Even if a school does have the very latest in technology, they still need well trained teachers for any relevant learning to take place. In parallel with the continual need to update technology in schools is the need for educators to continuously update their own knowledge. This is a problem in technology education as with an already heavy workload, some teachers can be understandably reluctant to have to keep learning new skills themselves.

It might be unrealistic to expect that technology teachers be paid at a higher rate, in order to attract specialists with current knowledge, but that would certainly be one strategy that could be effective. Another way to make sure that what is being taught in schools is up to date might be to develop a policy in schools of regularly featuring ‘guest teachers’ in technology education, who would be specialists in various areas of technology and would be able to give modern perspectives on technology to both students and teachers.

While there are many issues in technology education that need to be addressed, the field of design and technology as a whole is an incredibly important one. With the trend towards a society and an economy which require an increasingly technical-based skill set to be a functional and productive member, it is essential that every student receives a well balanced and well thought out education in the basics of technology, across a broad range of subjects. “Given that technological competence will be a requirement for more jobs in the coming economy, it is imperative that (plans are devised) to ensure that all children are given high quality educational experiences involving computers, interactive videos, calculators, and whatever other electronic wizardry emerges as an important problem solving tool…”. (Groundwater-Smith, Brennan, McFadden & Mitchell, 2001, p 340)

Only through continual debate about policy, including the issues that we have discussed, and review of procedures in technology education can this new area be developed to its maximum potential. While there is much that is already right about the way technology education is taught, there is also much room for improvement.

“Technology needs to become a tool for learning, not another subject to teach…(a teachers) primary goal is to use technology to supplement learning rather than teaching technology in isolation. The use of computers should be so infused that the students think that technology is part of the natural learning process. “ (Campbell)

The need for technology education to be relevant requires that educational settings carefully monitor what changes occur in the real world, in industry as well as every day life. Some argument can be made that any technology learning that occurs is valuable, regardless of how relevant it is, because learning HOW to learn technology can promote students learning new skills independently in the future. However it is important to ensure that the skills taught to students match as closely as possible the skills that they will require in the future.

In a real world sense, one of the most obvious problems with technology education is the cost factor. As we discussed previously, it is important to make sure that what is being taught is relevant to the real world. However the latest and most relevant technology is by nature often very expensive. For example in the area of computing, computers are often outdated less than a year after they are bought, and many software packages are updated even more frequently. As well as the need to continuously update hardware and software there are often extra features such as digital cameras, scanners, colour printers etc that have to be bought, not to mention floppy disks, printing paper, ink cartridges and other consumables. For a school, with a limited budget, it can be very difficult to meet these costs.

All of these costs also serve to divide learners into groups of those who can afford to access the latest technology and those who can’t.

“For the most part, poor children still do not have access to the same school choices and chances that children from better off families do - one example is in computers. Between teachers and administrators there is a sense that technology is creating not just another gap, but a bigger gap between the haves and the have-nots in public education, between poor kids and well-to-do kids.” (Bainbridge)

This is perhaps one of the problems in technology education that is hardest to address. Funds for new computers and equipment do not simply appear out of thin air. The problem is made worse by the fact that computers do not really replace many of the old costs associated with education, they are simply new costs on top of the old ones. Unfortunately there are no obvious solutions to this problem, as once the technology becomes cheap enough to be affordable it is out of date. Technology in schools will continue to be funded through a combination of government funding and school fund-raising activities, as has traditionally been the case. While it can be demonstrated that schools need a substantially bigger budget to maintain up to date technology, political reality dictates that there are many other urgent areas in need of funds that also must be considered. The only real action that can be taken by schools is to make sure that their systems are as ‘future-proof’ as possible, eg they can be easily upgraded when necessary.

Yet another hot topic in technology education is the ‘gendering’ of technology. “Technology is a gendered subject, associated essentially with males. This is a major stigma for the subject” (Lewis) The traditional male domination of technology is spread evenly across all technological disciplines, from traditional areas through to the newer fields of computing. While this gender imbalance is more than likely a socio-cultural relic from the time when technology areas such as carpentry, welding, etc were seen as areas for men only, it is still one that is changing very slowly.

Education as a whole is changing to accommodate these new fields and as with anything new, many issues and problems arise.

In this essay we will discuss some of the issues associated with design and technology education at a secondary level, and examine some of the ways in which these problems might be addressed.

The terms ‘Technology’ and ‘Design’ both have a fairly broad range of meanings so it will be helpful to define the context in which these words are used in this essay. For our purposes a technology is a system or a product which is used as a tool to produce a result, which could be a physical manufactured product, a piece of information, or a more broad-ranging effect that is intended to enhance or improve something in some way. Design is the creative process of planning the use of this technology to accomplish the best possible result.

As a useful example of a new field of technology we will focus chiefly on computers in terms of hardware and software, since this is an aspect of technology education which is rapidly growing in schools today. Also, when ‘technology education’ is mentioned it is intended to cover both design and technology education since design is usually counted as a technology subject at secondary school level.

There are more issues in technology education than this essay has scope to cover but some of the most important ones will be discussed. In particular we will focus on the relevancy of technology education, financial issues associated with the need for expensive equipment, and how technology is perceived to be a very ‘gendered’ field in some ways. We will also consider the need for educators to be continuously trained in technology, since the field can change rapidly and it is very important for educators to keep up to date.

An important issue in technology education is that information has to be relevant. Unlike many other fields such as maths, chemistry, English etc, which have a certain body of information or theory that does not change very often, most theory in technology fields is regularly changed, often drastically. Because of this there is a need to be constantly monitoring the state of technology and updating knowledge and skill-sets, as well as software and hardware. We will explore these issues in more depth later, but it can be seen as absolutely vital that what is taught in technology education is relevant to what skills are required in the real world.

As well as the requirement for technology education to be relevant in the sense that it is up to date, there is also the requirement for the learning to be relevant to the real world. Since so many different jobs in the real world use such a wide range of specialized software and hardware packages, there can be some argument made that the teaching of computing technology should be separated into more specific paths in secondary schools. For instance there is little use teaching the fine details of a graphic design program to a student whose skills are in mathematics and accounting, when they could be learning about accounting software packages. “…technological problem solving, through a focus upon a solution, should relate to each child's real life environment, allowing the child to make appropriate and meaningful connections from it.”

(Twyford & Jä-rvinen, 2000)