Education Technology

MEANING AND CNCEPT OF EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY

Discuss the meaning and concept of Educational Technology. 

                                              Or
Define Educational technology. What are its main characteristics?

          Ans. This is the age of science, technology and development and we hear about development of new techniques in these fields. The definition of science includes presentation of , in a chronological order, the experiments made and experiences gained by human beings. Science is based on facts. The developments that have taken place in the field of education are called educational technology. some people call it technology of education. But they both mean the same.
            There is no aspect of human life which is not touched by technology. Starting from women who work at home, farmers who work in the fields, mill workers, engineers, doctors and scientists, they all use technology in some way or the other. Similarly a teacher has also started making use of technology to make teaching more easy and understandable. Today`s teacher uses visual and audio aids in addition to using age old chalk and blackboard. It is therefore necessary that we understand educational technology properly in order to make its use is a better way. 

Meaning of Educational technology- In older times the meaning of Technology" was - Craft or art. The word technology is taken from the Greek word "Technikos" , which means " an art " . In the modern times the meaning of technology is that it is an " industrial art" . Therefore , we can say that any art which uses instruments etc. can be called technology.

Some years ago the use of audio- visual aids as teaching material was called educational technology. But in the modern times the use of Television, Radio, taperecorder, Computer and Language lab are included as teaching aids and are called teaching machines. a student sitting far away can learn by making use of these aids. These instruments are of great help in the preservations transmission and advancement of knowledge. The words educational technology have been used in the field of education mainly due to the inclusion of the above aids or so called machines in education. 

An Indian Scholar S.S.Kulkarni says, "Educational Technology may be defined as the application of the laws as well as recent discoveries of science and technology to the process".

According to Mr. Shib K. Mitra- " Educational technology can be conceived as a science of Techniques and methos by which educational goals could be realised".