I am not alone in being excited about the opportunities and affordances that technology provides for education. Technology provides us power with information, communication, computation, and imagination. Moreover, as technology continues to grow more pervasive, powerful, and mobile, things that seemed out of reach become feasible and possible.

I am also not alone in realizing the technology is not a panacea, and that with varied choices comes the responsible for choosing wisely. I firmly believe that technology used for educational purposes should start from learning theories and pedagogical goals. Learning involves the construction of knowledge based on prior knowledge and available input. Knowledge is constructed more effectively when students are excited and interested in the topic and thus willing to engage. Because knowledge has value within a social context, is tested within a social context, and is often constructed within a social context, the social is clearly important. By thinking about the cognitive, affective, and social dimensions to learning, one can identify a variety of learning-motivated ways to use technology. Moreover, because students have such diverse backgrounds and interests, it can be critical to remember this diversity when thinking about how to support learning.

I also firmly believe that appropriate use of technology needs to reflect the situated aspects of the content being taught, the student populations being taught, and the environment in which the teaching occurs. For me, aspects of the topics that I teach and the environments that I have taught in have influenced my uses of technology. I teach various aspects of design - mainly user-centered design, but I have also taught information design, database design, and worked with software designers and mechanical engineering designers. I also focus on professional skills and students as emerging professional practitioners. As for student populations, my current focus is on the junior level students and introductory masters student (in both day and evening programs). As for situational and context issues, I teach in both traditional classrooms and computer labs, and teach during longer than normal sessions (sometimes 2 hours, sometimes 4 hours).

Against this backdrop, I have found the following pedagogical goals to be those that have guided my uses of technology for educational purposes:

• Making classroom borders more permeable. I have found technology valuable in making classroom borders more permeable. Sometimes this involves making the class feel "bigger" (less confined by physical environment, by classroom times) and sometimes this involves making the class feel smaller (more intimate).
• Knowing my students. As an educator who strives to be learner-centered, it is important to gain knowledge of the learners. I have used technology to learn about my students when they first enter the class, to understand their thoughts at various points (i.e., classroom assessment), and to learn about their thoughts and attitudes upon leaving the course (e.g., to supplement course evaluations).
• Supporting synthesis. Synthesis is a critical aspect of learning and involves students making connections among ideas and experiences. As an educator, I have noted that students have relatively few opportunities to synthesize ideas within a class and to synthesize ideas across their curriculum.
• Addressing diversity in the classroom. Students are diverse in many ways that can (and should) affect the strategies we choose for teaching them. For example, students have diverse learning styles, diverse socio-economic status, and diverse levels of experience.
• Scaffolding activities including learning. Scaffolding refers to support for doing and learning that fades as learners come to be able to do something on their own. The idea is firmly anchored in an apprenticeship notion of teaching.

My uses of educational technology reflect these themes. For example, my work with portfolios is motivated by all of the themes, but particularly by the themes of supporting synthesis and making classroom borders more permeable. My use of technology to support "classroom preparation activities" again reflects all of the themes in some way, but particularly reflects the themes of knowing my students, making classrooms borders more permeable, and addressing student diversity.

The specific technologies underlying these examples are diverse and include portfolio development tools (e.g., E-portfolio and Dreamweaver), tools that support online data collection (e.g., WebQ, E-post, and Pathfinder), tools to support online discussion (e.g., E-post, CaMILE), tools to support reflective writing (e.g., the Reflective practitioner), and tools to support groups striving to function as a knowledge-building community (e.g., Z-bento). Some of these technologies are tools available to UW faculty (e.g., E-post, E-portfolio). Some are off-the-shelf productivity tools (e.g., Dreamweaver). Others are tools I build and tested as part of prior research experiences (e.g., the Pathfinder environment, the Reflective Learner).

Through these various experiences with educational technology, I have taken away many lessons. Among these lessons, I find the following to be critical:

• Be judicious when adding technologies to a class because there is often a larger than expected time commitment associated with the addition. When deciding, it is wise to reflect on the entire set of demands on student and to be conservative about how much time various activities might take. Moreover, it is helpful to fully integrate the tool into the demands of the class.
• Given the multiplicity of choices for any given goal, choose tools/activities that interest you so that you will be excited.
• Be clear about why you are asking students to do what you are asking them to do, and help them understand why.

Finally, as I reflect on the work represented in this portfolio, this has helped me to identify directions I would like to move into. For example, I'd like to explore using technology to bringing the reality and complexity of real world experience into the classroom. This could involve the use of tools that support students working through cases or tools that support students collecting and annotating video of real life events. I'd also like to focus on tools and strategies that help groups of students function as knowledge building communities. Possible tools for this purpose include "Wiki" environments that allow community activity to emerge and Z-bento, a structured environment for supporting knowledge creation.