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Week 2- From philosophical ideals to practicality.

The above is an image which I had included in one of my posts during IDEL and which seems to depict one of the risks of mass-produced educational programs through technology as it tends towards the ‘universalism’ described by Knox (2015) which can also give rise to the idea that the goal of education is the creation of rational thinking.

This week has brought me closer to the philosophies behind the use of technology. The hopeful views promoted by posthumanism and the ideals supporting transhumanist trends are thrilling, to say the least. On another note, there are still those, like Bayne(2015) who advocate towards the importance of the social aspect in the integration of technology within education.

Bayne’s(2015) view that ‘Reducing a field of such complexity and importance to the terminology and limitations of TEL’ while ‘positioning the ‘material’ and technological aspect as separate from and subordinate to social practice’, thereby negating the entirety of the human, is somehow vaguely reminiscent of some of Rosi Braidotti’s perspectives on technology in a posthuman world. The call for technology as a solution to various things (amongst them education) or as an upgrade for those who can afford it, often stops short from addressing other human maladies that could be caused by technologies such as poverty, the environmental damage caused by the same materials used for manufacturing technologies that are short-lived and ‘the appropriation of nature as resource for the productions of culture’ (Harraway, 2007) while a general sense of alienation seems to permeate throughout.

While technology has, and still will, give much to the world, nothing can be gained by demolishing one world to build another. Although we do live in a world calibrated by digital time, in which the past seems long gone and the future always at hand it is only by bringing the fruits of the labour of those before us and merge them with the modern that a holistic ideal can be truly achieved.

Bayne, S., (2015). What’s the matter with ‘technology-enhanced learning’? Learning, Media and Technology, 40(1), pp. 5-20, https://doi.org.ezproxy. is.ed.uk/10.1080/17439884.2014.915851

Harraway, D. (2007). A Cyborg Manifesto. Bell, David; Kennedy, Barbara M (eds), The cybercultures reader pp.34-65, London: Routledge.

Knox, J., (2015). Critical Education and Digital Cultures. Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory. Springer, pp. 1-6. Available at: https://doi.org/10.0.1007/978-981-287-532-7_124-1.

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#mscedc. Can technology solve all of education’s problems? https://t.co/rYNVmc1P6N

 

This gives voice to a common occurrence when trying to bring technology and education together. The idea that technology can ‘fix’ education or ‘enhance’ education ‘ by the operations of an externally applied technology ‘solution’ (Bayne, 2015)  is perhaps one of the most frustrating points of view that both educators and administrators of education have a risk of falling into, and which tends to separate technology from the social practice of learning as explained by Bayne (2015).

This instrumentalist view of technology tends to reduce the application of technology to a ‘fashion’ or ‘trend’ which encourages some of those involved in managing the education process to blindly invest and encourage educators to use technology for technology’s sake.

The recording does mention cliched ideas of technology use and the idea that technology is sometimes a ‘one size fits all’ idea and the universalist view that ‘all humans are essentially the same’ (Knox, 2015). This tends to clash with the more modern AI-driven idea that complex data systems can collect information and provide a more tailor-made solution to individuals. While good charismatic teachers are every department’s dream, this does not mean that technology is not required.

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References:

Bayne, S., (2015). What’s the matter with ‘technology-enhanced learning’? Learning, Media and Technology, 40(1), pp. 5-20, https://doi.org.ezproxy. is.ed.uk/10.1080/17439884.2014.915851

Knox, J., (2015). Critical Education and Digital Cultures. Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory. Springer, pp. 1-6. Available at: https://doi.org/10.0.1007/978-981-287-532-7_124-1.

Sophgalvin (2019) Digital Media and Education – Why technology can’t fix education. 12th May 2019. Available at: https://soundcloud.com/user-948349027/digital-media-and-education-why-technology-cant-fix-education.