Retrospective Analysis of Technological Literacy of K-12 Students in the USA
Arthur Eisenkraft University of M assachusetts Boston, USA E-mail: arthur.eisenkraft@ umb.edu
INTRODUCTION
During the past decade, there has been a concerted effort to try to articulate what students should know and be able to do within the technology domain. Committees from both the International Technology Educators Association (ITEA) and the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) devoted years of study, reflection and feedback to produce two complementary documents œ the Standards for Technological Literacy (NRC, 1995, 1996) and Technically Speaking (NAE & NRC, 2002). After another two years of study, the NRC published Tech Tally (NAE & NRC, 2006) . The report‘s premise is that —no one really knows the technological literacy among people in this country - or, for that matter, in other countries.“ Recognizing that 98% of Americans would like to see technology included in curriculum (Dugger et al., 2002), it makes sense that before we embark on creating or adapting curriculum for the classroom, it would be helpful to generate data on what students presently do understand about technology in general and their level of technological literacy in particular.
The creation of a suitable instrument for assessing technological literacy and the subsequent survey distribution and analysis would require a large expenditure of resources. While these important initiatives are taking place, it is useful to analyze existing archival data to get a sense of students‘ understanding of technology. Such archival data exists from the entries submitted to the Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVisions competition conducted during the past 15 years. Although these data are from a targeted population of K-12 students (those who entered the competition), it does provide some baseline data about students‘ views and understanding of technology.
The analysis of this data reflects which technologies students chose to study and explore for the competition. In forecasting what these technologies may be like in twenty years, students also revealed what they saw as the positive and negative consequences of their chosen technologies. In addition, in their descriptions of their design process, they revealed what factors drove them to reject certain design choices.
What is Technological Literacy?
In the 2001 and 2004 Gallop surveys, two-thirds of adults surveyed responded ”computers‘ to the question, —When you hear the word ”technology,‘ what first comes to mind?“ Of course, technology is not limited to computers but includes cell phones, clocks, paperclips and all other human artifacts. Technology has been defined in the
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Standards for Technological Literacy as —the innovation, change, or modification of the natural environment in order to satisfy perceived human wants and needs“ (ITEA, 2000a). Other standards documents have reached similar definitions. The National Science Education Standards state —The goal of technology is to make modifications in the world to meet human needs“ (NRC, 1996). The AAAS Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy state, —In the broadest sense, technology extends our abilities to change the world: to cut, shape, or put together materials; to move things from one place to another; to reach farther with our hands, voices, and senses“ (AAAS, 1993). In Technically Speaking: Why All Americans Need to Know More About Technology, technology is defined as —the process by which humans modify nature to meet their needs and wants“ (NAE & NRC, 2002).
Technological literacy, as defined in Technically Speaking (NAE & NRC, 2002) has three dimensions: knowledge, capabilities, and ways of thinking and acting. The Tech Tally report modified these dimensions by renaming ”ways of thinking and acting‘ to ”critical thinking and decision making‘ in order to eliminate the possible misinterpretation that there is a correct position on complex or controversial issues that include technology. The specific characteristics of a technologically literate person garnered from Technically Speaking and Tech Tally are reproduced later in this paper.
Tech Tally: A Summary
In 2002, the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council convened a 16-member committee including engineers, technology educators, K-12 science and math educators, curriculum and standards developers, informal educators, cognitive scientists, and people with expertise in assessment and public understanding of science and technology. (NRC, 2006; Custer, 2000) The Tech Tally committee‘s goal was to —determine the most viable approach or approaches for assessing technological literacy in three distinct populations in the United States: K-12 students, K-12 teachers, and out of school adults.“ The committee was not asked to develop these tools, but to provide an approach by which these assessments could be carried out. In the Tech Tally study, the committee did its best to locate existing instruments that have been used to assess technological literacy. After numerous searches, 28 instruments were identified. Recognizing that a good instrument should survey people along all three dimensions of technological literacy (knowledge, capabilities, ways of thinking and acting (NAE & NRC, 2006) the committee found all instruments deficient.
Based on this study, the committee recommended that improvements in the assessment of technological literacy can be made by including new items into already existing large scale assessments. Specifically mentioned were the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement and the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).
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In addition the committee recommended that a —second area of opportunity for the Kœ12 population, the creation of new instruments for assessing technological literacy, would break new ground. The challenges to this ambitious approach would be great, but so would the potential benefits, especially the realization of a comprehensive picture of what young people know and can do with relation to technology.“
Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVisions Competition
For the past 15 years, Toshiba has sponsored and the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) has managed the Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVision competition. Students must work in groups of 2-4 within their grade level category (K-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10- 12). Some of the excitement emerges from the fact that all grade levels subscribe to the same competition guidelines but do not compete against each other. Each team must first identify a technology that exists today. They must then describe how the technology works as well as trace the history of the technology and how it came to be in its present form. I like to think of this as the traditional learning sequence of the competition. It requires finding references and writing a report œ skills that are often taught in school.
The student teams must then provide their vision of what the technology will be like 20 years from now. This would be a challenge for any adult; it is a greater challenge for students who may be only 8 years old.
The students must then ground their vision of the technology with reality. The guidelines ask the students to let us know what scientific or technological advances must occur to make their vision a reality. This requirement insures that their technology is not possible next year nor will it require 100 years of advances.
The guidelines then remind students that all technologies have societal impacts. Students must describe both the potential positive and negative consequences of their technology on the future society. Although students easily list the positive consequences, they find it more difficult to identify the negative consequences.
Students must provide bibliographic references for their research and must then explain how they will communicate their vision to others. In the early years of the competition, this communication was done with a video. In recent years, this communication is done with a website design.
A feature of the competition added in 2005 encourages another facet of technological design. The judging process was often stymied because the judges wondered if the students had considered alternative design features. For example, had they considered the value of rechargeable batteries over disposable batteries for their device or had they considered and rejected the idea of making the device more compact? To assist in the judging, students are now required to identify alternatives to their technological design and to describe their design process. This description consists of reports of their
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brainstorming, research and decision making but does not comprise hands-on design work.
The Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVisions competition has been a singular success over the past fifteen years. With between 13,000 and 20,000 students submitting completed entries every year, Toshiba has enhanced the technological education of all of these students and the much larger number of students (estimated to be 150,000 students annually) that begin the competition each year as well. The students have won recognition for their efforts with scholarships totaling over $200,000 each year and a total of over $3 million since its inception.
The students have surprised everyone with their creativity and understanding. For example, a 2nd grade team developed their vision of —the refrigerator of the future.“ The refrigerator would maintain an inventory of what food was inside. When a food passed its expiration date, it would be rejected and tossed. The refrigerator would also move the stored foods to preferred locations in the refrigerator and freezer for optimal energy efficiency. It could suggest recipes for dinner based on what was present or alert you of missing ingredients for a specific recipe. When you wanted something from the refrigerator, you would input your name. If you asked for a cupcake, the refrigerator may respond, —Wouldn‘t you rather have a carrot?“ It maintained a record of your food preferences and would assist with shopping lists. The positive consequences varied from nutrition to energy savings. A negative consequence of this refrigerator would be the loss of space on the door due to displays and no place to hang your artwork or report cards!
A middle school team researched their vision for the toilet of the future. The toilet that they expect to see would maintain a longitudinal health record of each member of a family by performing regular lab tests of urine and feces. The —toilet“ could then warn people if there are changes in their waste products that could signal potential health concerns.
A high school team developed a prosthetic limb that integrates skin, skin grafting techniques and nerve regeneration tubes to allow amputees to sense the world through artificial skin. Microprocessors translate texture, pressure, temperature and vibration into sensations detected by the patient.
A description of all past winners of ExploraVisions as well as details about the competition can be found at http://www.exploravision.org
ExploraVisions in the context of technological literacy
Much has been written about the role of alternative assessments in technology and how these alternative assessments may be preferable to paper and pencil tests (Custer, 2000; Hoepfl, 2007; Shepard, 1997).
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The Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVisions competition can be viewed as an alternative assessment of technological literacy. In the competition judging, student entries are assigned points for each of the components according to the criteria displayed in Table 1.
TABLE 1: Criteria used in the ExploraVisions competition judging 1. Identifying a present technology 2. (and) describing how the present technology works (10 points) 3. History (10 points) 4. Future technology (20 points) 5. Breakthroughs (15 points) 6. Positive and negative consequences (10 points) 7. Description of design process including why alternatives design features were rejected (10 points) 8. Bibliography (5 points) 9. Communication through web page graphics (20 points)
As one can see, the —encyclopedic“ work of choosing a technology, telling how it works in the present and tracing its history garners 20% of the total points. Identifying a future technology is worth an additional 20%. The breakthroughs required, the design process and the positive and negative consequences of this technology are worth an additional 35%.
The experience of entering the competition helps students understand the importance of invention in history, the scientific breakthroughs required to create a technological invention, the gradual "building block" nature of scientific progress, how science relies on the constant improvement of its technological tools in order to progress and that all new technologies have both positive and negative impacts on our lives. Each of these grading components of the ExploraVisions competition can be aligned with the characteristics of a technologically literate person as set forth in Technically Speaking (NAE & NRC, 2002) and Tech Tally (NAE & NRC, 2006) and displayed in Table 2. Under the three dimensions are bullets listing the specific characteristics.
The numbers in the competition (COMP) program column show the parts of the ExploraVision competition program that support the intellectual growth toward developing each of these characteristics, on the road to becoming a technologically literate person.
The letters in the Survey column correspond to the data that was culled from past ExploraVision entries: ñ Letter A denotes the data taken about the type of technology that the students chose. ñ Letter B refers to the design process and criteria that students used to reject alternative designs. ñ Letter C refers to student appraisals of the positive and negative effects of their technology on society.
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For example, along the knowledge domain, the 4th characteristic of a technologically literate person is: —Knows some of the ways technology has shaped human history and how people have shaped technology.“ The ExploraVision competition column (COMP) shows that first, third and fourth (1,3,4) scoring guidelines of the competition assess this characteristic. These guidelines (repeated from Table 1 are):
1. Identifying a present technology 3. History (10 points) 4. Future technology (20 points)
In the Survey column, the letter A indicates that collection of the data from —Technology Type“ informs us of this characteristic of a technologically literate person.
Similarly, the second characteristic in the domain of Critical Thinking and Decision Making is —Weighs available information about the benefits, risks, costs, and trade-offs of technology in a systematic way.“ ExploraVisions takes this into account in grading category 6 (positive and negative consequences) and our survey can report on this from information from B (reporting of the design process and criteria students used to reject alternative designs) and from C (student appraisals of +/- effects of their technology on society.).
An X signifies that either the ExploraVisions competition or the survey data taken from the entries did not inform us of this characteristic of technological literacy.
TABLE 2 (Adapted from Tech Tally (Adapted from NAE and NRC, 2006)
Characteristics of a Technologically Literate Person ExploraVision
COM P Survey
Knowledge
ñ Recognizes the pervasiveness of technology in everyday life. 1 A ñ Understands basic engineering concepts and terms, such as systems, constraints, and trade-offs. 2,5,6 B ñ Is familiar with the nature and limitations of the engineering design process. 7 B,C ñ Knows some of the ways technology has shaped human history and how people have shaped technology. 1,3,4 A ñ Knows that all technologies entail risk, only some of which can be anticipated. 6 C ñ Appreciates that the development and use of technology involve trade-offs and a balance of costs and benefits. 6,7 B,C ñ Understands that technology reflects the values and culture of society. 1,3 C
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Critical Thinking and Decision M aking
ñ Asks pertinent questions, of self and others, regarding the benefits 1,3,4,6 B,C and risks of technologies. ñ Weighs available information about the benefits, risks, costs, and 6 B,C trade-offs of technology in a systematic way. ñ Participates, when appropriate, in decisions about the development 1,3,4 B,C and uses of technology.
