Quora, the Q&A website where anyone in the world can ask questions and the answers are edited and organized by the community of users in the forms of opinions. Think about it as the live version of Wikipedia where people can go at you for posting the wrong answers. During my research for what is  educational technology I found a link to a Quora question about what is educational technology. In this post I focus on the 5 killer Quora answers on educational technology.
 
All of the answers were selected based on number of views and upvotes. Views do not signify that it’s the most accurate answer only that people in Quora viewed the answer the most thus making it a killer Quora answer.

I copied and past the answers to make it easier for you and was not intended to plagiarize an answer.

All of the questions come with the name of the person that wrote the answer, number of views and link to the answer so you can see for yourself the original posting.
 
Question 1
 
The first filler Quora answers on education technology is from the question, “what is educational technology?” The killer answer is from Gopal Iyer, works at Educational Initiatives – Answered August 8, 2017 with 3.9k views. 

https://bit.ly/2IqyUA9
 
Educational technology; defined as a platform to enhance learning through different digital tools, strives to improve pedagogical transactions anywhere, anytime. A crucial component of ET is its evolving nature, enabling children to learn better and faster. Now let me exemplify this and share my experience in the Indian context and how they have evolved in the recent years and what may the future look like?

First came the basic Windows Computers or desktop PC’s which stored information on floppy drives. Typically we were taught calculations, typing and a few basic languages and thus preparing us to take on the real world challenges. Since then education technology has come a long way, and its progress indeed amazes me. This is what a computer used to look like, during our ET sessions in our schools.

A few years later, in came, the laptops and tablets PC’s overthrowing the good old white elephants like the one’s above and made learning look more engaging and fruitful. However, what changed here was the shift in power from the teacher to the learner. Information was available at the touch of the button, thus making the student as powerful as the tutor. Learning also evolved - difficult concepts taught through apps, exercises provided for practices and real time feedbacks have been made possible, equipping teachers to point out gaps in learning. (a typical tablet equipped classroom)

Immersive learning the future
The future of educational technology looks further promising as the learner and the tutor both would be engaged simultaneously. Teaching in a classroom would be like a movie, lesson plans would be mounted on headsets and students would be encouraged to explore with their tutor. Imagine, biology being taught by immersive technique, wouldn't that be fun?

The power of engagement is indeed a gift of educational technology, and through its dynamic nature, it is certaintly capable of changing the way children learn in the classroom.
 
Question 2

The second question, “What is the difference between educational technology and instructional technology?” The killer answer is from Ed Caruthers, Lifelong learner with 4k views.
 
https://bit.ly/2U7KpOQ
 
The way the terms are usually used

Education technology is technology used to help with education. The education can be on any subject. See the Khan Academy which uses technology to help language arts education, music education. 

Technology education is education in one or more technologies. Science, engineering and math are usually included within the more general technology to make STEM.

Question 3

The third question, “what is technology in education?” The killer answer is from Bill Watson, studied at California with 288 views.  
 
https://bit.ly/2G9wMer
 
The best example for use of technology in education is Mentis. Mentis is an open enterprise system for higher education that organizes data, automates processes & transform academia management.

Given below are the reasons:
· Mentis has number of apps namely E-Learning Compliance (ELC), Profiles, Faculty Productivity, Community Service Learning, Grant Management, Conflict of Interest, Mentor and Track & Internal Competitions which are really very useful for Universities and Colleges.
· Profiles app provides platform to let faculty easily describe all their teaching, research and service activities. Furthermore, it makes these activities available online, for other faculty, students, industry and community partners, to easily search and find.
· E-Learning Compliance (ELC) app helps improve your compliance management. You can use ELC to track and stay on top of your professional licensure and state authorization compliance.

• You can access comprehensive database of state entities and licensure boards covering over 35 different professions.
• Record and track all business, employment, advertisement, instruction and recruitment activities by program.
• Slice and dice your student enrollment data with direct integration with your Student Information System.
• Gather analytical information and derive insights from a number of prebuilt analytical reports.
• A repository of all your program related information that can also be maintained by your program coordinators.
• Save time with auto-reminders, to-dos and automatic website publishing.

Leverage your investment in Mentis by getting other apps or creating your own apps. All apps in Mentis also interact with each other, and with other third-party systems, via services. Data generated in one app can be easily consumed by the other thereby reducing data redundancy and improving the overall integrity of data.
·  Trusted by many universities and colleges in USA.

