Technology Integration

Technological,Pedagogical, Content Knowledge  (ISBN 0-8058-6356-7) by AACTE

 This book is amazing. One of the contributors, Judi Harris, is a familiar name to technology and education. Although it’s expensive, all integrationists should read it. This book contains cogent descriptions of what I’ve observed about how teachers interact with technology. A perception that there are different cultures between teachers and technologists, the “wicked problem” of technology, the “protean” nature+functionally opaqueness+instability of technology are some of the ideas discussed in the introduction. I’m struck by “Technology is often considered to be somebody else’s problem;” hence, part of the reason for the split. The idea of two cultures living together like artists and scientists, brings to mind how our teachers may perceive technologists. But I’m far from a scientist, and I would tell them that I’m more like an artist, selecting and manipulating the best tools for the sculpture at hand.  In reading about “wicked problems,” I’m seeing my own experiences with technology integration issues both in labs and in classrooms. It is the complexity of the variables that makes this profession such a wonderful challenge. Add to that, the perspectives all the technology users bring to the interface, and there’s certainly a spiral of complexity taking place. I reflect on how often I like to observe just how students are interacting with the technology as I try to figure out how to make the lesson(s) meaningful to them. It’s amazing to see how students bring such different interactions with technologies. I’m always asking them, “how did you do that?” as I learn along side them. The fluency of information technology (FIT) requires “information processing, communication, and problem-solving” as part of a more modern definition of computer literacy (p. 15). What is interesting here is that this definition is “evolving.” Historically, educators have been used to static knowledge, or knowledge that does not expand exponentially.