ABSTRACT
Technology has opened the educational system up to a wealth of information and to a broad array of technology-mediated interactive subject matter. However, as with any tool, the pragmatics of how best to design and employ that tool for a specific purpose is an imperative. Applied to education, the pragmatic imperative for the design and use of technology is to further the practice of education to benefit the learner. As applied to education, technology has its strengths and weaknesses. The strength of technology is in its logical systems to deliver content. Its weakness is an inability to establish and maintain intersubjectivity as a learning partner. Thus, technology is unlikely to replace teachers, mentors, and the equal learning partners comprising the classroom. Technology is nonetheless a powerful tool that must be leveraged to deliver educational content. That content must however be structured by subject matter experts, deployable to groups of equal learning partners free to actively engage the material, and provide for the presence of an educator to manage and instill student self-esteem, self-regulation, and metacognitive awareness as students engaged in the technologically delivered content. In sum, the beneficence of technology in education can only be realized through a pragmatic assessment of the science of human cognitive development to guide the design and use of technology in education.
