Introduction To Technology

                               Introduction To Technology

                                                                 Is the integration of technology with instruction a deserving pursuit?   You’ve enrolled in this course so I’m guessing that you have some motivation for pursuing this cause.   What I don’t know is if you’ve signed up because it’s a requirement for your degree or if you’ve chosen this course for another reason.   For whatever reason you’ve chosen this course  I’ll make my best efforts to connect you to instruction and technology and get you thinking about the possibilities. If we think about technology and education, we might start with a couple of questions.

                                               

                                                                             Most notably, what is technology and what specifically is educational technology?   There are a number of definition associated with these two terms, but let me focus on just a couple. The Oxford Dictionary defines technology as, “the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry.”    Is this too broad for you?   What is the “application of scientific knowledge?”   Does this mean that devices such as mobile devices and computers are technology?   What about a pencil?   Is a pencil considered technology?   It certainly is an example of the application of scientific knowledge. If we can accept Oxford’s broad definition of technology then what does “educational technology” mean?   Is it technologies specific to education or the educational process?    We seem to be in a hurry to connect technology and education.   We hear terms such as instructional technologies, technology integration, and technology enabled to name a few.   Do all these terms fall into a single category of educational technology? Let’s take Januszewski and Molenda’s 2008 definition of educational technology, which reads,  “Educational technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using,  and managing appropriate technological processes and resources.

                                                                   This definition has been adopted by the Association for Educational Communication and Technology, or AECT for short.   In his digital textbook, Educational Technology for Teachers, Francom describes educational technology as,  “using technology as a tool for the practical purpose of helping students to learn” (Francom, 2014) . If we can feel comfortable working with those definitions then we can look for ways to approach this subject.   Some of us may be teachers, others of us may be designers,  and still others of us may simply be interested in the topic. Francom suggests that technology seems to change constantly and it is challenging to keep up with all the technological changes.  

                                                                With new technology comes new methods for teaching and learning.   Might we be able to combine new technology and new methods to improve student learning? At the center of our pursuit is the learner.   We hear that learning and learning theories have been moving towards a greater focus on the learner  and the ideas around Constructivist Theory, which suggests  that students are the “center” of the building their own knowledge.   Constructivist theory suggests that the students try to make sense of their experiences and build their own knowledge in a structured format. With a student-centered approach to learning, what is the role of the teacher?   There appears to be an abundance of technology, tools,  and learning resources that may be able to help us shift our focus to be more student centered.   With new technology and access to technology information availability seems to be growing exponentially.

                                                             It would suggest that teachers cannot possibly be the sole source for information as may have been the case in the past.   Teachers now appear to be the “seekers and evaluators” of information and  resources so it appears the future of the teacher is one who is a “designer of learning experiences” for students.   The focus for the teacher now seems to be one of developing instructional strategies  and projects and technology can help students create the artifacts of the subject matter for which the teacher has designed. Let’s see if we can use this course to begin to look at technology and instruction in different ways to help us as teachers  and to help learners gain skills and knowledge that they will need to know to be successful in the technology and information environment.