Instructional Technology Defined

The early definitions of instructional technology were obviously a work in progress which developed along side the progression of how education itself was defined.  How someone defines and understands the purpose and function of education certainly helps to form a personal understanding and definition of how technology affects and exists within education.

Just as the early definitions of instructional technology developed from the rudimentary, although basic, focus on the media itself and developed to include the processes, goals, actvities and qualities of the field, my personal definition has grown and developed through a similar process.

As a novice educator it was very difficult to see the proverbial forest for the trees; to understand the process as a whole and to therefore understand the synergy that exists when instruction and technology are not viewed or approached separately but as symbiotic components.  I cannot say that I had a formalized personal definition for instructional technology, but I can remember that my approach to technology in the classroom was certainly one-dimensional.  The term that I use for that approach now is "technology for technology's sake".

Interestingly, it was not until I left the classroom that I escaped the "box" and began to view the instructional application of technology from the outside and developed a more significant understanding of instructional technology.  The revelation that instructional technology is more than the "stuff" came as I began to observe educators implementing the technological resources made available to them through my department, only to see the instructional process remain the same as it was without the new resources.  Instructional technology meant to those educators the same thing that it had once meant to me - "the stuff I use to teach".  More disturbing than the narrowly developed definition for instructional technology was the fact that the definition was tied to specific pieces of equipment, forcing the narrow definition to be even more narrowly applied.

As I review the different definitions provided through chapter 1, I see basically the same type of progression in my personal definition of instructional technology as we see progressing in the chapter.  The definition provided by the AECT in 1977, I believe, is more focused on problem resolution than is necessary or maybe even appropriate.  However, by 1994 I think the AECT developed a definition that is very congruent with how I would define instructional technology.  The removal of problem solving as a component of the definition seems to open the application of the field to learning in general rather than limiting it to a means of providing a solution to an existing problem in education or instruction overall.  As we move through the semester and I have more time to digest and think about the 1977 definition, I may find that this "problem solving" concept is more applicable and meaningful than I do currently, however.