What sort of people and institutions gain special economic and political power from this new technology? ~ Neil Postman

This question is very pertinent in an age where businesses are even more interested and bent on having a say with regards to what goes into education. Has education been sold to corporate or political interests?

While ICT has long been lauded for its democratizing effect, meaning, making education more readily available to the masses, what needs to be ask is the kind of education that the masses have been given access to. Has ICT moved the decision for the contents of a curriculum from teachers who are in the field or to instructional designers sitting somewhere in an office but away from where the teaching takes place? How much flexibility is there for the teachers to adapt their teaching when the curriculum is even more today defined and assessed by a “virtual” someone? Is the institution of the teacher under attack? Is it then a coincident that in this ICT era, teachers are seen to be even more easily replaceable especially in American schools  today? Is that the start of the trend to come globally?

Even at the tertiary level, university professors have expressed concern at how ICT has meant that “learning” has largely gone online. Has this trend strengthened the hands of the bureaucrats who see the economic bottom line as the most important yardstick for the buffet of courses on offer? ICT has made online learning relatively cheap and universities are rushing to offer such courses. Will ICT result in more automation to keep costs down in the “learning” process? Will university lecturers and professors be regarded as mere consultants an instructional design process despite promotion of “blended learning”?

This emphasis on revenues earned will (and has) attract the interest of private conglomerates to offer “education” as a product to be sold.  They in turn will only sell packages that will fit into the economic needs of the country. So who keeps an eye on what is sold to the masses as “education” especially when the political masters have chosen to defer to business interests?

Will the advent of ICT use in education also emphasize the dominance of science and technology as the final arbiter of knowledge? What is the implication of this on what is to be taught in our schools and universities? Will it only further de-legitimise non-scientific institutions in the long run?

However, there could be some positives. Traditional political institutions will have difficulty also circumscribing what is being taught. Censorship becomes all the more difficult. While political authorities can snuff out temporarily the global connections that ICT affords, they will not be able to do so permanently as seen in the Arab Spring uprisings, especially as seen in the example of Egypt.

ICT allows anyone with access to it to turn to “alternative” sources of learning. The wired world allows anyone to choose from a plethora of offerings from anywhere in the world. The officially-approved offerings in brick-and-mortar schools where socialization of political values can take place, can be bypassed. Learning can become truly personal through these personal learning networks as opposed to being a reflection of the demands of political leaders.

Neil Postman’s six questions that we should pose to ourselves whenever we want to introduce new technology is to encourage a dialogue with technology. This is to prevent us from going into an unthinking headlong rush to adapt anything that is technologically “advanced”. In my first post in this series, I alluded to the way the Amish people view technology as highlighted by Howard Rheingold. While we do not advocate a lifestyle like the Amish people, we can learn invaluable lessons from them about keeping technology in a more balanced and correct perspective.

End of series on Neil Postman’s “Six Questions”

“What new problems might be created by solving the original problem?” – Neil Postman

This is the third in Neil Postman’s series of questions for anyone who wants to introduce a new technology. Often technology is seen as the savior of much of the world’s ills. However, in more recent times we have become more acutely aware of the problems that have arisen as a result of the introduction of new technologies into the world. Some of these new technologies have made it already threatened our own existence. And we are not only talking about nuclear missiles here.

The trick for us is to discern what that technological genie is going to be doing once it has been released from its bottle. Too often we cannot put the genie back in. For this reason we have to do our very best to try and understand the impact of any technology before we unleash it to the world. As I have written and mentioned before, in this regard we have a lot to learn from the Amish people and their approach and attitude towards technology. Far from being Luddites, I believe they have tried their best to have a proper conversation with technology which is a lot more than can be said of many of us in the developed and developing world. The Amish people try to pre-empt problems that may arise from the use of technology. Those involve in education should adopt the same attitude.

