Determinism
I just read the article by Sherry Turkle in The Chronicle of Higher Education (Jan 30, 2004. Vol. 50. Iss 21; p. 26). The article is titled “How Computers Change the Way We Think”. Turkle claims that the tools we use to think, change the way in which we think. Therefore, just as the invention of writing changed our way of thinking dramatically, so has the invention of the computer and information technology. She has studied not only what the computer is doing for us, but also what it is doing to us.
The range of programs that students in primary schools use (email, PowerPoint, word, virtual communities, computer simulations) means they are learning “new ways to think about what it means to know and understand”.
One interesting area that Turkle touches on is that of privacy. She highlights a change between the two generations of students and teachers and how they view privacy. She claims the older generation retains the notion that the privacy of their mail is sacrosanct, whereas the younger computer users are accustomed to electronic surveillance as a part of their daily lives. Turkle maintains that high school and university students seem willing to provide personal information online with minimal or no safeguards, and that these students do not understand that in a democracy, privacy is a right, not a privilege. She predicts that in 10 years time, there is going to have to be conscious pedagogy around this area, because these ideas will not be inherent anymore. I am not sure I agree completely with these claims, however I can see the logic on which they are based.
Turkle seems to be slightly technological determinist. She discusses at length the ways in which computers are impacting on our society and our thinking. However, she doesn’t really talk about the effect society has had on technology. I believe the impact goes both ways, and you cant discuss one without considering the other. Technological determinism relates to computer use in classroom, because how the technology effects the classroom is generally how it is discussed. But what about the other side? What effects has the classroom had on computers? When you think about it, there are actually quite a few. For example all the programs that have been written, maybe not specifically for students, but definitely with them in mind (Scratch, Comic life, …)
One program that Turkle views as having effected our epistemological position considerably is PowerPoint. Students are being raised in a culture increasingly concerned primarily with presentation, “… a corporate culture in which appearance is often more important than reality.” It is because of the lowering standards of intellectual rigor outside the educational sphere, that teachers must be aware of when they use, and introduce software that has been “designed to simplify the organisation and processing of information.” For example, PowerPoint, which encourages presentation, not conversation, and “equates bulleting with clear thinking” (Tufte, 2003, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint). Turkle warns that introducing this program too early to primary aged students could mean closing down debate and discussion, rather than a presentation serving as a jumping-off point for further conversation. I agree with this, because inherently this program was made for the corporate boardroom, and designed to convey absolute authority, which is not something i would want to encourage in my classroom. The use of technology should be about discussion, debate and collaboration.
She includes a “short and certainly not comprehensive” list of areas where she sees information technology encouraging changes in thinking. Here are some of the subheadings from this article which sum up her ideas, in case you are interested in looking at this further:
Avatars or a self?
From powerful ideas to PowerPoint
Word processing vs. thinking
Taking things at interface value
Simulation and its discontents
“Information technology is identity technology. Embedding it in a culture that supports democracy, freedom of expression, tolerance, diversity, and complexity of opinion is one of the next decade’s greatest challenges… The computer… [is] a carrier of a way of knowing, a way of seeing the world ad our place in it, we are all computer people now.”
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