Educational Technologists : Leading Change for a New Paradigm of Education

The transition from the industrial age to the information age has happened and is still happening in our society (Duffy, 2009). However, our current educational systems still operate based on the needs of the industrial-age society (Watson, Watson, & Reigeluth, n.d), making them among the least impacted organizations (Reigeluth & Joseph, 2002). This misalignment between schools and society takes the form of a discrepancy between what and how we teach students in schools and how schools are organized and operated (Banathy, 1991; Hargreaves, 1999; Wagner et al., 2006). Educational systems should address current students’ needs to facilitate their learning process and better prepare them for their future lives in society (Collins & Halverson, 2009). In this article, we explain how we envision the new paradigm of education and what roles educational technologists should play to help transform educational systems to this new paradigm.