ABSTRACT
A frequent charge leveled against technological innovations in education is that they often seem to be designed to exploit the capabilities of the technology rather than designed to meet an instructional need; that is, that they are technology-driven rather than theory-based. It is not totally clear, however, what constitutes a theory-based approach, especially because there are a variety of different types of theories that come into play—theories of how people learn, theories of how an instructional system should best be designed to accomplish these ends, theories of social interaction, theories of how people and technologies can best function together, and so forth. Most instructional innovations have at least some rudimentary underlying theory of learning and instruction, and most applications of technology in education operate from some theoretical notion of efficacy—even though it may not be made explicit by, or even be explicit for, the system designer. Clearly, just the existence of such a theory cannot serve as a sufficient condition for a useful theory-based approach.
