Fifteenth DATC Junto

Meeting Logistics: Tue, 7 August 2007 at Armory 1B01 from 12:00-1:30pm

In the last junto, I shifted our focus to look at the conditions under which technologies emerge and develop. The perspective that I see as very important in this discussion is the social construction of technology (Bijker, 1984), which stands in sharp contrast to the perspective that technology is determined (Joy, 2000). A related article from Law (1992) develops the argument a little differently by using the actor-network relationship to help extend the social construction argument.

For this next junto, I want to move to another closely related classic tension in the opposition to technology-assisted learning. Readings: Digital Diploma Mills. Noble, D. (1998).

• Discussion Questions:
• Although Noble's (1998) article is a little dated, are we still encountering this same tension in the opposition to technology-assisted learning?
• Is Noble's concern, that technology is being deployed by University's administrators to discipline, de-skill, and displace faculty and their labor, still valid?
• Perhaps the tension is not between technology and faculty, but really between faculty and the administration. Technology then is merely the device that brings to the surface these other tensions of pedagogy, class/room size, degree demand etc.
• How does Bentham's notion of the Electronic Panoptican apply here? (I know, I know electronic panoptawhat, take a quick peek here http://home.fnal.gov/~annis/digirati/otherVoices/Lyon.html)

Social Life of Information. Brown and Duguid (2000)

• Where are the unintended effects (positive/negative) of educational technologies like CULearn?
• What happens to pedagogy as we centralize the means of production?
• Is Zuboff correct? Is this an issue about management, not technology?
• Are faculty drowning in information?