The promises of educational technology: A reassessment

The claims made for educational technology have not always been realized. Many programmes in education based on media and technology have produced useful documentation and supportive research; others have failed. The current, comprehensive definition of educational technology is a helpful key to understanding how a problem-solving orientation is necessary to approach teaching/learning designs. The process of educational technology begins with an analysis of the problem, rather than with the medium as a solution. Examples of appropriate applications come from open universities and primary schools where distance, time, insufficient personnel, and inadequate facilities have led to a search for alternative means for teaching and learning. Less successful programmes tended to have confused goals and an emphasis on one medium. They also lacked: support services, staff training, quality software and a system focus. The threads which run through the more successful programmes are described. The lessons learned from fifty years of media and technology development in education and training are discussed with an eye toward the future. It is clear that educational technology as a problem-solving process will lead the field into the twenty-first century.     

From communication to verbalization: Language practices in kindergarten

Most children attend kindergarten very early in western societies; in fact, they are inserted in different contexts of socialization (family, school and/or other day-care). In what are these contexts of socialization different for linguistic abilities that they contribute to develop? How can the young children adapt themselves to these differences? These questions are discussed considering theoretical interactionnist approaches, and some analyses of communication practices in french kindergarten. Perspectives are released for a discussion on a pedagogy of oral language with young children.     

From Mao to the Marketplace: storying an educational community

This paper is an edited version of a lecture in celebration of the twenty‐fifth anniversary of the Cambridge Journal of Education given at the Cambridge Institute of Education on 12 February 1996. The author, who was editor of the Journal for it's first eleven years, recalls the features of the East Anglian educational community for which the Journal initially provided a platform and the overlapping sets of professional values which, he claims, underpinned much of its educational practice. The Journal provides a source for the history of this community and of the issues and concerns which dominated it particularly in those early years. The paper focuses in particular on the issues to do with teacher education which concerned contributers twenty‐five years ago and reflects on the ways in which these have developed. The author suggests that there has been a loss of intellectual vitality over this period and places the blame for this squarely on government policies including, centrally, the extension of market principles to education. Finally he suggests an agenda for the educational community and perhaps for the Journal which is aimed at re‐establishing ‘the intellectual capital’ of the teaching profession     

教育目的视角下教育过程公平探究

教育目的是教育和教学活动的重要组成,教育目的为受教育者指出明确的发展方向和发展结果,教育过程公平是教育公平的重要组成部分。本文从教育目的的角度来研究教育过程公平,面对学生的差异站在"使人之为人"的高度认识,站在要让人成为当前时代中发展着的个体的高度认识教育过程公平。     

From school leader to educational leader

ABSTRACT

This study builds on research which contends that just as effective principals must lead across a broad purview of responsibilities in order to build successful schools, so too must middle leaders. Decentralisation of school management has resulted in an expansion of school principals’ responsibilities, contributing to a further distribution of leadership responsibility to middle leaders. This conception of middle leadership requires a shift in understanding of the nature of middle leaders’ work. There is vast potential for middle leaders to contribute to their schools beyond subject administration, yet the research base yields limited insight on such work and on how middle leaders can be supported to accomplish it. This research finds that middle leaders who expand their leadership responsibilities do so in contexts that utilise school mission, policy enactment and organisational design as platforms for enhanced middle leadership.     

把握教师专业发展特征在实践中提高教师的专业化水平

从全面把握教师专业发展的基本特征入手,分析影响教师专业发展的内在因素和外部条件,探讨基于教育教学实践促进教师专业发展的基本策略,以进一步提高中小学教师的专业化水平。     

From ideal to real: Understanding the development of new educational settings

Summary and Conclusion In this paper we presented a framework for viewing the development of new educational settings. We also postulated the necessity of two conditions for the creation of a coherent self-renewing educational program: the development of a community, especially in a linguistic sense, and on-going practical dialog that defines and redefines the setting over time in light of collective action and experience. In doing so, we took the position that educational program and program development mean something more than what is implied in most theories of organizational and program development. We argued that a collection of educational activities constitutes a program only when the activities are grounded in a commonly perceived core of beliefs and values about what is and what ought to be.Clearly, we have only begun to sketch out the nature and operation of the processes by which a new educational setting evolves and develops into an organization. We need to know why development and growth through the application of the dialectic are typically not present in new programs. Our future research efforts are oriented in this direction and we hope that by setting forth our tentative ideas at this point we may encourage others to react to them and perhaps to pursue a similar line of inquiry.OISE     

Multimedia literacy practices in beginning classrooms and at home: the differences in practices and beliefs

Multimedia literacy practices in the homes of young children are changing rapidly, but the use of them in the early years of education is moving slowly. This research was aimed to find out what teachers of 5‐year‐olds, in their first 6 months of compulsory schooling, think about the children's literacy practices at home, including the perceived use of digital media at home. We also wanted to find out what the teachers did in their classrooms that was similar or different to the students' experiences of literacy practices across several media. Parents of 76 children, and their teachers, from 10 classrooms in mid‐high and mid‐low socio‐economic areas completed surveys. The parents' survey asked about the literacy‐related experiences their children are involved in. The teachers' survey asked for their beliefs about the literacy‐related experiences the children in their classrooms engaged in, on average, including the use of digital media. The teachers were also asked about the literacy practices in their classroom and their use of media. This paper describes the teachers' beliefs and the similarities and differences in practices between home and school, including literacy practices using digital technology.     

