| | NOVEMBER 202319CXO INSIGHTSAI: AN ISSUE OF EQUITYBy Steven DAgustino, Director of Online Learning, Fordham University.Historically, the integration of technology into teaching and learning environments, known as techno-pedagogy, has occurred fitfully, often in unpredictable ways. The chaotic nature of technological adaptation is the result of many barriers. These barriers can be categorized as cultural ­ the hermetic nature of schools which are often slow to respond to innovation; financial ­ the cost of technology acquisition and training to both educational institutions and their constituencies; political ­ the bureaucratic nature of education and the attendant regulatory and policy barriers to innovation and methodological ­ the time-consuming nature of identifying evidence-based instructional practices. Despite these obstacles, schools have gradually transformed into technologically integrated environments.It is important to categorize the methods of technological transformation in education. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, technology integration happened in two ways: intentional and accidental. Technology integration into instructional environments began apace with the dawn of the so-called information age. The gradual ubiquity of personal computing capacity and the development of the Internet resulted in a cultural transformation that inevitably impacted schools. The affordances of these resources (hardware and software, broadly) resulted in the transformation of both schools' physical plants ­ computer labs and internet access, as examples ­ and the technology expectations placed upon teachers. The institutions of education (universities, school districts) and the rapidly developing educational technology sector responded to these shifting cultural expectations by developing technological solutions to address instructional needs. These solutions, in the form of both hardware and software, could be classified as intentional. That is, these solutions were intentionally designed for use in instructional environments. Intentionally designed educational technology has a mixed record of success. Success as measured by broad adoption coupled with a positive and measurable impact on student learning outcomes. An example of an intentional integration is interactive whiteboards. At
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