TEACHER AS A TECHNO PEDAGOGUE

                       

A Techno- Pedagogue is a person who focuses on the user of technology and whose expertise is in electronic pedagogy methods and theory.  A techno pedagogue is not a systems administrator or network administrator that is job for the technical person you hired when you thought they could also help your teachers apply technology in the classroom. The techno pedagogue is a person who sits with your teachers and helps them see the practical uses and appropriate uses of technology to attain their educational goals.  This person’s expertise is grounded in educational theory curriculum development and course design.  This person stays abreast of new developments in technology and helps to flitter new information to other teachers in a manner that can be understood by the less techno savvy.  The techno pedagogue also designs, model courses that use technology for other teachers to learn from.  They exist in the training of new teachers and help the programme make decisions regarding the acquisition and use of technology in the organisation.

Techno pedagogy is a type of bilingualism one foot in human needs and processes and the other in technology and all its potential.  A techno pedagogue can over see the design, production and even implementation of online environments, interfaces and tools that supports learning on diverse processes.  The techno pedagogue communicates and works easily with information architects and programmers as well as professionals and administrators translating from one to the other.  Needs, assessment and technical specifications are both part of the techno pedagogue daily work.  This bridge is part of the new reality of our digital society, the capacity to maximise the potential of technological tools to meet needs that are lest we forget always human. Techno pedagogy refers to the united potential of technology and to transform individual and organizational practices.  It is rich and nuanced conversation between the technological possibilities.

Teaching with technology is complicated further considering the challenges newer Technologies present to teachers. In our work, the word technology applies equally to Analogue and digital, as well as new and old, technologies.   As a matter of practical significance, however, most of the technologies under consideration in current literature are newer and digital and have some inherent properties that make applying them in straightforward ways difficult.

Most traditional pedagogical technologies are characterized by specificity (a pencil is for writing, while a microscope is for viewing small objects); stability (pencils, pendulums, and chalkboards have not changed a great deal over time); and transparency of function (the inner workings of the pencil or the pendulum are simple and directly related to their function) Over time, these technologies achieve a transparency of perception they become commonplace and, in most cases, are not even considered to be technologies. Digital technologies—such as computers, handheld devices, and software applications—by contrast, are protean (usable in many different ways; On an academic level, it is easy to argue that a pencil and a software simulation are both technologies. The latter, however, is qualitatively different in that its functioning is more opaque to teachers and offers fundamentally less stability than more traditional technologies. By their very nature, newer digital technologies, which are protean, unstable, and opaque, present new challenges to teachers who are struggling to use more technology in their teaching.