In response to the issue of some spatial problems commonly experienced in schools one participant offered the following important insight:

...but from our observations so far

One of the intriguing issues arising from the observations so far is the lack of clarity about  

• the educational tasks and 
• how they are to be carried out, that is, pedagogy

Notions of pedagogy seem to be at least vague and ambiguous. There is insufficient clarity and agreement for experienced educators to say with confidence, that,
 

"This technology will enable us to do this (educational task) better and we need technology for that (educational task)..."  

and hence it may be difficult for schools to match technology to the task. Rather it seems fairly common for schools to go with the technology in good faith. Perhaps teachers lacking confidence in their knowledge of technology defer to the implied promise of the technology, possibly at some cost to their students, themselves and the technologists.

But the uses of technology are not fixed

And, as the contributor wrote, "To be fair, some (teachers) find very innovative uses..." for common software packages, well beyond their original intended purposes. This is also true for many of our students

So, task or technology - which comes first?

Could it be that schools acquire technology and then do tasks that the acquired technology will do?  Some might wonder about the impact of Office packages on the curriculum for small children as that particular technology is introduced into their classrooms. 

Making Choices 

Might another kind of software be more appropriate? Concept based (such as Inspiration), relationship based (such as mind-mapping software) rather than text based as in word processing. Using technology in tasks involves choosing

• the actions involved in the process for completing the task
• the technology that will support (scaffold) the actions
• the object on which the action is to be carried out
• to act

All of the above choices requires knowledge of the technology under consideration, its procedures and the options it makes available. Part of this knowledge is the concepts involved. Some the concepts are constructs created by developers of the software.  Acquiring this knowledge may involve some 'scientific' investigation on the part of the user in order to identify and understand the concepts involved.