Critical Perspectives on Educational Technology University of Brighton, Education Research Centre, October 15th 2013 The Education Research

Centre at the University of Brighton hosted and ran a one day conference focussing on critical perspectives on educational technology. The event sought to provoke debate and discussion in an under-explored area of educational research and theory, and challenge some of the taken for granted assumptions, predominant discourse, overstated claims and myths surrounding educational technologies and their impacts in education. It sought to promote debate around whether the huge investments of time, money, training and resources, and significant influence of Government, industry, techno-evangelists and research communities, has resulted in anything like proportional improvements in learning and teaching. Moreover, the event sought to shed light on the socially and ideologically constructed nature educational technology and question who the real beneficiaries may be. The day was introduced by Professor Avril Loveless, Head of Education Research Centre, University of Brighton, who set the event in context by discussing the potential benefits alongside the missed opportunities for technology to support better learning and life experiences. Acknowledging the social and systemic constraints that can negate the potential of technology to support effective learning, she also highlighted the potential of such tools to enhance learning and lead to significant effects on the identities and lives of people. She further highlighted the lessons that had been learnt, lost and obscured over the last few decades of research in the field, and suggested there is perhaps a need to re-visit such learning in order to avoid reinventing the wheel, as well as offering a research informed response to counter spurious claims made in the discourse by technology evangelists, policy makers and industry interests. She further highlighted that whilst there is a need to retain, and in some cases promote, a healthy scepticism regarding the claims about educational technology, there is also the need to emphasise the pedagogical practice underlying the more interesting and creative uses of technology for learning. Moreover, she argued there is a need to research and consider what such technologies might mean for young people in relation to their identity and learning lives. Dr Tim Rudd from the Education Research Centre, University of Brighton, situated his presentation in terms of the changing emphasis of research and theory around educational technology over the last few decades, highlighting the relative paucity of critical perspectives. He highlighted that from the mid 1980s onwards, there had been numerous perspectives highlighting that educational technology, its use, and the purposes behind its proliferation, was not apolitical, ahistorical or benign, but instead were inextricably linked to wider movements, vested interests and ideologies. The symbolic and real appropriation of technology, in this sense, is seen to be a socially constructed process that has implications for the deskilling, reskilling and intensification of work and roles within education, and influences perceptions about the purpose of education through the symbolic appropriation centred around vocationalism and the needs and vested interests of industry and business. He argued this also has significant implications in relation to various dimensions of inequality. He further argued that these earlier critical perspectives became marginalised in the rush toward modernisation and the increasing school effectiveness and improvement mantras pervading education over the last three decades. Technology in education, from this perspective, has been harnessed as much to support the accountability, performativity and managerialism prevalent in the neo-liberal period, as much as it has to improve learning and teaching in its broadest sense. He highlighted how technology in education had been constructed to support the further marketisation and privatisation in education by creating the conditions for vested interests to enter the new and expanding educational marketplace and have a greater influence over the form, function and perceived purpose of education.

