Thursday, December 01, 2005

Depicting Educational Technology

My university is having a homecoming artist display. You've heard of the cow parade? Well, a colleague of mine on campus, Ella, is introducing the Gothic Knight parade. There will be many of these concrete gothic knight heads around campus, decorated by interested parties. Homecoming week, the "heads" will be on display in an art exhibition. I immediately put in my bid to decorate a knight on behalf of the Educational Technology dept. Then I started to think, what graphically depicts "Ed Tech"? Certainly a computer theme would hit on one aspect, but that seems more "Computer Science" than "Ed Tech." Then I thought about great teachers and educational theorists, Montessori, Dewey, Vygotsky... but that hits only the educational end of the Ed Tech equation. Specifically, Ed Tech seems to mean the integration of technology into teaching and learning. SO, would those hot programs be a fair representation on the knight? Inspiration, unitedstreaming, SMART Board?

Personally, I would hate to think that Ed Tech is simply reduced to educational software and hardware. I tend to see it as more of an engaged learning theory augmented by tools. Think about the learning communities that now exist as a result. What about assistive technologies for those with special needs? I see Ed Tech as liberating students from their desks, whether physically getting them out of their seats to work on a giant graphing calculator on a SMART Board, or virtually bringing them to the Louvre through the internet.

I'm still baffled. How to decorate a knight?

1 Comments:

At 9:59 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dr. Zieger,

An idea for the title/theme can come from the phrase "Knights in shining armor."

Educational Technology...Improve your technology skills to become a shining Gothic Knight.

Good luck.

Theresa Hrubash

 

Post a Comment

<< Home