New Technology and Education

Anthony Edwards, Richard Race, Simon Pratt-Adams

• Publisher: Continuum
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781441197740
• eBook ISBN: 9781441129819
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Higher Education

New Technology and Education explores the benefits and dangers of the increasing use of technology in education, drawing on different cultural perspectives from across the globe to consider a variety of viewpoints. The reader is encouraged to engage with each facet of the debate considering the philosophical, psychological and sociological implications of the relationship between technology and education. Recent debates and developments are considered, including:
• What is the relationship between creativity, education and new technology?
• Are subject boundaries blurred by the use of new technologies?
• How do we plan for technologies becoming redundant? Reflective exercises, interviews, chapter summaries and useful websites encourage and support student learning and the application of new concepts.

Part 1

SETTING THE SCENE

Early Technology and Education

1

Chapter Outline

Introduction

The challenges of looking backwards

The first real technologies?

Books and printing

Print culture

Conclusions

Introduction

This is the first three chapters of the book that will examine the nature of the link between technology and education from an historical context in order to provide a rich framework for exploring contemporary issues.

Marcus Cicero (106 BCE to 43 CE), a Roman philosopher whose works greatly influenced European thought, stated that history is the witness of time, the lamp of truth, the embodied soul of memory, the instructress of life, and the messenger of antiquity (Holden, 1895). The Spanish American philosopher George Santayana, whose life spanned the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, believed that those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past (Santayana, 1905). A considered approach to history can thus help to reveal the social imperatives, the economic forces, the alliances and the vested interests that produce new devices and new ways of thinking about teaching and learning. History also provides opportunities to explore how education and technological innovation are linked in ways that it is impossible to achieve through other means. It would be very difficult to set up a legitimate contemporary experiment that could reveal the impact of new technology in the same way that history can be used as a platform to reflect on similar events from the past. This chapter will, therefore, explore the key historical advances in technology that have had a bearing on the development of education. The canvass for this study will be recent rather than ancient history because the examination of distant events, before reliable records began to emerge, is problematic. In the main, it will feature those artefacts and devices from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries that have been employed in an educational context to aid learning. However, there are some advances, such as the advent of the spoken and written word, which emerged before this period that also demand some form of investigation.

What this chapter will seek to establish is whether it is possible, through the timeframe being studied to significantly address the constructivist or determinist conundrum referred to in the last chapter and later on in this one. In other words, using education as the principle measure, does technological change govern social change or vice versa? It will touch on elements of the other three disciplines – philosophy, psychology and sociology – mentioned previously when exploring this issue. Reference will be made to what is unique in the link between education and technology during the period that is covered.

The challenges of looking backwards

History is an imperfect social laboratory. We must remain vigilant in our interpretation of events from earlier periods. The French author François-Marie Arouet (1694–1778), more famously known as Voltaire, believed that history was nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes, a lie commonly agreed upon (Knowles, 1999). Despite the obvious enthusiasm for history exhibited by Cicero and Santayana, there is much sense in Voltaire’s caution, because some of the sources on which we rely to form judgements about events in the past are usually compiled by conquerors rather than by the conquered. The vanquished, the oppressed and minorities rarely have a voice which is loud enough to be heard directly in the soundscape of history unless it is actively listened for. The mores and attitudes of the invaders usually prevail. In the first 400 years of the last millennium, the United Kingdom was subject to Roman rule. The wealthy indigenous population adopted the attitudes, dress and even the education of the invaders from the east to such an extent that they were difficult to tell apart from each other. To these new Britons, the customs from the past, which their far less wealthy compatriots might have still valued, were not worth preserving (de la Bédoyère, 2010).

