The Technology Education Program at The Ohio State University is designed to equip preservice and inservice teachers with the knowledge and skills needed to provide learners in a variety of settings a basic and general understanding of how people solve problems and extend human capabilities through innovation. Our curriculum is organized around the technological systems of manufacturing technologies, construction technologies, energy and power technologies, transportation technologies, information and communication technologies, medical technologies, and agricultural and related biotechnologies. The technological knowledge taught includes the nature and evolution of technology, contextual relationships or linkages with other subject areas, and technological concepts and principles. The processes are those actions people undertake to create, invent, design, transform, produce, make, control, maintain, and use the systems listed above. The processes often involve the use of tools, be they hammers and saws or computers and the internet.
Instructional Technology (also know as Educational Technology) is education designed to provide preservice and inservice teachers the knowledge and skills needed to use technology to enhance student learning. The focus is not on teaching students about technology in general but how teachers can use technology to teach math, language and other subjects. Currently, the hottest technologies involve computers but the Instructional Technology also teaches the appropriate uses of distance education, audio and/or video, and other technologies in educational settings. Currently OSU does not offer certification in the Instructional Technology area but does offer several programs which do provide educational experiences in the area.
Technology educators being naturally inclined toward all technologies have been early users of instructional technology as a means to improving student learning about technology. The Technology Education Program at The Ohio State University has always worked to keep preservice and inservice technology teachers up-to-date on new technology both as subject matter and a teaching tool. This applies not only to the use of computers in the classroom but also to the use of technological problem solving activities as integrators of learning from all subject areas.