Capabilities
ñ Has a range of hands-on skills, such as operating a variety of home 9 X and office appliances and using a computer for word processing and surfing the Internet. ñ Can identify and fix simple mechanical or technological problems at home or at work. X X ñ Can apply basic mathematical concepts related to probability, scale, and estimation to make informed judgments about technological 6 X risks and benefits. ñ Can use a design-thinking process to solve a problem encountered 4,5,6,7 X in daily life. ñ Can obtain information about technological issues of concern from 1,2,3,4, X a variety of sources. 6, 8
DATA FROM THE TOSHIBA STUDIES
This Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVisions competition research may have the best data of technological literacy that exists in the United States for K-12 students. Although the data collected is not from a random sample of students, it does provide initial insights into what thousands of students of different ages think about the engineering/technology design process as well as what the students identify as technologies of interest.
The following information was culled from the entries: ñ The type of technology chosen for their —vision“, ñ Whether the type of technology chosen had either computers or nano-technology as major attributes of their vision, ñ The positive consequences of their new technology on society, ñ The negative consequences of their new technology on society,
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ñ Whether the students understood what was meant by alternative ideas that the team considered that were directly related to the submitted technology, ñ The rationale for rejecting these alternative ideas.
The 1157 tallied entries were selected at random from the 4503 entries submitted for the 2006 competition. Since the ExploraVision competition promotes team work by requiring that students work in groups of 2, 3, or 4 these 1157 represented approximately 3600 students of the 13,760 students who entered the competition in 2006. Table 3 summarizes some demographic information of these students.
TABLE 3 œ —Demographic Information of the Students Entering“
A.A. Asian Cau. His. N.A. Other 9% 11% 69% 7% 1% 3%
Male 49% Female 51%
A team of five graduate students rated different packets of 20 entries each. The ratings and problems associated with the coding process were discussed and refinements in the coding process were made. A second set of identical 20 entries was then given to each graduate student. Inter-rater reliability was determined to be an average of 86% across the different fields. These prior packets were then set aside and data collection commenced with each grader scoring packets independently. The average time to rate a single set of 20 entries was 6 hours.
Results of the Analysis
Technology Type
The first information from the entries was used to ascertain the type of technology the student teams chose for improvement over the next 20 years. The first taxonomy or classification used was that provided in the Standards for Technological Literacy (ITEA, 2000).
ñ M edical Technologies. Technologies associated with diagnosing, treating, and preventing disease and other damage to the body or mind. ñ Agriculture and Related Biotechnologies. Technologies that relate to raising crops and animals for food, feed, fiber, fuel, or other purposes. ñ Energy and Power Technologies. Technologies related to harnessing energy resources and converting energy to power.
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ñ Information and Communication Technologies. Technologies, including educational technologies, developed for gathering, manipulating, classifying, storing, and retrieving information. ñ Transportation Technologies. Technological processes and systems by which people or goods are moved from one place to another. ñ M anufacturing Technologies. Technological processes and systems that convert materials into finished products. ñ Construction Technologies. Technological processes and systems associated with the construction of buildings, roads, levees, and other structures.
The graph below shows the percent of entries for each grade level that fell within each category.
TABLE 4: —Technology Type by Grade Level“
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The first observation from this analysis that jumps out is that the choice of technologies appears independent of the grade level. The choice of technology categories was similar for K-3, 4-6, 7-9 and 10-12 students.
Although the homogeneity of the graphs initially suggests there are no differences between grades, a Chi-Squared test of the frequencies showed this wasn't the case (X- squared = 38.08, df = 18, p-value = 0.004). There are different trends across the grades
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for manufacturing technology and medical technology. Young students are more likely to invent a manufacturing technology and less likely to invent a medical technology. This is shown in Table 5.
TABLE 5: —Manufacturing and Medical Technology Trends for grades K-3 and 9-12“
a a Ç Ç
M anufacturing
( & &
&
( ' M edical
Y % % & ' % ( % D
The second fact is that between 75% - 82% of all entries fall into three of the seven categories: manufacturing, information/communication and medical technologies.
The third fact is that an almost negligible number of teams chose to focus their efforts on construction technology. This may seem surprising or disappointing given the importance of rebuilding our infrastructure across the United States.
It must be stated that the coding process tied to these seven categories was at times frustrating. When it was not obvious whether a particular technology fit neatly within one of these seven categories, we used the process of elimination to find its rightful place. This process of elimination forced many entries into the manufacturing technology bin because the technology was obviously neither medical, communications, transportation or any of the remaining technologies. Another way of saying this is that the manufacturing technology classification is catch-all. For example, one student submission was a dresser with a plasma screen attached to it. Certainly this was not a medical technology, agriculture technology, energy technology, transportation
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technology or construction technology. The coder for this entry decided that it did not fall into information/communications technology either. The only category left was manufacturing technology. Though this also does not seem to be a great fit, it does seem better than other categories. This may indicate that the seven categories in the Standards for Technological Literarcy (ITEA, 2000) should be revisited or expanded to better articulate the range of technologies in our society.
Specific examples of each of these technologies is provided in Table 6. This gives both a sense of the breadth of future technologies that students discussed and our coding process. They are sorted by —technology type.“
TABLE 6: —Technology Type Descriptions“
Grade Tech Type Description
Naturelien is a new type of gas made from dead plats. Grade 4-6 Agric/Biotechnology It will not pollute the air and is cheaper.
The Steel Crusader 3000 is a garbage can that can grind bio-degradable objects into mulch that can use Grade 4-6 Agric/Biotechnology used as fertilizer.
The Strom Stopper is an Alpha alloy dome that stops Construction natural disasters by covering a house or anything you Grade 4-6 Technology want to protect.
Bridge Crack Detector (BCD) - an extremely Construction efficient device that will detect dangerous cracks in Grade 4-6 Technology our country‘s bridges.
Energy/Power Grade 4-6 Technology Solar Ovens are ovens that powered by solar. The invention is to design several hybrid models of hydro cars and hover cars powered by solar with a Energy/Power backup system for the goal of slowing down global Grade K-3 Technology warming. The student PDA is a student's version of a mini laptop. It has all the information of the workbooks and the textbooks and it also has all the attachments Grade 4-6 ICT of a regular PDA.
