Conference Session

Teaching Technological Literacy - Engaging Students

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

William Loendorf, Eastern Washington University; Terence Geyer, Eastern Washington University

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

). "Technological literacy can be thought of acomprising three interrelated dimensions that help describe the characteristics of atechnologically literate person... (1) knowledge; (2) ways of thinking and acting; and (3)capabilities" (National Academy of Engineering11, 2008). "Technological literacy is the ability touse, manage, assess, and understand technology" (International Technology EducationalAssociation7, 2007). All of these definitions point to the knowledge and understanding oftechnologies."Common elements of technological literacy include knowledge about individual technologies, Page 15.1004.3the process of technology development, the historical

Conference Session

Teaching Technological Literacy - Engaging Students

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

William Loendorf, Eastern Washington University

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

challenged to be creative and innovative in their solutionsto the problems presented to them.This interdisciplinary course satisfies the University’s International Studies graduationrequirement. As a result, students from all disciplines across campus regularly take the courseleading to a great diversity of backgrounds and specialties. Perhaps this explains the widespectrum of opinions, comments and ideas expressed both in the class discussions and in thewritten essays.ObjectivesThe course has two main objectives: (1) promote awareness of technological development, and(2) provide a rudimentary understanding of the social, political, economic and cultural impact oftechnology. These two main objectives were then expanded to create a more comprehensive

Conference Session

Teaching Technological Literacy - Engaging Students

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Krupczak, Hope College; Kate Disney, Mission College

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

engineering professions, not justcomputers and information technology.1 While not yet common, some engineering departmentsoffer service courses for non-engineers.2-14 Many of these technological literacy courses havebecome successful when measured by sustained student interest and long-term sustainability.2-14Initially it may appear that these engineering courses for non-engineers have little relation to thecurriculum for an engineering degree. However, in attempting to enliven introduction toengineering courses, these successful technological literacy courses represent a potential sourceof themes or topics that capture the interest of undergraduate students

Conference Session

Teaching Technological Literacy - College Courses and Minors

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Krupczak, Hope College; Mani Mina, Iowa State University; Robert J. Gustafson, Ohio State University; James Young, Rice University

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

conditions, similar to the wayengineering departments meet the ABET a-k requirements for engineering degrees.BackgroundThe quality of life and economic prosperity of the over 300 million residents of the United Statesis dependent on the development and use of technology. This includes issues ranging fromformulation and implementation of energy policies to telecommunications. Educating the publicwith essential information about technology and technological literacy requires a fresh look atour efforts in undergraduate education. Engineering programs at all levels must acknowledgeresponsibility for educating non-engineers about technology 1–11. Engineering concepts arepervasive in decision making within industry, government, education, and health care

Conference Session

Technological Literacy and the Educated Person

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Krupczak, Hope College

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

Engineering (NAE) in Changingthe Conversation: Messages for Improving Public Understanding of Engineering.1 InTechnically Speaking: Why All Americans Need to Know More about Technology, the NAEstresses the value of being knowledgeable about technology in the twenty-first century.2Technological literacy is defined in Tech Tally3 as “an understanding of technology at a level thatenables effective functioning in a modern technological society.”Technology in this case is broadly defined as the efforts and products of the various fields of Page 15.1324.2engineering. Technology encompasses any modification of the natural world to fulfill humanneeds and

Conference Session

Teaching Technological Literacy - College Courses and Minors

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kelli Huser, Iowa State University; Thomas Kelly, Iowa State University; Mani Mina, Iowa State University; Seth Ballou, Iowa State University; Joseph Crispin, Iowa State University

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

points, comments, and any particular questions the student had about the material.Though this material did not have a page length requirement, it was typically 1-3 pages. Thisencouraged accountability on the part of the student but also on his or her classmates, as thestudent would have the freedom to call upon a classmate for discussion or commentary. Thisparticular approach of assignments and discussion days was best suited to expand the students’knowledge of the historical events surrounding technology, as it provided the structure of readingand writing familiar to many college classrooms.This approach also followed the personal relevance concept in curriculum design. Personalrelevance in technological courses encourages inquiry into

Conference Session

Technological Literacy - Courses, Educational and Accreditation Standards

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Yoojung Chae, Purdue University; Senay Purzer, Purdue University; Monica Cardella, Purdue University

