Course Introduction

Media (especially electronic media) plays a significant role in the delivery of educational opportunities to people who need education at their door-step, study at their own pace, time and place. Educator’s tryst with technology has been a story of evolution of the media itself. Starting from the use of blackboard and the printed textbook for mass education, educators have always experimented with the use of technologies to improve their teaching and learning at all levels. With the emergence of a variety of Computer and Communication Technologies, the process of adoption and adaptation of innovative technologies for the purposes of education and research has increased manifold.
The use of technologies for teaching and learning has been broadly used as Educational Technology, which is the field concerned with the design, development, utilization, management, and evaluation of processes and resources for learning. The Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) defined educational technology as “the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological processes and resources" .
Historically the term educational technology has roots in audio-visual communication, systems approach, and educational technology as a process. In 1994, the AECT accepted ‘educational technology’ as synonymous with ‘instructional technology’. We use the title of the course as Educational Communication Technologies to discuss the use of a variety of technologies for educational communication purpose. We would like you to have an overview of the field, and we are sure your engagements in the course would lead to your further exploration of the field through reading further literature given as references in the units throughout the course.