Teaching for Technological Literacy: Recognizing Technology as Communication of Social Phenomena and Ultimately of Culture: Illustrating Television as a Socially Determined Artifact

This paper examines the possibility of overcoming technological determinism in the curriculum of institutions of technology and Vocational institutions in Africa in order to cultivate the kind of individuals with the relevant critical thinking skills needed for a contemporary technologically complex society. Using a social-historical approach in analysis and selecting television as a case study, it argued that an adequate discussion of technological literacy issues could be achieved by the shift of emphasis from technological artifacts in isolation to examining the social and cultural origins of technological artifacts, and hence to the social processes involved in deciding, selecting, designing, controlling, adopting and producing specific technological artifacts. It ultimately recommends the creative possibilities that the approach suggests for teaching and learning and for the development of cultural attitudes conducive to the advantageous utilization of technologies for the society consuming them