Among the many challenges facing public schooling in the United States is the often irrelevant
usage of technology in the classroom - in ways that support the textbook and computer
industries more than student learning and achievement. This primer reframes the longstanding
debate about instructional technology in school classrooms and challenges the reader to think
more critically and conscientiously about the fundamental communication and technological
processes that mediate learning and ultimately define education. The primer offers educators at
all levels a three-dimensional map for exploring the philosophical pedagogical and practical
uses of technology to serve rather than subvert the public purposes of education in a
democracy.
