Fundamentals of Technology and Technology Education
Domain 1: Fundamentals of Technology and Technology Education
This domain tests how well you can define technology, explain technological literacy, and use systems thinking to describe human-made solutions. It also checks whether you can distinguish technology education from educational technology and connect technology to society, history, and the environment.
Core concepts
- Technology is the purposeful application of knowledge, tools, materials, and skills to solve problems and extend human capability. It is not a synonym for computers.
- Science seeks explanations; engineering/technology seeks solutions under constraints. They overlap but are not identical.
- A system has inputs, a process, outputs, feedback, and a boundary. Subsystems interact; open systems exchange matter, energy, or information with the environment, while closed systems do not.
- Technological literacy includes knowledge, ways of thinking and acting, and the ability to evaluate technologies and their impacts.
- Impacts are social, cultural, economic, political, and environmental; they include intended and unintended consequences and trade-offs.
- STEL (ITEEA, 2020) organizes technology and engineering literacy around standards such as the nature of technology, core concepts, integration of knowledge, impacts, society's influence, history, design, and applying, maintaining, and assessing systems.
Worked example
A smartphone is a system. Inputs include electrical energy, materials, user commands, and network data. Processes include computation, signal processing, and display driving. Outputs include images, sound, heat, and radio signals. Feedback includes touch sensors, battery-management sensors, and error messages. The phone is open because it exchanges energy and information with chargers and networks. Its camera, battery, and radio are subsystems. This answer earns credit because it names all system parts and gives evidence for open versus closed.
Traps
- Calling all technology computers or applied science.
- Omitting feedback or boundary.
- Listing only benefits and ignoring trade-offs and unintended consequences.
- Confusing technology education with using devices in class.