What is technology?

What is Technology?

Technology is literally the knowledge of techniques - the knowledge of how to do or make things, from how to bake a cake to how to build a computer.

Each change in technology- stone age, bronze age, iron age, invention of concrete, invention of arch, electronics— has changed society.

While Technology is the knowledge of how to make things, this is often confused with technological artifacts which are the objects produced with that knowledge- a clay pot, an iron sword, a computer, a Youtube video.

This is highlighted by conflicts regarding theft of technology, which focus on theft of information, concepts, and techniques- how to weave cloth, how to make an atomic bomb, how  to make a visual interface- vs theft of physical artifacts.

Technological skills are used throughout scientific work, both in laboratory work and analysis, and should be embedded in lesson plans.

Examples:

• Measuring rainfall  or wind speed with home-made instruments

• Measuring velocity of a vehicle with video from a smartphone

• Recording temperature on a graph

• Measuring plant growth with a ruler

• Measuring weight with a balance

• Using Scratch to program an interactive story