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

Engineering Education, 2010 Core Concepts for Engineering Literacy: The Interrelationships among STEM DisciplinesAbstractThe purpose of this paper is to define STEM literacy by examining the commonalities anddifferences between engineering, technology, science, and mathematics. We analyzed threemajor organizations’ publications on literacy and K-12 education standards. These publicationsare: 1) Standards for Technological Literacy, 2) National Science Education Standards, and 3)Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. These standards and literacy documents arecompared and synthesized by examining their differences and commonalities. We also comparedthe definition of engineering literacy emerged from this

Conference Session

Teaching Technological Literacy - College Courses and Minors

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Roy McGrann, State University of New York, Binghamton

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

engineering design andanalysis process.” An outline of the requirements for the minor is presented. The experiencesof the first students who participated in the program are described. Also, the challengesencountered in the approval process for this minor are described.IntroductionThe need for an educated citizenry is recognized as one of the basic requirements of a democraticsociety. In our increasingly human-built world, this entails a technologically literate citizenry.The goal of technological literacy “is to provide people with the tools to participate intelligentlyand thoughtfully in the world around them.”1 Included in this participation is an understandingof the human process of technological development: engineering analysis and design.At the

Conference Session

Technological Literacy and the Educated Person

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Heywood, Trinity College Dublin

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

the course forwhich they were prepared is defined and the implications for the curriculum andinstruction summarised.There is no single course design and much depends on the educational culture, theaims to be achieved, and the motives of those who want to achieve them. The paperbegins with a brief general introduction to the subject that has focused historically onthe introduction of technological literacy in schools.IntroductionIn 1959 the scientist and novelist C. P. Snow gave a controversial lecture on “TheTwo Cultures and the Scientific Revolution”.1 It generated a great deal of heat and notmuch light. He argued that in England there was a great divide between what might bedescribed as a culture informed by the humanities and a culture

Conference Session

Technological Literacy - Courses, Educational and Accreditation Standards

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Yung-Hsiang Lu, Purdue University; Guangwei Zhu, Purdue; Cheng-Kok Koh, Purdue University

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

pairs of pieces that are mirrors but cannot be obtained by rotations; these four pieces areconsidered unique in Tetris.uses a computer game to help computer engineering students integrate many subjects learned in differentcourses. Tetris is one of the most popular computer games. Tetris has seven pieces, each with four squares. Aplayer rotates a piece or move it horizontally as it falls. When a horizontal line is completely filled bysquares, the line is eliminated. The player’s score increases as a new piece enters the Tetris window or whena line is eliminated. Figure 1 is a snapshot of a Tetris game. A player’s goal is to maximize the numberof eliminated lines given a sequence of Tetris pieces. Tetris is a 2-dimensional packing problem and

Conference Session

Technological Literacy - Courses, Educational and Accreditation Standards

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Blake, Austin Peay State University

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

criteria.Bibliography 1. Eide, A.R., R.D. Jenison, L.H. Mashaw, L.L. Northrup, Engineering Fundamentals and Problem Solving, 4th ed, McGraw-Hill, New York, 2002. ISBN 0-07-243027-3 2. Hawks, V.D., and A.B. Strong, Introduction to Engineering Technology and Engineering, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 2000. ISBN 0-13-852402-5 3. Holtzapple, M.T., and W.D. Reece, Concepts in Engineering, McGraw-Hill, New York, 2005. ISBN 0-07- 301177-0 4. Kemper, J.D., and B.R.Sanders, Engineers and Their Profession, 5th ed, Oxford University Press, New York, 2001. ISBN 0-19-512057-4 5. Wright, P.H., Introduction to Engineering, 2nd ed, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1994. ISBN 0-471- 57930-0 6. Criteria for Accrediting

Conference Session

Technological Literacy - Courses, Educational and Accreditation Standards

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Blake, Austin Peay State University