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Cell phones with a lot of additional functionalities, Grade 10- such as storing personal information, Internet 12 ICT browsing, MP3 playback, emails and etc.
Manufacturing Grade K-3 Technology The Multi-Marker has all the colors in one marker.
The Robotic House is run by the computer system. It Manufacturing can cook, clean and do anything you want by voice Grade 7-9 Technology command.
Manufacturing Grade 7-9 Technology A dresser with a plasma screen T.V attached to it.
Pressure Washer has a nozzle that will fit onto the its Manufacturing "wand" to make cleaning easier and less time Grade 7-9 Technology consuming.
Transportation A.L.C Tires can go on almost any surface, including Grade 4-6 Technology water and run almost anywhere.
Transportation The Radar Bike can detect if a car is coming up Grade 4-6 Technology behind the rider.
A second, more detailed taxonomy was also used to identify the type of technology. This classification schedule for the hi-tech areas of engineering and life science was generated by TechExpo and can be found at http://www.techexpo.com/survey/clas-tbl.html along with their rationale for developing this scheme. It should be noted that the classification schedule is limited to Hi-Tech and does not cover all general traditional industries, the classification covers (i) engineering sciences, and (ii) life sciences and medical technology. This taxonomy, in contrast to the seven categories of the ITEA Standards for Technological Literacy, has 34 categories.
The graph below (Table 7) shows the percent of entries for each grade level that fell within each category. Only categories which had at least 5% of the total entries are shown.
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TABLE 7: —Technology Type by Grade (top 10 types of the 34 categories listed)“
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Once again, the overwhelming majority of the chosen technologies are in the categories of communications, biotech, manufacturing, and medical/health technologies. None of the remaining 24 technologies (listed in Table 8) received 5% or more of the entries in any grade level.
TABLE 8: —Technologies (24 of 34) that were Selected by Fewer Than 5% of Students“
Materials Subassemblies & Components Engineering & Tech. (General) Sensors, Measurement & Test & Lab equipmt. Photonics Ordnance Civil Engineering Propulsion, Engines & Fuels S & T Chemistry & Chemical Engineering Marine Engr. & Technology Physics Agricultural S & T Aviation S & T
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Earth Sciences Space Technology Atmospheric Sciences Oceanography Astronomy & Astrophysics Nuclear S & T Software Engineering & Applications Fluidics Mathematics Military Sciences Semiconductors Manufacturing
I tested whether certain grades were more or less likely to adopt a particular detailed technology type than other grades. Again, I had to reject the null hypothesis that grade level and the top ten most frequent detailed technology type choices are independent (X- squared = 76.87, df = 27, p-value < .001). This trend is because of the differences in preferences for manufacturing and biotechnology across the grades. When those two categories are omitted, there is no longer evidence of grade and technology dependence (X-squared = 26.07, df = 21, p-value = 0.20). This is shown in Table 9.
TABLE 9: —Biotechnology and Manufacturing Trends for grades K-3 and 9-12“
. a Ç Ç
M anufacturing Technology
Biotechnology
Y % % & ' % ( % D
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What is striking about this list is that of the four —basic“ science categories in school curriculum œ biology, physics, chemistry and earth science œ only biology is associated with technology that students think about improving in the next 20 years.
Given that the Gallup polls (Dugger et al., 2002, 2004) report two-thirds of adults naming computers as the first technology that comes to mind, we also looked to see how many of the technologies had computers as a major part of their innovation. As is seen in the chart below (Table 10), in contrast to adults, students did not think —computers“ when they chose a technology for their future innovation. I also found no evidence that certain grades used computers more than other grades (X-squared = 2.13, df = 3, p-value = 0.55).
TABLE 10: —Percentage of Entries that Identified Computers as a Major Component of Their Chosen Technology by Grade“
K10-12 K 7-9 K 4-6 K 3 Yes 12% 13% 14% 12% No 88% 87% 86% 88%
Given the attention in the popular press to nano-technologies as being the wave of the future, we also compiled data on how many of the technologies had nano-technology has a major part of the innovation. 10% of entries focused on this for their innovation with surprisingly little variation across the grade levels. I found no evidence that certain grades used nano technologies more than other grades (X-squared = 1.31, df = 3, p- value = 0.73). The K-3 group is thinking about nano-technologies as much as the high school students. (See Table 11)
TABLE 11: —Percentage of Entries that had Nano-Technology as a Major Component by Grade Level“ K10-12 K 7-9 K 4-6 K 3 Yes 10% 9% 9% 8% No 90% 91% 91% 92%
Technology Design
Students were required as part of their entry to respond to the following prompt:
Design Process Describe three alternative ideas or features the team considered for this ExploraVision project. The ideas and features should be directly related to the entry, not a list of other entries you may have submitted. Describe why the team
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rejected each feature and idea in favor of the ones in the submitted ExploraVision technology. Describe the team‘s design process.
In reviewing these 1157 entries, it appears that 12% of the students did not understand the assignment. Many of these student teams provided alternative ideas unrelated to the project. For example, if a team had chosen a new communication device, the alternative listed may have included a new transportation device or a new medical device. These were ideas that students probably had from their initial brainstorming sessions. There was evidence that some grades provided alternative designs more often than other grades (X-squared = 10.31, df = 3, p-value = 0.016), as shown in Table 12.
Table 12: —Percentage of Students who Provided Alternatives to Their Chosen Technology by Grade“ K10-12 K 7-9 K 4-6 K 3 Understand 92% 86% 86% 93% Did not understand 8% 14% 14% 7%
I do not assume that the 12% of students who did not understand the question, did not consider alternatives as they refined their technology vision. They certainly were busy making decisions about functionality, appearance or safety, but may have been unaware that these are considered —alternatives“. In spite of the guidelines prompt, these teams responded that their alternative designs were alternate technologies. For example, if the chosen technology was a wheelchair the team did not report on alternative wheel designs or alternative battery configurations that they may have considered, but told us that they had also considered an insulin delivery system and a communications satellite. The rating for those responses was —did not understand“ what was meant by —alternative ideas or features.“
For the majority of students who did list three alternative ideas and the reasons for rejecting them, we compiled a list of rejection criteria and came up with the following data summarized in Table 13.
