I am a child of the sixties; from a decade and a generation known as the precursor to the information age in which we now live. I was born in 1964; I just turned 50 in June. My perspective on the events that progressed the technology-driven eras of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s is unique because I was there; I lived it. I literally saw the emergence of technology unfolding and becoming a staple of American life and a mainstay in American pop culture. What is interesting to me is how the history of educational technology is being interpreted and subsequently conceptualized into multiple frameworks intended to guide future policy and practice. The researchers five, ten, fifteen years from now will answer the questions of today, but until then, the various approaches to implementing technology will serve as the fodder for data collection.

Technologies are diverse and multiple. They are field-specific and operator-specific. It’s hard to believe but even at one time, contact lenses were the latest and greatest technology. Today they are commonplace. They are commonplace for reasons such as being economically priced, accessible, and effective (i.e., scalable, sustainable, reliable, and consistently available). Taking my contacts out at night is a lesson in reality. I am reminded of the privilege of good sight without glasses in that instant after I remove them. It feels like Cinderella returning to the pumpkin. It is a regression to the reality just before the latest technology took hold. The bottom line is that technology is just the next greatest thing within any given field, which by the way, triggers constant organizational change. The extent to which technology is used is directly affected by the leadership who manages the organizational change. This is a critical issue to the science of technology and e-learning.

Judith Pirani’s article about bring-your-own-everything (BYOE) illustrates a changing paradigm that is related to e-learning. Educause’s Top-Ten IT Issues: 2000–2014 likewise maps the progress of technology and e-learning. These articles underscore that organizations and their managers must be able to project future growth all while mobilizing a real-time workforce to accomplish the production of the current reality and doing it within fiscal constraints. It is the role of leadership. E-learning is a viable pathway for this evolution of organizational change.

What we invent today will only advance the people of the future in all areas relative to quality-of-life issues. Technology is the vehicle that drives an era to the next. What e-learning does is provide the practical training to the personnel who will use the technology such that the maximum benefit is achieved.

My priority regarding technology is focused. Issues of finance are germane to developing and launching new technologies. Pioneering is never cheap, so the concern for offsetting the front end set-up cost for technology with the overall investment is great, and the need to monitor the return-on-investment (ROI), is necessary. With finances in mind, I would equally support two policies: 1) be aware of emerging technologies and invest in new technologies as appropriate; and 2) maintain and grow a user-friendly, intuitive, and reliable information system that seamlessly allows all staff to maximize their time and effort.

Technologies have enabled endless possibilities, but they still require human resources to configure, use, and maintain them. To this end, the industry of e-learning is evolving to offer the service of expert trainers to help people use available technologies and maximize the benefits. The last 50 to 60 decades have been focused on establishing infrastructure, hardware, and software and generating information. The time now, however, is shifting to the service of e-learning.

References:

Bates, T. (2000). Managing technological change strategies for college and university leaders. San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass.

Khan, B. H. (2005). Managing eLearning strategies: Design, delivery, implementation, and evaluation. Hershey, PA: Information Science Publishing.

Pirani, J.A. (2013