Educational technology and the new technologies

Like everywhere in our culture, new technologies gradually penetrate the field of education. This may be seen as a problem area, which asks for appropriate, actions by teachers, curriculum experts, instructional designers and others. As "technology" seems to be the main issue,one may quation whether the introduction of new technologies is to be considered as an educational technological problem. To a certain extent, the answer may be yes. In this contribution, the nature of educational technology is dealt with primarily. On this basis, the new technologies, are placed in the context of educational problem solving in general. In the literature, educational technology is defined in several ways. After discussing three major approaches to educational technology, it is put forward that educational technology should preferably be conceived of as the methodology of educational problem solving. The program of the Department of Education at the University of Twente is described as an example of a curriculum in which this conception of educational technology takes a central position.