In viewing the most current definition of Educational Technology, as presented by the

Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), namely that

Educational technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving
performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological processes and
resources the significance of the word appropriate cannot be overlooked nor minimized.
In a world rushing to embrace new technologies at breakneck pace, be it the latest Mac creation,
the newest iPad killer, marketing corporate America via Facebook or Twitter, or watching
television on your cellphone, we must always remember that in the field of educational
technology, the goal is not simply to bring technology into the learning environment. Rather, the
goal of EdTech is the marrying of the correct technology with the correct learning goals and
processes; it must be the appropriate technology, not just any technology. For while there are
certainly many ways that a computer could aid in the construction of a bridge for a science class,
when it comes time to drive a nail into a beam, that same computer makes a poor hammer. In
fact, on some occasions, it may occur that the most appropriate technology does not involve a
circuit board, or even electricity, especially when one considers that technology is the
systematic application of scientific or other organized knowledge to practical tasks.
At my own school there are four main camps when it comes to the use and introduction of
technology in the classroom. There is, of course, the old guard, who view anything new as
dangerous and unproven. Then there is the middle group who can see some of the benefits of
introducing tech, but are uncertain how to go about it and are therefore timid in their approach.
Then there is the new guard, myself included, who view the opportunities for tech to improve the
learning capabilities of students as boundless, yet even we are subdivided into two groups; those
that let curriculum drive the use of tech, and those that, in their enthusiasm, allow the available
tech to drive curriculum.
Problems occur when technology is forced into the classroom in ways that are inappropriate.
What happens is generally one of two things, both of which result in the failure of the unit of
achieving its goals. On the one hand, the unit may fail because the technology that was applied
was inappropriate in that it was never intended to provide the desired result. There is also failure
when the technology that was applied was inappropriate because while the tech may have been
capable of providing the desired result, the students were not equipped to use the tech in that
manner. The end result, however, is always the same. The old guard and the middle view the
failure as being the result of the use of tech, rather than the result of the human being making the
decision to use that particular piece of tech, and thus nearly all withdraw further from the
introduction of tech into the classroom, except for the tech driven new guard, who view the
failure as being the result of the students.
What none of these three groups see in the tech use of the curriculum driven new guard is the
rigorous, though perhaps unknowing, adherence to Section 1.5 of the AECTs Code of Ethics.
They do not see the countless hours spent identifying technologies that meet the curricular goals
of the program or unit, including the hundreds of tech solutions that were identified as being
inappropriate to the goals at hand. Nor do they see the careful introduction and meticulous
scaffolding of the technology into the learning process so that the failure of the tech does not
result in a failure of the learning goals, along with the constant, real-time assessment of the

results being generated by the students to assess not only their understanding, but also the
effectiveness and appropriateness of the tech in the work being completed. Neither do they see
the debrief time spent evaluating what changes would have improved the learning experience
including the possibility of changing, or entirely removing, the tech piece from the process.
What many fail to recognize is that as educators, our primary goal is to educate, regardless of
medium. We cannot become so fixated on the delivery or procedural methods that we lose sight
of the goal of educating. There are amazing ways that technology can help us, as educators, teach
our students. Yet there are also times when the latest and greatest technology may actually hinder
the learning process. It is our jobs, as educators, to identify appropriate times and appropriate
places for the integration of technology into learning and to recognize that not everything is
made better by the inclusion of a circuit board. If a teacher asks themselves no other question
about the use of tech in the classroom, they should ask, Is this meeting the needs of my students
and the learning goals I have set out for them? In short, Is this technology appropriate?

SourcesAssociation for Educational Communications and Technology. The definition of educational

technology.
Seels, B. & Richey, R. (1994). Instructional technology: The definition and domains of the field.