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

servenon-majors.Bibliography 1. Technically Speaking – Why All Americans Need to Know More About Technology, National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 2002. ISBN 0-309-08262-5 2. Ibid, pg 17. 3. Byars, N.A., Technological Literacy Classes: the State of the Art, Journal of Engineering Education, January, 1998, pp 53-61. 4. Technological Literacy for All: a Rationale and Structure for the Study of Technology, International Technological Education Association (ITEA), 2005. ISBN 1-887101-01-2 5. Gorham, D., P.B. Newberry, and T.A. Buckhart, Engineering Accreditation and Standards for Technological Literacy, Journal of Engineering Education, January, 2003, pp 95-99. 6. Krupczak, John, and David F. Ollis

Conference Session

Technological Literacy for K-12 and for Community College Students: Concepts, Assessment, and Courses

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mauricio Castillo, California State University, Los Angeles

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

-group post-test only design that is grounded in the quasi-experimental quantitative researchtradition. The study utilized a two-group post-test only design, a treatment group who hadreceived instruction in technology education in the form a modular instructional deliveryclassroom and a control group who had not received any formal education in the study oftechnology. The results of study found that eighth-grade participants taking a technology classperformed better (M=15.42, SD=5.42) than those who had no previous technology class exposure(M=14.07, SD=5.25). In comparing the means of the eighth-graders’ post-test, there was asignificant difference F (1, 270) = 4.40, p=.037, p

Conference Session

Technological Literacy for K-12 and for Community College Students: Concepts, Assessment, and Courses

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Steve Macho, Buffalo State College

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

several successful Engineering Technology programs and a TechnologyEducation program within our department. In 2007, faculty these programs workedtogether to provide engineering education professional development experiences fornearly 400 teachers; who in turn have taught thousands of K-12 students. This wasfacilitated with the assistance of a $1.7 million grant, and visiting faculty from severalleading design centers in England. This conceptual framework is partially a result of thefindings of that project. Within our Technology Education program, this is ourframework for preparing technology teachers. These teachers promote technologicalliteracy and engineering. The four elements of the framework are 1) Design, 2) Living, 3) Productivity

Conference Session

Teaching Technological Literacy - Engaging Students

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Steven Walk, Old Dominion University

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

20th Century, researchers in the United States such as Lenz6, Martino7, and Bright8,and others around the world [e.g., the very prolific Marchetti (see, for example, Marchetti9)refined forecasting methods and showed that the logistic model was an excellent construct forforecasting technological change with virtually universal application for technology adoption andmany other individual and social human behaviors. Figure 1 illustrates the idealized logisticcurve of technology adoption or diffusion. Figure 2 shows the logistic growth of the supertankerof maritime fleets presented in a popular format developed by Fisher and Pry that renders thelogistic curve linear10

Conference Session

Teaching Technological Literacy - College Courses and Minors

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Richard Doyle, Penn State University; Richard Devon, Pennsylvania State University

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

our lives, from enabling citizens to perform Page 15.1184.2 routine tasks to requiring that they be able to make responsible, informed decisions that affect individuals, our society, and the environment. Citizens of today must have a basic understanding of how technology affects their world and how they exist both within and around technology.”6While persuasive in general, there are many caveats to these propositions:1. It is not possible to be literate about all, or even most, technologies. For example, doctors,electrical engineers, material scientists, biotechnologists, and chemical engineers, typically livein mutually

Conference Session

Technological Literacy for K-12 and for Community College Students: Concepts, Assessment, and Courses

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Randy Libros, Community College of Philadelphia; Kathleen Harter, Community College of Philadelphia

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

issued are addressed depends upon the context of the institution.We will examine four factors at Community College of Philadelphia that were important in thedevelopment of this course: 1. Establishment of a new curriculum in Applied Science and Engineering Technology (ASET) 2. General Education Requirements 3. Transferability 4. Developmental EducationThe emphasis of the Applied Science and Engineering Technology (ASET) Program is to enablestudents to enter the workforce on the technician level in high technology, high demandemployment areas. The program has a very flexible design to enable rapid response to changingtechnological, workforce, and student needs. Courses leading to an Associate in Applied Sciencein the ASET program

Conference Session

Technological Literacy for K-12 and for Community College Students: Concepts, Assessment, and Courses

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Stephen O'Brien, The College of New Jersey