For schools, the introduction of ICT for educational purposes can create problems within the school environment. Bear in mind, this is in addition to the fact that the jury is still out about the positive impact of ICT use in schools. One of these problems is that the introduction of ICT for education can be a distraction from the goals of education itself. many have even come to believe that acquisition of software and ICT hardware skills have become one of the goals of education. They may not announce these as goals but in practice that is what it means. I have on a few occasions already mentioned in this blog how schools teach software to their students in the computer labs s if these students will be Adobe Photoshop  or some other specialists of some other software. How many have stopped to ponder if it is the business of schools to teach students specific software? Not recognizing this means that schools will overburden themselves on wrong priorities and worse, think they are making great progress on educational goals. The real problems related to education that can be addressed in schools may not be addressed in such an environment as there are many things that become distractions.

Teachers already have enough problems making learning meaningful and effective. If ICT is brought into the classroom without careful thought and preparation, there is a real danger that it will add to the problems of designing and managing effective lessons. Teachers become more stressed out if ICT use becomes a requirement when they are ill-prepared to do so. This was the experience even in Singapore. When the MasterPlan for IT in Education (MPITE) was introduced, there was quite a number of teachers who decided to retire early to avoid having to meet the “recommended” dosage of ICT in the classroom. They know all too well that what has been recommended has a tendency of becoming a “requirement” soon enough. The pressure to adapt to the use of ICT  tools can lead to a negative reaction to ICT use for education

ICT for education has often been touted as the way to get students to learn through collaboration, personal and group research and inquiry and make learning meaningful such that students become life-ling learners. But seriously, if the only ICT adaptation to education that occurs in the classroom is the kind that only re-emphasizes rote-learning and mechanical operations only, then there is only a pretense at trying to achieve those goals. Unprepared teachers will resort to ICT that only repeat what they have been doing all their teaching lives, albeit in an electronic form. It does not matter if they use a software found on a CDROM or on an online platform. The way the teaching and learning is done is still very traditional. In fact, it can easily be further compounded with ICT.

The introduction of ICT on a mass scale for education can also lead to a problem of high maintenance costs, which will then be passed on to the consumer either through higher taxes or higher school fees. Computers need to be repaired regularly, costs of maintaining printers and their ink or cartridges will also rocket as the paperless classroom is still a long way to go despite the introduction of ICT. Will this lead to a greater divide in education between that for the rich and the poor? In Indonesia, we see the divide getting bigger as privately-owned schools which cater to the higher income families try to boast an ICT infrastructure within the school. It is an irony of sorts that the schools for the rich who can already afford the computers in their homes are getting computers in the schools while the poor are not likely to see any for their use both in the home and the schools. Even in ICT-rich Singapore schools, the Minister of Education has had to fend off parental worries that member schools of the FutureSchools@Singapore will be out of reach of lower income families.

ICT in schools is often described as an “enabler”. But many forget that ICT in schools can also be a “disabler”. For this reason, conversations like this, must continue, to help those responsible to draw up better plans for ICT usage in schools. It should also continue so schools will continuous check and -re-check what they are doing with ICT to see that it does not become a “disabler”.

In one of my posts, I highlighted Howard Rheingold’s post about the Amish and their relationship with technology. He suggested that instead of a mad rush to bring technology into our lives, we should have an ongoing conversation with technology. The cultural critic, Neil Postman, also has a similar view about technology. Postman in fact tries to make this conversation a little clearer by suggesting that we think about six questions that we should ask when a new technology is introduced. The six questions are:

• What is the problem to which this technology is a solution?
• Whose problem is it?
• What new problems might be created by solving the original problem?
• Which people and what institutions will be most seriously harmed by this new technology?
• What changes in language are being forced by these new technologies?
• What sort of people and institutions gain special economic and political power from this new technology?

In my view, the questions are meant to prevent us from rushing into implementing or using any new technology. In the field of education, these questions become all the more important because it is going to impact and area of human endeavor, that is, education, that is clearly supposed to be designed for the future. As an educator who had been part of Singapore’s well-known MasterPlan for IT in Education (MPITE) team, I have had an abiding interest in the use of ICT in schools. However, Rheingold’s and Postman’s suggestions for a conversation with ICT, have both given me cause to reflect on the use of ICT in education. I will be sharing my thoughts on the questions raised by Postman in relation to how ICT is supposed to be used in education. So do look out for them. In the meantime, click on the book cover to read Postman’s “Technopoly”.