I stumbled upon this highly informative opinion piece by one of the leading education channels on YouTube, Veritasium.

To me it resonates with Sian Bayne’s criticism of TEL in that technology does not enhance learning per se but is rather yet another medium used within education.

After thinking about a more appropriate term for our field I would suggest “Digitally Facilitated Education”. The term Facilitated  shifts the focus back to education instead of technology.  At the same time it incorporates the promise that technology can support the act of education by breaking down barriers that stood in the way in the pre-digital world.

If we look at the tech industry today we can reasonably deduce that it follows the mantra that technology works best when it removes itself from the equation and just works, allowing us to focus on the things we want to do. It strives to facilitate our lives. In our field, education remains our goal, technology just needs to get good enough to get out of the way and let us reap the benefits.