Design has always been an ever changing and very adaptive field since its advent. Technology goes hand in hand with improvement or in better words, updating of teaching methods. As new technological advances are made in each of the respective design fields, it is up to the teachers to incorporate the new tools into their lesson plans to better prepare their students for competitive, modern work in the field. The question asking if there was an effect was easy to answer, but what I am more interested in was the reasons why and what effects there were.
What I have discovered is that while technologies innovate the field, they are most effective when they are used to enhance or are paired with current technologies. But what is truly relevant to the learner? The art curriculum is different from school to school when it comes to projects and specific learning opportunities. All schools must have set rules of what is to be learned, but the key here is where teachers choose how it is taught or what else should be learned in addition. This gets to my sub search for the answer to how does a professor know what new technologies or skills to add to a curriculum. Maybe instead of deciding based on desire it is directly tied to opportunity and advancement in the area around the school. With this answer each school would produce unique tailored skills or specifications based on the environment that they are set in.
Even so, it still comes down to the beliefs of the teachers. In Design this is determined by what the teacher feels is relevant to the field. I have had teachers who insisted on teaching without digital technology, using only what analog affordances they used before teaching. While I value the importance of knowing old systems, a truly rich experience is derived from learning how things were done before progressing to how they can be done now. The constant change of the professional field will only be satiated by current and new curriculum and methods of teaching.
I took a progressive look at how technology in the professional field influences pedagogy followed by benefits and areas for expansion. Technology use in the field directly pushes for curriculum updates. This is especially true if the benefits and use of the technology are evident in the area around the school. Implementation is up to professors themselves, which is why it is important to remain constructive in your pedagogical ideals. We also discovered that technology use is most effective when learned in one discipline at a time until you have a strong foundation. While each article advanced and helped to solve my many questions, I can’t help but wish that more research looked at how the technologies were implemented. It helps to know if implementation was successful, but that deeper look and clarity of data could define more well managed paths.