Educational Technology, what?

Many people has asked me what am I doing my Master's Degree in, and give me a blank look when I answer: In Educational Technology. They immediately think of web design and blogging, but do not see the difference between learning how to teach technology and learning how to use it.

When I explain a little bit more about what this degree implies, they broaden their eyes and even roll them up as if they were saying: Oh, there is no way all students will have access to technological devices and internet!

In the mind of adults today, who have learned their ways with computers and other devices late in life, there is no room for change. They understand the need for such knowledge and skills but fail to recognize that teaching and learning technology is part of an individual from the time he or she is born.

To meet the needs of the work positions of the future, many that have not yet been invented or created, we need to prepare students to thrive and succeed through the use of technology. Many job descriptions nowadays include computer and technological skills beyond the basics, imagine then the requirements needed to fill the vacant positions of an unknown, unpredictable future!

I equal this challenge to those faced by schools and colleges early in the 20th century, when radio and television were first invented. Who was going to teach the new producers, camera men, switchers and other technicians? Who was qualified to use and maintain the new equipment being developed? What was Television as an industry?

The same holds true now than new technologies are being created, invented and developed. Who is capable of using them, improve them and more so, who can teach the new generations? But it is not these new technologies that are now available to us that create the need for new ways of teaching and learning, it is the fact that many of the technologies have not yet been invented and we cannot possible imagine what they are. It is the need to teach students to teach themselves, and keep the self-motivation to learn through the resources available to them. These resources we know: eReaders, Satellites, hand-held devices, including portable game systems; smart phones, portable electronic notebooks, internet access, social connectivity, etc.

Educational Technology is more than what it sounds like, it is a new way of learning, one that includes all intelligences in one!