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Ed Tech: Now a horse of a different colour? 
 

Derick Unwin 
Educational Research and Development Unit 

Queensland Institute of Technology 
 

Educational technology (edtech) embraces a variety of concepts, but is 
probably adequately characterised as pedagogic innovation in the area of 
media and methods. Such innovations have regularly occurred over the 
years, and have invariably been accompanied by extravagant claims of 
effectiveness and potential for change. In due course these innovations lose 
their momentum and cease to occupy the centre stage of education. This 
article attempts a brief sardonic review of edtech and suggests that at last 
we are coming into possession of tools which would permit the 
restructuring of education, so as to actually achieve aims rather than pay lip 
service to them. However, such outcomes will not arise out of any 
supposed improvement in media and methods, but through organisational 
and curriculum changes made possible by the advent of the microcomputer 
and peripherals. 

 
Defining educational technology (edtech) is akin to defining science fiction. 
In both cases the 'genres' encompass such a heterogenous range of 
components as to make alternative titles and useful definitions 
unattainable. This particular issue of the Australian Journal of Educational 
Technology, however, is targeted on the themes of the present and future 
state of edtech; this is a difficult task indeed when we cannot be sure what 
edtech is now, and especially what it will be in 1990, or 2000. 
 
Insofar as our concern is with the hardware of pedagogy it is clear that the 
current emphasis of edtech practitioners is on the use of microcomputers, 
and in particular on combinatory environments wherein video, audio and 
textual material, stored on such devices as videodiscs, CD ROMs, etc, is 
marshalled by the computer for the learner's edification. 
 
When we turn our attention to actual didactic materials we find a 
divergence of opinion. One school of educational technologists places 



2 Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 1986, 2(1) 

great faith in the concept of instructional design: on this view the 
hardware is best utilised to present a carefully constructed sequence of 
material, which will interactively lead the learner through to mastery, or 
an acceptable lesser degree of knowledge. 
 
Unfortunately, experience has taught us that the design and construction 
of such highly structured materials is a long and arduous (and expensive!) 
undertaking. And worse still, it transpires that the end result may not be 
particularly successful. These and other reasons generate support for a 
more laissez faire approach to educational software. This regime uses the 
hardware either to present very straight forward items, easily constructed 
and installed, such as drill and practice; or to exploit the ready availability 
of high quality non-educational computer software such as word 
processors, spreadsheets and data base management systems. Thus a 
Lotus clone or other cheap spreadsheet can be used as a powerful tool for 
teaching Physics, History, etc.: indeed any subject involving logical 
relationships and perhaps others too. In the short term these sorts of 
applications seem to be the likely growth areas. 
 
My remarks thus far are concerned with activity at what we might call the 
'sharp end' of edtech. Many years ago the concept of audiovisual aids (AV) 
was dragged unwillingly into a forced marriage with edtech. To this day, 
AV continues to provide a valuable teaching resource, based upon 
whatever are the current cheapest and most convenient media available. 
Little change is foreseeable at this very fundamental level of activity: a 
continuing swing from film to video, a continuing reliance on reference 
books (CD ROM notwithstanding), slides, and other visual resources 
requiring simple equipment - or none at all - to bring them into use. 
 
Turning to the longer term future of edtech, specifically the future of more 
elaborate instructional configurations, the reader will no doubt ponder on 
the qualifications of contributors to this issue of AJET; in particular, 
whether he can attach any great confidence in the crystal balls they rely 
on. My own credentials in this matter are impeccable: I have been in the 
business of forecasting the future of edtech for a quarter of a century (eg. 
Unwin, 1967; Unwin, 1980), and have invariably been proved wrong by 
events, or lack of events. However, as time has gone by my forecasts have 
been getting less wrong, and I suggest that a combination of experience 
and cynicism will at last considerably improve my performance. 
 
I have referred before (Unwin, 1985) to the cyclical nature of edtech. With 
all the significant innovations: 16 mm films, Pressey machines, tape 
recording, programmed learning, video, CAL, - to list just a few - there has 
been associated a repetitious group of declaratory statements. To 
paraphrase: 
 



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This innovation: 
 
a. is, for various reasons, different in both kind and degree from all the 

predecessors 
b. answers, at last, a very long felt need 
c. will make the lot of the teacher much easier and/or rewarding. It will 

relieve the teacher from boring repetitive tasks, leaving her/him free to 
get on with other vitally important duties. 

d. unlike earlier innovations, is soundly based on proven principles from 
some respected scientific discipline, eg. behavioural psychology, 
systems design, learning theory, market research, etc. etc. 

e. will enhance the quality and effectiveness of learning at all levels. 
 
Naturally, the propagandists for these innovations readily recognise that 
they have little to learn from the failed innovations of the past. This 
fortunately absolves them from literature searches and other tedious time 
wasting activities. 
 
This cyclical nature of edtech would suggest that there may well be newer 
innovations must around the corner waiting to decouple the current 
microcomputer/video bandwagon. In my view this would be a 
misrepresentation of the nature of the computer. In a very real sense the 
power and capabilities of the microcomputer represent the end of the road 
so far as the development of educational hardware is concerned. Allied to 
sophisticated video storage and retrieval devices, the computer is in the 
classroom to stay. Future innovations will concentrate on organisation and 
environment, and on the curriculum. Conceivably, an enlightened 
curriculum positioned in an ideal learning environment, could have been 
successfully taught by many different media and methods, but the 
experiment was never conducted. Now, perhaps it will be. 
 
The graduates of our school systems are eloquent testimony to the failure 
of these systems either to teach successfully or to teach the right material. 
The future of educational technology must lie in a transformation of 
educational organisation. If we teach the right things to the right students 
in an adequate environment we will accomplish the rightful aim of 
education: the fostering of individual abilities, enabling each student to 
play a rewarding role in society. 
 
Specifically, how will edtech achieve such a transformation? By making 
unnecessary and irrelevant many of the current organisational constraints. 
By forcing recognition of the appalling pointlessness of much of the 
present curriculum. By allowing students to expand their horizons 
through the control of information. By showing students how the 
computer can put them in charge of their own learning. 
 



4 Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 1986, 2(1) 

I had hoped that negative feedback from past inaccurate forecasting 
would have cured me of the sin of confusing what I think should happen 
with what I think will happen. On rereading the above remarks it would 
seem that the cure was not total. But at least it seems logical to take the 
view that the computer is not to be compared with the 16 mm projector - 
say - in its impact on education. Surely the ramshackle edifice of corporate 
education cannot absorb the widespread use of computers, without being 
forced to put the house in order? 
 
This essay commenced by comparing edtech to science fiction. One 
favoured theme of science fiction is that of the civilisation unaware that it 
is burdened by a significant disability of a cultural, mental, physical, etc., 
nature. Eventually something or someone puts the matter to rights. Let us 
hope, with confidence, that modern edtech systems will enable us at last to 
perceive the straitjacket of current educational practice: the 
microcomputer may yet prove to be a long awaited and much needed 
Trojan Horse. 
 
References 
 
Unwin, D. (1967). Foreword to Unwin, D. and Leedham, J. Aspects of 

Educational Technology, Methuen, London. 
Unwin, D. (1980). The new world dawns, or Darien revisited. In D. Shearer 

(Ed.) Yearbook of the Australian Society for Educational Technology, ASET, 
Hawthorn. 

Unwin, D. (1985). The cyclical nature of educational technology. 
Programmed Learning and Educational Technology, 22, 65-67. 

 
Please cite as: Unwin, D. (1986). Ed Tech: Now a horse of a different colour? 
Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 2(1), 1-4. 
http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet2/unwin.html