Reflections on Technology: Building Instructional Technology into Community T&I Education

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic affected the face-to-face mode of instruction in the departments of translation and interpreting in higher education to a great extent, and online learning as a way of ensuring immediate access to education became prevalent all over the world for about two years due to the stay-home policies implemented stringently by governments. Stakeholders took a variety of measures in response to lockdowns. Academic staff as well as students of translation and interpreting had to acquire new competencies related to online learning. The objective of this chapter is to explore the affordances of instructional technology for effective community T&I training in unprecedented times. First, I will look at a brief history of instructional technology and I will then provide detailed insights into the concept of distance education with a focus on instructional media and the modalities of online learning. Furthermore, I will discuss how technology can be integrated into instruction and highlight the ASSURE model as an effective approach to this end. Finally, I will deal with the use of Web 2.0 technologies to support online learning as these technologies allow for collaboration and social networking, which help participants interact with each other and build digital content together. This chapter will be useful for academics who are interested in using technology more effectively and efficiently in order to improve learning and performance, and thus, to achieve learning outcomes as this requires the analysis of learning and performance problems, as well as the design, development, implementation, evaluation, and management of instructional and non-instructional processes and resources. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.