What really is Technology Integration?

I recently engaged in a link-diving session around ‘the future of education’ videos, bursting with fantastic technology from VR and AR through to holographic projectors and minority report-style swipe screens. Some great looking stuff one might say, to which I would agree, but also disconcertingly misleading. Are those leading the charge (at least in the YouTube space), the EdTech companies and their followers, inadvertently perpetuating an old system? Applying band-aids to fill the gaps - and not just your ordinary blend-in band-aid but the bright coloured, patterned variety that yell “look at me, I’m fixing something!” Disclaimer: I will be lavishly applying the generalisation brush here. These videos and images all still proudly placed the teacher centre stage transmitting information to students, with the same room layout and size, just with more technology in their hands and more forced-smiles on their faces. The problem is that this has always happened - from the pencil through to the slate and the smartboard - and carrying on we do not actually address the issue that we are past preparing students for the (largely past) industrial age. It is in this space that I would like to see more of, indeed contribute to, the intersecting of the EdTech community with the pedagogical think tanks that are on the edge. I envision a learning space where students are not just involved in the use of the technology, but in the decision-making around it, the evaluation of it, and the designing of it’s next iteration. Only then will I be truly satisfied in seeing ‘technology integration’ in the classroom as really happening.