What is an Educational Technologist?

[novastorm]

What is an Educational Technologist? and how would you describe this role to some one?

 

How are they different to a general IT Technician?

 

GO!

[Arreks]

..Are they different? just sounds like a title someone made up to make their job sound better

[3s-gtech]

More pretentious

Must have a beard

All shirts are strongly checked in pattern

Artisanal cheese guru

 

In seriousness, it sounds like an implementation role rather than a pure tech role - support and implementing new tech in the classroom with the focus on learning and outcomes. That also describes a tech of course, but perhaps this role has less of the traditional back-end stuff, more of the 'do it in the cloud!' and 'make it simple'.

[elsiegee40]

If you google it, Education Technology is defined as "the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using and managing appropriate technological processes and resources."

 

It's not the 'spanners and screwdrivers' of making an IT network work and be secure.

 

It's more about technology than IT

 

There's lots of it at BETT - fancy 3D printers, things that bleep and look shiny or pretty and working out how to use then in the classroom is presumably what this role does.

 

Actually implementing the kit and making it talk to other bits of kit is the IT Tech's problem

Edited February 21, 2017 by elsiegee40

[beaches511]

I'm a Learning Technologist (from an IT tech background) which is kind of the same thing. It’s more common in higher education but essentially it’s providing and encouraging knowledge for enhancing learning and teaching with technology.

 

We mainly create digital content, assisting with recording lectures, electronic marking and generally utilising technology to improve the learning experience. For example we are currently producing a range of electronic lectures and example scenarios for placement students to access when off campus.

 

We don't do anything in terms of systems maintenance and admin but provide more specialised support in terms of VLEs and multimedia.