Ed Tech: Now a horse of a different colour?

Educational technology (edtech) embraces a variety of concepts, but is probably adequately characterised as pedagogic innovation in the area of media and methods. Such innovations have regularly occurred over the years, and have invariably been accompanied by extravagant claims of effectiveness and potential for change. In due course these innovations lose their momentum and cease to occupy the centre stage of education. This article attempts a brief sardonic review of edtech and suggests that at last we are coming into possession of tools which would permit the restructuring of education, so as to actually achieve aims rather than pay lip service to them. However, such outcomes will not arise out of any supposed improvement in media and methods, but through organisational and curriculum changes made possible by the advent of the microcomputer and peripherals. Defining educational technology (edtech) is akin to defining science fiction. In both cases the 'genres ' encompass such a heterogenous range of components as to make alternative titles and useful definitions unattainable. This particular issue of the Australian Journal of Educational Technology, however, is targeted on the themes of the present and future state of edtech; this is