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TABLE 13: —Reasons for Rejecting Alternatives“
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In order to illustrate our coding process, I provide examples for each of these rejection criteria. In the chart below, the grade level and the original technological innovation is listed along with the alternative (in alphabetical order) and the rationale for eliminating it as well as our coding. There is a richness in this data that the graphs and accompanying examples only begin to mine.
Table 14 œ —Alternative Descriptions“
Grade Description Alternative Description —Hover Mobile-Hovercraft is a —Hover Mobile- Decided not hovering air craft vehicle that runs going to put a pet shop in Grade by fans, air, and it has a flexible Appearance the mobile because it was 7-9 skirt so if it bumps in to another not necessary and it was boat it will just launch back off on too big.“ it“
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Hot Camp Shower 2000 uses —We decided against this harmless chemical that idea because we thought Grade converts air into steam. So it is Complexity it would be easier to use K-3 waterless and can be used at gravity rather than a anytime and anywhere at the pump.“ campgrounds.
—… a camera in the Hew Hope, is a shot that will Grade nanobots we just thought use nano technology to fight Complexity 4-6 that was going to be too cancer. complicated.“ The Ultra Toothbrush, a —The addition of floss toothbrush with inbuilt flossing would make the Grade bristles and advanced bristles Complexity toothbrush more 10-12 with its versatility to disinfect, complex, and thus harder polish and stay firmly rigid. to make.“ "Another issue is that with home security systems, the police now The Child Tracker is a charge for false alarms Grade fashionable bracelet that has a Cost making this a costly item 4-6 GPS in it to keep track of your for any parent so it would child. be the same thing if a child accidentally set off the alarm." "In addition this would be The Bus Buzzer is a system of very expensive, because Grade Cost 10-12 communication that alerts you people might damage when the bus is coming. these devices or just never return them." Optical Camouflage, a new technology that makes —In this, the fiber optics invisibility a reality. It creates were not durable enough an image of the surrounding Durability / Grade due to the fact that they 10-12 environment and then Fragility cracked and spilled processes that image in a light.“ central processing unit located on the wearer‘s back. The Pizza Delivery Robot (P.D.R) uses Solar Power, GPS Grade high suspension for delivery —We added solar power to Environmental K-3 pizza. It has six wheels to save energy.“ move and the speed can reach 37 mph.
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Sports Water Vehicle runs on water and the engine cleans the —SUV/water bed. It did Grade Environmental 4-6 water with an advanced filter not help the that also cleans itself from the environment.“ dirt left behind.
The Flying Backpack Carrier "Fueling the FBC with will fly heavy backpacks gas is not only Grade Environmental 4-6 between home and school environmentally based upon Vertical Take-Off dangerous, but definitely and Landing principle. not kids friendly." The Robo Pet Hair Cleaner is "We thought plastic Grade Environmental K-3 designed to remove pet hair might be better for the from furniture and floors. environment." "When they detect metal The Detecto shoe is a metal Grade we chose not to do that detector built in to the bottom Ergonomics 4-6 because people's feet of a shoe. would get tired." The Oxygen Bracelet will "Another item was a collect oxygen from the air and beeper; we rejected it Grade put it in human body. It will because it would drive Ergonomics 4-6 know if people have breathing most people up the wall problems and it will notify the because it would beep emergency crews. every hour." "The first feature declined was a clock that told the The Wolfe Duft pillow was time every hour. The designed to bring peaceful reason that we took out Grade Ergonomics 7-9 sleeping environment for that feature was because people and it will wake people it would get annoying in up in the morning. the middle of the night and it might even wake you up." "The experimenters decided not to do this because, then there would have been 20 or so Grade A talking radio designed for buttons in Braille, that the Ergonomics 10-12 the blind. user would have to scan over continuously, just to find what they needed, and would have complicated the device."
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—We also thought The technology to grow the embryonic stem cells anterior cruciate ligament were a good idea, but in Grade (ACL) using the person‘s own Ethics further research we K-3 stem cells. So this can have discovered a lot of people new ACLS without think it is like killing a controversy. person.“ "It this device had a camera on it that would The Child Tracker is a show the parent where Grade fashionable bracelet that has a Ethics their child is, and what 4-6 GPS in it to keep track of your they are doing, then child. things private would no longer stay private." "we were going to install a flare launcher on the top Grade Using ultrasound imaging to of the buoy subsequently, Functionality 7-9 help the blind to see. but we decided that it would be too complex."(3796)
—We‘ve decided not to use the electric/water Grade Using ultrasound imaging to SUV, because it is very Functionality 4-6 help the blind to see. (3801) hazardous, because electricity doesn‘t cooperate with water.“
—The reason we did not Hover Shoe are super-powered use this material was Grade by magnetic and light energy. Functionality because it was too light 4-6 It can also be used as an for the base of our shoes. airplane. It would also tear easily.“
—The reason we did not Hover Shoe are super-powered use this material was Grade by magnetic and light energy. because it was too light Safety 7-9 It can also be used as an for the base of our shoes. airplane. (2311) It would also tear easily.“(2311)
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"It could have easily got The Wolfe Duft was designed infected and germs and to bring peaceful sleeping Grade other small particles environment for people and it Safety 7-9 could have gotten under will wake people up in the the watch and infected morning. the puncture." (3465)
"After some research it was found to be no more Using hydrogen fuel to Grade hazardous than petroleum represent the future economical Safety 7-9 fuel, if something goes standard fuel. wrong, they are not just lethal. "
"The problem with the Using hydrogen fuel to Grade metal detector is that, if represent the future economical Safety 10-12 there isn't metal around it standard fuel. (3851) will not work."
"The problem with the Digital Card Wallet is a device Grade metal detector is that, if that will end the fear of Technical 10-12 there isn't metal around it personal identification theft. will not work." (3859)
The Robo Pet Hair Cleaner is "We decided not to use Grade Technical K-3 designed to remove pet hair metal because it might from furniture and floors. rust."
