Stephen Petrina

DIGITAL NATIVES, DIGITAL IMMIGRANTS: AN ANALYSIS OF AGE AND ICT COMPETENCY IN TEACHER EDUCATION

This article examines the intersection of age and ICT (information and communication technology) competency and critiques the “digital natives versus digital immigrants” argument proposed by Prensky (2001a, 2001b). Quantitative analysis was applied to a statistical data set collected in the context of a study with over 2,000 pre-service teachers conducted at the University of British Columbia, Canada, between 2001 and 2004. Findings from this study show that there was not a statistically significant difference with respect to ICT competence among different age groups for either pre-program or post-program surveys. Classroom observations since 2003 in different educational settings in Canada and the United States support this finding. This study implies that the digital divide thought to exist between “native” and “immigrant” users may be misleading, distracting education researchers from more careful consideration of the diversity of ICT users and the nuances of their ICT competencies.

The Politics of Technological Literacy

Technological literacy has been given official sanction; it is the end of technology education in the United States. For most technology educators, the construct is neutral, and something nobody could be ‘against’. This article situates technological literacy in its ideological context of competitive supremacy and conservative politics. In opposition to a ‘neutral’ notion of this construct, a turn toward critical technological literacy is negotiated. Critical technological literacy represents an overtly political turn toward overcoming forms of power that sustain inequities in the built world. To engage in these politics, it is argued that technology educators will necessarily have to resituate their practice within cultural studies.

Advanced Teaching Methods for the Technology Classroom

C onceptualiza tion C oncrete E xperience S ensing & Feeling

ICT in Science Education: A Quasi-Experimental Study of Achievement, Attitudes toward Science, and Career Aspirations of Korean Middle School Students

The Seventh School Curriculum Reform in Korea was introduced in 2000 to prepare school‐aged Koreans for an information and knowledge‐based society. The reform effort emphasises information and communication technology (ICT) in the K–12 curriculum and a learner‐centred pedagogy. This study examines the contributions of ICT, specifically, computer‐assisted instruction (CAI), in Korean science classrooms. A sample of 234 Korean middle school students was categorised into five achievement groups. Data were collected from pre‐ and post‐achievement test scores and pre‐ and post‐questionnaires for attitudes toward science, future courses, and career aspirations in science. Findings include: (1) the lowest achievement group showed the most significant improvement after CAI (p=.000); (2) an improvement in student achievement in science significantly influenced students’ attitudes toward science (p=.019), future course selections, and career aspirations related to science (p=.000); and (3) boys tended to perform better with CAI than girls. This research provides evidence that CAI has the potential to help lower achieving students in Korean science classes and may encourage enrolment in science.

The Political Ecology of Design and Technology Education: An Inquiry into Methods

At the beginning of this new century, design and technology educators face a serious dilemma: Practice conventional modes of design and technology, which have consumed proponents in Canada, England, Germany, and the US, or model design for sustainable lifestyles. Our conventional design, problem solving and technological methods embody a liberal, political ecology and in effect, these methods – our practices – are not sustainable. Using the political ecology of Nike shoes as an example, I describe ecological footprints, resource streams, and wakes as effective metaphors for sustainable practice. In contra-distinction to technocentric methods, I argue for modelling ecocentric processes rooted in political ecology and cultural studies. Attending to the political ecology of design and technology means nothing less than remodelling the design of lifestyles and reducing production and consumption in our practice.

Multidisciplinary Technology Education

Contrary to a tale that is being told in the US, there is no transhistorical, universally pristine organisation of technology. This article resituates technology education in the contested, historico-political terrain to which it belongs. The current, and only, model of the technology discipline is interrogated in order to interrupt a project with roots bound up with a doctrinaire, academic conservatism popularised during the early 1960s. Following a lively critique of the technology mono-discipline, comparative curriculum is used for path-finding and interpretation. Counter to the mono-discipline model of technology, the conceptual parameters of a critical and plural multidiscipline are outlined. ‘Multidisciplinary Technology Education’ (MTE), inspired through efforts in art education, is proposed as a middle path between the technology mono-discipline and Design and Technology. MTE is balanced over four interdisciplines – Practice, Design, Studies and Criticism – with an end in technological sensibility and political sagacity.

Two Cultures of Technical Courses and Discourses: The Case of Computer Aided Design

Researchers in science and technology studies (STS) are in the process of dismantling the conventional human-machine and nature-society-technology boundaries solidified by C. P. Snow and generations of designers, engineers, researchers, scientists and teachers. Using the case of computer aided design (CAD), I argue that by combining the sociopolitical knowledge of STS with technical knowledge we can finally and forcefully bring an end to technical education. To make this argument, I draw on my experiences in teaching CAD in post-secondary institutions in design, engineering, and teacher education. Theories and practices are described to assist design and technology educators with the dilemma of addressing sociopolitical knowledge.

