Cultural Implications in Educational Technology: A Survey
Globally, the design of information and communication technologies that consider culture is growing. However, there remains a great need to be more explicit about the challenges and triumphs of considering culture in research related to the use of technol
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nationally research about culture and educational technology is on the rise. Scholars are researching topics such as web-based learning, digital literacy, technology use, social networks, games, mobile technologies, Web 2.0, MOOCs, and their relations to culture or cultural contexts. The research supports that there is a need to better understand how instructional designers, educators, and innovators perceive culture in relation to the expanding field of educational technology. There is a broad spectrum of how culture is defined across disciplines. One often cited definition of culture is from UNESCO (2001) which defines culture as that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, laws, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by [a human] as a member of society. As can be seen from this definition, culture is very broad and is composed of everything that makes one human and everything that humans make. In educational technology research, conceptualizations of culture are often segmented into subcultures (school culture or organizational culture) and referenced with terms such as cultural conflict and culturally relevant as ways to operationalize the definition of culture within that specific context. Put differently, while we are engaged in research on how culture is influenced by or influences technology, there is currently no agreed upon definition of what culture is in the field of educational technology. However, the importance of culture is embedded in definitions of educational technology. According to the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT),
P. A. Young (*) Department of Education, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA e-mail: [email protected] T. I. Asino School of Educational Studies, Educational Technology, College of Education, Health and Aviation, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA e-mail: [email protected]; http://edtech.okstate.edu © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. J. Bishop et al. (eds.), Handbook of Research in Educational Communications and Technology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36119-8_11
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“Educational technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using and managing appropriate technological processes and resources” (AECT Definition and Terminology Committee, 2008, p. 1). Spector (2015) adds that “Educational technology involves the disciplined application of knowledge for the purpose of improving learning, instruction and/or performance” (p. 10). In examining these definitions of educational technology, we argue that it is implicitly crucial to recognize the importance of culture when engaging research in our field. This is important because it is impossible to improve learning, instruction, or performance if one does not take into account the culture in which learning is embedded or the culture of individuals or groups who use the technology. Cultural implications in educationa
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