Looking beyond learning: notes towards the

critical study of educational technology

Introduction

The twenty-fifth anniversary ofJCAL should be cause both for celebration and
contemplation amongst the educational technology community. Everyone involved with
the journal can look back at the last quarter of a century with a well-deserved sense of
accomplishment and pride. Yet the occasion also provides an opportunity to reflect on
how the academic study of educational technology has developed over the last three
decades and, perhaps most importantly, to think creatively about how the field may
progress into the next decade. In this latter sense at least, a set of issues relating to
process and purpose certainly merit further consideration as digital technology becomes a
standard feature of contemporary education provision and practice.

As many readers may have noticed, self-reflection and self-analysis are not common
features of the educational technology literature. Indeed, it could be argued that the rapid
development of digital technology has ensured that educational technologists scarcely
have time to keep abreast of their topic of study, yet alone cogitate on the more complex
issues of definition and motivation that underpin their endeavours (although see
Januszewski and Molenda 2007 as a notable exception). In fact, many people working in
the field would probably refute the existence of a discrete ‘academic tribe’ of educational
technologists altogether – contending that ‘education technology’ serves merely as a flag
of convenience for a loose assortment of technologically-minded psychologists,
pedagogy experts, maths and science educators, computer scientists, systems developers
and the like.

With these issues in mind, there is a clear need for those of us currently working in the
area of education and technology to take stock of who we are, what it is we do, and how
and why we do it. With a view to stimulating further discussion and debate the present
paper now goes on to raise a number of straightforward but possibly contentious points
regarding the future development of the field. In particular, it is argued that the academic
study of educational technology has grown to be dominated by an (often abstracted)
interest in the processes of how people can learn with digital technology. While issues
relating to the design, development and implementation of ‘effective’ learning
technologies will continue to be of central importance to the field, it is reasoned that
greater attention now needs to be paid to how digital technologies areactually being used
– for better and worse – in ‘real-world’ educational settings. In this sense, it is contended
that the academic study of educational technology needs to be pursued more vigorously
along social scientific lines, with researchers and writers showing a keener interest in the
social, political, economic, cultural and historical contexts within which educational
technology use (and non-use) is located.

3