Tim highlighted the increasing market influence, privatised educational spaces and measures and modes of performativity that developed under New Labour, masked by a wider discourse of educational transformation, whilst the real irony was that the very structures of a system promoting transformation and innovation actually restrict the possibilities for such innovative and creative practice. This has led, he argued, to innovative practice remaining on the margins, whilst technology has been used to practically and ideologically reify existing practices and trends in education. His presentation finished by exploring how the coalition Government has taken the opportunity under the discourse of austerity to once again change the face of education further toward a privatised model in this reconstituted neo liberal period. From this perspective, current educational technology policies have been underpinned by spurious evidence and arguments inspired and directed by vested interests seeking to open up education further to the private sector. Whilst it was acknowledged that educational technology has great potential for learning and teaching experiences, it was felt that we need pay far greater attention to the way that technology, and the justification for its proliferation in education, is socially and ideologically constructed around the needs of certain groups. There is therefore a greater need now, more than ever, to critique the ways in which this discourse is constructed, and as importantly, to highlight the ways it is subsequently repeated, embodied and enacted by institutions, organisations and individuals through action which is consciously and also unwittingly ideological in nature. Dr Carlo Perrotta, from the Childhood and Youth Institute, Anglia Ruskin University, further highlighted the need to engage in critical research and dialogue around new developments in educational technology. His talk focussed on the attempt to develop a critical analysis of educational technology, specifically looking at how such an analysis might be applied to the Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC) phenomenon. Carlo began his talk highlighting the rise of MOOCs and how they have come to dominate many discussions about instructional technology, the effects they may have on traditional Universities and approaches, and what this may mean for the future of education. Carlo outlined the main attributes of MOOCs, suggesting that openness is often touted as the most defining trait of MOOCs, with their spiritual roots arguably lying in the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement, as a form of democratisation of knowledge and a way of combatting the perceived commoditisation of learning in traditional institutions. However, he also highlighted that the reality is somewhat different and removed from the original intentions of the OER movement. He went on to highlight the key players in the developments of MOOCs and the increasing influence and development of business ventures backed by investment capital. He highlighted how these represent extraordinary business opportunities, bearing all the traits of digital economy start-ups with their familiar investment pattern and constructed as services that are monetised and commoditised, whether directly, or indirectly, as a wider part of organisational offers. In a sense, Carlo highlighted the polarity of perspectives between those on the one hand who see MOOCs as liberating and democratising learning, as opposed to those who warn against the trivialisation of teaching and learning and the wider effects this will have on learning and the longer term viability and sustainability of some institutions as a result of the influence of private influence of business in an educational marketplace. Carlo however, also highlighted that this polarity in perspectives is far from the reality in that in examining something like MOOCs, reveals a fragmented and complex picture, with different representations and involvement, and a range of hybrids of the MOOC phenomenon. He argued that there is a need not only to look at the broad range of perspectives but to investigate the realities of the situation and the diversity of actors and approaches involved.

From his perspective, investigating MOOCs should be viewed as broad collection of events, technologies, networks and interests with fluid and diverse connotations, and that we should therefore avoid simplified duality in our analysis. MOOCs should not be viewed from either a purely educational, socio-economic, or purely technological perspective, but would be better understood through symmetrical analysis with an emphasis on the messy dynamics that operate. Professor Dennis Hayes, University of Derby, presented a critical analysis of educational technology and the negative and often unspoken effects it has on learning, teaching, education and society. In his paper the rise of technology and the decline of education, he argued that the fetishisation of technology in education is not progressive, as we are led to believe, but instead might be viewed as a regressive practice and another symptom of the decline of the social project of educating. He argued that there is a fundamental misunderstanding in that whilst the media, politicians, policy makers and academics have celebrated a learning age, represented by easy access to information, this has been confused with, and does not represent, the processes inherent with knowledge and understanding. Furthermore, it is suggested that this must been seen in the longer term, historical context, with constant innovation, the speed of information exchange, and the commodification of information resulting in a devaluation in knowledge and the increased likelihood that the most valuable knowledge and lessons will not be passed on. He argued that this is resulting in a regressive world where the wheel is constantly reinvented as we head further into a crisis around the meaning of education. Dennis further argued that in the digital age there is an increasing trend toward edutainment. He illustrated this by talking about MOOCs and their content. From his perspective, MOOCs tend to be dominated by macho and authoritative talking heads experts and that they lack the pedagogical interest as they are based on the authoritative transmission of information to be taken as fact, and ultimately this undermines the essence of the student experience. Dennis further argued that academics need to be more oppositional towards the latest technological and managerial fads. However recognised that this is increasingly difficult in a climate where profit and loss is becoming the key motive in Higher Education and where the managerial classes outweigh academic and teaching expertise. He further argued that we should critique the dominant discourse surrounding both education and technology and its purported benefits, and awaken students and colleagues minds to the need for criticism in order to avoid the trivialisation of what criticality truly is. Part of the obsession with technology in education, from this perspective, is that it is assumed that as knowledge is out there for students, and because it theoretically exists, that through some mythological process of osmosis, students will automatically become knowledgeable by access alone. This is to trivialise education and the practice of teaching. He highlighted the degree of banality and uncritical acceptance of facts that pervade social media and which detract from more critical issues and debate. In this sense, such media becomes the perfect foil for the powerful and wealthy to assert their agendas, which receive are largely uncritically accepted by the masses. Dr Keith Turvey, from the Education Research Centre, University of Brighton, focussed upon participatory narrative designs for professional learning with new technologies. Keiths paper focussed on the need to collect empirical evidence and develop theory to help us understand the effects and implications of educational technology in a period of significant social and technological change. This was felt to be true, particularly in relation to teacher professional development, and in dealing with the seeming paradox between an increasingly networked society on the one hand, and individual professional identity on the other. Keith outlined his

