Information Technology in Education

Empowering Classrooms for the
New Tech Knowledge Ease Generation

Technology suggests wildly different things depending on the context in which the word is used. In the strictest sense I understand it to mean a new invention that solves a problem or improves upon an old invention.

While the word, technology, is often used to imply only modern inventions, as in "state -of-the-art technology," it can refer to any device or systematic technique from any time period. The invention is meant to provide "an improvement in the quality of life." So technology would include fire, the wheel and the telegraph, as well as radio, television and Twitter.

What Difference
does Technology Make?

What qualifies as "an improvement" is highly debatable. More than a few supposed advances have -- over time -- created more problems than they solved. It's interesting to note that different ethnic, religious and social cultures often hold vastly different views of the same technologies. Culture is shaped by technology as much as technology is shaped by culture.

Major new scientific or medical advances require a social and cultural change of perspective. Technology can make a big difference if it conflicts with deeply held, personal beliefs or customs. Such advances often prompt moral and ethical questions, as well as perhaps, irrational fear. Bold, new, changes may have . . . unforeseen consequences.

The Frankenstein Effect

The dark, irrational, nightmarish side to the concept of technology might be called, the Frankenstein Effect. Futuristic novels and sci-fi films from the 1950's inevitably detail the horror of technology gone terribly, terribly wrong. But these dreadful dreams of techno terror aren't a modern phenomenon. Fateful warnings about technology are as old as technology itself. One famous legend dates back to the ancient tale of a man-made monster named, Golem.

With that caution in mind . . . technology is an invention with a positive intention. It's "an amalgamation of products, systems, and processes focused on enhancing the quality of life." Chiappetta and Koballa describe technology as "tools invented by humankind to make work easier and life better."

What Has Made the
Biggest Difference?

The PC and the Web obviously signaled a paradigm shift into a new age. But of the previous techno-wonders of modern civilization, the two that strike me as having the greatest impact are the printing press, and the discovery of electromagnetism. Without those two technologies developing when and how they did, the world as we know it, would probably not exist.

The Difference in
School Technologies

School technologies are tools for such things as writing, measuring, drawing, designing and so forth. Education technologies would include microscopes, computer lab equipment, video monitors, digital devices and video games. Education technology is also a box of crayons or a good game. It's any learning tool that promotes the four types of thinking: Declarative, Procedural, Schematic or Strategic. Learning from by and about new technologies is vital to students who are to become responsive and responsible lifelong learners in the information age.


 My vote for the best old school technological winner is the mass-produced, plain, yellow No. 2 pencil. It influenced how young people actually used words and graphics to relate in their everyday lives.

Considering the world wide wealth of research information available at the touch of a screen, PC tablets are clearly what will influence how all public school students will have to learn in the future.