Servant, Master, Double-Edged Sword: Metaphors Teachers Use to Discuss Technology

Although technology and technology access are far from equitably distributed in our societies, technology is progressively pervasive. There is a baseline of technology integration with which the vast majority of our citizens must deal-- telephones and video players, upc scanners and computerized automobile accessories, bank transactions and online merchandise ordering to name but a few. Whether a baseline of technology integration exists in educational environments is more problematic. Communities, teachers, teacher educators, and educational researchers are continuing a 30-year-old debate (Nichols & Allen-Brown, 1996) about not only to what extent applications of technology should be integrated into schools but whether technology belongs in the curriculum at all. Admittedly the substance and tenor of this debate has changed substantially over its lifetime. The present concern is focused on the influence that teachers display over the degree to which technology and technology-related issues and activities are integrated into curriculum. And more specifically, to look at how the language that teachers use to describe technology influences the choices they make in this area. ********** Although the focus of this article is not the degree to which curricular technology integration is appropriate, the authors believe that there is substantial evidence that unique and powerful learning can take place when technology is designed to assist learning (Jonassen, 1996). If this is correct, then it is worth understanding how to assist teachers to take better advantage of the availability of technology-based resources. The use of any technology in the classroom is based primarily on teacher choices. After many years of investigating teacher technology competence and availability of technology-based resources to teachers (U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, 1995) it appears that teacher technology skill training and providing equipment are not the sole answers to changing the way teachers use technology. Teachers still resist even when these resources are available and administrators, if they support technology integration, are loath to order teachers to use technology except in perfunctory ways (intra-building communication, attendance, lunch counts, grade reporting). Teacher training generally ascribes to the idea that reflection on practice assists teachers in understanding the practical theories that they bring to their work. The devices for reflection are all intended to help teachers eventually improve practice by becoming consciously aware of the beliefs that guide action. Investigation of the metaphors teachers use is being seen as a valuable tool in this pursuit (Bullough & Gitlin, 1995). Philosophically, authors have more strongly indicated the relationship between metaphor and action (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999). Most of that work is not directed toward understanding how teachers approach educational uses of technology and this study was designed to begin that investigation. THE POWER OF METAPHORS A metaphor is a linguistically efficient way to suggest similarities. "Different metaphors do different things--stimulate imagery, prompt comparisons, lend memorable expression to theories, evoke atmospheres, create a mood of conceptual disturbance" (Cooper, 1986 p. 168). Since metaphors are by design logical contradictions (one thing is represented to be something that it is not) at least three interpretations of metaphorical statements always exist--non-sense, literal, metaphorical. Metaphors cannot function in the ways Cooper suggested until they are interpreted by either the creator or receiver as metaphors. Interpretation is bound by culture and experience (Black, 1990). In this sense a metaphor is a context-dependent device. They can be and are interpreted differently based on the context in which they are interpreted. …