Critical theory: Ideology critique and the myths of e-learning (original) (raw)
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Critical Theory and the Mythology of Learning with Technology
2012
Critical theory designates a philosophy and research methodology that focuses on the interrelated issues of technology, politics, and social change. Despite its emphasis on technology, critical theory arguably remains underutilized in areas of practical research that lie at the confluence of social, political, and technological concerns. This chapter addresses that situation by first describing the methodology of ideology critique.
Towards a Critical Theory of Educational Technology
Online Submission, 2007
The purpose of this study is to offer a critical consideration of current initiatives, and common sense discourses, forcing educators to adopt and integrate educational technology on a large scale. This study argues that it is time-in the relative absence of a critical debate-to ask questions that should precede a wholesale adoption of technology. It will first provide various definitions of technology including determinist and instrumentalist approaches. Then it will move towards a critical theory of technology in which the discussion is broadened to a critique of promises of technology drawing on technopositivism as a marketed ideology. The study cites research-computer-assisted language learning in particular-to show whether the implementation of information technologies has been able to match their promises. It calls for critical awareness of how technology is impacting education and at the same time for the engagement of teachers in exploring the relevant political, economic, and cultural contexts that help shape classroom learning and teaching.
A Sociological Critique of Information Technology: Rethinking the Role of Teacher in e-Learning
This study critiques and reviews Information Technology (IT) on a sociological level and explains the role of teacher in e-learning according to the presented review. In order to fulfill the purpose of the study, this study takes a critical approach and method. According to the ideas of some critical thinkers of education, critical studies of educational technologies could be led on two levels of “political-economical” and “sociological”. The present study which is conducted on a sociological level, has examined the nature and ideological applications of IT as an educational technology. The findings of the study indicate that the instrumentalist and technical approach toward IT is not able to explain and illuminate the normative and value backgrounds for generation and expansion of e-learning. In the process of e-learning, taking a technical viewpoint, the teacher might provide the grounds for domination of technical logic instead of critical, political, moral, and creative understanding. Accordingly, the discourses of the classroom would be mainly focused on technique rather than content. In contrast, taking a cultural view instead of a technical one could, on the other side, facilitate understanding the value grounds for generation of e-learning as well as the ideological motivations and aspects which might lead to re-producing the present educational inequalities. It could, on the other side, change the present business-oriented and normalizing conditions. In this way, it could be concluded that IT is not merely a set of machines and the relevant software. Rather it involves a form and way of thinking that could direct the individual’s viewpoint toward the universe. A cultural view could help changing the materialistic and business-oriented basis, and following that the class- based structure, in the society. Also, it could balance the relationship as well as the mutual effects between economy and culture. According to the findings of the study, it is recommended that the role of teacher should change from an expert to an expert intellectual. Such a teacher could provide the essential grounds for a cultural viewpoint instead of a merely technical viewpoint in learners regarding the cultural and social issues. This teacher understands the significance and the need to attend to the questions regarding the nature (what) and reason (why) of e-learning and addresses these types of questions in the classroom. In this way, it could be said that one of the main and basic issues to consider in electronic education is the role that education plays in order to expand democracy and prepare the citizens for valuation and discussion about the social conflicts and problems such as equality and freedom. These discussions and trainings could prevent determinism and social reproduction. The teacher might even pose questions from the manner (how) of electronic education according to the previous questions. In this viewpoint, technical issues are also taken and defined as part of political and moral issues. For example, the teachers and learners would face various educational, moral, economical, ideational, and political questions during the process of e-learning. In this way, free and creative thinking also takes on a new definition. In the process of e-learning, freedom does not signify the one-dimensional involvement of learners in more efficient application of information in line with the economical and business life. Rather it means a creative cooperation in cultivating public virtue. In these conditions, along with applying the e-learning, the teacher encourages learners to review and consider the associated obstacles and problems.
Critical Theory and Education. Addressing the Educational Process in the Era of New Technology
International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society, 3/1, 2007
Modern science and technology (as crucial outcomes of Modernity) continuously supply everyday life with even more sophisticated practical applications, while at the same time degrading its theoretical compound on all the levels of social becoming. The thinkers of the Frankfurt School criticize Modernity by emphasizing the twofold scheme that lies at its core: technology – civilization/culture, i.e. the relation which essentially affects the development of modern societies. In the educational sphere, which is intertwined with social changes, we are living in a period of severe questioning regarding the introduction of new technologies to the teaching / learning process. It is claimed here that the critical pedagogic approach is an important weapon for the essential understanding of the new facts of social reality and can be a decisive factor for the healthy transition to an integrated student-oriented educational practice. Keywords: Critical Theory, Technology, Education
Applying Critical Theory to the Study of ICT
Social Science Computer Review, 2006
A s three academics located in the domain of information systems (IS), we are delighted to act as guest editors and to highlight scholarship that applies a critical lens to the examination of information and communication technologies (ICT). In this editorial, we briefly present how reference disciplines-particularly sociology-have addressed issues of technology in society, placing this discussion in the context of the comparatively new disciplinary field of IS and its paradigmatic roots. We argue that IS has been dominated by inquiry adopting the philosophical approach of positivism but stress that there is a small and growing body of theoretical and empirical research from a critical perspective. We discuss this broadening field of critical research and critical research in IS in particular. Finally, we are pleased to introduce the articles we have chosen for this special issue that apply critical theories and methods to a number of ICT applications.
