Toward Relevant and Usable Tel Research

Internationally, society is increasingly demanding that the relevance and practical applicability of research be made transparent. Despite intentions to the contrary, insights on pedagogically appropriate uses of educational technology for representative teachers in everyday school settings are severely limited. Moreover, there is a problematic gap between what could be effective TEL in theory, and what can be effective TEL in practice. This chapter calls for designers/researchers of TEL to devote attention to not only fine-grained issues of pupil learning and instruction, but also to broader factors that determine if and how innovations are understood, adopted and used by teachers and schools. Methodological considerations are given for designing and studying interventions that are prone to implementation by being: value-added, clear, harmonious and tolerant.