I have the great fortune to be one of the international writing group facilitators for ISSOTL26, and I am looking forward to meeting the group that will tackle what might well be an impossible task. Here is the description:
Evaluating Technological Theories to Guide SoTL Practice
An international collaborative writing group assessing technological theories for their suitability to guide SoTL practice would fill a gap in the literature. Early advocates foresaw SoTL as a teaching academy intertwined with rapid developments in educational technology. Today, SoTL and ed tech intersect pragmatically to produce evidence-based teaching strategies that enhance student learning. Yet SoTL remains under-theorized, a concern as digital technologies have transformed postsecondary education. Without theoretical frameworks, educators often lack a strong foundation for guiding their use. This project invites SoTL practitioners to assess existing frameworks—such as ethics by design and Tech for Good—to maintain human learning as the highest priority. Guiding questions include how SoTL can encourage critical thinking about educational technology, whether shared criteria exist for evaluating technologies across disciplines, and what role SoTL can play in examining the impact of generative AI on teaching and learning.
More background:
Several years ago, I read Laurillard’s Teaching as a Design Science (2012), and she recommends that the academic community should challenge educational technology from a position of strength, but we are often ill-equipped to do that because we lack theoretical models to shape our thinking and our approach.
The task may well be impossible because SoTL is grounded in specific, local contexts, whereas educational technology tends to have a homogenizing effect (we are starting to see this homogenizing impact of generative AI on student writing, for example, when it all starts to sound the same regardless of discipline). Educational technology is also amorphous and protean, diverse and multilayered. It can enhance access in developing countries and create more realistic scenarios in nursing simulations. Is there ONE theory of educational technology that can apply to all use cases?
Do ethics by design or technology for good offer new ways to frame educators’ relationship with technology? Beyond the question of should we or should we not us “it,” how do we control the use of it? Can we control the use of it, when, as Ellul points out, technology is autonomous (meaning it has an independent life of its own), and “autonomous technology is in process of taking over the traditional values of every society.” If Ellul is right, and I think he is, we need to transcend the “technology is just a tool” debate because it is like saying a battleship is just a boat. Ed tech is NOT just a tool; it has values, goal, intent. That’s why we need a theory to help us determine if the use of ed tech accords with educational values, goals, and intent. Are we serving students or serving the technology?
It’s going to be a wrestling match, but SoTL remains one of the places where faculty can think beyond technology and take an honest approach to assessing the value and worth of educational technology for human flourishing.