Big Ideas Overview #1

The E-Folio is saying we need to do summaries and reflections on 5 of the Big Idea Overviews. Here is the first of them for Chapter 1. 

Chapter 1 Big Ideas Overview

The first of the Big Idea Overviews sets up the idea that each chapter in the textbook is defined by certain big picture concepts. This big picture for chapter is the idea that “educational technology” is not devices or equipment. Rather it is a problem-solving process. In other words, educational technology certainly is the devices and equipment we tend to think of when we think of technology, but it’s also how we use this technology.

The overview moves on to talk about how the chapter deals with technology of past, present and future.  It firstly will describe how past technology has come to inform present technology. Next it will talk about the present situation for technology integration. Finally, the chapter deals with what the future for technology in the classroom looks like.

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I chose this chapter because I appreciated its sense of the continuum for technology. Past technologies have been built upon to create current technologies which will eventually be superseded by future technologies. And yet, the great point the chapter makes is that "out with the old, in with the new" is not always the best philosophy. Instruction is ultimately the most important element in teaching and technology should support that, not become the most important aspect of a lesson.