Toward a post-modern agenda in instructional technology

Abstract“Post-modernists look to the past and future equally and position themselves in the present, seeing time as a broken continuum in need of acknowledgement” (Jencks, 1992b, p.6).Traditional views in instructional technology are often based on the application of scientific knowledge. Post-modernism, an alternative paradigm, questions whether science alone offers the best approach to teaching and learning. Post-modernism holds promise for guiding research and development in instructional technology.; however, its potential contributions to the field require clarification. Accordingly, cogent definitions of post-modernism have been constructed—from an instructional technologist's point of view—and implications for the field have been presented to address the concerns of critics. This paper received the 1999 ETR&D Young Scholar Award and the author notes that the termpost-modern shall be hyphenated to symbolize “the continuation of Modernism and its transcendence” (Jencks, 1995, p. 30).

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