Communities of designers: A Brief history and introduction.

Abstract

This is a book about technology integration in higher education. It documents the stories, in their own voices, of a group of faculty members and graduate students at Michigan State University as they struggled to learn about, and implement, technology in their own teaching. They did this through their participation in an ongoing project (five years and counting) that we call " communities of designers. " This has been an eventful journey as the chapters in this book testify. If there is one important lesson we can learn from these chapters, it is that technology integration is not about technology alone, it is not just about boxes and wires and interfaces and software programs: Successful technology integration is a sociological issue, intimately connected to institutional cultures and practices, to social groups (formal and informal), and to individual intention, agency and interest. Most importantly, appropriate use of technology in teaching requires the thoughtful integration of content, pedagogy, and technology. This book attempts to offer Mishra, P., Koehler, M.