Wicked Problems and Other Thoughts on Issues of Technology and Teacher Learning

This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us. An internal Western Union memo, 1876 I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. IBM chairman Thomas Watson, 1943. There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home. Ken Olson, founder, chairman and president of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke (1963), English physicist and science fiction writer, p. We've come a long way and at an incredible pace. What was magic less than a generation ago is now part of everyday life. Digital technologies are changing the way we live, work, and learn. Their potential to transform K-12 education motivated our decision to devote a theme issue of Journal of Teacher Education to the innovative uses of technology for teacher learning. (1) Although optimistic about the possibilities new technologies offer to support K-12 learners' achievement, teachers' productivity, effectiveness in classrooms, and teacher learning, we also recognize that teaching and learning with new technologies represents a "wicked problem" (Koehler & Mishra, 2008). Rittel and Webber (1973) characterized wicked problems as problems that include a large number of complex variables--all of which are dynamic, contextually bound, and interdependent. The rapid growth of digital technologies, coupled with the complexity of classroom life, increases both the potential transformative power and the difficulty of problems associated with incorporating innovative technologies in teaching and teacher education. Our aim in organizing this theme issue was to explore these possibilities and complexities. Our call for this issue invited "research manuscripts that address how these technologies inform teacher candidates' understanding of real classrooms and veteran teachers' professional development ... that examine the unique opportunities and obstacles presented through these inventive uses of technology, or that provide evidence for their impact on teachers' learning and practice." Perhaps it is not surprising that our understanding of what it takes to integrate technology effectively into teaching and teacher education has grown through the process of putting together the theme issue. We now have a sharper sense of the relationship between issues involved in using technology to support teacher learning and those that must be addressed to support the uses of technology to foster K-12 student learning. In the big picture, innovative teacher educators are creating technology-rich approaches that promote the development of tech-savvy teachers--teachers who regularly use digital technologies to guide their own learning, recognize the pedagogical potential of technology to help children and youth understand content, and know how to embed new technologies in their instructional practices. We recognize that the call for this theme issue did not invite articles examining how teachers learn to embed technology in their classroom practice to teach content in powerful ways. The six articles in this issue tackle the role that new technologies--particularly video and online communities--play in learning to teach. Taken together, they examine the promise digital technologies hold to help teacher educators overcome persistent dilemmas encountered when designing scalable, sustainable programs to support teacher learning. The different approaches described in the articles illustrate why developing tech-savvy teachers is a "wicked problem" and why teacher education must be involved in understanding and managing the dilemmas associated with integrating technology into teacher education and K-12 classrooms. In the remainder of this editorial, we contextualize the issue's articles. We consider pedagogical affordances and constraints of digital technologies, uses of digital technology in teacher education and professional development, and the conceptualization of a new form of teacher knowledge related to integrating technology-technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK; Mishra & Koehler, 2006). …