Education/Technology/Power: Educational Computing As a Social Practice (SUNY Series, Frontiers in Education)

Interest in educational computing has grown explosively in recent years. School districts are rushing to invest in new technologies, hoping to "equip" students with skills said to be needed in today's world of intense economic competition. Is this enormous investment in computing technology a good idea? Reaching a useful answer requires a more finely grained question: investment in what kind of educational computing? a good idea for whom? under what conditions? We need to know who is affected, how, and by what specific practices . . . but that sort of analysis is generally not available. And without it, the tremendous pressure schools are under to "keep up" technologically is likely to push them down unwise paths. This book is an effort to provide just such an assessment. The computer functions as a symbol of the quality of education children are receiving. The appeal of this symbol depends on a number of assumptions about the nature of technology, among them that the computer benefits all students equally, as a neutral instrument with no connection to the unequal distribution of power in society; that access to such technology is a guarantee of upward social mobility; and that wider facility with high technology will alleviate the problems of the United States economy. Despite their popularity, these assumptions are of dubious validity. Far from being neutral instruments, computers - like other technologies - are involved in many ways in the construction and use of power. Education/Technology/Power moves from conceptual discussions of how we think and speak about educational computing, through studies of specific classroom practices, to analysis of efforts to realize the democratic possibilities of the technology. The contributors all share a concern with how technological practices align with or subvert existing forms of dominance, but otherwise represent a broad range of perspectives.