Educational technology's metaphors

This article starts from an assumption that the essence of technology is a realm of discovery. Within this realm, humanity and the tools of technology are engaged in a dialogue. The author challenges the objectivism of technical rationality which fragments this dialogue and replaces people's creativity with rigorous, but often useless, propositions. It suggests that, at least in the field of education, it is time to break away from technical rationality and its accompanying focus on mastery of information.
The author looks at some of educational technology's metaphors and discusses how they reflect determinism and consumerism. She explores an alternative approach, the musical metaphor (Hlynka & Nelson, 1986), which encourages both rigour and creativity. She concludes with an appeal to researchers in the field of educational technology to grapple with new metaphors to help us cope with the exponential growth of information. She further suggests that educational technology need not be limited by the legacy of positivism, but can ally itself with communications technologies and the fine arts.