Educational technology at the TU Dresden
Chair details in the portal "Small subjects".
Below you will find a definition of the term “educational technology”.
What is 'educational technology'?
Hartmut Simmert
The term "educational technology":
As is (unfortunately) common in the field of scientific discussion of terms in social research, there are also hardly any uniform definitions and understandings of terms in the field of education and upbringing. This is also the case with "educational technology". When this term is used in academic conversation and communication, it is therefore usually left at an "approximate understanding" or one explains one's own understanding of the term.
Here is my approach to the term, which also serves a self-understanding. Let us first look at the literature. I find a suitable discussion of the term in Ludwig Issing ("Entwicklungen und Tendenzen der Bildungstechnologie - Dokumentation einer Tagung des Fachverbandes Medien und Technik im Bildungsbereich". - Edited by J. Hüther and G. Lohoff, Expert Verlag, Ehningen bei Böblingen, 1989 - Series Media, Technology, Education - Volume 5; ISBN 3-8169-0480-7) in the introduction to his lecture "Educational Technology in Theory and Practice" (Chapter 1: Definition and History of Development, p. 2). The term was adopted from the USA (educational or instructional technology) in the era of so-called "programmed teaching" and refers to procedures for planning, developing, evaluating and implementing teaching and learning processes using learning programs.
As we remember, learning programs designed according to the behaviorist approach were the central object of research and development in the era of programmed instruction. These programs were offered on paper in the form of books or brochures, but also on special teaching devices, whereby the learning content was analog, but the control was already digital. With the introduction of small computers and PCs, the concept was transferred to a purely digital form.
My current understanding of the term:
The term is a combination of "education" and "technology". In the German language, the main term comes at the end of a combination of terms, preceded by additional terms that limit or provide orientation. The main term is therefore a "technology", which is oriented or limited to the field of education.
The process-oriented term "technology" makes statements about the application of available techniques and procedures. In the original Greek, it contains "techne" (skill, craft, technique) and "logos" (the study of). I therefore understand educational technology in the narrower sense as "the study of the application of available techniques and procedures in educational processes". If you follow this conceptualization, however, the term "didactics" collides with the term "didactics", which has long since ceased to refer only to the "teaching of teaching", but also has the process character of the design of teaching and learning processes. And the corresponding procedures are essentially what we in didactics refer to as teaching methods (e.g. according to knowledge path structures). And if we consider technology to be the use of devices (the computer would be a device for me), we do not only mean the devices that have been developed directly for teaching and learning situations (e.g. special learning computers), but the entirety of all technical artifacts that can take on a didactic function in these situations through their use.
Due to its lack of clarity and vagueness, I do not use the term "educational technology" myself. The origin of the term technology refers to the study of the extraction, processing, production or distribution of goods and services (with the help of available techniques), which in my opinion cannot simply be transferred to education (as a social process). It can give rise to misconceptions that there are technologies that can be used to obtain education (the "Nuremberg funnel" would therefore be an educational technology). However, the modern understanding of education goes far beyond the acquisition of knowledge or skills. That is why today we speak much more specifically of "information and communication technologies" and specify their fields of application.
And how did the "Chair of Educational Technology" at TU Dresden come by this name?
With the restructuring of the universities, colleges and technical colleges in the accession area, many Chairs were also realigned after 1990. As part of the re-establishment of the faculties, the Vocational Education section, after 1990 the "Department of Vocational Education" at TU Dresden, was also restructured. In the Faculty of Education, which was founded in 1993, there was also to be a Chair of Vocational Education with a focus on computer-aided teaching and learning. A Chair for "Media Didactics" was discussed, but was not planned as there was no comparable Chair at other universities. In contrast, Prof. Helmar Frank's (Paderborn) suggestion to take the opportunity of the reorganization and establish a Chair of Educational Technology in the East was followed. The personnel and technical prerequisites for this were in place. Educational technology at TU Dresden is thus in the tradition of the former "Research Center for Technical Teaching and Learning Resources", which essentially conducted research in the field of device- and program-supported teaching and learning from the late 1960s until 1990. Its last director, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Ihbe, successfully filled the Chair and headed it until his retirement in 2004, when he was succeeded by Prof. Dr. Thomas Köhler. Regardless of the term, this meant that Teacher Training - Vocational Schools students in Dresden have had application-oriented courses in the field of "digitalization" since 1990.
Bachelor's thesis on the topic: "Overview of the historical development of computer-aided teaching and learning systems"
The complete thesis can be read here.