conceptual model for developing an agent-centred view of educators appropriation of technologies situated within a wider socio-cultural ecology. His narrative-ecology model of technological appropriation is an attempt see explore appropriation, not only as a set of personal and professional choices and practices, but also a form of identity expression. Keith argued that educational technology adds a further dimension of disruption and complexity to already complex socio-cultural contexts in which education occurs. This has not only proved to be a challenge to practitioners but also to the research community. Consequently, techno-centric arguments have continued to dominate the discourse, and whilst this remains the case, overall, educational technology will continue to disappoint. Moreover, what makes technology truly educational will continue to be swept aside by populist discourse. He further argued that the fields of both technology enhanced learning and policies remain incoherent and transient. Moreover, they are becoming increasingly instrumental, with a trend toward serving the current needs of business and industry, and with a decreasing emphasis on incorporating the narrative of practitioners in technology enhanced learning. Without these narratives, it was argued, there is greater likelihood that pedagogy becomes secondary to the technology in the populist discourse. Yet it is these very narratives that are essential to our understanding of the applied context and the realities of technology as a tool applied to teaching, rather than merely as a tool to be mastered. Professor Richard Hall, Head of Enhancing Learning Through Technology, De Montfort University, gave the final presentation of the day, entitled The University, technology and cooperation. This presentation put current developments in HE in context in relation to wider global ideologies and movements. Richard began his presentation by suggesting that technologies allow academic labour to be commoditised within institutions, which themselves are embroiled in an ideological struggle centred around the continuation of existing, or exacerbated forms, of capital accumulation and the logic of the market. Such modes of production however, are clearly in crisis, yet Universities have not responded to alternative movements or trajectories but instead are blindly following existing forms. Richard argued that any discussion of HE in the current context needs to be situated against the realities of the current crisis, systemic inabilities, structural and global inequalities, and the threat to sustainability. In this context, we have seen recent changes towards Universities as wealth generators, a repositioning of student debt as a gateway to employment, the commodification of research, increasing workload pressures, and precariousness of employment based on financial viability alone. This current organisation of capital-labour relations is not confined to real spaces but also encroaches into virtual spaces. New and potential markets are sought, through MOOCs, distance and online learning, mechanisation, automation, conversion of services into products, and intensification of labour process, and so forth, as the HE market seeks for new lines of profitability in a landscape increasingly characterised by scarce resources. Arguably, based on existing relations at a time of both real and perceived scarcity, technology will be harnessed to reduce overheads, increase efficiencies and reduce the number of workers employed in proportion to the increase in production and profit. As education increasingly becomes regulated by profit and loss motives of accumulation, then it becomes increasingly subject to the ways of maintaining profit. As labour saving technologies spread across the system, this is not only likely to reduce the demand for labour but will also affect the climate of institutions, whereby rationalisation and constant reskilling of staff, often at their own expense, become permanent features in the individual competition for scarce resources and employment. The unsustainable nature of this trend was further highlight through the emphasis on the relative credential inflation as individuals self fund increasingly higher levels of qualifications at a time when there is increasing scarcity of employment. In doing so, they also place themselves in significant, sometimes life spanning debt, which in turn places them further subservient to the

imposed logic of the market, resulting in the proletarianisation of ever-increasing numbers of educated people. Further, it was argued that as the trend toward student as consumer drives the expansion of low cost and online courses, these products and services become purchasable commodities which open up the HE market to a range of new competitors seeking to gain market share. Ultimately this increases competition and decreases the likelihood of co-operation. Yet, this is merely the tip of a far larger iceberg, with various new technologies potentially further automising labour and creating new spaces and markets for the sale of services. Richard argued that it is critical to the understanding of the changes impacting upon Higher Education and that there is a need to develop a historical critique of technological innovation, finacialisation and managerialism, the wider structural weaknesses inherent within global capitalism, and the vagaries of the neo liberal campaign. He used various examples to highlight the vast inequalities, the vested and interconnected interests behind many of the new technological innovations within and beyond education, and the broader ideological purpose, or misdirection, behind what are at face value relatively benign developments. Intended Outputs: Short provocation papers from each of the presenters have been produced and will be shortly uploaded here alongside the presentations from the day. Shortly, we shall also be issuing a call for papers for a special issue on critical perspectives on educational technology in our occasional papers journal. For further information, contact: Tim Rudd T.Rudd@brighton.ac.uk