Conditions for Success? Gender in Technology-Intensive Courses in British Columbia Secondary Schools

Gender inequities in technology are systemic in Canadian schools and workplaces (Status of Women Canada, 1997). Several recent analyses of British Columbia (BC) students’ participation in technology-intensive areas of the public school curriculum have documented a range of these inequities (Braundy, O’Riley, Petrina, Dalley, & Paxton, 2000; Bryson & de Castell, 1998; Schaefer, 2000). In the BC Ministry of Education’s (BC MOE) most recent technology policy report, Conditions for Success (1999), gender inequities are treated as symptoms of poor access, rather than as a systemic part of the school conditions themselves. Because the report’s authors misapprehended the extent of inequities, BC MOE’s Technology Advisory Committee recommended a distribution and integration of technologies to provide the new conditions for success in technology throughout BC’s public schools. We argue that the inequities in the BC schools are systemic and cannot be understood without an adequate assessment of participation and performance data. We analyze provincial trends in gender-differentiated participation and performance of students in the technology-intensive courses of BC public secondary education, at a time in Canadian history when competence and confidence with a range of technologies are essential for full cultural participation.More financial resources are being directed to technology than to any other area in public school budgets. For the period 1998 to 2004, the BC government committed

The politics of curriculum reform in Canada: The case of technology education in British Columbia

123 million to establish a Provincial Learning Network to network BC’s 1,700 public schools and improve access. Other provinces made similar commitments to information technology. Alberta, for example, invested

Medical Liberty: Drugless Healers Confront Allopathic Doctors, 1910–1931

85 million for the same time period. Inasmuch as girls continue to be under-represented in technology courses, they have not benefited from the comparatively large financial investments in technology. Policy makers in Canadian public education require access to sex-disaggregated data, in order to create and implement equity-oriented strategies in technology. The research described here represents a step towards the development of an information-rich database for monitoring technology course enrolments in Canadian schools and has both policy and scholarly implications.Sommaire exécutifLes inégalités sexuelles dans le domaine des technologies sont systémiques dans les écoles et les milieux de travail canadiens (Condition féminine Canada, 1997). En Colombie Britannique, plusieurs analyses récentes sur la participation des étudiants aux secteurs technologiques du curriculum des écoles publiques font état de nombreuses iniquités (Braundy, O’Riley, Petrina, Dalley et Paxton, 2000; Bryson et de Castell, 1998; Schaefer, 2000). Dans le plus récent rapport du ministère de l’Éducation de la Colombie Britannique, intitulé Conditions for Success (1999), les inégalités sexuelles sont traitées comme un symptôme plutôt que comme une composante systémique dés conditions qui caractérisent les milieux scolaires. Les auteurs du rapport se sont mépris sur l’étendue du phénomène, et le Technology Advisory Committee du ministère de l’Éducation a recommandé une distribution et une intégration des technologies dans toutes les écoles publiques de la Colombie Britannique, afin de créer de nouvelles conditions assurant le succès des élèves dans le domaine des technologies. À notre avis, les iniquités dans les écoles de la province sont systémiques et ne peuvent s’expliquer sans qu’on procède à une analyse détaillée des données sur la participation et la performance. Nous analysons les tendances provinciales pour ce qui est des différences de participation et de performance dans les cours riches en contenus technologiques chez les étudiants et les étudiantes des écoles publiques de niveau secondaire, et ce à un moment de notre histoire où les compétences technologiques sont essentielles à une pleine participation à la vie culturelle.Notre analyse des inscriptions chez les étudiants et étudiantes de la Colombie Britannique révèle de grandes inégalités frappant les élèves de sexe féminin dans tous les cours à contenus hautement technologiques, sauf dans ceux de gestion des informations (études commerciales) et ceux qui ont trait aux textiles (économie domestique) (Tableaux 1–3). Puisque les étudiantes continuent d’être sous-représentées dans la plupart des cours de technologies, elles ne profitent guère des investissements dont ces cours ont bénéficié. Il y a donc une double inégalité: les cours d’informatique et de technologies industrielles continuent à bénéficier de financements excessifs comparativement aux cours où prédominent les élèves de sexe féminin, et seule une faible partie des étudiantes profitent des avantages accrus que procure la réussite à ces cours. On voit partout la grande variété de cours technologiques à prédominance masculine, à l’exception des cours de gestion des informations et ceux qui ont trait aux textiles. Cette donnée est demeurée essentiellement inchangée malgré une politique explicite de promotion de l’équité sexuelle de la part du ministère de l’Éducation de la Colombie Britannique. En un mot, la situation des étudiantes demeure celle d’une sous-représentation et d’une « ghettisation » disciplinaire. Le statut des élèves de sexe féminin dans les écoles publiques de Colombie Britannique n’a pas évolué au cours des quinze dernières années. Et, bien que notre propos se soit limité au écoles de niveau secondaire, nous estimons que les inégalités dans le domaine des technologies caractérisent l’ensemble du système d’éducation, du curriculum K-12 à la formation des maîtres, sans compter l’emploi (Tableaux 1–3).