The supposed relationship between technology and innovation in education. When does ICT actually improve education?

Abstract

At the beginning, Educational Technology as a field of study dealing with the use of such means in education was linked to improving education. This improvement was to come about especially as a result of making educational practice more effective and efficient, and capable of being completely controlled so that it could be predicted and produce the best outcomes. Technology, because it enabled the most to be made –through control- of many natural processes, was seen as a major contribution to improving teaching and learning processes. Now, although research has provided many examples contradicting the claim that the use of technology improves either the process or the outcome of learning in all cases, this relationship is still proclaimed to be necessary, mostly without a precise idea of what it means to innovate in education, as though, moreover, this could be the same for everyone. This article presents, on the one hand, some of the assumptions that necessarily lead us to link educational improvement to technology, and on the other, a view of innovation in education in which technology can play a major part, but only as a result of a reflective exercise by teachers and students on what it means to teach and learn.