Technological transformation: A case study of technology integration in a foreign language program

This study investigates the practice of technology integration in a Chinese language program in higher education in the United States. Adopting Ihde's phenomenology of instrumentation as the theoretical framework, this study views technology as a transformative and reflexive process, which not only mediates human activities but also conditions and configures the users and the surrounding social elements during the process of integration. As the practice of technology integration is complex, this study features an array of positionalities including those of a technical support person, an administrator, instructors and students. I use observations, surveys, interviews and document analysis as a basis to explore the embedded personal, social and political context in the process of technology integration.;This study intends to provide both naturalistic generalizations and analytical generalizations. With thick descriptions of the contexts and rich information about the participants, the practice of technology integration is analyzed at two levels. The first phase of analysis reveals the complexity of technology integration and discusses the transformation of teaching and learning in the process of technology integration through three major issues: (a) learning a language versus getting a grade, (b) technology integration versus technology adoption, and (c) technology-based discrimination. The second phase of analysis provides a more theoretically based analysis of the case, articulates the theoretical framework, phenomenology of instrumentation, in terms of the data and addresses three major theoretical considerations: (a) hermeneutic relations, (b) background relations and (c) inclinations of technology. As technology integration poses a challenge to the quality of education regarding reaching interiority and intersubjectivity in communication, the analysis concludes with a fourth theoretical consideration, humanness in education, which is grounded upon Ong's works and evaluates the success of technology integration in the framework of humanness.