The Robo Pet Hair Cleaner is "We decided not to use Grade designed to remove pet hair Time metal because it might 4-6 from furniture and rust."(3555) floors.(3555) The Child Tracker is a —Injecting the fruit with extra Grade fashionable bracelet that has a Time iron, this would be 7-9 GPS in it to keep track of your extremely time consuming“ child. (3733)
It is worth noting that if we were to combine functionality, technical and complexity as a single reason for the rejection of an alternative, this would account for approximately 70% of the total. Safety, money/cost, and ethics are taken into consideration by the
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student teams but they seem to be a secondary concern rather than a primary concern as students consider rejection of an alternative idea.
Positive and Negative Consequences
A crucial part of technological literacy is recognizing that all technologies bring with them both positive and negative consequences. Most students find it easy in their ExploraVision entries to list the positive impact of their innovation. More difficult is recognizing the negative impact. Table 15 is a summary graph showing categories for which positive and negative consequences were described.
TABLE 15 œ —Summary of Positive and Negative Consequences of Technology“
Societal Issues
The summary Table 16 shows that most students, when listing positive and negative consequences of their ExploraVision technology, focus on either societal concerns or technical issues. Given that the instructions explicitly require potential consequences on society, it could be that the competition has forced this category. It‘s interesting to look at some of the consequences that have been delegated to this domain.
TABLE 16 œ —Positive and Negative Consequences of ExploraVision Technology“
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Positive Grade Description consequences Description "People with disabilities will be The Handi-Chair helps more mobile than ever. Disabled Grade Societal 4-6 physically challenged people people will be happier because to do every day things. they will be able to go upstairs no matter where they are"
—If you lived in California, Japan Bridge Crack Detector (BCD) or any place that has earthquakes - an extremely efficient device this device would be great because Grade 4-6 that will detect dangerous Societal the earthquake could have caused cracks in our country‘s damage, such as cracks and that bridges. would be very dangerous to society.“ "A prosthetic limb that would — Robotic artificial limb would be able to move fell and have change the world. Amputees as the appearance of a normal well as military or army personnel Grade Societal 10-12 limb, it consists of light that have been injured would be weight materials such as able to lead a relatively normal alloys and silicon“ life.“
Negative consequences
"Another negative aspect of the X- Phere would be that kids and other A new video game system serious gamers would get hooked which has realistic graphics, Grade to playing their X-Phere and extreme virtual reality sims, Societal 10-12 eventually quit school and waste unlimited memory storage and away in front of it. Ruining their etc. potential for life and creating a humbler world all together."
Remote Emergency Services Care Unit is an emergency response kit which contains basic first aid and an —Survival rate of victims in many Grade Societal K-3 —emergency warp“, made different types of situations will be from intelligent fabric and increased.“ capable of providing communications and basic emergency care.
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It may be surprising that students raise technical issues as a negative consequence much more often than it is listed as a positive consequence. From these data, we find that the ratio of positive to negative it 2:1. This is true across all grade levels. Taking a look at examples of the explanations may shed some light on this result in Table 17.
TABLE 17 œ —Technical Issues“ as a positive and/or negative consequence Positive Grade Description consequences Description Big Earthquake Supercomputer Stabilizer is a system that will locate, track and figure out when "The stabilizers legs Grade Tech Issue 4-6 an earthquake will hit a building won't ever break." by using a computer's extra- long-range sensors. "There will be no risks at all with the Emphysema Using a Nebulizer which has procedure because the Grade 7-9 built in nanorobots to cure or Tech Issue Nanorobots will have a relief Emphysema. high percent of not malfunctioning or failing." Negative
consequences
"As a result of poor weather conditions the Bus Buzzer System might The Bus Buzzer is a system of not work at times. It Grade 10-12 communication that alerts you Tech Issue might also not work in when the bus is coming. places where you wouldn't normally receive signal on your cell phone."
The Barracuda 2026 is an ocean "The GPS could break Grade robot that cleans oil pollutants Tech Issue 4-6 and go off track." out of the water.
It appears that students are either unaware or are ignoring the required quality to bring a product to market. It seems that the students have a sense that the failure rate of their technology may be much higher than is typical. Alternatively, students may have an inflated sense of how often technologies fail and the tolerance that manufacturers and the public have for tech failures. This tangentially speaks to student understanding and appreciation for risk analysis.
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Although the category —Jobs“ was chosen by only a small number of teams, it is interesting that the overwhelming majority of these student teams think that the impact of their technology will be that people will lose jobs.
Employment is not a zero sum game. It would be gratifying to have students see that the immediate consequences may be an increase in unemployment but that technology also creates employment in other sectors of the economy that may require different skills. One wonders if the long range impact of technology on employment has ever been discussed in science or history classes. Table 18 provides samples of student views of employment as a consequence of technology.
TABLE 18 œ —Jobs“ as a positive and/or negative consequence
Positive Grade Description Description consequences "For this project, a vast The device will communicate to Grade number of workers must the blind subject his or her Jobs 10-12 be hired and taught how to present location. conduct the installation." "Making these cars will Grade A new car powered by air. Jobs put more people to work 4-7 producing them." Negative
consequences
"may put some auto A hover car that runs on air and Grade workers out of jobs if they has built in computer and Jobs 4-7 cannot learn how to build television and other appliances. new vehicle."
—With the DNA Probe performing all the tests, PCR Technology, machines that hospitals will not need Grade detect DNA of diseases as PCR Jobs people to perform cultures. 10-12 allows the DNA probe to scan a This would decrease the processed specimen. job opportunity for those majoring in microbiology“
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Students also see cost as a negative impact of their technology by a wide margin. Only a small number of students recognize that with economies of scale, the cost of many technologies decrease over time. Table 19 provides some samples of student views of cost as a consequence of technology.
TABLE 19 œ —Cost“ as a positive and/or negative consequence
Positive Grade Description consequences Description "People will save money Grade The sneaker has a microchip to Cost and won't buy sneakers all 4-6 alarm you if mud is present. of the time" "the retinal scanner costs The Eye Theft Device will only approximately $220 so it is Grade Cost 7-9 allow a car to start with the very economical and can retinal scanner recognition. be bought by most people." Negative
consequences Miracle Mender is the bandage "Initially, this bandage Grade that can not only cover the may be costly due to what Cost 4-6 wound, but also helps to heal the it is made of and how it is wound faster. made." Smoke Stealer is a machine that follows the smoker around and —The disadvantages are the Grade Cost K-3 throws away the cigarette machine may cost a whenever the smoker lights it fortune.“ up.
