History and Future of Technology-Enhanced Learning

Abstract

Over the last century various new technologies were proudly announced while proclaiming fundamental changes in education. Although technologies like film, instructional tv, and the micro computer were considered very promising, they couldn’t live up to the high expectations: their impact remained quite limited. As for today, many new promising technologies are being put in place for learning and teaching, for instance gaming, social web, and mobile technologies. Inevitably, its supporters (that is probably all of us…) in turn tend to proclaim major innovations in education and training, if not revolutions. This presentation will explain the rise and fall of various promising learning technologies and will analyse what went wrong. Problems include the unconcerned optimism of technology developers, the practical boundary conditions that apply for users, principle misconceptions of technology’s role, and inherent conservatism of education. Also, the presentation will diagnose the current state of affairs of the technology-enhanced learning community and reflect on its prospects while taking into account experiences from the past.