Technology is used to help the student understand the activity from various perspectives and through the use of various tools. Here is where the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains of the student combine with databases, simulations and virtual travel, spreadsheets, quality software products and quality websites to create a unique world of experience and exploration that allows the student to truly think differently while maintaining the ability to appropriately exploit existing knowledge. Technology, when properly utilized, can then contribute to creating the conditions that optimize learning. Technology can also be used to develop information-processing skills and dispositions. Databases, simulations, and access to the Internet can provide rich experiences and information as students acquire the skills and knowledge represented by the content standards.
Students can also practice the tenets of democracy while engaging in technology-mediated activities.
A model such as the one proposed here might, then, provide a framework for thinking more holistically about the educational process. It incorporates the best of what we know about learning with activities designed to develop the dispositions and skills that students need to process the massive flow of information available to them. It provides for rich and appropriate content as defined by the disciplines themselves, and it would organize learning experiences and student activities to promote effective citizenship in a democratic society. In the model, technology is brought to bear on the components as an essential mechanism, an infrastructure if you will, to achieve the larger goals that we have set for our educational system. A new imperative.