Educational Technology is defined as “the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing, appropriate technological processes and resources” (AECT, 2004, p. 3).Some members of the educational technology and/or instructional technology fields argue that the two terms can be used interchangeably or are simply terms resulting from geographic preference. However, my analysis of the differences between educational technology and instructional technology are found at the roots of their definitions. Education is defined as the “activities and resources that support learning” (AECT, 2004, p.1). This refers to all activities and resources both planned and unplanned that contribute to a students’ learning regardless of whether the learning is intentional or unintentional. Teaching, which is defined as “learning experiences facilitated by a human being”, falls within the field of educational but does not encompass all educational experiences because learners are interacting with multiple stimuli (Smith & Ragan, 1999, p. 3).On the other hand, instruction refers to “activities structured by someone other than the learner and oriented toward specific ends” (AECT, 2004, p.1). Instruction is a part of education as a whole but instruction, unlike education, is carefully mapped out in every detail. Based on my experience as an educator, I would describe education as a process that allows the flow of the teaching to change as questions and attitudes change and knowledge is changed thus creating a more informal environment at times while some educational activities occur in a more formal environment. While educational activities may begin with one focus in mind, the activities may lead students to new areas of knowledge that were not part of the original plan.
In contrast, instructional activities are intentional and directly tied to a specific end result. Training, defined as “instructional experiences that are focused upon individuals acquiring very specific skills, falls completely under instruction due to its very narrow scope (Smith & Ragan, 1994, p. 3). The broad nature of the definition of education, as shown in Figure 2, encompasses the definition of instruction by its very nature because education includes the instruction of learners during the educational process.
As a former teacher, I firmly believe that education is clearly defined differently from instruction because, while I was concerned with providing specific knowledge and skills through instruction, my overall goal was to create well-rounded members of society through both instructional and non-instructional interactions.
Therefore, I believe that educational technology, although a separate field of theory and practice would overlap the field of instructional technology because the use of technology processes and resources includes the design, development, utilization, management, and evaluation of the resources.
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