Given your definitions of Tech and Media, define IndstructionaTechnology

Technology is any process or product that improves an aspect of life. Media are the delivery systems for communication. Technology can improve the creation, distribution, and delivery of media between individuals or groups, and information about a technology distributed through media can help or hinder a technology's distribution. Both concepts are intertwined, with one needing the other in order to continue to grow.

Instructional technology uses both technology and media in development, design, implementation, and creation to best enhance student learning. The goal of IT research is to understand the impact technology and media have on student learning, the teaching process, and the education process as a whole (Hargrave WebCT lecture 6/19). Based on assigned readings and lectures, the concept of instructional technology has been a work in progress over the last one hundred years. All of this must be taken into account in order to determine the best definition of instructional technology; that being said, this definition needs to be an evolving work in progress, changing as research into the field continues to help it evolve and grow.

As technologies have improved, educational psychologists and teachers have attempted to integrate those improvements into the classroom. The original belief was that if a large group were to receive a message through a specific medium en masse, all members of the group would receive the same message equally. As research and technologies evolved, the educational theory of behaviorism began to have an impact on I.T., and media comparison studies began to develop. The studies determined that there were no significant differences in student learning when comparing media. Starting in the 1980's, the impact of cognitive theory was felt in I.T., researching the effectiveness of matching student learning types to specific media in order to enhance student learning. Much of this was grounded in the development of computer based learning. The newest research takes the cognitive theory one step further by adding neuroscience to the mix. This blending of the psychology and biology of the brain is further enhanced by intra-media studies using research to show technology used naturally within the flow of classroom instruction and assessment to gain an understanding of how a single medium within itself can best help student learning. According to Reiser, the AECT 1994 definition of Instructional Technology states: "Instructional Technology is the theory and practice of design, development, utilization, management, and evaluation of processes and resources for learning."

Add to this plethora of information the four theories of instructional technology (systems theory, communication theory, behaviorism, and constructivism), and the basis of information available to create a definition of instructional technology is almost overwhelming. Many questions arise and need to be addressed: Should IT be specific to only technology classrooms, or should it be applicable to classes across the board? How should teacher training look, for both incoming teachers and those who have been in the field for many years? Who / what will supply the funding for such an endeavor? What about age-appropriateness?

My personal belief is that I.T. should be treated as a combination of several factors. The concept of using technology to better enhance communication is key. Teachers should use technology naturally within instruction and assessment to create authentic experiences for students to apply to their schema, use metacognition for self-correction, and take and use that information to make continuing cross-curricular connections. Students need to be able to show measurable quantifiable behaviors to meet previously determined standards and benchmarks. Students needs to take ownership of their own learning by functioning as partners in that learning with their teachers, determining appropriate behaviors regarding technology use and abuse, positive and negative consequences for those behaviors, and functioning as a self-governing democracy regarding those consequences. Students need to be able to work in groups to help foster ideas, function as emotional and intellectual supports, and create new concepts or items. All these skills are now necessary in order for today's students to become active, competent, and engaged citizens in the ever shrinking (or flattening) world of the 21st century. Students need to have their desire to be problem-solving, ever-evolving, never-ending learners fostered by teacher mentors in this newly emerging world of technology and media infusion.