Past and present research has provided evidence to support the claim that technologies for teaching and learning must be pedagogically sound. However, educational technologies are also part of a complex process involving the people in the implementation of the innovation. In this paper, I review existing research and explain what both of those claims entail for educational technology. In the remainder of the paper, I discuss the research agenda related to the need to provide evidence that technology innovations are successful in the implementation process. Implications of this three-part model as well as a discussion of the importance of technological pedagogical content knowledge conclude the paper.
Technology innovations in educationTechnology seems to be under scrutiny for some inherent abilities to help teachers teach, help learners learn and fundamentally change the social and educational context of classrooms (Agostino, 1999;Berrien, 1998;Cuban, 1986;Oppenheimer, 1997). Rather than take sides in this debate, labeled a futile approach by Thomas Reeves (Reeves, 1999), we return to an important question-what do we really know about good technology innovations in education? Gavriel Salomon (Salomon, 1993) pursued this line of argument and came to two important conclusions. First, it is difficult to judge the 'goodness' of a technology outside of the purpose for which it was created. In other words, a screwdriver is a good innovation in some cases and potentially bad at times when a wrench is needed. The second conclusion is that in the light of number one, the value of innovations should be judged pedagogically (ie, tied to pedagogic goals, pedagogic assessments, etc).In recent research and publications, I have discussed the pedagogic backing supported by Salomon (Ferdig, 2004) and have described a social constructivist framework for
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