Find the snapshot of E-Learning Compliance (ELC) app in Mentis below: (pics found on weblink provided) 

*Disclosure: I am an employee of Inknowledge Inc.
For more information, please visit our official website Inknowledge Inc. You can also contact us at info@inknowledge.com.

​Question 4 

The fourth question “What do you understand by education technology and educational technology?” The killer answer is from Michael Cenkner, Teaching in K-12 with 270 views.
 
https://bit.ly/2I6va7j

Here’s my answer. We see it having at least seven distinct roles:
Integrating the educational technology expert in medical education: A role-based competency framework
MedEdPublish - Integrating the educational technology expert in medical education: A role-based competency framework. 
After we published this paper, we decided that the roles should be thought of as applying to a team of ed tech people, not just all with one person. We are currently doing a follow-up study to see how much people agree with this concept. Hope this helps.

Question 5
 
The fifth question is, “how is technology changing education?” The killer answer is from Joseph Gudino, Creative Marketing Writer with 10.6k views.
  
https://bit.ly/2U4dRFx
 
I would use three words to sum up how technology is changing education: faster, lighter, and deeper. I'll quickly describe what I mean by each. 

Faster: Research and communication technologies are allowing for quicker transfer of data between institutions, teachers, and students. This is shortening the amount of time that is expected for people to turnaround assignments or finish research.

Lighter: With services like Google Docs students are having to rely less on what they bring to the table in terms of software and able to take advantage of free third party services. Electronic textbooks and paperless assignments/quizzes/tests have proved a successful alternatives to physical papers for students and educators looking to reduce their carrying load.

Deeper: Due to technological advances teachers have access to more content today that ever before. If they want to explore any particular topic, many are just as far way as a simple Google search and a YouTube video to bring it alive. 

I did a great roundup recently of my favorite technologies for education. Here it is if you would like some more info: 8 Educational Technologies That Are Changing The Classroom
 

The killer answers are to be educational on what people are saying about educational technology. What is your killer answer to any of the educational technology questions? Answer by commenting on this blog post. 

 When I was a first-year doctoral student three years ago I recall a moment when a lady I approached for directions to an office I was looking for at Oklahoma State University – Stillwater campus asked if I could fix the formatting on her graduate students’ thesis. I was caught off guard, and I said I could not help out with that because that’s not what I do. The lady thought I was knowledgeable in IT and could fix anything related to technology because I told her I was a doctoral student in educational technology. I had to correct her, and now I am letting you all know what the heck is educational technology.
 
What is educational technology?
If you type in “definition of educational technology” on the google search engine, you will get 226,000,000 results. I am not going to siphon through all of the results nor will I use Wikipedia as the definition of educational technology.

The first definition I will use for this post comes from the Association for Educational Communications & Technology (AECT) 2012 standards, which is a leading association for educational technology:
"Educational technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating    learning and improving performance by creating, using and managing appropriate technological processes and resources."
 
The second source for defining educational technology comes from The Encyclopedia of Educational Technology:
"Educational technology is a systematic, iterative process for designing instruction or training used to improve performance."
 
To keep it simple educational technology is a systematic process for facilitating learning and improving performance with appropriate technology.
 
Is educational technology all about technology?
One of the main components of educational technology comes from assessing the need and cost factor. Last year a client I was working with that helped adult educators bring technology in the classroom had a significant setback that the educators faced, the cost and buy-in from their institution.
 
Educational technology is not about selecting the latest technology in the classroom that will change the way students learn. There is a lot that goes into using technology in the classroom. For example, does the institution have enough financial resources to purchase and maintain the technology for the long term? Does technology integrate into the curriculum? How will educators be trained in the use of technology?
 
Educational Technology fade
Educational technology has been around for over a century with the start of motion pictures and the radio. Thomas Edison once declared that videos would do away with textbooks. That was at the beginning of the 20th century, and we are still using books in the classroom in the 21st century.

Educational technology is not responsible for the latest technology fade that comes into education (e.g., MOOC, Smartboard). What educational technology does is that it facilitates technology and certainly does not do the teaching. Educational technology is not responsible for technology fades in the classroom just as pizza is not the sole responsibility for people’s obesity.

Educators need to their homework first before falling for the latest educational technology fade.
 
Educational technology is a systematic process for facilitating learning and improving performance with appropriate technology. When using technology in the classroom educate yourself on the technology and see who it will improve performance in your class.