For many art educators, the word "technology" conjures up visions of overhead projectors and VCRs, video and digital cameras, computers equipped with graphic programs and presentation software, digital labs where images rendered in pixels replace the debris of charcoal dust and puddled paints. One forgets that visual literacy and technology have been inseparable since the first rock artist demonstrated to a young apprentice how to make a handprint with ground pigment. This author contends art education has a special relationship with technology--not only do art educators depend on image-making and image-reproducing technologies as resources for student learning, but drawing can function as a language for the invention of new technologies. Perhaps most importantly, ideas about visual literacy have served as metaphorical technologies in contexts of power, making art education a virtual technology for social control. In this paper, the author discusses each of these ideas and suggests implications for art education today.