It’s no secret that schools across the globe today make
great use of many technological advancements that today’s society has to offer
in order to enrich the lives of their students.
Technology has become a huge part of American’s everyday lives, so
introducing kids to these tools at a young age is crucial. But, there is so much more to it than
plugging tech equipment into the classrooms across the country. As my article “Technology planning in
schools: An integrated research-based model” by Ruben Vanderline and Johan van
Braak, published in the British Journal of Educational Technology explains, a
technology plan is needed prior to obtaining technology in schools. Within the technology plan, the article emphasizes
that there is a major distinction between “technology planning”(a verb), and a
“technology plan” (a noun). Schools need
to come up with a plan before they introduce technology to the classrooms to
explain the school’s expectations and goals of integrating technology into
education. It describes the overall
philosophy of technology use, explores how technology will improve teaching and
learning. Really, this is a pretty
simple process; but the use of the official style complicates the idea to make
it seem far more sophisticated and complex than it really is.
Making note that the article is from
an educational technology journal, I assumed that this article was meant for
individuals who are involved in education and integrating technology into schools. Reading on, within the second paragraph, the
writers stated exactly whom the article was written for,
“This overall model is intended for teachers and school
leaders when developing their school technology plan, for researchers when
investigating technology planning and for policy makers and educational
developers when designing initiatives to support schools in the technology
planning process.”
Being that this article was written for teachers and those
other educational leaders, I predicted that
there might be some use of technical language or concepts catered towards this
group that me, not being involved in education, might not understand. The first time I read through the article, I
admit that I was very confused by the whole concept of technology
planning. Reading through a couple more
times, I realized that there was only one small part in the article that spoke
to educators’ background knowledge of the school system,
“ Educational technology vision development concerns the
establishment of a school-based vision on technology integration and linking
this vision to the schools’ vision of education. The financial
technology policy concerns the management of the schools’ technology budget. The third domain, technology policy regarding
the infrastructure, concerns the practical organization of the educational
technology infrastructure, ie, hardware and software issues.”
The phrases underlined are the only
things educators reading this article would really have background knowledge on
that anyone else not working in education wouldn’t know. Besides those few small concepts, this
article is really not that complicated.
This article is definitely written in the official style in order to
seem professional, establish credibility/expertise, and build legitimate
knowledge. It’s very informative, has a model of a system of technology
planning in school, and goes through different dimensions, explaining the steps
taken. Each step has it’s own details and instructions to follow in order
to ensure a “smooth ride”. But really,
when you break the article down, it only has two main ideas that with the use
of the official style have managed to be re-worded throughout the entire three
and a half paged article.
Much like a characteristic of the official style, the first
sentence of this article takes awhile to get going, or doesn’t really get to the
point effectively right away,
“In the quest for conditions that support the integration of
educational technology into classrooms, recent attention has been paid by
researches, policy makers and practitioners to the importance of technology
planning. Technology planning or
information and communication technology (ICT) policy planning is commonly
referred to as the process of developing, revising and implementing a school
technology plan that guides teachers and the school organization in the
integration of technology for teaching and learning.”
What? This main concept is re-mentioned with
different wording several times throughout the article. But, it isn’t until the third paragraph that
the use of plain language is used to really make sense of what technology
planning truly is,
“In the TPS model, a major distinction is made between
“technology planning” (a verb) and “technology plan” (a noun). The latter refers to the official document
made by schools. It is the outcome or
product of several underlying processes that are at stake in schools – referred
to as “technology planning” – resulting in a technology plan.”
Plain and simple, to the point;
these three sentences basically sum up the whole article. The point of the whole article is confusing
too. At first it seems as though the
main reason for the article is to explain to educators what technology planning
is. But then it seems to somewhat delve
into how to create a technology plan, but vaguely enough that this article
would not be sufficient enough instruction to do so. Their motives for writing this article is a
mystery until the end, in which it’s stated,
“By visualizing all aspects that have been identified in
research studies on technology planning, we hope to stimulate schools in their
continuing efforts on technology plan in general, and their technology
integration activities in particular.”
So the point seems to be promoting
technology planning by explaining some of the steps it takes. The use of the official style makes this
article seem as though they’ve
actually given steps, but really it’s a repetition of defining technology
planning. This is done in large part by
the use of prepositional phrases, making the article shapeless. It offers no chance to emphasize or
harmonize, so it’s literally unspeakable.
Some examples of prepositional phrases include, “As such, technology
planning as a source of school feedback can foster schools’ goals of
improvement and quality assurance.”, “Moreover,
this dimension further refers to the use of the model by in-service trainers or
school counselors.”, “In a technology plan, a school describes its
expectations, goals, contents and actions concerning the integration of
technology in education.”, “In this
colloquium, an integrated research-based model on technology planning in
schools (TPS) is described.”, and “To put it differently, writing a technology
plan is a process of going through different steps.”
The entire article seems to reword and rephrase the
definition of technology planning over and over again. Overall, there is a large use of the official
style in order to make this somewhat simple idea of technology planning seem
far more complex. The use of
prepositional phrases, complex sentences, and arbitrary bureaucracy language
make the article seem as though it is sophisticated and it’s doing something
more than just defining technology planning, when really it’s just doing
that. So why, if all it’s doing is
defining technology planning, is it in a Journal of Educational Technology, the
44th volume at that? Wouldn’t
people reading this journal already know something about technology
planning? Also, why does the article
claim to give processes in which to form a technology plan when it doesn’t do
so? Are they knowingly trying to confuse
the reader into believing that they now know how and are prepared to create a
technology plan for their schools after reading this? Is the use of official style in this article
used to take advantage of the reader?
And finally, wouldn’t some teachers and those involved in education be
able to notice that this article goes in a circle and doesn’t really explain
how to form a technology plan?
By Katie
TerBeest
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