Introduction: Applying Critical Theory to the Study of ICT
Social Science Computer Review, 2006
A s three academics located in the domain of information systems (IS), we are delighted to act as guest editors and to highlight scholarship that applies a critical lens to the examination of information and communication technologies (ICT). In this editorial, we briefly present how reference disciplines-particularly sociology-have addressed issues of technology in society, placing this discussion in the context of the comparatively new disciplinary field of IS and its paradigmatic roots. We argue that IS has been dominated by inquiry adopting the philosophical approach of positivism but stress that there is a small and growing body of theoretical and empirical research from a critical perspective. We discuss this broadening field of critical research and critical research in IS in particular. Finally, we are pleased to introduce the articles we have chosen for this special issue that apply critical theories and methods to a number of ICT applications. Looking back at the entirety of sociology as a discipline, studying the role of technology in society has been marginal at best. Although never central to their doctrine, Marx, Weber, and Parsons all noted that technology played an instrumental role in society, subordinate to economic action, effectively a means to an economic end (Shields, 1997). With the arrival of the Frankfurt School in the mid-20th century, the study of the role of technology in society merged with the burgeoning field of critical theory, in which technology was part of a critique of modernity and the developments and institutions associated with modern society. For sociologists, critical theory allied technology with modernity and again viewed it instrumentally, as a tool of the modern state used for more perfect subjugation of the masses and the individual. In the later half of the 20th century, sociologists have drawn on authors such as Habermas, Offe, Bourdieu, Foucault, Calhoun, and Kellner to develop a more sophisticated critique of domination with an emancipatory interest, the fusion of social or cultural analysis, and the role of technology in society. Critical theorists of technology are typically seen by sociologists as mild technological determinists who have focused on the coevolution of modernity and technology and their joint limitations, pathologies, and destructive effects (Kellner, 1989). The Discipline of IS In the context of how ICTs are viewed and studied in IS, it is useful to take a little time to discuss the emerging discipline of IS-a subject of contestation within the IS community.
THE BURSTING BOILER OF DIGITAL EDUCATION: CRITICAL PEDAGOGY AND PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY
This conversation explores the relationships between information technologies and education from the perspective of a Frankfurt School philosopher. The first part of the conversation provides a brief insight into distinct features of Andrew Feenberg's philosophy of technology. It looks into lessons from "stabilized" technologies, explores the role of historical examples in contemporary technology studies, and shows that science fiction can be used as a suggestive inspiration for scientific inquiry. Looking at the current state of the art of philosophy of technology, it argues for the need for interdisciplinarity, and places Feenberg's work in the wider context of Science and Technology Studies (STS). In the second part, the conversation moves on to explore the relationships between technology and democracy. Understood in terms of public participation, Feenberg's view of democracy is much wider than standard electoral procedures, and reaches all the way to novel forms of socialism. Based on experiences with Herbert Marcuse in the 1968 May Events in Paris, Feenberg assesses the significance of information and communication technologies in the so-called "Internet revolutions" such as the Arab Spring, and, more generally, the epistemological position of the philosophy of technology. The last part of the conversation looks into the urgent question of the regulation of the Internet. It analyses the false dichotomy between online and offline revolutionary activities. It links Feenberg's philosophy of technology with his engagement in online learning, and assesses its dominant technical codes. It questions what it means to be a radical educator in the age of the Internet, and asks whether illegal activities on the Internet such as downloading can be justified as a form of civil disobedience. Finally, the conversation identifies automating ideology as a constant threat to humanistic education, and calls for a sophisticated evaluation of the relationships between education and digital technologies.
Proceedings of the 58th Annual Meeting of the Isss 2014 United States, 2014
The aim of this paper is to provide a critical systems thinking perspective on e-learning research in information systems classrooms. Many higher education practitioners are under pressure from their institutions to do research and to publish their findings. Higher education institutions spend large amounts of money on freeing up lecturers' time for research by incorporating better technology in teaching. Many also believe that the socalled generation-Y students can learn only when they are using technology. This leads to three problems: firstly, the classroom becomes a research centre; secondly, average quality research papers are written; and thirdly, technology drives teaching practices and not the other way round. Although these are often viewed as three independent problems they can be addressed as symptoms of one single problem: We struggle to find a method to reflect on and design our teaching practices in a way that truly benefits our students, the information technology industry and the scholarly community we are part of. Overall the motivation for teaching and the motivation for research about teaching become blurred and move away from most lecturers' original motivation for entering academia. This paper uses critical systems thinking to motivate critical social theory as an appropriate research paradigm and action research as research methodology for research projects in e-learning in information systems classrooms. It reflects on teaching of information systems and using e-learning from a critical systems perspective. Doing research in e-learning in an information systems classroom is viewed as a pluralistcomplex problem with some coercive characteristics according to the Flood and Jackson categorisation. Critical social heuristics is used to better understand the different worldviews and associated objectives in the problem situation. Action research is viewed from the perspective of critical social research therefore the guidelines for critical social research in information systems developed by Myers and Klein are applicable. Key to such an application of action research is the use of a critical theoretical framework or theory to guide intervention as illustrated by the depiction of action research of Peter Checkland. This paper explores suitable educational theories to guide intervention in information systems classrooms what will be beneficial to different groups of interest as identified in the application of critical social heuristics. It aims to address the problems stated above by providing guidelines for good research in the elearning discipline.
Developing a critical stance as an e-learning specialist: A primer for new professionals
E-learning specialists tend to be very pragmatic in orientation, building programs and developing courses and curriculum in response to problems and opportunities encountered in practice. This is done out of conviction that technology can open up doors of quality and access hitherto closed. Yet e-learning programs do not have unilaterally positive impacts – sometimes programs aggravate social distance and widen the achievement gap of already disadvantaged groups. In this paper we explore issues surrounding the social impacts of e-learning practice, encouraging a critical stance toward our work. We take the position that e-learning programs have the best chance for positive impacts through the informed, intentional practices and commitments of individual professionals, aligned with a professional community that that shares these values and encourages critical and reflective practice.