Information Technologies for Education and Training

This chapter gives an overview of the general topic of this handbook: Technologies and their applications for education and training. Technologies can be classified in many different ways, and described with many different labels, often varying between country to country or author to author. Categorizations will be introduced in this chapter as an overview of technology-related terminology relevant for this Handbook. However the Handbook is not about technologies in themselves, but as applied in learning-related contexts. Thus this opening chapter also gives an overview of three learning-related perspectives on technology: Micro, meso, and macro. Micro relates to issues directly related to a particular technology product itself, such as its design, its user interface, and its available functionalities, and the design processes used to develop the product. Meso relates to the learning context in which the technology product is put into practice. Macro involves broader issues relating to technology application in education and training, such as the effect on the organization. The chapter concludes with a comment on convergence as the defining characteristic of both technology types and technology perspectives in the near future.