Activity 8.1 - Podcast - Perceptions of an Educational Technologist

As an educational technologist, I sense I may be confronting a mix of perceptions about what an educational technologist is. As a result, I chose to interview 4 faculty members to find out what their perceptions really were and to my surprise, I learned even more.

Duration 6:17




0:00 [beginning]
[author] Hi my name's Jim Buckingham and the issue that I thought would be worth exploring here a little bit was the perception of elearning and more specifically the perception of my position as an education technologist here at Zayed University. I set out to do this by interviewing four instructors to learn from them first hand how they perceived the position .. and my method for doing that began with drawing up a few simple questions. One of them was what is an edcuation technologist and what is an educational technologist is it really.. is it a professional or a technician. Listen now to a select sampling of those interviews beginning with Steven, an EFL instructor, then Fiona, an information literacy instructor, followed by Peter, another EFL instructor and closing with Kate, a business studies instructor here at the University.

With each one of them I add my own reflections and I think I or I hope that you'll find them interesting.

1:11
[Steven] .. oh really I think the person needs to be both. Umm.. and I think the other aspect which I would include there is "communicator". The problem with technology in various different fields to technologist ... that individual needs to have I think extremely strong communications skills to be able to umm.. to explain how something works, how it can be used by the educator but then of course to also understand how that meets the needs of the educator.. to be able to put himself or herself in (fade out) ..

2:01
[author] Steve made it abundantly clear to me the importance of communications for an educational technologist to do their job effectively and indirectly, how important that was to realizing the collaborative portion of the position. I also heard indirectly, just how important it was for an educational technologist to listen - to listen intently for the instructor's needs and equally so, to listen for the context of their teaching. Now listen to Fiona give her perspective on just what an educational technologist is.

2:36
[Fiona] I think some of the people who have been in the CTL have been staff and I think others that have been hired by the CTL have been professionals .. and I think ... people who are going into the field now or are being educated in that field come out as professionals whereas when it was first starting, I think it was basically anyone with an interest in computers

2:56
[author] It was fascinating for me to hear how an information literacy instructor, like Fiona, had picked up on the evolution taking place in the field. How it has shifted its primary focus from the technology to education. Just to put things into perspective, the CTL is the "Center for Teaching and Learning" here at Zayed University. Now listen to Peter, an EFL instructor talking about "is an educational technologist professional or technician?"

3:27
[Peter] Technologist tends to make some one sound like a technician but I think I would sort of take the leap in my head that this must be more than that. It can't be just a technician, it's going to have to be someone who understands education too unless ... perhaps they're being guided by somebody else and working as part of a team

3:44
[author] From my perspective, Peter indirectly uncovered how the position of an educational technologist may not be so clearly understood afterall. While it can be assumed to have an education focus, without an understanding of the working relationship an educational technologist has within their department, they could be just as easily, as he said, directed by others in a team. Now listen to Kate as she introduces the concept of technical challenges versus adaptive challenges as a way to help explain the professional nature of the educational technology position.

4:20
[Kate] Hafeets (Sp?) wrote a great book... and he talks about the difference between technical challenges and adaptive challenges. Technical challenges are those that we have preset solutions for, things we've done before .. adaptive is a unique or new situation and faculty members who are either trying to use technology in a.. way they never have before or a technology they simply never used before ... that's really an adaptive challenge for the faculty member. so you need somebody who not only understands what is going on technically in the classroom but also somebody who is going to deal with those emotional challenges as well because I think that's a more (fade out)

5:07
[author] I thought that this offered a relatively simple but effective explanation of the complex nature of our work as educational technologist. Listen in now to Kate's perceptive comments and how she saw education technology evolving as a profession.

5:23
[Kate] One of the things that it hasn't done yet.. because its new.. and all professions go through this phase where they need to define themseleve..and educational technology hasn't yet clearly defined itself. So I think (fade out)

5:39
[author] So what I discovered through the exercise were a number of things I really hadn't expected .. in general how well the position was understood by those I interviewed and specifically, how it reinforced four things. A clear expectation that education technologists have excellent communication skills. A respect for the challenging nature of the position. A realization that the profession is still evolving and a suggestion that it needs to work on defining itself further if it hopes to raise its status as a profession.

6:18 [end]