It's Not About the Tools, but......

TeachThought Blogging Challenge Prompt #28
Your thoughts: Should Technology drive the curriculum or vice versa?

Technology should definitely not DRIVE the curriculum,  but Technology can make some curriculum possible or even imaginable.  

For example  Michael Hathorn's course,  Recreating Vermont History in 3D is not a course about technology, but the technology does play a significant role in driving this curriculum.   3D printing makes this course possible, but this course leverages 3D printing towards a much broader curriculum goal.  

Certain technologies make some things possible.  

For example,  Google tools makes certain types of collaboration possible that you could not imagine without without the technology.    So when I offer my course Google Tools For Schools, many people think its about the technology, but soon find out that it's not.  Amazing teacher designed curricular projects come from this course.   It's about  the type of  teaching and learning that  is possible with the use of Google Tools.  So in this case, you might say that the technology drives the curriculum,  because the goal is to introduce the power of amazing tools that have the power to change the culture of your school to one of collaborative learning.   But if you offered a curriculum in collaborative learning, many people would assume they know what that looks like.  Few would  imagine that they would need such a class because they had no idea what is possible using today's technology. As you can see the answer to this question can be quite circular in nature. 

When I discuss  the REDEFINITION level of Ruben Puntedera's SAMR model,   I think that if we did not have some technology driven curriculum in the mix, most of us would never reach redefinition level because we would not be able to imagine what could be possible.