Reading now: "Confronting tools of the oppressor: Framing just technology integration in educational technology and teacher education". Authors write:
"just technology integration in education should lead to full liberation and the promise of a multiracial democracy for all learners. To achieve these aims, just technology should be considered a collective process of crafting and recrafting and using tools to dismantle injustice and rebuild education toward just ends."
@charleswlogan In other words: Technology is a tool used by educators to build better students.
@AlliFlowers I'm not sure I'd say it like that, since that framing sounds to me as if students are passive objects rather than active subjects of their own making. I think technology can, in the authors' telling, facilitate teachers' and students' collaboration and collective work for justice.
@charleswlogan Yes, and those tools must be properly wielded, first by the instructor and then by the learner. You cannot just hand a learner X and expect them to use it without a combination of direct instruction and modeling.
@AlliFlowers Yes and no :) I think "properly" invites more normative uses of technology, which to me often align with those in power and their interests. I also think you can (and sometimes should) give students technology first before direct instruction and modeling, both of which have their place in teaching/learning.
@charleswlogan What technology (and what level student) would you first provide technology prior to any other interaction?
@charleswlogan So prior to any lesson we must include differentiated instruction since no two learners learn the same way. (There are no absolutes.)
@AlliFlowers I think that's right. Or at least be ready to provide options and/or improvise depending on the students' interests/needs.
@AlliFlowers I think most technologies at all levels depending on the context. Digital art, for example, or circuit-making tools. I'm thinking of learning as a form of open-ended play, at least at first. Though again, depending on circumstances/students' needs/pedagogies involved, a different course of action may be a better fit.