Is Technology Good for Education? (eBook)

Neil Selwyn (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2016
John Wiley & Sons (Verlag)
978-0-7456-9650-8 (ISBN)

Infos

Digital technologies are a key feature of contemporary education. Schools, colleges and universities operate along high-tech lines, while alternate forms of online education have emerged to challenge the dominance of traditional institutions. According to many experts, the rapid digitization of education over the past ten years has undoubtedly been a 'good thing'.

Is Technology Good For Education? offers a critical counterpoint to this received wisdom, challenging some of the central ways in which digital technology is presumed to be positively affecting education. Instead Neil Selwyn considers what is being lost as digital technologies become ever more integral to education provision and engagement. Crucially, he questions the values, agendas and interests that stand to gain most from the rise of digital education.

This concise, up-to-the-minute analysis concludes by considering alternate approaches that might be capable of rescuing and perhaps revitalizing the ideals of public education, while not denying the possibilities of digital technology altogether.

Neil Selwyn is Professor at the Faculty of Education, Monash University, Melbourne.

Inhalt

Preface

1. Digital Technology and Educational Change

2. Making Education More Democratic?

3. Making Education More Personalized?

4. Making Education More Calculable?

5. Making Education More Commercial?

6. Education "Good" and the Digital D So What Needs To Change?

Notes

Rezensionen

"With all the hype about education technologies and their potential for 'disruption', it's vital to scrutinize what these technologies promise and what they can and cannot do. Selwyn's book offers a much-needed critical analysis of education technology, moving beyond the overly simplified positions that ed-tech is good or ed-tech is bad or ed-tech is even inevitable.'

Audrey Watters, Education Writer and author of the blog Hack Education

"Neil Selwyn is one of the most informed and incisive writers on technology in education today. This short, accessible book provides a powerful antidote to the inflated cyber-hype that is spun by educationalists, politicians and technology marketers alike."

David Buckingham, Loughborough University

"Many policy-makers, educators and providers have assumed technology is good for education. In this incisive and provocative book, Selwyn insists they think again - not because technology is inherently problematic, but because our society is, designing and deploying technology to serve some interests more than others."

Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics and Political Science

"The book opens up ?new? ways of thinking and conceptualising digital education. All those in education, whether they are ?technophiles? or ?technophobic?, must read this book."

Educational Futures

Textauszug

TWO
Making Education More Democratic?

Introduction

It could be argued that a prominent ‘good’ of digital technology lies in its capacity to support forms of education that are democratic and fair. This has certainly been a high-profile argument over the past few decades, not least from politicians looking to boost their reputations as socially concerned modernizers. During the 1990s, for instance, Bill Clinton was keen to tout computers as ‘the great equalizer’ in US schools.1 Twenty years later, Barack Obama framed classroom Wi-Fi, laptops and mobile devices as providing otherwise disadvantaged students ‘with a short path to the middle class’.2 Alongside such politicking, billions of dollars have been spent by foundations, charities and voluntary organizations on equity-related education technology projects. As the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation boasts: ‘we are targeting the best new ideas that hold the greatest promise for improving the odds. . . . The power of technology is its ability to connect people, foster collaboration, empower learners and teachers, and challenge the status quo.’3 Few people, it would seem, speak against the democratizing potential of digital education.

In contrast, there is general consensus that ‘traditional’ forms of education are nowhere near as fair or democratic as they could be. Education systems around the world are blighted by stark disparities in terms of access, participation and outcomes. Even in prosperous countries, high schools continue to be segregated in terms of their student intakes and subsequent rates of exclusion and (non-)completion. Similarly, the so-called ‘massification’ of university systems seems to have done little to counter long-standing disparities in terms of who benefits most from undergraduate and postgraduate study. While greater numbers of people are now entering higher education than ever before, clear divisions persist in terms of the types of subject studied, institutions attended and quality of degrees gained. In short, the best predictors of graduate success continue to be whether someone is male, white and from a high-income background – much as has been the case throughout the history of higher education.

Educational access, participation and outcomes therefore remain divided stubbornly along a recurring set of social fault-lines. In the United States, for instance, students from lower-income backgrounds are particularly disadvantaged in terms of the education they receive and the benefits that later accrue. These disadvantages are compounded for African-Americans and Latino/as, alongside those living in states such as Arkansas, New Mexico and Washington, which have some of the nation’s lowest graduation rates. These trends are by no means confined to the United States, with similar inequalities and injustices persistent throughout many national education systems. Such concerns are complicated further when one considers the basic educational inequalities that blight developing and industrializing regions. It should not be forgotten that over 50 million children of primary school age receive no schooling at all. All told, making education more democratic and fair is a pressing matter around the world.

