Educational Technology Functions (PDF)

**3.3.5. The Functions of Educational Technology** Adewoyin (1991) identified the following as the functions of educational technology: 1. It makes education more productive and result oriented. This is because it helps to speed up the rate of learning, thereby enabling the learners to le...

**3.3.5. The Functions of Educational Technology** Adewoyin (1991) identified the following as the functions of educational technology: 1. It makes education more productive and result oriented. This is because it helps to speed up the rate of learning, thereby enabling the learners to learn more in less time. Besides, it takes over teacher's routine job of information transmission that reduces the burden of administration task such as marking. recording, etc., making the teacher to have more time for creative work with students for research and for gainful activities 2. It gives instruction more scientific base, by providing a framework necessary for designing conditions of learning that are more closely based on what is known about how human beings learn. Research has shown that the importance of reinforcement and reward as an integral part of learning process is great. It helps in the application of research results in solving educational problems. 3. It makes instruction more powerful as new forms of communication systems give people added capability and creditability. 4. It makes learning more concrete. 5. It helps to individualize instruction as when instructional materials are properly applied, different learning needs are met. This enable each learner to his own interest at his/her own pace and time. 6. It makes access to education to be more equal because the less privileged and handicapped learners can also attain the same level with the privileged ones. 7. It opens up diversified ways through which individuals' learning needs are met. 8. It provides the teachers the means of arousing and sustaining the interest of learners as well as changing student's attitude and behavior. 9. It provides experiences not easily obtained through other materials as contribution to the efficiency, depth and variety of learning can be attained easily and sufficiently. 10. The use of instructional materials among others promote creativity making the teacher competent, reducing educational problems, encourage practicality (psychomotor), remove boredom, make for active participation in the classroom activities, improves instruction qualitatively, help students learn more about learning. Thus Educational Technology (also called learning technology) is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using and managing appropriate technological processes and resources. The term educational technology is often associated with, and encompasses, instructional theory and learning theory. While instructional technology covers the processes and systems of learning and instruction, educational technology includes other systems used in the process of developing human capability. Educational Technology includes, but is not limited to, software, hardware, as well as Internet applications and activities in education. Students can locate information from millions of sources using a computer, online encyclopedias, databases, and the Internet. Computer- based tool software, such as word processing, spreadsheets and databases, help students organize and report information. Students create professional-looking products as they report information they have gathered using word processing and presentation of software. Students use computers as electronic tutors to improve skills such as reading and mathematics. Teachers use computers and other instructional technologies to present information they want students to know. They also use computers to assess students' learning, identify and report students' learning needs. **3.4. Distinction between Educational Technology and Instructional Technology** Educational Technology and Instructional Technology can mistakenly be used interchangeably. Although both are interrelated, educational technology is a wider concept and subsumes instructional technology; in other words, instructional technology is a sub-set of educational technology. Whereas educational may include everything from administration, finance, curriculum to sanitation, the term instructional is restricted to teaching-learning process. The Association of Educational Communication and Technology (AECT) defines instructional technology as: *a complex, integrated process involving people, procedures, ideas, devices and organization for analyzing problems, and devising, implementing, evaluating and managing solutions to those problems, institution in which learning is purposive and controlled, in fact it deals with technological issues related to support of the teaching-learning process (AECT, 1979).* When this definition is compared with the one earlier given by AECT for Educational Technology, what then is the.distinction between the educational technology and instruction technology? Educational Technology is concerned with "those problems, institutions and environments in which learning, teaching, educational management, monitoring, control and organization of education are done generally while on the other hand instructional technology is concerned with all that it takes to support and improve teaching---learning process only. **3.4.1. System Approach to Instructional Technology** Instruction refers to the deliberate arrangement of events or experience (s) to help a learner achieve a desirable change in behavioral performance. It is a set of events that are deliberately arranged in such a way that learning is facilitated. Instruction is not mere teaching because it is more systematic, specific and objective. The purpose of instruction is to help people learn. To be effective, instruction must be properly planned and designed in a systematic way. The system approach to instruction therefore implies careful planning, design, implementation and evaluation of the events that will help a learner achieve the desired learning outcomes (s). While a variety of instructional design models exists, there are three fundamental steps: 1. Identifying the Outcomes of instruction, 2. Developing the instruction, and 3. Evaluating the effectiveness of the instruction. According to Onyeyimeze (1990), the systems approach to instruction entails carrying out the following: a. Identify the educational problem to be solved or the educational activity to be undertaken; b. Stating the objectives to be achieved in solving the problem or undertaking the educational activity; c. Indicating the conditions necessary for the achievement of the objectives: d. Mapping out appropriate method and material resources to be used in order to achieve the objective; e. Designing the way of knowing how the objectives are achieved, and/or to determine whether the objectives have been achieved or not. f. Where the objectives are not achieved or the educational activities not successfully carried out as we examined in a-e above, locate the problem, make necessary changes and tackle the problem again until the objectives are achieved or the educational activity is successfully completed. The systems approach to instruction is an attempt to conceive the instructional process as an event comprising of several elements (teacher, learner, content, media. method. evaluation and feedback) which work cooperatively together to promote learning efficiency and effectiveness. The system approach's view, entails that, all parts of the instructional system must he considered and handled simultaneously rather than in bits and/or in pieces (i.e. independently). It is a holistic and dynamic procedure which involves planning, development, implementation, evaluation and that, based on feedbacks, modification and redesigning are done by harmonizing the basic resources of education. The resources involved in system approach are; 1. Human. This includes the learner, teacher, managers of education, etc 2. Non-human. This includes the facilities/materials, and the technology. In this section, it can be observed that: - There is general misconception about educational technology, as it is wrongly seen as gadgets, devices, tools and equipment used for teaching and learning only. - There are three approaches to the concept of educational technology. - Education technology as hardware approach - Education technology as software approach - Education technology as systems thinking approach. Education technology is different from instructional technology. The systems approach to instruction entails careful planning, designing, implementation and evaluation of the events that will help the learner achieve the desired learning outcome(s)