Learning Opportunity

The Reality:

The reality of the current situation is that the general public is not well informed of what educational technology is, let alone what an educational technologist does. Furthermore, the level of expertise associated with better known career paths such as medicine, the law, and engineering lends a certain amount of prestige to those fields. Therefore, most potential students looking to identify or change their career paths often do not even consider a career in the technology field, opting instead for those fields of study that they have been acclimated to and for which the requirements are commonly known. In fact, many of these same potential students can probably easily identify potential employers and salaries for the more commonly pursued careers such as those for doctors, lawyers, and engineers.

The Gap:

However, what the general public and, therefore, potential students are not aware of is that educational technologists are often active participants in the fields of medicine, law, and engineering, among others. Their valuable contributions to those fields of study make it possible for those doctors, lawyers, and engineers to reach their daily goals by providing necessary instruction and development of multimedia instructional designs. Furthermore, educational technology's notable history and level of mastery needed to meet the demands of an educational technologist's profession is just as prestigious.

The Ideal Situation:

A bridge must be created between reality and the ideal situation, one that allows the general public to be just as familiar with the educational technology career path as they are with those mentioned above. Doing so will persuade potential students to gravitate towards an advantageous career in educational technology. The way to accomplish this is to make the general public just as aware or more so of all the requirements, numerous career opportunities, and potential benefits associated with a degree in the field of educational technology as they are with those more common career paths. The public must be given a clear image of how the profession began, how it has developed through the decades, the wide-ranging employment opportunities associated with it, and the potential economic benefits of earning such a degree.

The Instructional Solution and Goals:

The Innovation Solution Squad will create a multimedia learning object that can be easily consumed and will be used as promotional advertisement within and outside of the university, including but not limited to all university public area monitors, electric billboards in and around the university grounds, university marketing emails, Facebook, and Twitter. What follows is a list of goals that will be addressed by the learning object.

• The multimedia presentation solution will inform viewers about the field of Educational Technology and the professional opportunities available.

• The multimedia presentation solution will serve as a tool for the Educational Technology program director to educate perspective students on the Educational Technology program.

• The multimedia presentation solution will inform perspective students of how the field of Educational Technology:

  • provides various opportunities for careers

  • is backed by research and learning theories

  • will give students applicable skills outside of the classroom.

History and Developments of Education Technology*

Although Educational Technology has evolved since School Museums in the 1900s “served as the central administrative units with slides, films, study prints, charts, and other instructional materials” to lantern slide projectors and stereograph viewers which were used in some schools during the second half of the nineteenth century (Anderson, 1962).

Then the invention of the motion picture projector was one of the first media devices used in schools. Another medium that gained much attention during this period was radio. By the early 1930s, many audiovisuals were giving credit to the radio as the medium that would revolutionize education.

During the decade after World War II, focused on the communication process, a process involving a sender and a receiver of a message, and a channel, or medium, through which that message is sent. To the growth of instructional television during the 1950s which quickly died down and did not transfer to education.

In the early 80's after computers had been opened to the public which led to a higher demand for use for instructional levels. In elementary computers were used as a drill and practice of skills and in secondary level computers were used as teaching computer-based skills such as keyboarding. But during the last past fifteen years, rapid advances in computers and other digital technology, including the Internet, have led to a highly increasing interest in, and use of, these media for instructional purposes.

*Reiser, R. A., & Dempsey, J. V. (2018). Trends and issues in instructional design and technology. Pearson Education.