AECT Definition:
“Educational Technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate processes and resources” (Januszewski & Molenda, 2008, p.1).

I’m deeply appreciative of having worked with Jean Slick (among others) for the Wiki project on grassroots video. As a K-12 educator and ICT administrator, my perspective on educational technology is biased. Worse, I didn’t realize my bias until last week. In conversations with Jean, the notions of non-formal and informal learning emerged. I began to appreciate educational technology applications beyond academia. Some of these are ethical, such as helping people respond to natural disasters (Suarez, et al., 2008). Other applications, such as military exercises, are not always ethical, but still need to be considered uses of educational technology (Mordvinov, 2007). It was my conversations with Jean, along with the observations of Hlynka (2008), that have informed my perspective on my definition. I no longer see educational technology as specifically for formal academic settings. I see educational technology fitting into the broader world as well (in both good and questionable ways). For this reason I’ve removed the “ethical” portion of the AECT definition.

My perspective on the definition:
“Educational Technology is the study and practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by designing, developing, implementing, managing, and evaluating appropriate processes and resources.”

MY RESEARCH AREA
My understanding of my research question at this stage is:
"The following paper will explore the journey of elementary schools in the Catholic Independent Schools of the Vancouver Archdiocese (CISVA) as they progress from environments with little or no Information Communication Technology (ICT) towards environments that more fully integrate ICT for student learning."

AECT Domain of best fit:
My research will undoubtedly touch upon each of the AECT domains (development, utilization, management, evaluation, design). The area that is perhaps most central is utilization. How teachers and students use technology for learning will be at the heart of my research.



References:
Hlynka, D. (2008). Educational Technology: A Definition for the 21st Century. Educational Technology, 48(6), 48 – 50.

Mordvinov, V. (2007, January). Remote Education Technologies as a Part of the Military Training System: Opportunities and Prospects. Military Thought, 16(1), 90-93. Retrieved July 24, 2009, from Academic Search Complete database.

Suarez, P, Ching, F., Ziervogel, G., Lemaire, I., Turnquests, D., Mendler de Suarez, J., & Wisner, B. (2008). Video-mediated approaches for community-level climate adaptation. Institute of Development Studies Bulletin, (39)4, 96-104.