humanizing technology in education: is there a role for the humanities? howard rosenbaum living with...

Humanizing technology in

education: Is there a role for the humanities?

Howard Rosenbaum<[email protected]>

LIVING WITH COMPUTING: THOUGHTS ON HUMANIZING TECHNOLOGYA Colloquium of the 2nd International Conference on

NEW DIRECTIONS in the HUMANITIESMonash University Centre in Prato, Tuscany, Italy 2004

http://www.slis.indiana.edu/hrosenba/www/Pres/italy_04/index.html

Rosenbaum: Humanizing technology in education School of Library and Information Science@IU

Humanizing technology in education

Humanizing technology in education: Is there a role for the humanities?

I. Introduction: technology and the learning experience

• Why should we be concerned?

II. About technology

• Social informatics and technology’s dual nature

III. Technology and education

• Problem based learning and grounded constructions

IV. Conclusion: a role for the humanities



[D]espite the tremendous investments that all institutions of higher education have made in IT, despite the number of classrooms we have wired and the number of laptops we have mandated, the vast majority of our classes proceed as they have for generations — isolated, even insulated, from the powerful networks we use in the rest of our lives.

Just as IT has transformed the context of teaching and scholarship without transforming either teaching or scholarship itself, so has IT transformed higher education without transforming the places that set the standards for education.

(Ayers and Grisham, 2003; 40-1)


How we do things determines who and what we are. Technological development transforms what it is to be human.

(Feenberg, 2000; 2)




Although concerned with different social phenomena, these quotes emphasize the importance of thinking about how we use technology in education

Does technology oppress or improve the learning experience for students and educators?

To rephrase this question in terms that will allow us to explore the question at a more fundamental level:

Does the use of technology in education integrate students and educators into the learning experience or alienate them from it?



The argument here is that the question is not binary

The same technology used in two similar classes may lead to very different outcomes

A more nuanced approach to this question

What are the conditions under which the uses of technology in education have positive (integrative) and negative (alienating) effects

When thinking about technology and the people who use it, we must also think about the contexts within which the people and technology interact


To think about technology and the learning experience, a second question must be asked

If we can incorporate an awareness of human needs and social contexts into the use of technology in education, can we maximize its positive effects and minimize its negative effects in the learning experience?

The argument is made here that we must understand technology in terms of its human and social contexts and that the use of technology in education should reflect this understanding



It is clear that the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has had a profound influence on the academy

Advanced ICTs have become quickly integrated into the daily routines of academic life

We are now facing the practical implications of working in a highly networked digital environment

There is a need to reflect on the issues, both ideological and imaginative, that are raised by the pervasiveness of ICTs in research and pedagogy.



This is particularly important since research has shown that the introduction of ICTs into a social practice typically

“produces the intended effects of improving its efficiency, but can alter in unexpected and significant ways the activity itself as well as those involved in it” (Araya, 1997; 2).



How can we understand our relationship to technology?

What seems clear is that we come to understand ourselves in terms of the worlds in which we are immersed and technology is a large and increasingly fundamental part of these worlds (Idhe, 1990)

This may explain the pervasiveness of the technological metaphors that we commonly use to explain our worlds and ourselves (Araya, 1997; 3)

This becomes even more complex when considering technology’s dual nature




One sense of duality: through use of technology we open ourselves to the world

If Heidegger (1997) is persuasive, the world reveals itself through our use of technology as a mode of revealing

The world is revealed to us differently as the modes of technology change over time

As technologies reveal, they also conceal

They “catalyze self-understanding unto unforeseen depths — even as they simultaneously conceal from view significant aspects of one’s environing world” (Blacker, 1994; 5)



Another sense of duality: Blacker’s “structural ambiguity of common sense”

We perceive technology as a force and ascribe to it a degree of agency and “act as if it does things in the world, things that we must react to in various ways” (Blacker; 1994; 1)

This is technological determinism

In the domain of education, it takes the form of arguments that the introduction of technology into pedagogy can shape the learning experience, typically for the better


Technology is in another sense perceived as a tool that we experience through its use

It is “morally neutral in the sense that [it] seems to await a human purpose to animate [it]”