"One of the most The Child Tracker is a important disadvantage is Grade fashionable bracelet that has a Cost the price! The price of this 4-6 GPS in it to keep track of your child tracker is definitely child. going to be expensive." —The negatives of the Bridge Crack Detector (BCD) - Bridge Crack Detector is Grade an extremely efficient device that it will cost hundreds Cost 4-6 that will detect dangerous cracks of thousands of dollars in our country‘s bridges. once it comes out on the market for the first time.“
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Students see health as a net positive impact of their chosen technology. Table 20 provides some samples of student views of health as a consequence of technology. Table 21 provides some samples of student views of health as a consequence of technology.
TABLE 20 œ —Health“ as a positive and/or negative consequence
10-12 7-9 4-6 K-3
Positive HEALTH consequences 90 108 77 39 Negative consequences 81 74 68 16 TOTAL # OF ENTRIES 171 182 145 55
Table 21 œ —Health œ Positive & Negative Consequences“
Positive Grade Description consequences Description "It also helps students who The Robo Pet Hair Cleaner is Grade have asthma to clean up pet designed to remove pet hair Health K-3 hair without bothering their from furniture and floors. breathing." "It helps you by making you Grade live longer because you will not A device to detect peanut. Health K-3 have reactions to foods you are allergic to."
Negative
consequences
"But there is a bad side to it The Nano Sniffer is a small Grade because people knowing that machine that would prevent and Health 7-9 they can get rid of cancer which wipe out any deadly diseases. means they will smoke more." The Child Tracker is a Grade fashionable bracelet that has a "Wearing the child track every Health 4-6 GPS in it to keep track of your day can hurt your wrist." child.
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"Another consequence we considered is that the microchip Hear My Voice helps speech Grade could have a bad effect on the disabled people to be heard from Health 7-9 brain, causing brain cancer and others. other deadly or non-deadly dseases."
The Digi-Aid is a bandage with —The Tetanus a liquid substance that Grade medication can cause substitutes for a tetanus shot. It Health 4-6 respiratory and muscle has different colors and designs problems.“ to fit people‘s personality
Students view their ExploraVision entries to be a net plus for the environment. They do recognize the need for recycling and the risks of industrial waste, as is illustrated by some quoted student descriptions in Table 22.
Table 22 œ —Environmental“ as a positive and/or negative consequence
Positive Grade Description consequences Description The Barracuda 2026 is an ocean 4 robot that cleans oil pollutants Environmental "Cleaner air." out of the water. "Land fills will not The Steel Crusader 3000 is a have to be used, garbage can that can grind bio- leaving the air free of 4 Environmental degradable objects into mulch toxins, and leaving that can use used as fertilizer. more vacant land for animals." Negative
consequences
The Barracuda 2026 is an ocean "Could break and 4 robot that cleans oil pollutants Environmental pollute the water." out of the water. "the stainless steel parts and screws and nylon mesh seat that A wheelchair that can go into 7 Environmental are used to make the the water. wheelchair can and are harmful to the environment when not
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properly recycled or reused."
Although only a small number of teams chose an ethical rationale for positive and negative consequences, the K-3 students most often chose it as a negative while the 10-12 students chose it as a positive. This can be seen by the detailed data of this category in Table 23 and the student descriptions in Table 24.
Table 23 œ —Ethics“ as a positive and/or negative consequence
10-12 7-9 4-6 K-3 Positive ETHICS consequences 30 25 21 2 Negative consequences 7 19 11 6 TOTAL # OF ENTRIES 37 44 32 8
Table 24 œ —Ethics - Positive & Negative Consequences“
Positive Description consequences Description —You can have Hot Camp Shower 2000 uses privacy while harmless chemical that converts Grade showering because air into steam. So it is waterless Ethics K-3 of the shower tent and can be used at anytime and around the anywhere at the campgrounds. shower.“
The Desk Laptop connects to a main computer but does not —There would be have to connect to the main easy access Grade computer to wok. It helps people Ethics information, and a 4-6 learn typing, math, reading, etc. locker so students It will also help many businesses wouldn‘t cheat.“ by organizing everything for them, and keeping track of files. Negative
consequences
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By having a new GPS and "This is a major Bluetooth hardware to the consequence Grade walking stick of the blind to help Ethics because nobody 10-12 them do complex everyday wants to be tracked living activities. down by strangers." The Child Tracker is a "Another Grade fashionable bracelet that has a disadvantage is the Ethics 4-6 GPS in it to keep track of your invasion of child. privacy." The Barracuda 2026 is an ocean Grade "Could possibly kill robot that cleans oil pollutants Ethics 4-6 animals if eaten." out of the water.
By an overwhelming ratio, students saw that their ExploraVision entry would result in time efficiency and this was a positive consequence of their technology on society. This is illustrated by student descriptions in Table 25.
Table 26 œ —Time“ as a positive and/or negative consequence
Positive Grade Description consequences Description Dog Bather is a big container —… and it will save a Grade that washes and dries the dogs lot of time because Time K-3 automatically. It also has a filter it‘ll finish in ten so the water can be recycled. minutes.“ "One positive fact is Grade This is a machine that purifies that it cleans your Time 4-6 pool water. pool, in a few minutes." Negative
consequences
Big Earthquake Supercomputer Stabilizer is a system that will "It will take a very Grade locate, track and figure out when Time long time to 4-6 an earthquake will hit a building manufacture." by using a computer's extra- long-range sensors.
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Hot Camp Shower 2000 uses —You will have to harmless chemical that converts wait a few hours to Grade air into steam. So it is waterless Time heat up more water if K-3 and can be used at anytime and you run out of anywhere at the campgrounds. water.“
Grade Solar Ovens are ovens that Time "Long cooking time" 4-6 powered by solar.
