As we design increasingly complex systems, we run up against fundamental limitations of human imagination. To support practice, it becomes essential to use authentic data and algorithms as design materials to augment designers' intuitions. Recent work has explored some dimensions of using data as a design material, suggesting the contours of a new…

This article condenses five years of professional development based on Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) integration principles, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Principles to Actions (2014), and ISTE Student and Teacher standards to give a launch point for teachers and teacher educators to integrate 3D modeling…

Chemistry in high school is often presented as a jumbled mass of topics drawn from inorganic, analytical, and physical sub-disciplines. With no central theme to build on, students may have trouble grasping the chemical sciences as a coherent field. In this article, Stowe and Elvey describe an activity that integrates different facets of chemistry…

Nowadays, computer aided design (CAD) is widely used by designers. Would children learn to draw more easily and more efficiently if they were taught with computerised tools? To answer this question, we made an experiment designed to compare two methods for children to do the same drawing: the classical "pen and paper" method and a CAD…

This article describes a reverse engineering activity that gives students hands-on, minds-on experience with measuring tools, machine parts, and CAD. The author developed this activity to give students an abundance of practical experience with measuring tools. Equally important, it provides a good interface between the virtual world of CAD 3D…

Natural catastrophes and engineering failures provide timely, motivating, and conceptually rich backdrops for learning. Engineering educators have long embraced case studies of engineering failures as a sound pedagogical strategy for meeting several learning standards, such as "design within realistic constraints", and teaching failure…

There is a battlefield where no quarter is given, no mercy shown, but not a single drop of blood is spilled. It is an arena that witnesses the bringing together of high-tech design and manufacture with the outpouring of brute force, under the remotely accessed command of some of today's brightest students. This is the world of battling robots, or…

Improvement in instructional practices through dynamic means of delivery remains a central consideration to technology educators. To help accomplish this, one must constantly utilize contemporary and cutting-edge technological applications in attempts to provide a more beneficial learning experience for students. These technologies must…

Humans by their very nature are users of tools, materials, and processes as a part of their survival and existence. As humans have progressed over time, their civilizations and societies have changed beyond imagination and have moved from hunters and gatherers of food and materials for survival to sophisticated societies with complex social and…

Online instruction has been demonstrated to increase the academic achievement for post-secondary students; however, little empirical investigation has been conducted on high school students learning from online multimedia instruction in the traditional classroom. This study investigated the knowledge acquisition, transfer, and favorability of…

An educational assessment embodies an argument from a handful of observations of what students say, do or make in a handful of particular circumstances, to what they know or can do in what kinds of situations more broadly. This article discusses ways in which research into the nature and development of expertise can help assessment designers…

A methodology to develop an easy-to-use toolkit for the preliminary design of high performance schools in hot and humid climates was presented. The toolkit proposed in this research will allow decision makers without simulation knowledge easily to evaluate accurately energy efficient measures for K-5 schools, which would contribute to the…

Technology education in Irish post-primary schools is undergoing significant change. In recent years the syllabi of all technology-related subjects have been revised. A new subject, Design and Communication Graphics, has replaced the traditional Technical Drawing subject. This new subject aims to develop students' spatial awareness and graphical…

As display technologies prepare to welcome 3-D, the 21st-century classroom will soon bear little resemblance to anything students and teachers have ever seen. In this article, the author presents the latest innovations in the world of digital display technology. These include: (1) Touchlight, an interactive touch screen program that takes a normal…

CAD (Computer Aided Design) has now become an integral part of Technology Education. The recent introduction of highly sophisticated, low-cost CAD software and CAM hardware capable of running on desktop computers has accelerated this trend. There is now quite widespread introduction of solid modeling CAD software into secondary schools but how…