INTRODUCTION

This book characterizes the emerging field of research and development that is known as learning technology. My intent in writing this book was not to offer a systematic presentation of the field of learning technology, for instance by describing and assessing current applications, or by formally defining its primary attributes. This is not a textbook about learning technology, but rather a personal account of my view of this technology and of its implications for the learning enterprise. The subtitle given as 'adventures' provides the flavor of the endeavor.

THE FIELD OF LEARNING TECHNOLOGY

This account, then, offers a personal outlook on this new field. It travels through a number of ideas that impinge on learning technology or that derive from it. In doing so, it presents learning technology from different perspectives. I start out by examining the context of learning technology, as that context is taking shape and into which it will likely continue to develop in the future. Learning technology is just barely surfacing from its antecedents in instructional technology. It is the reasons for this emergence that are of interest here, both in terms of certain inadequacies in our current technologies, and in terms of the actual potential of technology for having an impact on learning. As practical constraints fall by the wayside of progress in handling electronic information, that potential will continue to mature and expand.

Information is one major ingredient in the learning technology picture, but there is more: intelligence in our computer programs promise to radically transform the information exchanges we will have in the future, just as our power exchanges of a prior era have been radically transformed by this century's mechanical technology. The source of that artificial intelligence is knowledge, and I explore in this book what is involved in building systems that are knowledge-based. I also describe a number of specific forms of learning system that are of growing interest for learning technology.

I then take a look at design, the field that proposes to structure the process of building learning technologies. Our current design philosophy in educational technology is still very much an instructional one, and indeed, it is called instructional systems design. Learning technology will require a different approach to the development of learning materials, one that emphasizes the learning attractiveness of the materials, rather than their effectiveness. What that will entail is an orientation to the design of learning materials that is quite different from the one we use today: focus will shift away from the attainment of results and re-orient itself to the interesting-ness of the learning materials.

Now, of central importance to learning technology is the very process of learning itself. We are involved here with a psychological analysis of the phenomenon of learning. My analysis of learning comes after the rest mainly because it is a foundational concern that underlies the technology, and should therefore be viewed in light of the full context of that technology. It is also the foundation on which future views of learning technology can be built.

The centrality of learning as a principal concern in this field is readily apparent since we are dealing with technologies designed for learning. Perhaps less evident, though, is the disarray in which learning theory still finds itself within the traditional fields that study it, namely psychology and education. Because of this situation, my view of learning as a psychological phenomenon has become a highly personal one. I believe it an appropriate view that reflects not only the architecture of cognition, but also the basis of learning in the interaction between person and surrounding information world. It is on this interaction that learning technology must build in order to be effective.

The central theme running through this view of learning technology is the notion that the way we learn will be profoundly affected for the better by the continuing emergence of ever novel and powerful information technologies. The account is prospective in that sense: it looks forward to what will be, or what might be, rather than to what happens to exist in the current context of our interaction with information.

We do design instructional environments today that purport to be successful learning environments, and some are indeed very attractive as candidates for prototypes in this area. We do what we can with what we have, but it must be recognized that our technologies are often severely limited in terms of what we imagine learning technologies to become. The orientation taken here is to look imaginatively at that becoming, and not to restrict the analysis to what are perceived to be purely historical limitations that will soon be left totally aside as the information technologies surge forward.

AN ADVENTUROUS THEORETICAL APPROACH

I am involved in this account in a good deal of speculative thinking of a largely unconstrained nature, and this may initially seem rather undisciplined to many. Throughout the book, I shun relating experiments or views from the fields of educational or cognitive psychology that support the ideas advanced. I am more interested in discovering what to look for in the phenomenon of learning and its information context, than to confirm that a given view is correct in our current scheme of things. Let me explain my motivation for proceeding in this way. It appears to me that real progress in educational innovation comes not so much from the rigorous research that is undertaken in the field, but rather from the ideas that emerge and the reshaping of views that occur as the field's practitioners confront possibilities and seek to extend the current state of the art in the field. Rigorous research solidifies a frame of reference, in the form of a theoretical structure, which enables one to understand and judge new ideas, but rarely does it directly provide the novel ideas themselves.

A theoretical analysis, even if not grounded in empirical data other than our shared experience of the world, provides a perspective, a way of looking at a phenomenon, that can be useful in a number of ways. One way lies in pulling together loose strands of experience that should go together, thus helping one come to a certain understanding that is perceived as more focused and more coherent. Another lies in providing a structured basis from which to launch efforts into the world of practical matters, in this case into the building of learning environments. And a theory is especially important as an edifice that can be closely examined, critiqued, and eventually demolished, that is, replaced with yet another theory. That is the way of progress in our collective grasp of the world.

Every researcher, including myself, is historically indebted to many theoretical perspectives that have had currency in the field, however open and multi-valued these perspectives may have been. And it is customary in scientific writing to expose one's context by stating even indirectly the grounding of one's perspective. This is often done by relating and contrasting one's own ideas with those of others regarding the matter under consideration, thus networking one's views via the web of referencing to the current or once popular views of the issues. I feel however that this process is often overdone and I have opted in this book to emphasize the ideas themselves rather than their connections to current theory and views. No references at all are therefore to be found in this work.

