From a historical perspective, it is believed that the actual development of distance learning coincided with the invention of the postmark and the generalisation of cheap postal services (Henry, Kaye, 1985). The best illustration of this process are the correspondence courses proposed by Pitmann as soon as 1840, at the very moment when cheap postal services went into full effect. In a more general fashion, we may say that the development of distance learning is following the transformation of the ways information is being broadcast and exchanged. We should also add to these factors progress made in printing technology and in the production of a cheap paper which allowed both to lower the costs and to rise significantly the quality of printed media. At the same time, this technological evolution has led to an in depth change of how we record, store and retrieve information (Curran, 1992).
It is therefore no surprise that distance learning goes now through an significant revival as telecommunications are growing fast and when digital telecommunications are in the process of completely overturning the way we record, use, broadcast and deliver information (Moles, 1988): utopian views like Mac Luhan and Emerec's global village and the so-called informational society do not seem to have much more to wait to become reality. The information highways, the rise of the Internet and of the World Wide Web look like convincing steps towards this aim. Moreover, the impressive growth of distance learning during recent years seem to confirm this tendency: information technologies and distance learning and training are growing so as to say hand in hand[12].
However, to analyse the role of technologies in the field of education and training is no easy task. The term technology itself has since long been subjected to many divergent interpretations. This confusion first happened within the field of technology, only to spread further when the word was applied in the domain of education. Besides, and today more than ever, the multiplication of technical devices as well as the growth of services that claim to qualify as technological are trends that add to the confusion.
Still, let's try to expound what this term meant. Originally, technology means "the totality of the technological terms pertaining to a field or a science" - technical language, in short. It then was used to designate "a technical method of achieving a practical purpose" in a given profession or scientific activity (Webster, op. cit.). The expression 'technology of a specific field' may thus be used to talk about the different technical methods used within this speciality. Additionally, the word also conveys the meaning of state of the art techniques, drawing on special resources and developing techniques.
In its present usage, the term seems to cover three main - and competing -
meanings:
a) a scientific sense insofar as technologies always are positively connoted by
the fact they belong to the field of state of the art research;
b) the sense of material as well as intellectual techniques, i.e. pertaining
both to the tools used as well as to the design and development of technical
products;
c) finally, specifying technical objects themselves, as a result of the
aforesaid design and production processes.
Clarifying the subject in the field of education is not easier. We owe to Scholer (1983) a well documented study on the evolution of educational technologies, based on their basic concepts, their fields of application and describing the terminology associated with their use. The author quotes a number of research and particularly Davies' (1972) and observes that the term of technology is used in two very different meanings, one referring to a physical idea and the other referring to scientific concept (see Table 5 below). In the first case, the idea points to the application of engineering procedures to devices used in the teaching process. In the second case, the idea is to apply "scientific principles to education [...], to apply the fruits of theory and research in behavioural sciences as well as those of any other pertinent knowledge to the art of teaching" (1983:29-30).
In an all-inclusive domain like education, we may perhaps discern to families of meaning. First, technology would be akin to problem solving procedures, to a work style, using scientific methodology to find solutions to a problem in the perspective of a particular task. In this case, the expression of technology or rather of learning and instructional technologies is being preferably used. In a second family of meanings, the referent would be about blending various devices and machines to teaching procedures, in order to enhance their efficiency. One then talks about technologies or rather about educational technologies.
TECHNOLOGIES |
||
|---|---|---|
Process
|
Products
| |
|
Science Théories, Experiments
Know how
|
Engineering Instrumentation
Machines, etc.
| |
|
Technologies pertaining to learning
instruction
|
Educational technologies
| |
|
Problem solving
|
Enhancing efficiency
| |
| Scientific
conceptualisation
|
Technical
conceptualisation
| |
When we superimpose blanket definitions in vogue in education with those misused in technology, we realise that it is not too easy to find our way in the different meanings of the word, as has been the state of affairs when we tried to define the word media above. To add to the confusion, general usage puts procedures, design, technical solutions, products and services in this very same category of technology !
[11] The expression comes from Mr F. Duchesnes, inspector at the Service for distance education in the French-speaking community of Belgium (Service de l'Enseignement à distance de la Communauté française de Belgique).
[12] Too succinct an analysis would suggest that there is here only one factor present. It is of course not the case.