Page 36 - Education in a Digital World

2

MAKING SENSE OF EDUCATION

AND TECHNOLOGY

Theoretical Approaches

Introduction

The uneven growth of educational technology over the past thirty years is part of
what Held and McGrew term the underlying ‘puzzle’ of globalisation – i.e. the
“disjuncture between the widespread discourse of globalisation and the realities of a
world in which, for the most part, the routines of everyday life are dominated by
national and local circumstances” (Held and McGrew 2000, p.5). As was suggested
in Chapter 1, while some aspects of education provision around the world may
now appear to be more homogenised than before, the extent to which digital
technologies have actually led to uniform fundamental changes in education is
much less clear. In fact, nearly forty years on from the ‘computer revolution’ and
nearly twenty years on from the subsequent ‘internet revolution’, it could be argued
that education in most – if not all – societies remains as divided, unjust, unfair and
unequal as ever. Even where educational changes have taken place, it is difficult to
gauge any association with digital technology per se. Thus despite the globalist explana-
tions that prevail, it would be fair to conclude that educational technology is certainly
not a straightforward force for equal change around the world. Against this background,
there is a need for a book such as this to move quickly away from overly general
presumed ‘effects’ of globalisation, education and technology, and instead turn its
attention towards the nuances and differences that characterise the actual (as opposed
to the imagined) state of educational technology in our supposedly digital world.
One of the first steps in developing this more realistic account is to recognise the
full range of involved interests in educational technology. As Chapter 1 has already
suggested, there is a large number of different ‘stakeholders’ and interests at play
here. These, of course, include all the familiar components of the ‘education com-
munity’– schools, universities, teachers, students, academic researchers and so on.