Reflections on Educational Technology, Research and School Innovation

In this paper four main perspectives are sketched as a framework to consider accomplishments in the educational technology research field and, in particular, in the school education sector: (a) the computational perspective which is focused on what technology makes possible; (b) the cognitive perspective which is focused on what the individual can learn under certain conditions; (c) the pedagogical perspective which considers how the design of ICT mediated situations can provide an answer to concrete educational problems; (d) the social and cultural perspective which is focused on the opportunities and needs brought about by different contexts. In the paper, these perspectives are exemplified making reference to research studies carried out at the Institute of Educational Technology of the Italian National Research Council (ITD-CNR) in the specific field of school education.