A computer can be used for constructive or destructive purposes

In more abstract terms this is instrumentalism

In education it takes the form of arguments that the outcomes of the introduction of technologies into pedagogy depend on the social and organizational contexts within which they are used



Social informatics takes an important step past instrumental approaches to provide a more nuanced view

The same ICTs are understood and used differently by different people even in the same setting

Their design continues in use as people make changes and customize them

ICTs enable and constrain social interactions and relationships

ICTs have political consequences and can change control structures or make them stronger

Every implementation has positive and negative consequences for stakeholders



What we can now say is that technology, through its dual nature, can integrate and alienate as we use it

Under some circumstances it can have an oppressive impact on the learning experience

It can also be used to deepen and enrich the learning experience

Recalling Ayers and Grisham, there has not been a significant return on investment for ICTs in education

Where can we turn?




Problem-based learning (PBL) is a pedagogical strategy that can take advantage of the dual nature of technology to improve the learning experience

It shifts the focus of the learning experience from the teacher to the student and, in doing so, changes the roles and responsibilities of both

Learning is assumed to take place during the process in which students confront, analyze, and work their way though complex problems

Ideally these problems represent the types of situations they will encounter in their professional lives (Duffy and Cunningham, 1997)



PBL is a student-centered approach that moves the balance of power in the learning experience from the teacher and towards the student

It minimizes the important of lecturing, replacing it with inquiry-based learning

The teacher develops the initial statement of the problem, loosely defining its boundaries, and then presents it to students

She acts as a facilitator and guide, helping students analyze and resolve the problem and the subsequent problems that emerge over the course of the semester.



The teacher allows the students to develop and refine hypotheses and problem resolutions, asking probing questions and providing relevant information when needed (Margetson, 1998; 194)

In general, the learning experience is inductive

Students move from the individual parts of the problem to principles and concepts that they can generalize to other situations and problems (Davis and Harden, 1999; 130)

If successful, PBL enhances the learning experience by deeply and critically engaging students in the problem and the resources and technologies needed to resolve the problem


PBL supports technology use in education by creating a context for its use that links it to the problem resolution process thereby enhancing the learning experience

PBL is appropriate for learning environments that use technology because it shifts students’ attention from the hardware and software to the learning experience itself (Watson, 2002)

In service of problem resolution, ICT can be used for inquiry (to gather resources), organization (to arrange what has been found), design (to develop tools and products), and presentation (to share their insights and results)



Technology is integrated in a learning experience and becomes a part of the context for “grounded constructions” (Barab, Hay and Duffy, 1999)

It is one component of the PBL toolkit

Technology becomes a tool through which the world, as represented in the problem, is revealed to the student

Learning is thereby grounded or contextualized within the learning experience

It is situated in the ill-structured problem




What then is the role for the humanities in humanizing technology in education?

Another way to think of this is to question the role that the humanities can play in socializing or contextualizing technology in the learning experience

Here are two interesting roles that emerge from this discussion

One is practice-oriented and the other is more conceptual and critical


The practice-oriented role involves integrating technology into the learning experience and reporting the results

What happens when students use collaborative writing software to write a group report?

How well do students learn about Paris in the 1920s when they explore a complex and interactive multimedia presentation combining audio, video, and text?

We need to hear more about these types of experiments

We need to know what works and what does not work



The conceptual and critical role involves taking a long and hard look at when is happening to teachers and students as technology becomes more pervasive in the learning experience

This is far too important to be left to technologists

Education researchers are helping us understand the nature of the learning outcomes that are being seen in various implementations

Humanities scholars can take a more critical and detached view and help us understand the meanings of this trend

They can provide insights about possible futures


III. Context as information environment

Humanizing technology in

education: Is there a role for the humanities?

Howard Rosenbaum<[email protected]>

LIVING WITH COMPUTING: THOUGHTS ON HUMANIZING TECHNOLOGYA Colloquium of the 2nd International Conference on

NEW DIRECTIONS in the HUMANITIESMonash University Centre in Prato, Tuscany, Italy 2004

http://www.slis.indiana.edu/hrosenba/www/Pres/italy_04/index.html

humanizing technology in education: is there a role for the humanities? howard rosenbaum living with...

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