Through reading these articles of this week, I further deepened my understanding of the IST field and know some opinions regarding the professional development of this field.
First, in terms of this field, there are diverse names such as educational technology, instructional design, instructional technology, instructional design and technology, learning technology, learning design and technology, and so on (Ritzhaupt & Kang, 2015). These terms all represent the field to a contained extent. But I think that this field contains three main subareas, designing, technology, and learning. This is, technology is the tools and resources, designing is a creative process that products new learning models, and learning means that it could obtain knowledge to improve performance by new learning models.
In addition, the field covers the scope from K-12 to higher education, businesses, and industries. There are different applications in different areas. For example, in the business and industries area, the field might focus on designing, rather technology and learning are considered tools and resources. In other words, the field’s application in business and industries provides solutions for problems with organizations, whereas not all of these solutions include training.
However, regardless of education and businesses, the field will focus on the practice. This is, no matter where you work, university, associations, magazines, or k-12 school, you need to focus on the relevance of domain knowledge and society. Of course, reading, reviewing, and writing is always helpful for your professional development.
Reference
Ritzhaupt, A. D. & Kang, Y. (2015). Are we ready for bachelor’s degrees in educational technology? : Perceptions from the field and a proposal. Educational Technology, 55(3), 14-22.
Klein, J. D., & Rushby, N. (2018). Getting involved in instructional design and technology: Recommendations for Professional Development. In R. A. Reiser & J. V. Dempsey (Eds.), Trends and issues in instructional design and technology (4th ed.) (pp. 219-228). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Hi, Xiaojiao
I have to say that it is very interesting and sometimes confusing that there are so many names for this subject, such as educational technology, instructional design, learning technology, and so forth. You had a good summary that it actually contains three factors: designing, technology, and learning. and as you mentioned, "designing is a creative process that products new learning models, technology is the tools and resources, and learning means that it could obtain knowledge to improve performance by new learning models".
Thanks for sharing.
Sungling Wu