The book is very open in that sense. Relationships to other relevant perspectives and to any empirical grounding that may be thought pertinent are left to the reader to make for him- or herself. Indeed, any book should be no more than a starting point for one's own intellectual adventures, no more than a potential opening of vistas into new territory for personal exploration. Books should not explain things as much as they should puzzle the reader into further reflection, into adventures in playing with ideas.

As the title of the book implies, this exploration into learning technology deals with a non-empirical view of this emerging field. It presents a theoretical viewpoint that can help structure one's thinking about learning technology and about its implications. The theory is not a tight one -it is much too early for that- nor is it one that necessarily covers all facets of this fascinating field of inquiry. I consider the thinking presented here as a set of adventures in exploring the field, in two senses of the term: first, the ideas put forth oftentimes offer a critical perspective on the prevailing view in the field of educational design; second, they explore novel implications in territories that remain yet relatively unexplored.

My exploration of the facets of learning technology is rather loose in style, and sometimes its various strands may even be somewhat tangled. Some of the issues come up repeatedly under different guises or in different contexts. This style of discussion is due in part to the unsettled nature of the field itself, and in part to my own searching for the implications of certain viewpoints, and for their expression in an acceptable manner. Learning technology is not yet an organized body of knowledge. The writing is therefore neither as organized itself as it otherwise would be, nor is it as graceful perhaps as it could be if I were not at times carried away with my excitement for the subject.

A PERSPECTIVE ON THE FIELD

The views I present may well seem radical at times, perhaps overly so in terms of current thinking in the field. I make no apologies on that account, however. We are dealing here with an emerging discipline, one which will take shape not only through its own practitioners' efforts, but just as importantly, through the evolution of the computer-based technologies that underlie it. A great deal of uncertainty must therefore lie over any view of things to come. Interestingly, we are dealing, on the one hand, with a new and still uncertain technology that holds great promise, and on the other, with an old if yet unsettled concern with a crucial aspect of human activity, that of learning.

The issues that become entwined in this analysis of learning technology are many. Although the analysis proceeds along the lines of context, structures, design, and learning, as is apparent from examining the table of contents, the principal issues that I deal with are the following:

What is the nature of our relationship with information, and what can that relationship become? This is a societal issue of great importance, for it structures everything else, and especially how we will go about learning.

What is the basis for intelligence in the learning tools that will populate our context for learning? I am speaking here of artificial intelligence, a topic that still stirs debate among philosophers and laymen.

What is the crux of instructional design, and why will it prove inadequate to the task of designing learning materials in the future? The issue concerns certain limitations of instructional design as currently conceived, limitations that can be set aside as we build a technology for learning environment design.

What fundamentally is the process of learning, and how can that guide us in analyzing learning environments? Learning is the whole reason for learning environments, so it is essential to understand it as best we can.

Now, these issues are all important in their own right. But what is fascinating about the emerging technology is how these issues coalesce into a total picture that provides a global definition for learning technology. Learning environments will be intelligent environments that broker one's interaction with the information within them. They will have to be designed in such a way that they are effective for learning, both in the local sense of structuring the information for meaningful mental construction by the learner, and in the larger sense of being interesting tools for epistemic exploration.

Out of all of this arises a crucial issue of tremendous interest: how will the information environment that is now evolving affect the very processes of learning? Now, it is certain that our evolving environment is not apt to change the architecture of cognition that has itself evolved over millennia. Human nature will remain human nature. How we use that architecture for learning is another issue, however. The thesis in this book is that the enriched environments of the future will radically transform how we go about the business of learning. Environment, in that sense, will affect the very quality of learning.

THE FIELD IN PERSPECTIVE

What is found in this book is one perspective on the emerging field of learning technology. I will have achieved my aim in writing this book if its proposed views are felt to be realistic, if they lead to reflection on the relationship between learning and technology, and especially, if they lead to new thoughts in this area, irrespective of whether they are critical or supportive of the general theme advanced here.

Research and theoretical proposition-making are only as good as the impact they might have on our situation in the world, both in its current mold, and in the shape we might fashion it into in the near future. For it remains up to us to construct a learning technology that fits in well with this changing world, and with our vision of the possibilities that it offers.

Building a technology for learning is a fascinating venture for three reasons. First, the information technologies themselves offer novel and exciting avenues to new possibilities for human interaction. Second, the very nature of learning is being defined in applied terms, a scientific endeavor that is as potent as any. And third, the prospect of enhancing human potential in a most important facet of the human experience offers a cause that is worthy of our best efforts. Learning technology is just beginning to take shape as a form of research and development that is distinct from instructional technology and from intelligent tutoring. Its potential is tremendous, and it will certainly come into its own in the coming century.