCs!
First there were MOOCs. Then there were MOOCs!!!111 Then we witnessed the MOOC backlash. Then the MOOC backlash backlash. And maybe even the MOOC backlash backlash backlash. At this point, it’s hard to keep track.
As I look back on 2014 (and on 2013 and 2012 as well), I’m not sure that MOOCs are really the trend we should be paying attention to here. More...