Project Checklist
Tiffin and Rajasingham 1995
For Next Time
As you continue to create your software, keep in mind that the finished project needs to include the following, in addition to the actual program:
The subtitle of this work, "Education in an Information Society," is the theme we'll use this week to try to synthesize and discuss the different disciplinary approaches to the use of computers in education and, specifically, in educational institutions. As our Seminar has focused on educational software, we have not discussed so-called "distance education" or "telelearning" very much, and certainly a separate seminar that focused on these ideas would be worthwhile in itself. The book by Tiffin and Rajasingham is very much concerned with the possibilities of using computers to break free of the spatial and temporal constraints that have characterized formal education until now.
I thought Tom's questions raised some important issues about fetishizing information (think of Scheffler's warning about the Information metaphor), and about the possibilities and limits of simulation (anyone read Baudrilliard?). There were also some interesting questions about this reading raised by Alexandra Scheps in last year's Seminar.
Matt's questions for Thursday are really very general concerns about the relationship between "virtual" objects and scenarios and actual education. We talked a bit about the possibilities but also the perils of simulations on Tuesday, and it might be worth to see the entire course as dealing with the question of how to avoid the perils while taking advantage of the possibilities. Tiffin and Rajasingham make a case for the promise of a thorough-going computer-mediated education, but it's clear from the questions this week that there are worries about what might be lost if such a vision were made reality.
More than 150 years ago, Marx expressed a view about the relationships between humans and machines that seems now to capture an important paradox concerning the use of technology in/for education. In the 3rd of the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844), he wrote:
"The machine accommodates itself to man's weakness, in order to turn weak man into a machine." [Italics his]
In the long paragraph to which this is the conclusion, however, Marx talks about the machine making workers out of "humans still growing, who are completely immature.." Yet, isn't it precisely the possibility of using a technology like computers to foster and accelerate development, judgement and the ability to live a long and happy life that makes it attractive to educators? Is it possible to use the advantages of computers, computer networks and virtual spaces/environments, while avoiding the adverse effects of the Machine that many, from Marx to Ullman, have noted?
There is no assigned reading for next week, and I assume all efforts will be focused on completing your projects. On Tuesday we'll talk about using educational software in classrooms today, and we'll begin the project presentations on Thursday.