Education and Technology 1

Running head: Education and Technology

Education and Technology

William Jones

ETC 567

Dr. Tammy Sherrard

Northern Arizona University

September 30, 2008

 Education and Technology 2

Abstract

This paper looks as how technology, society and education have developed over time.

This development dates back to the advent of basic technology such as papyrus and

charcoal, slate and chalk and runs through today’s technology. With each advance in

technology, the society changes. This paper also examines how with technology can

affect how people live their lives and the negative sides of technology by examining

identity theft.
 Education and Technology 3

Introduction

Education and technology have gone hand in hand with each other from the

beginning of time. In early civilizations, education was for different classes of society.

The education in those times dealt with an oral tradition of the transmission of

knowledge. As technology as progressed from papyrus and charcoal through

slate/chalk, to moveable type for printing education has evolved and changed to match.

These changes in education and technology have also had tremendous affects on the

societies in which they have existed.

History

Early civilizations had independently educated elites. The use of technology in

education in these early civilizations is still hotly debated. In ancient Greece, the

philosophers were considered the most educated men. In that civilization, education

was demonstrated by the Socratic and Platonic philosophy of dialogue, rhetoric and oral

persuasion (Uzgiris, 2007). The technology of the time was changing how education

was viewed, implemented and discussed. The value of this new technology was hotly

debated. Plato believed that if written education was going to continue it would destroy

the basis of the Socatric/Platonic method of education. He was against allowing

technology to influence education (Uzgiris, 2007). This change in technology and

education also greatly affected the Greek society.

There are similar parallels to the invention and use of moveable type printing in

1440. At the time the only people who were educated were the nobles, rich merchants,
 Education and Technology 4

priests and the scribes. Prior to the invention of moveable type, the skills of reading,

writing and basic mathematics were limited to only a few. Books were extremely rare,

very expensive while being signs of wealth and status. The ability to mass produce text

made books (and the information inside of them) more affordable. This ability to have

low cost printing, coupled with an anger towards religious elites led to the start of the

Protestant Reformation. One of the chief tools used was the technology of moveable

print (Edwards, 1994). With the start of the Reformation movement, the technology

available was changing the shape of the society.

Now we can fast forward to the start of the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial

Revolution reshaped the world by embracing technology, demanding an educated

workforce and massively changing world civilization. Prior to the Industrial Revolution,

more than two thirds of people were located in rural, agricultural areas and by the end of

the Second Industrial Revolution those numbers had flipped around with over two thirds

of the work force living in urban areas and employed in manufacturing jobs. (Hartwell,

1994) The shift from agriculture to industry also brought about massive changes to

individual education. Factory workers needed higher levels of education in order to

operate the new technology in the factories. Employers needed to have a

technologically educated workforce. Schools were expected to produce graduates who

were vocationally educated and technically proficient (Baker, Boser, & Householder,

1992). With this demand for semi to fully skilled workers, local education was

established to provide manual training, manual arts, and industrial arts. These all

became components of basic education. In this time period, there were numerous

programs and individuals who were advocating worker education. John Dewey
 Education and Technology 5

articulated a pragmatic philosophy towards technology and the experimentation in

science towards education (Zuga, 1992). He believed by educating the youth of

America in basic technology, fundamentals of democracy and a protestant work ethic

that the United States would produce a strong working class to fill the needs of the

factories while promoting a democratic ideology (Johnston, 2006). He is also later

credited with the early definition of technology literacy (Braundy, 2007).

The education that came out of the Industrial Revolution through the turn of the

century supported the inclusion of technology in the curriculum and over the last one

hundred years technology has been incorporated into education. From the turn of the

century through World Wars I and II the educational framework stayed very similar to

the Dewey ideologies. The technology used started with film and slide projectors,

overhead projectors moving on to record players and tape recorders eventually

incorporating television.

In the 1950’s B.F. Skinner‘s research in behaviorism led to a curriculum of

programmed instruction. This instruction was based on learning as a behavior with

consequences and rewards. Students were thought to be able to be “trained” to

respond and provide the correct answers (Cambre & Hawkes, 2004).

The 1960’s and 1970’s were more focused on the cognitive learning theories. In

the mid 1960’s DeVore wrote several articles which discussed the idea that technology

could be used as the framework for curriculum (Dugger & Yung 1995). Apple, IBM and

Tandy computers started appearing in a few classrooms across the United Sates in the

late 1970’s. By the mid 1980’s the computer was here to stay. At the time, the
 Education and Technology 6

computers were used more for rote learning, memorization and knowledge drilling

rather than comprehension exercises (Petrina, 2003).

Over the past thirty years the use of computers, the advent of and rise of the

internet and other instructional theories have dominated how technology and education

are viewed.

Technology in Education Today

As we are moving past a Post Industrial Revolution society, the needs of future

employers is constantly changing. And so too is the view of technology in education.

