TQ#1

TQ#1 – Jonassen, et. al. and Koehler and Mishra statements on a framework for technology integration in education

We have under consideration here two articulations of frameworks concerning how we are to think about the integration of technology into education. The chapters we read were the initial ones in the respective books by Jonassen, et. al and Koehler and Mishra, and they were about laying down some criteria, in a relatively general way, for evaluating the ways technology can contribute to education and learning. As I read both articles, I kept looking for more examples to help explain what the authors were getting at, but I guess that was to be saved (appropriately so) for later chapters.

I gleaned something from both of the articles and have criticisms of both as well. The Jonassen statement, for example, could have defined in a better way what “technology” is; an assumption throughout the Jonassen statement seemed to be that “technology” referred to “digital computer technology,” whereas I was not sure why things like causal, analogical, and expressive thinking/learning could not also take place with other (more primitive) technologies. In this regard, on p. 8, Jonassen almost contradicted himself when he stated that children ‘do not learn from technology, but by or through thinking,’ but then went on to state that children can learn through the aforementioned technologies (i.e., computer digital technologies) (pp. 8-9). (Jonassen, however, does come close to defining technology as something other than digital technology at the top of p 7.) I am not against digital technologies in general; I just think that Jonassen could have made his point better in this programmatic chapter of the book.

The Koehler and Mishra chapter was certainly the more analytical one, though such analysis did not always appear necessary (e.g., why do we need to know whether or not a technology has “specificity”?) Also, I did not understand at times some of Mishra’s analysis: I am still not sure, for example, what “functionally opaque” means. I especially liked that Koehler/Mishra broke down every component of the technology integration “mix,” analyzing separately the dynamics of the subject matter content, the learning principles (pedagogy), and the technology and then showing how each intersected or influenced the other two and finally then how each of these intersections again intersected, resulting in the “Technology Pedagogical Content Knowledge.” I felt that this breakdown and analysis helped readers to focus on the goals of learning by isolating such goals. In this regard, I gleaned some very important caveats from the Koehler/Mishra article. Examples of these would be: a) digital technologies do not have to be used in the ways everyone else has always used them (users need to explore them deeper for new and as yet unforeseen applications), b) each technology does some things better and some things worse than any other technology; users need to be aware of this fact when considering their application to learning contexts, c) technologies bring their own biases and thereby can modify, in subtle ways, the very content conveyed through or with them (similar perhaps to Marshall McLuhan’s “the medium is the message”), and d) teachers need to isolate and think separately about the content and the pedagogical methods appropriate to such content and to the learners, and only then think about what technologies can best be exploited to approach the isolated objectives. These areas, in other words, need to be looked at separately; having this pointed out to us helps us avoid making hasty assumptions. I thought the Koehler/Mishra statement, despite its opaque language at times, helped us do this better than the Jonassen, et. al statement.

Perhaps in some tension with this last statement was one other thing that struck me about both articles/statements—namely, how neither seemed to take under any significant consideration in what ways non-mainstream students (those diagnosed with various learning differences such as autism or ADHD) might respond to the use of technologies and digital technologies in education. For such children, there are learning goals other than those laid out at the bottom of p. 7 and top of p. 8 of Jonassen. While I am not as critical of Koehler/Mishra in this regard, their article also seemed to presuppose the mainstream student throughout. I think we need to hear much more about the non-mainstream student when we talk about what technology can and cannot do in our schools.