Technology in education

Neil Postman advances a passionate case for re-valuing education in America, but much of what he has to say would apply in other countries as well. For him, education, at heart, is about finding and developing shared meaning, as one finds, for example in narrative, one's story, a nation's story or any story for that matter: "Without a narrative, life has no meaning. Without meaning, learning has no purpose. Without a purpose, schools are houses of detention, not attention." (p7) The primary function of education, however, has been ever more directed to utilitarian aims, such as vocational qualifications or the more sinister 'employability'. The stronger such thinking becomes, the more educators are willing to take an engineering approach to education. If it is planned and designed properly, we will get the greatest value from it. Postman notes, however, that there is no one right or best way to " to know things, to feel things, to connect things" and he goes so far as to maintain that making such a claim in fact trivializes learning, reducing it to a mechanical skill. (p5) I couldn't agree with him more.

This attitude has much to do with our modern attitude toward technology, especially among educators. The zeal with which many advocate technology borders on religious, as he points out. For

"[…] at some point it becomes far from asinine to speak of the god of Technology in the sense that people believe technology works, that they rely on it, that it makes promises, that they are bereft when denied access to it, that they are delighted when they are in its presence, that for most people it works in mysterious ways, that they condemn people who speak against it, and that, in the born-again mode, they will alter their lifestyles, their schedules, their habits and their relationships to accommodate it. If this is not a form of religious belief, what is?" (p38)

What he advocates is 'a serious form of technology education' (p43), that is, 'making technology itself an object of inquiry' (p44), hence, the role of technology in technology-enhanced learning (TEL) or education in general is worth taking seriously and looking at critically.

As I've mentioned before ("IT Envy", 2011-12-09) we should be technology-enhanced education not technology in education. I believe it is critical to put technology in its place. Technology is a helpmate, not an end in itself, and when dealing with education, it is particularly important to keep this in mind. In part, it is the technology-centred, engineering-affine approach that is so often advocated that is the motivation for pursuing this particular thesis topic. One of the primary purposes of the thesis is to place the notion of design, a function of technology, soundly in the service of teaching, learning and education, not to be their master.

Reference
Postman, N. (1996) The End of Education, New York, Vintage Books.