For some years, GITE has been conducting seminars in which each of us shares with the other members of the group, something of what concerns us, what we are working on, or what attracts our attention in the last times of our professional life.
Particularly, I have to confess that I always have the impression of not having read everything that I could about educational technology. So, when I saw the compilation made by my host at Oxford University Chris Davies and Rebbeca Eynon’s “Educational Technology” (Editing by Routdledge in 2016), and I had the opportunity to review the content index, I understood that it was a wonderful.
It is not a normal book, it is a book that includes a selection of the most relevant articles that can give you an initial perspective about ET. That is to say, it is not a matter of who invented the wheel, and of which are the fundamental bases to understand the development of that wheel; It does not include the initial article of all topics, but sometimes includes later articles that reflect some of the discussion that provoked that topic.
Obviously, like any selection other experts will find it to be improved, but I think it is quite good.
The book includes four complete volumes, and I decided that I would dedicate my GITE seminars to introduce each one of them, in a form of commented readings seminars.
So, on this occasion and to begin with I have dedicated to Volume One which include the following documents:
Part 1: Perspectives on the Nature of Technology and its Place in Human Lives in the Modern World
- Langdon Winner, ‘Do Artifacts Have Politics?’, Daedalus, 1980, 109, 1, 121–36.
- Castells, ‘Informationalism, Networks and the Network Society: A Theoretical Blueprint’, The Network Society: A Cross-cultural Perspective (Edward Elgar, 2004), pp. 3–48.
- Martin Oliver, ‘Technological Determinism in Educational Technology Research: Some Alternative Ways of Thinking About the Relationship Between Learning and Technology’, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 2011, 27, 15, 373–84.
Part 2: Forming and Configuring the Field of Educational Technology
- Seymour Papert, ‘Computers and Computer Cultures’, Mindstorms: Children (Basic Books, 1980), pp. 19–37.
- Larry Cuban, ‘Computers Meet Classroom: Classroom Wins’, Teachers College Record, 1993, 95, 2, 185–210.
- Richard E. Clark, ‘Media Will Never Influence Learning’, Educational Technology Research and Development, 1994, 42, 2, 21–9.
- Hank Bromley, ‘The Social Chicken and the Technological Egg: Educational Computing an the Technology/Society Divide’, Educational Theory, 1997, 47, 1, 51–65.
- Kenneth R. Koedinger, John R. Anderson, William H. Hadley, and Mary A. Mark, ‘Intelligent Tutoring Goes to School in the Big City’, International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 1997, 8, 30–43.
- Anohina, ‘Analysis of the Terminology Used in the Field of Virtual Learning’, Educational Technology & Society, 2005, 8, 3, 91–102.
- Czerniewicz, ‘Distinguishing the Field of Educational Technology’, Electronic Journal of e-Learning, 2008, 6, 3, 171–8.
- Neil Selwyn, ‘Making the Most of the “Micro”: Revisiting the Social Shaping of Micro-computing in UK Schools’, Oxford Review of Education, 2014, 40, 2, 170–88.
Part 3: Foundational Theories and Perspectives on the Capacity of Technology to Transform Learning
- Skinner, ‘Teaching Machines’, Science, 1958, 128, 3330, 969–77.
- J. Gibson, ‘The Theory of Affordances’, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (Erlbaum, 1979), pp. 127–43.
- Marlene Scardamalia and Carl Bereiter, ‘Computer Support for Knowledge-Building Communities’, Journal of Learning Sciences, 1994, 3, 3, 265–83.
- Roy D. Pea, ‘Seeing What We Build Together: Distributed Multimedia Learning Environments for Transformative Communications’, Journal of the Learning Sciences, 1994, 3, 3, 285–99.
- Mercer, ‘The Quality of Talk in Children’s Joint Activity at the Computer’, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 1994, 10, 24–32.
- Crook, ‘Children as Computer Users: The Case of Collaborative Learning’, Computers and Education, 1998, 30, 3–4, 237–47.
- James Paul Gee, ‘Semiotic Domains: Is Playing Video Games a “Waste of Time”’, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 13–50.
- Siemens, ‘Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age’, International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, 2005, 2, 1, 1–8.
Part 4: Theories of Learning and Teaching Underpinning Educational Technology Practice
- Lev Vygotsky and Alexander Luria, ‘Tool and Symbol in Child Development’, in M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, and E. Souberman, Mind and Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes (Harvard University Press, 1978), pp. 19–30.
- Fred S. Keller, ‘”Goodbye Teacher …”’, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1968, 1, 1, 79–89.
- Lave, ‘Situated Learning in Communities of Practice’, in Lauren B. Resnick, John M. Levine, and Stephanie D. Teasley (eds.), Perspectives on Socially Shared Cognition 2 (1991), pp. 63–82.
- Jonassen, ‘Objectivism Versus Constructivism: Do We Need a New Philosophical Paradigm?’, Educational Technology Research and Development, 1991, 39, 3, 5–14.
- Anna Sfard, ‘On Two Metaphors for Learning and the Dangers of Choosing Just One’, Educational Researcher, 1998, 27, 2, 4–13.
- Pierre Dillenbourg, ‘What Do You Mean by Collaborative Learning?’, in Dillenbourg (ed.), Collaborative-Learning: Cognitive and Computational Approaches (Elsevier, 1999), pp. 1–19.