What if ... educational technology were planned with an eye toward market dynamics?

摘要

While educational demand is changing rapidly in response to the knowledge economy, educational technology innovation is rarely derived from such dynamics. These speculations begin by describing underlying global economic forces and how they are forming new educational contexts. It then examines three factors constraining an effective educational technology response. First, the chance to focus innovation on immediate educational needs decreases incentives for riskier and more far-reaching innovations. Second, professional educators are generally untrained and inexperienced in seeing the world through the lens of externally driven macro changes in the society. Third, these external changes create incentives that motivate the private sector to move ahead with education redefinition and allied educational technology. Planning educational technology with an eye toward market dynamics places educational technology innovation at the forefront of long-term educational change.