Epistemologies for Technology and its Teaching: Untying the Knot of a Three-level Technological Problem

This article negotiates philosophical and epistemological aspects of technology and its teaching. After identifying the nature of technological knowledge, we unveil a number of constrains that raise demands on epistemologies used to describe its production, transfer and sharing, even without taking into account personal or discipline preferences. Difficulties in teaching the subject of technology, that result both from the multiplicity of forms of technological knowledge and the aforementioned constrains, are identified. Some limitations of existing teaching technologies and their incompatibility with the demands and constrains on using them to impart technological knowledge are investigated. The need for multiple epistemologies is identified, along with the possible spectrum they occupy. Then, the possibility of developing an integrating technology that facilitates designing the teaching of technology by using teaching technologies - as in using the modalities that ICTs offer for teaching - at the same time conforming with subject-appropriate and knowledge-type-appropriate methodologies and, in the end, epistemologies is hinted upon, thus creating a three-level technological problem. Finally, some implications for curricula and instruction are identified and the complexity of the resulting system is pointed out, along with the applicability of systems thinking for handling it.