Safety was mentioned as a negative consequence of their technology more often than as a positive consequence. Student descriptions are provided as an illustration of their views in Table 26.
TABLE 26 œ —Safety“ as a positive and/or negative consequence
Positive Grade Description consequences Description "The cane makes the The Cane Express is a modified vision-impaired Grade walking stick that is designed for Safety more independent, 7-9 use by the blind to travel and and also safe to an cross intersections. extent." "It will allow A snow penetrometer that is everyday skier or Grade portable and everyday skiers can snowboarder to Safety 7-9 use it. It is also user-friendly for check to see if the easy reading. snow they ride on is safe." Negative
consequences "A risk would definitely be the ball Grade A machine that helps you hitting Safety bouncing off the 4-6 a golf ball. ground and hitting you in the face!" "Having too many The Bus Buzzer is a system of buses on city streets Grade communication that alerts you Safety could also lead to 10-12 when the bus is coming. major traffic jams and accidents."
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Mini Microwave Fast Freezer is —The bag will burn Grade a simple device used to store your hands if you Safety 4-6 food. It can keep your food hold it while it is fresh, warm and cool. heating food.“
Conclusions
With data culled from the Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVisions competition can serve as a window into the technological literacy of K-12 students. This can raise awareness of the way in which students view technology and the future of technology and it may facilitate a major study of technological literacy.
This analysis leads to the following conclusions:
1. These students, across the board, understand that technology is more than computers and communications. 2. Some of today‘s urgent technological needs (construction, energy and power) do not get the same attention from students as the more —glamorous“ technological fields of medicine and communications. 3. Most students understand the fundamental issues related to technological design (functionality, technical feasibility, safety, complexity, cost). However, the more second-order effects such as ethics, durability, environmental impact, ergonomics, appearance and time to achieve, were considered by only a few students. 4. The taxonomy of the approach recommended in Tech Tally seems to work reasonably well in assessing selected students‘ level of technological literacy. 5. The approach followed here shows that appropriate competitions can serve to enhance the technological literacy of students. This approach can be used to analyze results from other K-12 competitions.
The primary beneficiaries of these data are the formal education community. As the K- 12 system tries to find ways to meet the International Technology Education Association (ITEA) Standards for Technological Literacy (2000, 2002, 2007) standards, these data can provide insights into the prior knowledge that students have about the three dimensions of technological literacy - knowledge, capabilities, and critical thinking and decision making. Assessing current knowledge and adapting instruction based on this current knowledge is a crucial element in teaching and learning (NRC, 2000) Curriculum developers and teachers can also adjust the focus of their content to insure that students have a broad understanding of the wide variety of technologies and the design process.
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In developing technology curriculum, it is worthwhile to note that few students focused their efforts on the future of construction technology in spite of the news related to the infrastructure problems facing our country. It is also noteworthy that students saw technology as a source of unemployment. How do these survey results and others impact the choices that curriculum developers and teachers will make in their instruction?
Technology education should not be restricted to technology classes. Science advances technology and technology advances science. Yet, few of the students in this survey chose technologies directly related to instrumentation in research in chemistry, physics or earth science. The K-12 science education community can benefit from this insight and find ways to include technology and engineering design into the science curriculum. Some high school curriculum have begun this effort by including design problems as a major component of the content and stressing engineering/design (Eisenkraft 2005; Eisenkraft, 2007).
The need for increasing technological literacy falls on all teachers in all disciplines. Authors like John Steinbeck have views of technology that are strongly articulated in his writing. For example, in Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck describes how the tractor rapes the land. To choose rape as a metaphor, Steinbeck is proclaiming a very negative view of the impact of technology on agriculture. An English teacher who is more technologically literate can help students discuss such themes found in reading assignments. Technology and engineering design can also be incorporated into the classroom by careful interjection of engineering concepts and terms. For example, it happens that students may admit that poor performance on their project is due to having begun only 2 days before the due date rather than when the project was assigned 2 weeks earlier. One way to discuss the issue is for the teacher to help the students recognize that they added an additional constraint to their project œ instead of giving themselves two weeks, they added the time constraint of getting it done in two days. Students and teachers viewing all assigned projects as aspects of engineering design can increase the use of design vocabulary and increase technological literacy.
Informal educators can also benefit from the results of this study. As museums and the media make decisions on what will attract, entertain and inform their public, some of the results of this study may also provide clues into what the K-12 public needs in terms of exposure.
The alignment of the Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVisions competition with the characteristics of a technologically literate person demonstrates the value of this program in enhancing the technological literacy of those K-12 students participating. It suggests that similar competitions may achieve similar goals. It also suggests that technology teachers can use the ExploraVisions competition program as an introduction to some aspects of technological literacy and then supplement this with hands-on design features commonly found in technology classes.
A strong case exists for the need for technological literacy. Tech Tally (NRC, 2006) has provided a set of strategies for assessing technological literacy. As we look forward to
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more formally uncovering the technological literacy of K-12 students, we have shown that useful data does exist through the Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVisions program that can help us in our quest to assess and then improve technological literacy.
Future research studies include culling data from archival information from other competition programs, seeing if student views change over time from the ExploraVision competition, and comparing United States and Canadian students as well as students from other countries where the ExploraVision competition may be offered.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Rodger Bybee, Rodney Custer, Martha Cyr, Marilyn Decker, William E. Dugger Jr, Elsa Garmire, Greg Pearson, John D. Stuart, Mary Hopper and Noah Eisenkraft for helpful discussions regarding this study, reviewing this manuscript and making helpful suggestions that have improved it. Of course, I take full responsibility for any errors, omissions and opinions in this article. I would also like to thank Harini Palugulla, Ogidika Iloabachie, Fangyan Xu, Seema Tayal, Yuan-Hsun Tang, graduate students at the University of Massachusetts Boston for coding the data and providing useful insights. I would also like to thank Toshiba America for their support of the competition and this study as well as the National Science Teachers Association for all their efforts over the past 16 years with ExploraVisions. Finally, I would like to thank Marily DeWall with whom I partnered to conceive, construct and implement the Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVisions competition sixteen years ago.
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