Ed Tech Chapter | Faith Jennings

Ed Tech Book Chapter

Learning Solution

A chapter synthesizing 50 years of educational technology research from 1970 to 2020

Client

Dr. Royce Kimmons for EdTechBooks.org, 2021

Skills Used

Analyzing and coding data, synthesizing information, scholarly writing

Stakeholder Feedback

“It’s no small feat to gather, read, think about, categorize, and analyze such a large body of work, and you should be proud of the work that you did here! As a reader I appreciated it, and enjoyed taking a bird’s eye view of decades of research. I believe many others will find this work worthwhile.”

Peer Reviewer

Project Story

The Challenge

Summarize the trends and findings of 100 of the most-referenced scholarly articles published from 1970-2020 in the area of educational technology

My Role

I worked with a team of three other graduate students to read and analyze the articles. I was responsible for writing the sections on 2010-2020 in addition to editing my co-authors’ work.

The Solution

Our team found that over time, research trends moved from theoretical analyses to examining whether particular technologies were effective. Constant innovations in the field allow for this core question to be asked over and over.

Process Details

Select an image to zoom in.

100 research articles

Our team of coauthors selected the 20 most-often-cited articles in education technology from each of the last 5 decades.

Uncovering Themes and Trends

Increasingly, ed tech research is concerned with the affordances of specific technologies.

The Finished Product

From our chapter summary:

We found that while the particular technologies investigated consistently changed, research generally progressed from addressing theoretical difficulties to determining the affordances of instructional technologies and finally to studying pedagogical strategies. We saw this trend on a macro level, occurring over 50 years. These findings imply that educational technology research (a) is iterative, beginning with the adoption of new technologies by practitioners; (b) relies on determining the effectiveness of instructional technologies; and (c) ultimately investigates teaching strategies related to technology.