Understanding Innovation: Classifying Technology Usage for Real Integration and Value

Educators, calling for quality and effective use of technology, lack distinction more often illustrating the problem than their ideals. Technology educators demonstrate, in an anecdotal fashion, applications calling for replication to follow their lead. But, there's no real understanding of where uses fail nor how to distinguish benefits for students. We must recognize (not tools and applications) but the real distinction from our past. All technology advantages are summarized in four categories: (a) information access, (b) production, (c) sharing, and (d) interactivity control. A case is made for evaluating the value of technology use through these categories.