Databases Improve Technical Studies

Overview & Synopsis

In Lower Saxony, technology studies as part of preparing technical education teachers for primary and partly for secondary education can be studied only at two universities--the Technical University of Brunswick and the University of Oldenburg. Technology education is not available at the Gymnasium (a type of secondary school leading to the university) in Lower Saxony. Universities in Lower Saxony and other German states have agreed about the basic contents of technology education that should be taught in the public schools. However, the themes are emphasized differently, because the universities view the subject and conduct their research differently from one another. The target is to connect the technical resources of the participant universities to reveal the variety of contents of the subject and to allow access to sources of knowledge irrespective of time and place. Specifically, the creation of accessible databases for technology education via the Internet will help educators teach technology as thoroughly as possible and offer the opportunity to reach larger numbers of students at colleges and universities. A further step will be to connect the databases of individual partner universities to a database network. The technology education database is meant to represent an important scientific and didactic source for the subject "technology". This article describes the advantages of the technology education database and the contents of the database.