Issues and Trends in Instructional Technology: Leveraging Budgets to Provide Increased Access to Digital Content and Learning Opportunities

Abstract

We continue the tradition of reporting the past year's issues and trends that shape attitudes and approaches to instructional technology. This chapter is comprised of four sections: Overall Developments, Corporate Training and Development, Higher Education, and K-12 Settings. The trends and issues described are based on major annual reports sponsored and/or conducted by organizations including the Association for Talent Development (ATD, formerly ASTD), EDUCAUSE, Gartner Incorporated, the New Media Consortium, the Online Learning Consortium (formerly the Sloan Consortium), and Project Tomorrow. These reports require time in terms of data collection, interpretation, and publication and thus refl ect the issues and trends of large groups over long periods of time. For a more immediate review of trending topics in instructional technology, please refer to the authors' biweekly podcast, Trends and Issues in Instructional Design , Educational Technology , and Learning Sciences (Brown & Green, 2014b ). Overall DevelopmentsThe nation's economy has slowly continued to recover. Funding for K-12 and higher education rebounded slightly since the last review. The levels of funding, however, particularly in K-12, have not rebounded to the 2008 level prior to the

Tracking the Money for Open Educational Resources in South African basic Education: What We Don’t Know

“…There has also been a growing focus on digital resources and access platforms, with both the Gauteng and Western Cape Education Departments recently launching digital education initiatives (Louw, 2015;Western Cape Government, 2015). This is in line with trends elsewhere around the globe where basic education continues to incorporate digital components (Brown & Green, 2015) as a strategy to maximise public spending and improve quality (Toledo, Botero, & Guzmán, 2014 Further research into LTSM expenditure and allocation of funds for OER could inform better decisionmaking on where resources should be directed. Information on the allocation of funds from public sources into educational resource acquisition and development is, however, not necessarily readily available beyond government budgets and expenditure reports, and those reviewed do not provide the level of detail required to attempt a cost-benefit analysis regarding the introduction of OER.…”

Experiences, challenges, and solutions of physical educators in online teaching

“…The findings imply that schools and teachers must collaborate on financial and technology concerns. This partnership is essential to effective online teaching and learning, emphasizing the need for institutional support for a sustainable and high-quality online education 23 .…”

Reconsidering Dale’s Cone: Towards the development of a 21st century “Cone of Experience” to address social justice issues

“…Technology trends involving LMSs included increased use of standard LMS features (such as posting materials and grades) across learning settings, including live classrooms as well as blended and online learning experiences (Brown & Green, 2018a). Further, there was discussion of new LMS tools (e.g., Brown & Green, 2018b) and students' desire for more robust LMS use in their classes (Brown & Green, 2015). Technology trends involving mobile devices are comprised of smartphones, such as new iPhone and Android devices and OS updates (Brown & Green, 2018c), and tablets, such as Apple and Samsung devices (Brown & Green, 2019e), and their use to support learning in the classroom and beyond (Brown & Green, 2014).…”