The Definition of Instructional Technology
"Instructional Technology is the theory and practice of design, development, utilization, management, and evaluation of processes and resources for learning." (Seels & Richey, 1994, p.1)
As I define the term of instructional technology, the practitioners have existed since humans first tried to transfer knowledge and skills to others for the improved attainment of predetermined goals. Basically, since people have taught each other.
Reiser (2001) also makes it clear that instructional technology is a process and not a medium or product. The concept of Instructional technology as a process refers to instruction as a system and the technology as a methodology rather than a machine. To design a system of instruction one needs to identify the components of this system and the interrelationships among them. Thus, the term Instructional systems design is often used synonymously with the term instructional technology. In this case the term 'technology' is used to refer to the practice and application of science (Saettler 1968).
Because instructional technology is a fundamental human process, naturally it changes as human circumstances change, but at it's core, it remains the same. I imagined, in an essay for MIT 502, that the first instructional designer was a leader of a failed hunting party who redesigned the tools (sharper, longer sticks, or heavier rocks) and techniques (decoys, group attack, or 'sneak attack') of the hunt to achieve the desired result. The tools or products used were taken from the environment. The leader probably didn't 'invent' using a stick to draw a map or visual in the sand, but he (or she) use that tool and technique for an instructive, didactic purpose. The process by which this came about was simple and is probably the ancestor of the modern ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation) process - the 'trial and error' method. Whenever a person has said ‘back to the drawing board’ after a failed performance that is the process of instructional technology. As long as people were learning from their mistakes and communicating a new and improved vision to a group of others, I feel this is instructional technology. Instructional technology can be defined in terms of relationship to the instructional process - analysis, design, develop, implement, and evaluate (ADDIE).
"Educational technology was first seen as a tool technology. It referred to the use of devices, media and hardware for educational purposes. Thus the term was synonymous with the phrase 'teaching with audio-visual aids' (Roundtree, 1979)." (Seels & Richey, 1994, p.13)
Throughout history the products (i.e., tools, techniques, methods) that functioning instructional technologist used, changed dramatically. Cavemen used sticks and stones, the monks for the medieval times used scrolls and quills, Victorian age people used books and drawings, etc. However the processes, although influenced by the rapidly changing products and media, have only changed by degree of complexity and nuance - ADDIE is a complex and systematized version of 'trial and error'. For example, the Blackboard was a breakthrough product of instructional technology. But the process by which it is properly implemented in instruction has not significantly changed. I feel the foundation of the process has not changed, merely re-defined as the tools, techniques and research give us more insight into the process of teaching and learning.
In the recent past 150 years or so changes in our society have brought an increased need for the instructional design practice. Before the mid 1800s people learned the basics from peers and family. You learned job skills from employers. Master / apprentice relationships where the dominant instructional delivery system and individualized instruction was the dominant instructional method. Since then, systematic, programed instruction has increased steadily. Society rapidly became industrial and urban. To fit new needs and purposes, the way we schooled the youth changed rapidly as well. In the early 1900s, school reform movements led by EL Thorndike, Burk and Ward, and Ralph Tyler were likely the first glimpse of modern instructional design process. At this point the media of instruction was the textbook, but soon technology inventions from other areas of empirical research began to be re-purposed for instructional use.
The sharp increase in audiovisual media (photography, radio, records, and later movies, and TV) changed how instruction was delivered. The demands for training soldiers and re-training of industries during World War II were met by instructional design practitioners using the latest audiovisual technology tools and techniques. Instructional institutions, such as the Military had powerful media at their disposal. They use these to create instructional film, audio recordings, and manuals. These tools and techniques were disseminated and diffused throughout established educational systems.
In the 1960s and 70s these tools and techniques had been in use for over 20 years and a new group of early instructional designers made their mark on the field. In essense, this generation were first to define themselves by the process and not the product. The newly restructured AECT defined themselves as practioners of a systematic problem-solving process.(AECT 1977) Educational psychologist and cognitive theorists researched the nature of teaching and learning. Many of their theories are still being used and robustly developed today.
In the 80s and 90s, the personal computer became the driving factor of instructional technology. Again a hard technology or a technology based on engineering and hard science created instructional products, without much emphasis on the instructional design process. Computer labs began to appear in higher education and big business - without the imediate benefits. Our society became more complex as the tools needed to deal with this complexity became more available. The computer mostly served as a multimedia delivery, before the network age of the late 90s.
The emergence of the Internet brings our history of instructional design to the present day. Technological processes and products again have changed. The definition has also changed to focus more on the more general processes rather that the outcome of these processes. We are moving away from mere informational delivery methods that see the learners as receivers of discrete units of knowledge, skills, and attitudes. The instructional design process, evolving at a more rapid pace as the number of practitioners grows and the connections between them strengthen, changes to support and nurture effective practices of active, participatory learning. Systematic design does not necessarily produce rigid, industrial style products.
Can the instructional design process survive the shifting paradigm in education today? Based on my belief that ISD is fundamental to human nature, I assume it will. A widening definition based on process, rather than products and tools, will increase the chance that instructional technology as a field will remain a unified and growing field.