Technology is the application of tools, materials, and processes to solve problems and meet human needs and wants by modifying nature.  Technology should be studied because it teaches technological literacy.  Technological literacy is the ability to use, manage, and understand technology.  The ability to use technology involves the successful use of the systems model.

Technology education is teaching the skills, knowledge, and understanding, to solve current and future problems or various situations, to enhance the quality of life.  Technology education not only uses the student’s cognitive abilities in areas such as design and drafting but also allows students to physically construct what they have designed.  This increases a student’s psychomotor abilities and coordination.  All students have different ways of learning.  All students do not have the same abilities to comprehend what has been read or spoken to them by a traditional lecturing teacher.  However, if you put them in the production lab and instruct them to build with their hands what has been designed or discussed, they will learn very rapidly.  It is these types of students that the environment of technology education will most aid.  These students, in some situations, will be the “troublemakers” of their regular classrooms, but when put in a lab setting they are able to interact and learn much better than before.  After building the project, the student will then believe the information to be true because he/she sees it is possible to construct.  Along with an increase in the affective domain, being placed in groups will also challenge the students and help teach them social skills.  These social skills have been shown to be needed in real world job settings.  Technology education also benefits students because they are assessed on authentic tasks as well as curriculum based assessment using rubrics, paper based tests, demonstrations, class presentations, project check points, and completed projects rather than traditional paper based assessment techniques.  

As a technology education teacher, I plan to integrate all elements of the definition along with the five major areas of technology.  These five major areas of technology are manufacturing, construction, transportation, communication, and biotechnology.  Though they are five separate bodies of the subject, they are all in some way intertwined.  My plan includes five separate units that will ultimately be brought together. Depending on the level of my students I will challenge them to use technology to the best of their ability and develop their capabilities.  I will follow the Pennsylvania State and National Standards to obtain the objectives I set for each lesson.  It is important for a teacher to effectively use the state standards so the students can become competent competitors against other students in and out of our state.   

At the elementary school level, not much technology is being taught.  We, as educators, need to raise the bar and allow more technology to be introduced and taught in these valuable early years.  Our youth should start to develop technological skills as soon as and if not sooner than they learn the alphabet. Providing students with equal knowledge in all aspects is only fair to them and our society.  All of the students should be introduced to technology education throughout their elementary schooling.  [This basic knowledge of technology and technology education will only benefit in the future.]  At the middle school level, technology has become a requirement.  Many of these students at this level will be girls and boys who have never been exposed to the elements of technology the technology educator intended to show them.  After the middle school level students will be given a choice of whether to take a class in technology.  At this level you have a group of students who have elected to take your class and more than likely they will have more skill and desire to learn than those students at the middle school level. This allows for more in depth activities.

General education has always been a part of the American society.  The basic subjects of reading, writing and arithmetic have been taught to our youth since the beginning of the education system. People use education to better themselves.  The key to success is to become as educated as possible. This is why technology needs to be a part of every education curriculum in America. Since technology is the most rapid growing application of our environment, it is necessary that it be developed in the schools curriculum to help students in their search for education by teaching the student life long learning.  Technology will teach students the five basic classes:  manufacturing, construction, communication, transportation, and biotechnology.  Technology education allows students to use a hands-on approach of the information taught in other classroom areas, such as math, reading, and writing.  Technology education plays an important role in the future of education and will keep elevating in importance for a long time, depending on people’s ability to use, manage, and understand technology.