Re/Thinking Design and Implementation of Learning Objects as Learned Objects

Abstract

Education and technology have been in strong interaction since the middle of the last century giving origin to a new study field: Educational Technology (ET) [1, 2, 3 & 4]. In the eighties a debate about ET identity took place. On the one hand it was considered as a branch of educational psychology or pedagogy; and on the other, as a branch of computer science or engineering [ 4, 5 & 6]. It seems that since the boom of Informatics and Communication Technologies (ICTs), ET has just followed the second path, promoting engineers work over other professionals on educational issues. Therefore we propose the necessity of guarantying an interdisciplinary view for the development of Learning Technology (L T), specifically of Learning Objects (LOs), in order to prevent the mistake of attributing intrinsic properties to new technologies. We invite to avoid the naive believe that ICTs themselves can improve, increase or accelerate learning.