A Research Agenda for Emerging Technologies in Education
George Veletsianos
University of Manchester, United Kingdom
A recent definition of emerging technologies (Veletsianos, 2009) delineates implications that forge a path for future research on the topic. These implications enable researchers to thoughtfully engage with "emerging technologies" while avoiding mistakes of the past with respect to relevance and usefulness.Emerging technologies are defined as tools, concepts, innovations, and advancements utilized in educational settings to serve varied education-related purposes. Emerging Technologies,1. May or may not be new technologies,2. can be described as evolving organisms that exist in a state of “coming into being”3. experience hype cycles4. satisfy the “not yet” criteria ofa. not yet being fully understood, andb. not yet being fully researched or researched in a mature way5. are potentially disruptive, but their potential is mostly unfulfilled.Although practitioners and researchers may consider emerging technologies to be powerful instruments in enhancing teaching, learning, student engagement, and educational systems, we are still learning what is possible to achieve with these technologies. Employing emerging technologies to further educational goals however, may necessitate the development of different theories, pedagogies, and approaches to teaching, learning, assessment, and organization. If we employ emerging technologies in our work, we should also be prepared to experiment with different lenses through which to view the world, with different ways to explore such ideas and practices as knowledge, scholarship, collaboration, and even education.Additionally, technologies may be emerging in one area while being “emerged” in another area. For example, Geographic Information Systems may already be established tools of trade (i.e. emerged) in real estate agency and agriculture, but they are still considered to be emerging in the teaching of high school geography. Therefore, a consideration of context and content needs to be at the core of emerging technologies research.Finally, emergent theory holds implications for research on emerging technologies in education: on the one hand, technologies developed for purposes other than education find their way into educational institutions and processes (e.g., wikis), while on the other, once such technologies are integrated into educational practice, they both mold and are molded by educational practices such as teaching and learning activities.Veletsianos, G. (2009). A Definition of Emerging Technologies for Education.