From hospital deliveries to home birth

Working in a busy labor/delivery unit gave me insight into the care that my Lamaze childbirth education students would encounter. I was troubled by the number of interventions taking place. The interventions interfered with a woman's ability to work with her labor; some interventions were actually creating problems or even crises. My experiences at this hospital motivated me to become involved with home birth, restoring my belief that birth is a normal process.     

Insights beyond neo-liberal educational practices: the value of discourse analysis

This article discusses the nature, power and effects of neo-liberal rationale in educational settings. By introducing discourse analysis of two cases, the influence of neo-liberal ideology on contemporary curricula and school programs were examined. The analysis showed that dominant discourses based on neo-liberal rationale presented themselves as “unquestionable truths” that influenced how educators interacted with others and went about their profession. The dominant discourses relied upon assertions by consensus or common conception and understanding to create an “officially” sanctioned way of thinking about education. Proponents of a particular dominant discourse argued that such sanctions were a necessary feature of an initiative or innovation, and provided a focus for energy and activism, winning teachers’ support, and conveying to the wider community a sense of purpose, action and rational planning; a clear path to salvation. On the other hand, these dominant discourses had a necessary effect in obscuring other perspectives and disallowing critique from taking place. This article argues that discourse analysis provides a platform to interrogate the dominant discourses to reveal alternative or previously unseen perspectives.     

Cruel optimism in edtech: when the digital data practices of educational technology providers inadvertently hinder educational equity

ABSTRACT

As digital data become increasingly central to education, hopes for educational equity are pinned more strongly on educational technology providers. This paper examines the data practices of edtech providers who are not simply making token gestures towards justice and equality. Drawing on ethnographic interviews and Berlant’s notion of cruel optimism, it presents three data stories. The paper suggests that datafication in education provides a showcase of cruel optimism, i.e., when the object of desire is blocking one’s flourishing. The conclusion considers the constitutive paradoxes of datafied education, and implications for the current phase of edu-technical transformation.     

Against empathy: moving beyond colonizing practices in educational technology

Empathetic design is the ability for the designer to predict the cognitive and emotional experience of learners as they engage with the design product and process. It aims to center sensitivity toward learners, and the design process as a whole, which suggests potential application in educational settings. In the shift to digital, empathetic design may help instructors imagine learners’ thoughts and feelings engaged during the learning activity, and make iterative changes in response. Though empathetic design highlights sensitivity toward learners, by attempting to ‘be’ the other, it may unintentionally enact practices, and ideologies, of colonization. Recommendations for praxis via humanizing pedagogy are offered.

     

从教育公平原则看中国城乡教育差距

教育公平是社会公平的前提与基础,追求教育公平是当今人类社会教育发展的趋势,是世界各国教育改革和发展的基本出发点和重要目标。近年来城乡教育不公平问题日益突出,中国社会长期存在的城乡二元分割是导致城乡教育不公平的根源。城乡二元经济结构和二元教育结构直接影响到城乡间教育资源的配置和教育政策的制定。缩小城乡教育差距不仅要以发展经济、完善教育制度为依托,更有赖于树立公平的教育理念。     

From HOW to WHAT to WHY: The search for educational utility

Summary Educational technologists have moved from a unique concern with the how-to-do-its of behavior change (such as television, computers, and instructional delivery systems) to the inclusion ofwhat to teach. This expanded scope was encouraged and made possible by the pioneering work on measurable objectives. As soon as consideration of not onlyhow andwhat were part of the technologist’s repertoire, the consideration ofwhy was upon us. Tools and techniques, including needs assessment, needs analysis, system analysis, and systems analysis, were all moving us not only toward doing a more efficient and effective job of changing (or maintaining) behavior, but also toward determining why something should be taught and why behavior should be changed (or maintained) in the first place. The formal consideration ofwhy is a growing and thriving area of educational technology and is seen as possibly having several layers, including considerations of results both within and external to an organizational context. A suggested relationship is presented between several possible layers or organizations, with the ultimate referent for planning, doing, and evaluating being the individuals’ abilities to survive and contribute in society when they legally leave our educational agencies or training establishments. It is suggested that in the future, in order to relate the various factors of production of behavior change and/or maintenance, we reserve the terms “input,” “process,” and “output” for activities and results within an organization, and the term “outcome” for the results external to the organization. The technologist’s world has indeed expanded from the sole consideration ofhow to teach better to the inclusion ofwhat to teach better, andwhy we should teach what we are teaching in the first place. As we grow more inclusive and responsive in our planning and doing, as we grow more holistic and humanistic, our risks grow—but so do our responsiveness, responsibility, and satisfactions. An erratum to this article is available at .