My instructor for my technology integration course asked us the other day to find out who were the 3 most prominent people in educational technology today. As he says in his own blog post on Alvin’s Educational Technology Blog, there is no concrete answer, or any listing in a textbook. Educational technology is an area that changes so fast that it is nearly impossible to produce any written document that would still be current upon its completion and publication.

So, after doing a bit of web searching on my own, aided by Google, I came up with 3 people that are, in my opinion, very influential in the world of educational technology, even if they are not the so-called most prominent.

First is Timothy J. Magner, Director of Office of Educational Technology in the U.S. Department of Education. If any one is influential in this realm, it is certainly him. He controls and is knowledgeable about all the standards regarding teaching and use of technologies in public schools, and works closely with the rest of the offices in the Department of Education which helps to spread the news of new, useful technology. Also, he could be a powerful ally when it comes to allocating funds to individual groups in order for them to be able to purchase new technologies and upgrade the old ones.

Next is Don Knezek, current CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education. As the head of ISTE, he is responsible for helping school districts create standards for educational technology in the classroom, and is doubtlessly one of the first to find out about new prototypes and experiments in computers and other assistative technologies. ISTE is also international, so unlike Mr. Magner mentioned above, Knezek has a wider range, and policies distributed and released by his company reach across the oceans, which is especially important now with our economy becoming increasingly globalized.

Last, but certainly not least is Bob Hoffman, General Editor of the online Encyclopedia of Educational Technology from Sand Diego State University’s Department of Educational Technology. (You can check out his Encylopedia at http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/.) As the editor of this gigantic database, he has control over how every type of technology is categorized and explained, which can have a great deal of influence on how much (or how little!) it is used. Needless to say, Hoffman is not the only one working on this project, and the myriad of other individuals assisting him to write its entries are worthy of mention as prominent individuals in educational technology as well.

Now, many may and will disagree with me, and feel free to do so. However, there is no real concrete answer, abd no official top ten list of who’s-who in educational technology. So it is very well possible, taking into account how quickly things change in this realm of teaching, that the three people I listed above are forgotten by tomorrow in favor of the inventors of a revolutionary new product or a fresh operating system.