It is also important when looking backwards that any judgements made about events in the past are not unduly swayed by present attitudes and experiences. For instance, it is tempting to regard education based solely on oral instruction, prevalent in India 2,500 years ago and in many subsequent cultures, as somehow less worthy or efficient than that supported by technology. Yet from this powerful tradition Vedic mathematical rules emerged which are still used today to make difficult computation simple to undertake (Scharfe, 2002). The debate about whether education should abandon the old for the new still has resonance today. In modern India and other countries, such as Australia, that are trying to embrace their indigenous past, this tension is particularly heightened (Nichol, 2010).

Activity

Think of a recent period of history you are familiar with and the technology that might have been used in education. It could be the 1950s or a time closer to our own. Write a few sentences on what you know about it and identify the sources on which you base your ideas. What else could you do to ensure the validity of what you write?

Just as Feenberg (1992) argues that technology does not follow an unwavering path from low to high levels of complexity, it is essential to recognize that technological change can occur differentially. For example, paper, which has a direct bearing on the development of education, first appeared in China as early as 100 BCE but it took 400 years to reach India and a further 1,000 years to reach Europe. In this sense, it would be better to regard the evolutionary journey of any technology in a historical context as a series of overlapping waves rather than as a straight line. Some waves have an uninterrupted journey, some disappear before they reach their final destination, while others coalesce and continue as new waves.

It is possible to misinterpret even basic terms in a historical context. What is meant by the word ‘education’ today had many different connotations in the past. ‘Education’ is derived from the Latin word educatio and in Ancient Rome (first century BCE onwards) referred to those things associated with child rearing and behaviour, rather than schooling and the development of the intellect. Thus, a child who was considered to be highly educated in this period of time was well brought up rather than erudite (Bonner, 1977).

Like the debate surrounding technology expounded in the previous chapter, history is also subject to dogma. There are those who adopt a deterministic view of history. They believe that history is shaped by forces which are beyond the control of human beings, be they serendipitous or as a result of some overriding law. Those of a Marxist persuasion argue that history is driven by the need to acquire basic material things like food and clothing (Olsen, 2004). They contend that individuals relate to each other solely as a result of the ownership of the means of production, which in turn is regulated by inexorable and immutable laws. This is sometimes referred to as historical materialism (Xiaoping, 2010). There is also a constructivist approach to history, which denies the possibility of a solitary explanation of events in the past and relies on a distinctive interpretative methodology based on case studies (Reus Smit, 2008).

There is a temptation to regard the story of technology and education as a continuum delineated by one invention or another. To a certain extent this is inevitable because the technology itself, or at least its antecedents, is the thing that stands out quite clearly in the fog of time, particularly the further back you go. Our knowledge of ancient cultures such as the Kerma in Sudan, one of black Africa’s oldest civilizations, is based on artefacts. All that remains of their once mighty culture are the material things, the buildings and burial rites that were the precursor to some of the ancient Egyptian mummification practices. The Kerma had a profound impact on the region, but because they did not develop their own writing system, archaeologists can only guess at the social forces that helped shape their technologies or how they helped to shape society, particularly in relationship to education. It is important in the context of this book to look beyond the physical manifestation of their culture if any value from an examination of this period or any similar one is to result.

Activity

The caution about history issued by Voltaire suggests that it is prudent to suspect the veracity of witnesses or commentators on events or initiatives from the past. Read the following extract from the early part of the last century advocating the use of the blackboard in the classroom:

From other departments we have learned many things. Not the least of these is the value of blackboard work. Many English teachers, however, neglect this effective means of reaching the elusive minds of their pupils. It tends to noise and confusion, they assert. But if it helps to banish the sluggishness, the hands folded on desk attitude, the deadly inertness of the classroom; if it substitutes interest for forced attention, isn’t it perhaps worth trying?It is time for the “perfect discipline” of the dry as dust teacher to go. Let us joyfully bid it farewell and greet in its stead a more thought producing, soul stirring spirit. I do not claim that blackboard work will of itself do all this, but it will help, and help greatly; chiefly, it seems to me, because it gives an opportunity of reaching a child’s mind through his senses and through his nervous system, the only means of making knowledge useful and permanent. This is done by appealing to the eye and by providing an outlet for self-activity. Without these two – vivid sense perception and expression – mental images are sure to be faint hazy and ephemeral. (Monro, 1918)

What would you need to know about the source to determine the legitimacy of her comments? What additional information would help?

