Questioning Researcher Teaching and Technology Philosophical Orientations

• In Event: Learning Through Design Processes as Researchers

Abstract

Internet technologies, now moving into a fourth decade, continue to create “changes occurring across education research, from its design to its implementation” (AERA Call for Proposals, 2014). Social media and MOOCs, for example, continue to transform our understanding and imagination, as well as our research. Alongside new technologies, practices and research, are persistent debates on whether technology will save, or ruin, higher education. Most discussions, however, revolve around research that investigates ‘what works’ when teaching with technology, often bypassing our beliefs about the aims of higher education. This presentation will share the results of a study on the beliefs that researchers of educational technology hold about the aims of higher education, focusing on philosophical orientations of teaching and technology.

Author

• Heather A. Kanuka, University of Alberta