From fire to Google Glass: a technology timeline

I was privileged to spend an hour after school with a group of 2nd year teachers in our district to talk to them about strategies to promote metacognition via the design thinking model.  Before we got into the nitty-gritty of it all, we had a conversation around what the word technology really means and how a new perspective on it can impact our understanding of how to infuse technology into our instruction.  By today's standpoint, we typically think of educational technology as an electronic, computerized, online tool that can be used to enhance and engage students during our instruction.  However, if you really think of the word in the context of the definition, technology really is just something designed/built/created for the purpose of making life better/faster/more efficient.  When you think about it this way, it really opens the doors for conversation on what exactly we are implementing into our instruction because...HINT... it can definitely go beyond computerized tools.  

When you think about the use of the word over time, it makes it seem that technology did not exist before the early 1900's, but that simply cannot be the case from our mindset of what the word really means today.  If technology is anything that has been created to make life and learning more efficient, what items can you think of that belong in the gap of time where the word was virtually non-existent? 

I put the 2nd year teachers to the test (this was an activity that I picked up on in grad school and tweaked a bit).  Their quest was to create a "history of technology"... a tech-timeline if you will... that had them use post-it notes to map out what technologies have improved and directly impacted life and learning over time starting from fire and going all the way to Google Glass.  Here is a snapshot of the task (if you'd like the full lesson I used with students in the past, check it out on Google Docs here).

With a timer of 2 minutes on the board (via eg.gtimer.com), the results were extremely creative and thoughtful as the activity pushed the teachers to think differently on how they viewed technology.  There were post-it's that included...

• slate
• hieroglyphics/development of language
• heater
• toilet
• shoes
• printing press
• ink
• wheel
• dry erase

...and the list went on - it was amazing to see all that could be conjured up within 2 minutes! We stopped our activity with the Tech Timeline there, but if you'd like to do this with students there are definitely numerous talking-points to tie into this to make it something larger (see earlier link for activity on Google Docs).

How can you use this in your classroom?  How can you use this with staff in your building to create a mindset shift on the purpose for integrating technology?