Digital technologies offer a logical means of addressing such problems. Indeed, it could be argued that the development of digital technologies over the past forty years or so has been imbued with promises of empowering individuals and improving people’s lives. One of the initial motivations for the development of the ‘personal computer’ was to bring computing (previously limited to wealthy organizations) ‘within the reach of the average person’.4 Twenty years later, in the words of Tim Berners-Lee, the worldwide web was designed as ‘a radically open, egalitarian and decentralized platform . . . vital to democracy and now more critical to free expression than any other medium’.5 So why should such ambitions not continue with regard to education as we approach the 2020s?

‘Just why should digital education be any more successful in overcoming educational inequality and disadvantage than previous interventions and reforms?’

The fact that digital technology has been seized upon as a potential clean slate for education is wholly understandable. After all, there are plenty of ways in which digital technologies might support forms of education that are easily accessed and engaged in by all. There are plenty of reasons why individuals might benefit from digital education regardless of material circumstance, personal background or other ‘real-world’ disadvantage. Yet, as was reasoned in chapter 1, education change is not simply a matter of common sense and good intentions. Instead, we need to consider some difficult rejoinders. Just why should digital education be any more successful in overcoming educational inequality and disadvantage than previous interventions and reforms? Why should the latest digital technologies be capable of overcoming entrenched patterns of disparity and disadvantage? What it is that makes people believe that digital education will be different?

Claims for the digital democratization of education

As just described, the ‘unfairnesses’ of education take a variety of long-standing forms. These include inequalities of access: that is, the fact that not everyone gets to participate in the education that they desire, regardless of how able and willing they might be. Of course, many forms of education are distinguished by the fact that they cannot be accessed by everybody. Selection criteria and entry requirements are a key part of education provision, from kindergarten to graduate school. In addition, there are many barriers to accessing education besides practical limits of class size and/or expected levels of ‘academic ability’. Education might be provided in forms that are inconvenient – or downright impossible – for particular groups of people to access. Accessing education might not be a realistic option owing to issues of cost, transport, time, cultural norms or social expectations. Conversely, educational opportunities might not be publicized widely.

Inequalities persist even for those people who do get to take part. In particular, experiences and outcomes of education differ considerably according to who someone is – what is often referred to as inequalities of participation. Much has been made, for example, of the different experiences of school and university education if one is female, black or Latino/a, physically disabled and/or working class. These inequalities are evident in the disproportionately small numbers of such students who take high-status subjects, get the highest results and top classifications and generally are seen to ‘succeed’ in their educational endeavours. Less obvious inequalities also persist in terms of subtle discriminations, injustices and inconsistencies that some students experience because of who they are. Education can be ‘unfair’ in a variety of pernicious ways.

In the minds of many people, digital technologies turn all these problems on their head. First and foremost, digital technology can offer easier and more plentiful access to education. For example, the internet is seen to have dramatically increased educational choice and diversity over the past twenty years. The online provision of classes, courses and even entire school programmes has broadened the range of learning options available to people regardless of their immediate circumstances. The continually expanding provision of online courses and other modes of e-learning now provides even the most isolated individual with the opportunity of taking a course provided by Harvard or studying a niche topic such as Sanskrit. Alternately, people have the option to simply go online and teach themselves, or else learn with groups of other like-minded individuals. Education has long been considered a conversational, communal and collaborative process. Digital technologies are seen to be ideal spaces for such conversations and collaborations to take place.

Second, technology is also seen to offer more varied, more convenient and less costly means of participating in education. In this sense, digital technologies can act to reduce – or even remove – barriers to educational participation amongst previously excluded groups. In basic economic terms, digital technology allows for teaching and learning to be provided at considerably reduced financial cost than would otherwise be possible. In some cases, technology-based education can be offered for no cost at all. These shifts alone are seen to constitute a radically different way of allowing people to access education. As Kevin Carey argues: ‘These historic developments will liberate hundreds of millions of people around the world, creating new ways of learning that have never existed before. They will also upend a cornerstone of the American meritocracy, fundamentally altering the way our society creates knowledge and economic opportunity.’6

Digitally based provision is also seen to reduce many of the ‘situational’ barriers that can prevent individuals taking part in education. These include family and other caring responsibilities, time and travel restrictions, physical effects of ageing or disability, employment...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 7.6.2016
• Reihe/Serie: Digital Futures
• Reihe/Serie: Digital Futures
• Reihe/Serie: Digital Futures
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Schulbuch / Wörterbuch ► Unterrichtsvorbereitung ► Unterrichts-Handreichungen
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• Schlagworte: Bildungswesen • Cultural Studies • Digital Culture & the Information Age • Digitale Kultur im Informationszeitalter • Digital Media • Digitaltechnik • Digital technology • Education • Education & Public Policy • Education Special Topics • Kulturwissenschaften • learning • Pädagogik • Pädagogik u. Politik • Pädagogik • Pädagogik u. Politik • Spezialthemen Bildungswesen • Technology
• ISBN-10: 0-7456-9650-3 / 0745696503
• ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-9650-8 / 9780745696508