Page 87 - Education in a Digital World
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74  National Policymaking


            (US Department of Education 2010). Indeed, the linkages between technology use
            and educational efficiency are exemplified in the following statement from the
            Obama administration’s plan:

                 To achieve our goal of transforming American education, we must rethink
                 basic assumptions and redesign our education system. We must apply tech-
                 nology to implement personalised learning and ensure that students are
                 making appropriate progress through our K-16 system so they graduate.
                 These and other initiatives require investment, but tight economic times and
                 basic fiscal responsibility demand that we get more out of each dollar we
                 spend. We must leverage technology to plan, manage, monitor, and report
                 spending to provide decision-makers with a reliable, accurate, and complete
                 view of the financial performance of our education system at all levels. Such
                 visibility is essential to meeting our goals for educational attainment within
                 the budgets we can afford.
                                               (US Department of Education 2010, p.x)

              These motivations notwithstanding, some instances of state interest in technology-
            based education are also centred on straightforward motivations of contemporary
            economic production. Indeed, the hope of using digital technology as a means of
            increasing the ‘sale’ of a nation’s education products within domestic (and on
            occasion international) marketplaces is certainly evident in a few of the policy drives
            outlined above. As the UK government asserted at the launch of its planned
            ‘e-University’ initiative:

                 Virtual networks eradicate the distance between the student and the provider,
                 thus opening up a genuinely global learning market. Learning provision can
                 be customised for individual need and delivered to specification, extending
                 the boundaries of choice and flexibility beyond the confines of the seminar
                 room or lecture hall. And learning is subject to new economies: once the
                 investment in research and development of learning material has been made,
                 the learning programme can be delivered at minimal marginal cost to an
                 infinite number of people.
                                                                 (Blunkett 2000)


              Instances such as these therefore see educational technology being used to reflect
            the dynamics of global capitalism and the intensification of the economic function
            of knowledge and learning. Interestingly, some of the rhetoric from the US gov-
            ernment has stressed the use of digital technology to pursue redistributive rather
            than purely profit-making ends. In 1998, for example, President Clinton endorsed
            the expansion of technology-based education with a view to “guarantee universal,
            excellent education for every child on our planet”. Similarly, the fourth Educational
            Technology Plan stressed the need to promote US-produced educational content
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