Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemThe nature of technology and its effect on the introduction of learning technologies( 1998)The development of adequate student conceptions of the nature of technology has followed in the footsteps of the work on the nature of science. Not only the students' but teacher's, education administrators' and curriculum writer's understanding of the nature of technology is of vast importance, given the unquestioning way technology is working its way into the educational culture. The purpose of this case study was to determine the technological literacy of the senior science students and teachers of a single sex secondary school. The study was conducted over a period of 18 months using a variety of qualitative instruments. The students and staff were surveyed to determine their beliefs about technology and its relationship with science. These results were preliminary to identifying the power structure needed to introduce information collecting technology (or learning technologies) into Senior Physics. The power structure was identified using Callon (1986, 1987) Actor Network Theory (ANT) and explained using Latour's (1987) theories on ANT. The study found that both staff and students had similar beliefs about technology and thought it was associated with computers, progress and making life easier. Both groups thought that technology was applied science. Whilst these beliefs were found to help the introduction of learning technologies the main power levers identified were the neo progressive Physics coordinator and Physics technician, combined with the linkage of learning technologies to assessment tasks. The case study also found that the staff and students' naive beliefs about technology meant that the opportunity to use learning technologies as instruments to explain the relationship between science and technology, was being lost.