Education

Educational policy offers an example of how technological determinism can (but perhaps shouldn't) shape society.

Policy-makers tend to start with the assumption that technology will have particular effects on society and on individuals -- and that we must therefore prepare ourselves for a future in which those effects will have become manifest.

In this country (and others), education policy has focused on access to technology, particularly within the classroom. Among the premises (as outlined in a wonderful 1997 article in Atlantic Monthly, if you're interested):

Computers improve teaching practices and student achievement.

Computer literacy should be taught early so kids don't fall behind.

Computer skills are a priority for tomorrow's workforce.
Technology-oriented programs leverage support from the business community, and educators need the money.

Interaction and interconnectivity foster both social skills and expanded knowledge.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996, a broad deregulatory act that changed communications policy in this country in a whole lot of ways, made universal access the centerpiece of educational policy for the remainder of the Clinton Administration.

In exchange for the myriad benefits they got from the Act, telecomm companies had to give something back to U.S. society.

They had to guarantee basic service would be available, affordable and accessible to all.

And they had to enable public schools, libraries and health care institutions to have both preferential (relatively cheap) rates for basic service and access to more advanced services as they evolved.

The premise was that access to information is too important to our society to be left entirely to free-market forces. Those providing telecomm services were mandated to see to it that everyone has access, not just the people who can afford to pay full price for it.

Probably the most widely known implementation plan for universal access was called the E-Rate. The "e" is for "education."

Its goal was to close the gap in access to digital technology between rich and poor schools. To meet this goal, up to $2.25 billion a year -- funded largely by the telecomm companies -- was earmarked for discounts for Internet access.

These funds were available to all public schools and libraries, using a sliding scale based on need.

Was the program successful in addressing the problem? Yes ... if you define access as the problem.

By the early part of this decade, virtually every school in this country -- rich and poor, rural and urban -- had access the Internet. Before the program began, only about a third had access -- and they were almost all in rich districts.

The E-Rate program was far from flawless or controversy-free. Most of its woes involved the way it administered the money. For instance, there were allegations of fraudulent accounting practices.

Nonetheless, it did address the problem that it identified and set out to solve -- albeit one that was rather narrowly and, some argue, inappropriately defined.

(The educational centerpiece of the Bush Administration is different. Attention has shifted away from technology and toward outcomes assessment and related equity issues, as outlined under the No Child Left Behind policy.)

What do you think?

Is a policy to promote "a computer in every school," like "a chicken in every pot," a good thing? Bad thing? OK but not the only thing?

Is commercialism a necessary corollary to a policy that relies on funding from commercial entities?

Can we separate kids from commercialism online? Is there incentive to even try? From whom?

If you were setting education policy in "the information age," what would you define as the optimal social goal? How would you get there?

In On the Internet, Dreyfus argues that distance education can get us only to a fairly low level of competency with whatever we are learning.

But to move through successful levels of understanding toward ultimate mastery, we need physical, mental and emotional engagement -- things that a mentor/master/teacher can provide and model, but that a computer cannot approach.

The computer can apply (and help us apply) rules with great skill and speed. But it never cares about what it's doing -- or even "knows" what it's doing in the sense that we know it -- and without caring, we can never truly soar.

What do you think?

Do you agree with Dreyfus that distance education is ultimately ineffective for the reasons he suggests?

Is distance ed appropriate for some topics but not others? Like what?

How about for, say, grad school ...?

Is distance ed a viable way to address issues of inequality -- of unequal access to higher education?

... Or is it more likely to create or strengthen inequality because of the drawbacks of distance ed or of inherently (yes?) lower quality?

In other words, does distance ed rearticulate or challenge existing structures of class and power in our society?

In still other words, does distance ed in effect prioritize skills, abilities ... knowledge?

Can or should education be mediated? What do we gain, and what do we lose?

Of course, books, journal articles and other printed materials used for centuries in education are media forms. Is there a diff?

More broadly, are computers in education empowering or isolating or both?

What are we being empowered to do -- or isolated from?

Can we even conceive of doing without them? As we were asking last week in a different context: Is resistance possible? Desirable?

In her New Media & Society article, Livingstone offers a research agenda for studying children's use of the Internet. She categorizes existing research (such as it is) into two groups of perceived opportunities and two groups of perceived dangers.

From the child's perspective, the opportunities involve communication, identity and participation.

From the adult's perspective, the opportunities involve education, learning and literacy.

One danger involves exclusion and the digital divide (access, again).

Another danger involves undesirable contact, content and commercialism.

At the end, she lays out some assumptions that can help guide scholars in studying children's use of computer technologies:

Research should be child-centered, seeing the child as active, and as both possessing and using personal agency in relation to computer technologies.

The focus on access is misleading!

Children's use of computer technologies must be considered in a broader context that includes the nature and quality of use; the social conditions surrounding it; and the cultural practices and personal meanings that children ascribe to it.

The idea of remediation may be fruitful: a new medium generates adjustments in the older media environment, and that broader media universe must be considered along with the Internet per se.

What do you think?

Which of the areas she outlines seems most urgent -- or interesting?

What's missing?

How might such conceptualizations affect educational policy?

Are these issues for policy-making at all, or do the "solutions" lie in some other realm? Like what?

Are there social variables to consider here? How might those be integrated? How might the topic then be studied -- how can context be incorporated into research in this area?

As future (or current) parents and educators, what's your role in relation to the technology your children and your students will use?

What challenges will you face? How might you address them?