Watch It!
Burbules, Nicholas C., & Callister, Jr., Thomas A.
(2000). Watch it: The risks and promises of
information technologies for education. Boulder,
CO: Westview Press.
The
theme of this book seems to be that, regarding
educational technologies, solving one problem can give
rise to unexpected effects both good and bad.
CH
1: THE RISKY PROMISES AND PROMISING RISKS OF NEW
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES FOR EDUCATION
Technology can be used well or badly, so questions like
“Is the Internet good for education?” are misframed.
Three Challenges to Conventional Thinking about New Tech
and Education
1)
Questioning the phrase “information technologies” as a
way of characterizing these technologies:
a.
data
is raw, information is cooked---what passes for
information is often merely data (and erroneous at that)
b.
Information technologies are also communication
technologies
c.
These technologies aren’t just a set of tools, they’re
an environment
2)
Proposing a relational (rather than instrumental) view
of these technologies: an instrumental view
externalizes technologies and examines them according to
their use and purpose. But:
a.
tools create new uses and purposes
b.
therefore, a “relational” view is two-way rather than
just one-way
3)
Arguing for a “post-technocratic” policy perspective
a.
Policy choices aren’t just tradeoffs---they must take
into account the framing of issues: e.g., here are
several variants of a “technocratic” framing.
i.
computer as panacea (championed by vendors and leading
to disillusionment and the “next big thing” as education
swings from trend to trend)
ii.
computer as tool: tools are neutral and good or ill
depends on use (but as just argued, tools change the
user, too)
iii.
computer as non-neutral tool: new tools are not
completely neutral, for they imply likely uses.
b.
A
relational perspective would take into account how each
(tech tools and people) changes the other.
c.
A
simple “cost/benefit? Framework is artificial and overly
simplistic (e.g., sometimes the very same effects can be
both good and bad).
The
Good, the Bad, and the Unknown
Tech
and education has shown itself susceptible to hyperbole.
Points
1)
Tech
is changing faster, and the pace of change is getting
faster
2)
Tech
is changing our notions of “information”---e.g., what
falls outside our definition of information will likely
fall outside consideration in making decisions.
3)
Future lines of development are literally inconceivable;
even comparing the impact of computers to the advent of
the printing press is still just an analogy.
New
technologies are dangerous, but dangerous precisely
because they hold so much potential.
People without much experience with the new technologies
tend to be the audience for nay saying authors
excoriating the overblown promises of educational
technologies.
Conclusions
1)
There is the tendency to frame this as a debate, which
draws false dichotomies and polarizes.
2)
There is a false tendency to think that “more research”
will settle the questions for us (but standard
experimentation cannot predict the types of “Hawthorne
Effects” argued for here).
CH
2: DILEMMAS OF ACCESS AND CREDIBILITY: ACCESS FOR WHOM?
ACCESS TO WHAT?
Access isn’t just a technical problem: that is, access
doesn’t just mean having a computer and an Internet
connection.
We
need to also ask “access to what and for what
purposes?”
Technical Access
The
money necessary to buy computers, wire schools, etc. can
be a vicious tradeoff for poor schools.
Skills, Attitudes, and Dispositions of Access
Machines aren’t enough—people must also know how to use
them. But even that’s not enough---you can know how to
use something but disposition and attitudes can prevent
you from actually using it.
Practical Access
Social circumstances influence time and opportunity to
work and play online.
Issues of Form and Content as Issues of Access
Five
Features of Online Communication that Aren’t
Neutral
1)
Asynchronous vs. synchronous communication
2)
The
anonymity of online communication
3)
Individual vs. group communication
4)
The
emphasis on writing skills
5)
Hypertext has spawned new styles of writing
Four
Levels of Access
1)
Technical
2)
Skills, attitudes, and dispositions
3)
Pragmatic conditions that influence access
4)
Characteristics of the environment to which we’re trying
to provide access
Issues of Credibility
·
What
kind of access is worth having?
·
The
Internet is unregulated, yielding a stew of good and bad
information mixed together.
·
“Hyperreading” is the skill of critically and
selectively finding, reading, and evaluating
information.
·
How
do you judge the quality of information when you’re not
knowledgeable about the field? Assessing credibility
requires both internal and external considerations,
skills many people may not possess.
·
Faced with such a daunting task, many are willing to
give over the regulation of the deluge of information to
third parties (editors, archivists, etc.). However,
there are dangers in centralization.
·
When
you recommend a link, there is some implied transfer of
credibility. When many people do this, it creates a
system of distributed credibility.
·
People recognize the problem---many Internet sites deal
with evaluating the credibility of online information.
Gaining Credibility
How
does one gain credibility in this environment?
Dilemmas of Access
What
if everyone does gain access? What about more
congestion, garbage and conflict online? Will online
“gated communities” proliferate? The theme of this
book, again, is that solving one problem can give rise
to unexpected effects.
CH 3: HYPERTEXT: KNOWLEDGE AT THE CROSSROADS
When
technologies become familiar, they become invisible.
The
nature of printed books promoted a linear and
hierarchical structure. Text on computers is more
nonlinear and discontinuous.
Analogy: Trees have hierarchical root systems. On the
other hand, rhyzomatic plants spread root systems in all
directions.
The
Internet, then, is changing the way we read, and in
keeping with the book’s theme there will be consequences
of this, both good and bad.
What
is Hypertext?