The first real technologies?

It could be argued that the first major technology used by human beings were not the crude tools that characterize prehistoric cultures but our ability to communicate, initially using the spoken, and much later the written, word. This may seem like an odd starting point for a historical exploration of the link between education and technology, but language in all its forms allows people to readily exchange and test knowledge, facilitate the transmission of culture and work more effectively for the common good, which some argue is at the heart of education (Bingham, 2005). Although the origins of human speech and language are unclear, the study of individual languages is a highly developed and precise science. Yet the theory of why speech and language evolved in the first place is highly contested. There are those who believe that speech and language are devices for fine-tuning social relationships and others that they are instruments for helping with day-to-day tasks such as keeping warm (Burling, 2007). Ambrose (2001) suggests that there is a direct connection between the development of grammatical speech and technology. He believes that the fine motor control required to produce speech and language and tools are similar in evolutionary origin, because the left hemisphere of the brain controls them both. In support of his thesis, he contends that the transition from simple handheld tools of the Early Stone Age (2.5 million years ago) to specialized composite technology found in the Later Stone Age (70,000 years ago) required a distinct change in the use of language. Simple artefacts can be produced from what is found in the local environment, while those of a more complicated nature require importation and exchange through extended networks and bartering. The language of diplomacy had to develop in order to facilitate this transition.

Activity

UNESCO suggests that technology is a combination of the knowledge and skills and creative processes that may assist people to utilize tools, resources and systems to solve problems and to enhance control over the natural and made environment in an endeavour to improve the human condition (UNESCO, 1985). Using this definition as a starting point for your thinking, identify reasons why speech and language should be regarded as a technology.

Because there is some doubt about whether speech is an entirely innate process rather than a developed capacity, perhaps writing rather than speech could be more readily described as a technological tool (Brown, 1991; Chomsky, 1996). Writing can be defined as a system of visible or tactile signs used to represent units of language in a systematic way. The origins of writing are unclear but it appears to have emerged independently in different cultures and places across the world. The earliest known forms, in which pictures were used to resemble real objects, became evident in the Middle East more than 5,000 years ago. China and Central America also developed their own writing systems independently, and some elements of them are still in existence today. McLuhan (1962) claims that the advent of the phonetic alphabet necessary for effective writing, which no longer depended solely on pictures to represent sounds, was deeply significant in that it allowed abstract concepts to be more readily codified. Because learning to write was usually the preserve of the priesthood or commercial classes, it remained an activity from which the majority of the population were excluded. The fact that for a long time it had mystical overtones also helped to limit those who were allowed to acquire this skill. What the emergence of writing did was to begin the process of converting knowledge into a commodity that could potentially be more widely exchanged. It also gave ideas more permanence. Transmission through the oral tradition was subject to many vagaries and inconsistencies. Writing required the development of additional technologies before the knowledge it contained could be given this permanence and transferability. This was initially achieved by carving on wood or stone, and later by writing on beeswax or clay tablets. The Egyptians developed papyrus and the Greeks their own version of parchment. With the corresponding development of the stylus and inks made from soot and water, the tools necessary to record information in all its guises more permanently were in place. Greeks from the classical period (fifth to fourth centuries BCE) embraced this opportunity with gusto. They were fanatical about noting down everything from finance to philosophy. The letters and hand-copied books which they created have enabled us to derive a great deal of information about them which otherwise would have been impossible to glean. In relationship to education, we learn that Plato’s famous Academy (387 BCE), which flourished for 900 years and produced a number ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Series Editors’ Preface
• Introduction: Technology, Education and Change
• Part 1: Setting The Scene
• Part 2: Issues
• Part 3: The Future
• References
• Index