Wiley Handbook of Learning Technology

20The Design of Learning

Daniel Spikol

20.1 Introduction

For the last several years, I have been thinking about how to address the challenge that James Kaput put forward in 1992, “that the limitations of computer use for education in the coming decades would likely be less a result of technological limitations than a result of limited human imagination and the constraints of old habits and social structures” (Kaput 1992, 515) My interest in learning technologies grew out of the design challenges presented at the intersection of interaction design and learning sciences. The frustration of not seeing innovative technologies developed in research projects to support education and encountering difficulties in being adapted for everyday classrooms. In other research domains across information technology, the transfer is between research, society, industry, and the user is more effective than the field of learning sciences has become aware of (Johnson et al. 2014). This leaves me with the research aim to investigate what it is about technology and education that makes it difficult for innovation to take place and how we as researchers address this. Organizational and professional learning has changed radically with the onset of new technologies, but traditional education seems to struggle to innovate and meet the demands of our evolving society even with countless reforms and investments (Redecker et al. 2011).

The debate as to whether education is a science or art is not new in the modern ...