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

science-technology-engineering-math (“STEM”) K-5 major was defined and implemented, where the teachercandidates receive a deep level of content knowledge in all four STEM components, as wellas education tools for “integrated-STEM”. 1 The program is referred to as theMath/Science/Technology, or MST, program, even though all four elements of STEM arerepresented in the program. [That is, a more accurate name would have been the “STEM” K-5 program.]An obvious potential benefit of the MST program is numerical in nature; an effectivetechnologically literate K-5 teacher should impact the willingness to “think and learntechnologically” for thousands of young students, and hundreds of colleagues. Another largepotential benefit is pedagogical in nature and

Conference Session

Teaching Technological Literacy - Engaging Students

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Thomas Howell, San Jose State University; Patricia Backer, San Jose State University; Belle Wei, San Jose State University

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

semiconductors to networking to software to webtechnologies. Because of its location, most SJSU graduates are employed by Silicon Valleyorganizations. The CoE has embraced technological literacy as part of its commitment to the Page 15.408.3local community. The faculty in the CoE have technological expertise which can benefit theoverall SJSU community through the GE program. This focus on technological literacy has ledto the development of a new GE course in engineering, Engr 5—Science of High Technology.This course attracts students from all of the colleges and programs (see Figure 1). It is widelypromoted in freshman orientation sessions and GE

Conference Session

Technological Literacy and the Educated Person

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Michele Dischino, Central Connecticut State University; James DeLaura, Central Connecticut State University; Patrick Foster, Central Connecticut State University; David Sianez, CCSU

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

Technically Speaking: Why All Americans Need to Know MoreAbout Technology 1, technological literacy is described as a critical characteristic of informedcitizenship. At the same time, the authors note that “most people have very few direct, hands-onconnections to technology, except as finished consumer goods” and that this “lack ofengagement” is responsible, at least in part, for societal shortfalls in technological proficiency.Overwhelming evidence exists that students from all backgrounds have the capacity to becometechnologically literate, and that children of all ages can and do engage in complex reasoningabout the world 2, 3. However, according to recent statistics published by the NationalAcademies, “Just more than one-third of fourth graders

Conference Session

Teaching Technological Literacy - College Courses and Minors

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Austin Talley, University of Texas, Austin; Christina White, Columbia University; Kristin Wood, University of Texas, Austin; Richard Crawford, University of Texas at Austin

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

are effective, efficient, economical, and ecological. Each student in the class hasexciting opportunities to identify new product ideas, i.e., inventions, and embody theseideas in the development of prototypes and conceptual models.The course is not structured like a traditional lecture-type course. The classes areintended to be highly interactive, with a mixture of discussions, multimedia presentations(PowerPoint presentations, short videos, DVDs, etc.), and hands-on activities. A collageof images from the course activities is shown in Figure 1. Figure 1: Collage of Course ActivitiesClass participation is actively encouraged, highly valued, and key to an optimalexperience. Additionally, several out-of-class

Conference Session

Technological Literacy for K-12 and for Community College Students: Concepts, Assessment, and Courses

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Moshe Barak, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

AC 2010-317: PROMOTING TECHNOLOGICAL LITERACY AMONGMATHEMATICS, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY TEACHERS: A GRADUATESTUDIES COURSEMoshe Barak, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Page 15.1003.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2010 Promoting Technological Literacy among Mathematics, Science and Technology Teachers: A Graduate Studies CourseAbstractThis paper addresses a graduate course aimed at fostering technological literacy amongK-12 mathematics, science and technology teachers. The course includes: 1) discussingbroad questions, such as what is technology and how technology relates to other fields,for example, mathematics

Conference Session

Technological Literacy and the Educated Person

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

R. William Graff, LeTourneau University; Paul Leiffer, LeTouneau University; Martin Batts, Le Tourneau University; Maria J. Leiffer, LeTouneau University

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

these concepts.1. Everyday Concepts – FeedbackOur society is continually becoming more technically oriented in all aspects of life.Technology may seem mysterious to fuzzies. There is, however, a certain set of basic, Page 15.1367.2easily understood information that “techies” can help fuzzies understand.Some basic concepts, fundamental to those of an engineering discipline, can be appliedto everyday life. For example, a person concerned about his or her weight can use theconcept that “measurement precedes control.” This concept comes from the engineeringprinciple of a feedback loop. If the output of a system is used to control the input, thewhole system