Technology as Knowledge: Implications for Instruction

There is a strong belief among technology educators that technology constitutes a type of formal knowledge that can be reduced to curricular elements. It is suggested that since technology has its own knowledge and structure, its study is similar to how one would organize the study of any other discipline in the school, such as algebra or physics (DeVore, 1968; 1992; Erekson, 1992; Savage and Sterry, 1990). Lewis and Gagle (1992), for example, contend that technology educators “have two clear responsibilities; first to articulate the disciplinary structure of technology and, second, to provide for its authentic expression in the curriculum” (p. 136). Dugger (1988) argues that technology should be considered a formal, academic discipline. Similarly, Waetjen (1993) emphatically states that technology education “must take concrete steps to establish itself as an academic discipline” (p. 9). This article suggests that technological knowledge is not a type of formal knowledge similar to that associated with the recognized academic disciplines. It has distinct epistemological characteristics that set it off from formal knowledge. A deeper understanding of technological knowledge opens the curriculum to possibilities that are obscured by a more restricted view. Greater direction is also given to the task of curriculum development. As Taba (1962) observes, confusion surrounding curriculum development often stems from insufficient “analysis of what knowledge in any subject or discipline consists of. This lack of analysis in turn causes misunderstandings about the role of knowledge in learning and curriculum” (p. 172). To be sure, technology embodies knowledge. Parayil (1991), for one,