Tractor factories and research in software design

Researchers in educational technology , as wrtt as those interested in the results of this rexarch, oftrn have a mistaken notion of what constitutes technological research in this field. Typically, when a piece of educational software is written, its evatua-tom (this can be newspaper writers, academics, or even chitdrrn) USC two common measures 01 success. These are: " Do the kids like it? " and " Do the kids learn anything? " On the surlace, these seem to be reasonable questions that are rooted in good intentions and sound logic, but they have been holding back thr field of cducationat software development for as tong as there has been such a field. Other questions, not so welt infen-tioned, and not so sound of logic, have also contributed greatly to the tack of success of this field. Thcx include: " Where wilt it fit in the cun-ic-utum? " and " Herr can we measure what the kids have learned? " (Or the more blunt way of putting this last onr: " Will this softwarr help raise teht fmd use5 for that pill. Or we might imagine that physicists find throrirs of flight that allow cnginrrrs to build ail-planes which in turn cnnbtrs practitioners in agriculture to invent means for aerial crop dusting. 01 pb)sicirrs dixover principles by which tight ih transmitted, which in turn allows rnginrcrs to invcrlt mrttr-ods 01 transmission of video signals, which allow practitioners to find new uays to r~rc t&vision in thr class1.oom A similar problem exitts hctwrrn an rnginccrrd device and its apptica