E-learning Book

[Crystle Rike]

A1-year subscription to the library includes access to CHEST e-Learning activities, opportunities to earn more than 30 CME credits/MOC points, the option to customize a learning plan specific to your learning style and needs, and access to our newest e-learning products.

Educational technology (commonly abbreviated as edutech, or edtech) is the combined use of computer hardware, software, and educational theory and practice to facilitate learning.[1][2] When referred to with its abbreviation, "EdTech", it often refers to the industry of companies that create educational technology.[3][4][5] In EdTech Inc.: Selling, Automating and Globalizing Higher Education in the Digital Age, Tanner Mirrlees and Shahid Alvi (2019) argue "EdTech is no exception to industry ownership and market rules" and "define the EdTech industries as all the privately owned companies currently involved in the financing, production and distribution of commercial hardware, software, cultural goods, services and platforms for the educational market with the goal of turning a profit. Many of these companies are US-based and rapidly expanding into educational markets across North America, and increasingly growing all over the world."[3]

In addition to the practical educational experience, educational technology is based on theoretical knowledge from various disciplines such as communication, education, psychology, sociology, artificial intelligence, and computer science.[6] It encompasses several domains including learning theory, computer-based training, online learning, and m-learning where mobile technologies are used.

The Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) has defined educational technology as "the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using and managing appropriate technological processes and resources".[7] It denotes instructional technology as "the theory and practice of design, development, utilization, management, and evaluation of processes and resources for learning".[8][9][10] As such, educational technology refers to all valid and reliable applied education sciences, such as equipment, as well as processes and procedures that are derived from scientific research, and in a given context may refer to theoretical, algorithmic or heuristic processes: it does not necessarily imply physical technology. Educational technology is the process of integrating technology into education in a positive manner that promotes a more diverse learning environment and a way for students to learn how to use technology as well as their common assignments.

Educational technology is an inclusive term for both the material tools and processes, and the theoretical foundations for supporting learning and teaching. Educational technology is not restricted to advanced technology but is anything that enhances classroom learning in the utilization of blended, face-to-face, or online learning.[12]

An educational technologist is someone who is trained in the field of educational technology. Educational technologists try to analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate processes and tools to enhance learning.[13] While the term educational technologist is used primarily in the United States, learning technologist is a synonymous term used in the UK[14] as well as Canada.

Modern electronic educational technology is an important part of society today.[15] Educational technology encompasses e-learning, instructional technology, information and communication technology (ICT) in education, edtech, learning technology, multimedia learning, technology-enhanced learning (TEL), computer-based instruction (CBI), computer managed instruction, computer-based training (CBT), computer-assisted instruction or computer-aided instruction (CAI),[16] internet-based training (IBT), flexible learning, web-based training (WBT), online education, digital educational collaboration, distributed learning, computer-mediated communication, cyber-learning, and multi-modal instruction, virtual education, personal learning environments, networked learning, virtual learning environments (VLE) (which are also called learning platforms), m-learning, ubiquitous learning, digital learning[17] and digital education.[18]

Each of these numerous terms has had its advocates, who point up potential distinctive features.[19] However, many terms and concepts in educational technology have been defined nebulously. For example, Singh and Thurman cite over 45 definitions for online learning.[20] Moreover, Moore saw these terminologies as emphasizing particular features such as digitization approaches, components, or delivery methods rather than being fundamentally dissimilar in concept or principle.[19] For example, m-learning emphasizes mobility, which allows for altered timing, location, accessibility, and context of learning; nevertheless, its purpose and conceptual principles are those of educational technology.[19]

In practice, as technology has advanced, the particular "narrowly defined" terminological aspect that was initially emphasized by name has blended into the general field of educational technology.[19] Initially, "virtual learning" as narrowly defined in a semantic sense implied entering an environmental simulation within a virtual world, for example in treating posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).[21][22] In practice, a "virtual education course" refers to any instructional course in which all, or at least a significant portion, is delivered by the Internet. "Virtual" is used in that broader way to describe a course that is not taught in a classroom face-to-face but "virtually" with people not having to go to the physical classroom to learn. Accordingly, virtual education refers to a form of distance learning in which course content is delivered using various methods such as course management applications, multimedia resources, and videoconferencing.[23] Virtual education and simulated learning opportunities, such as games or dissections, offer opportunities for students to connect classroom content to authentic situations.[24]

Educational content, pervasively embedded in objects, is all around the learner, who may not even be conscious of the learning process.[25] The combination of adaptive learning, using an individualized interface and materials, which accommodate to an individual, who thus receives personally differentiated instruction, with ubiquitous access to digital resources and learning opportunities in a range of places and at various times, has been termed smart learning.[26][27][28] Smart learning is a component of the smart city concept.[29][30]

In the mid-1960s, Stanford University psychology professors, Patrick Suppes and Richard C. Atkinson, experimented with using computers to teach arithmetic and spelling via Teletypes to elementary school students in the Palo Alto Unified School District in California.[35][36] Stanford's Education Program for Gifted Youth is descended from those early experiments.

Online education originated from the University of Illinois in 1960. Although the internet would not be created for another decade, students were able to access class information with linked computer terminals. Online learning emerged in 1982 when the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute in La Jolla, California, opened its School of Management and Strategic Studies. The school employed computer conferencing through the New Jersey Institute of Technology's Electronic Information Exchange System (EIES) to deliver a distance education program to business executives.[37] Starting in 1985, Connected Education offered the first totally online master's degree in media studies, through The New School in New York City, also via the EIES computer conferencing system.[38][39][40] Subsequent courses were offered in 1986 by the Electronic University Network for DOS and Commodore 64 computers. In 2002, MIT began providing online classes free of charge. As of 2009[update], approximately 5.5 million students were taking at least one class online. Currently, one out of three college students takes at least one online course while in college. At DeVry University, out of all students that are earning a bachelor's degree, 80% earn two-thirds of their requirements online. Also, in 2014, 2.85 million students out of 5.8 million students that took courses online, took all of their courses online. From this information, it can be concluded that the number of students taking classes online is on a steady increase.[41][42]

The recent article, "Shift Happens: Online Education as a New Paradigm in Learning", Linda Harasim covers an overview of the history of online education as well as a framework for understanding the type of need it addresses. The concept of distance learning has already been invented for many centuries. The value of online education is not found in its ability to establish a method for distance learning, but rather in its power to make this type of learning process more efficient by providing a medium in which the instructor and their students can virtually interact with one another in real-time. The topic of online education started primarily in the late 1900s when institutions and businesses started to make products to assist students' learning. These groups desired a need to further develop educational services across the globe, primarily to developing countries. In 1960, the University of Illinois created a system of linked computer terminals, known as the Intranet, to give students access to recorded lectures and course materials that they could watch or use in their free time. This type of concept, called PLATO (programmed logic for automatic teaching operations), was rapidly introduced throughout the globe. Many institutions adopted this similar technique while the internet was in its developmental phase.

By the mid-1980s, accessing course content became possible at many college libraries. In computer-based training (CBT) or computer-based learning (CBL), the learning interaction was between the student and computer drills or micro-world simulations.

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