Ed Psych & Ed Tech: A “cyclic self-perpetuating” process? | W6 Q1 | Discussion

Salomon and Amog (1998) talk about how educational psychology and educational technology are reciprocal. Specifically, the talk about how without information technology, it would be difficult to create information-rich, team-based interdisciplinary learning environments. This is important to note, as the educational psychology derived constructivist (Piaget) and socio-cognitivist theories (Vygotsky) need such environments to be realized. Also without *constantly evolving* Ed psych theories to ground the technology use, perhaps only ‘effects of’ or ‘effects with’ technology would be realized, not the transformative ‘effects through’ technology in learning environments (Salomon and Perkins, 2005). In fact, they caution that ‘tendency (to) assimilate new technologies into old patterns of practice’ would lead to only ‘modest’ effects ‘with’ technology.

Further, Salomon et al (1998) mention how technologies can “challenge education” by asking new questions. Nickerson’s (2005) example of intelligent tutoring (ITS) and real-time help systems makes me wonder if ITS can challenge current notions of self-efficacy or help-seeking behavior. Perhaps they can further add to the research on the ‘Zone of Proximal Development’. Indeed, research due to ITS has lead to a concept called ‘Zone of Available Assistance’ (Murray & Arroyo, 2002).

Through these examples, one can see that both technology and psychology affect both theory and practice. Perhaps some effects are still idealized but not realized, but I do think there is progress towards betterment.

In conclusion, I think there is strong evidence that the relationship between Ed Psych and Ed Tech is reciprocal. In fact, I would even go to say that this relationship leads to a self-perpetuating cycle that both challenges and advances the two fields.

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Murray, T., & Arroyo, I. (2002, June). Toward measuring and maintaining the zone of proximal development in adaptive instructional systems. In International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (pp. 749-758). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.