With the current trend in education, the total spending on incorporating technology in

schools is big business. It has grown to a $5 billion a year business due to the belief

that "wiring schools, buying hardware and software, and distributing the equipment

throughout will lead to abundant classroom use by teachers and students and improved

teaching and learning" (Cuban, Kirkpatrick, & Craig, Winter 2001). With this amount of

money being poured into public education it has sparked a very heated debate on the

appropriate use of technology in education. Many critics of technology in the classroom

have pointed to a flat line in educational test scores, and any individuals who support

technology in the classroom point out that less than 20% of teachers in the US use

technology/computers in the classroom (Cuban, et al., Winter 2001; Cuban, August

1999).

This debate has some new data to show there are improvements in student

learning by incorporating technology in the classroom. Groups like Edutopia, the North

Central Educational Lab and the Center for Applied Research in Educational
 Education and Technology 7

Technology are conducting research studies that link technology to increases in some

academic areas depending on several factors including what the topic is, and how it is

implemented in the classroom. For example Harold Wenglinsky's study, "Does it

Compute: The Relationship between Educational Technology and Student Achievement

in Mathematics," showed that for 4th and 8th grade students incorporating technology

showed a significant improvement in the students math scores, but when they were use

to teach low order thinking skills their scores went down. So when they were using

interactive simulations that required indepth thought and analysis their scores and

understanding went up. And when they were just using “Drill and Kill” repetitions their

scores went down (Wenglinsky, 1998).

Another good example is the eMints program in Missouri. It is a 100 hour, 2 year

professional development course for Missouri teachers designed to help teachers

integrate technology into their classrooms. They found that after the teachers had

completed their course they had a significantly higher number of students who were

both proficient or advanced when compared to classrooms where the teachers did not

complete this course. One of the program leaders stated “We find that when you put

the two, (inquiry based learning and true technology integration) together there's a

synergy created that really boosts students' learning" (Brannigan, 2002).

These two studies reflect the current and prevailing attitude in most school

districts. This attitudes is one that wants to couple the freedom of the technology with

an open ended constructivist learning style.

This attitude can be summed up by this quote

While many varieties of technology education are currently practiced and

proposed, the common features of most programs include: (a) an
 Education and Technology 8

emphasis on problem-solving capabilities; (b) an interdisciplinary

approach that emphasizes alternatives and compromises, (c) the
integration of context in an approach to recognize systemic functions, and
(d) an assessment of the consequences of technological activities (Baker,
et al., 1992, p.12).

Even with the debate raging about the benefits of technology versus the cost,

many teachers are incorporating technology in new and interesting ways. This includes

the use of social networking sites, computer applications which are used in the business

world (like Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.) and online video storing sites to supplement

their students education. The students are currently learning and accessing more

information that previous generations have ever had available and are forced to

multitask in ways most educational theoriest have never thought about (Wesch, 2007).

One of the biggest demands is the ability to connect the technology used in

classes to an integrated lesson plan. According to some of the research out there, a

teacher should make a concerted effort to select or use appropriate technology to deal

with the learning objectives and select appropriate follow up activities (Okojie, 2006).

Technology and Society

Technology is a double edged sword. For each cooperative breakthrough that

will help science and people there is a consequence. Often the freedom that

technology and the internet have provided us, also provides opportunities for criminals

to thrive. One of these negative consequences that our technological age as brought

about is the problem of identity theft.

The United States Department of Justice defines identity theft as “types of crime

in which someone wrongfully obtains and uses another person's personal data in some
 Education and Technology 9

way that involves fraud or deception, typically for economic gain. “ They go on to

provide much more information on how an individual’s personal data (social security

number, date of birth, credit card numbers) can be obtained by online criminals who

then use that information to create false identities. These criminals then use these

identities to engage in fraudulent activities including creating fake credit card accounts,

opening bank accounts, accessing the victims accounts, and even transferring money

from the victim to a different bank account. When the authorities come to arrest the

criminal, they often find a completely innocent individual who has had their identity

stolen and used by these criminals. This creates a nightmare for the innocent victim as

they may have massive credit card bills, outstanding debts and other issues that the

criminal has done in their names and at the same time it causes massive headaches for

law enforcement agencies as they try to track this criminal.

What makes identity theft so easy is the same technology that we use for

everyday life is what the criminals use to steal people identities. Individuals use their

computers to send emails, chat, log into social networks, do online banking and many

more things. A smart criminal can set up false webpages that look very similar to the

authentic webpages and get unsuspecting individuals to log into them or to provide

personal information. Once the person has logged in, it is possible for the criminal to

gather up personal data to be used in an identity theft operation.

Conclusion

One of the constants in the human race is how technology advancement is part

of our civilization. From the dawn of man, we have adapted to our environment, and
 Education and Technology 10

then advanced our technology with each generation. We went from sitting around fires

having rhetorical conversations, to pens and paper, slate and chalkboards, televisions

and now the internet with computers. With each increase in the technology level, the

level of education has also increased rapidly. We can look at this and see that in a

generation education will look very different from what it is now.

Our past lets us see that as technology has improved, so too has the educational

levels and the quality of life for the people around us. Mike Wesch has done several

insightful videos about how education and technology are intertwined and how

education is changing, must change for the future. In his great video Information

R/evolution he discusses how knowledge and our ability to access it have changed with

the advent of the web. He points out how we will build our own knowledge by having

the freedom that technology allows, and how the world is changing. I think he is right.
 Education and Technology 11

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