Module 8: The Psychology & Phenomenology of Educational Technology: Psychological & Phenomenological Foundations

After reading Turkle’s article, respond to the following question.

Marinda is a grade 8 science teacher at David Thompson Secondary School in Vancouver. She has read Turkle’s ideas of the links between psychoanalysis and technology, and she’s attracted to the notions of subjective technology and intimate machines. In particular, Marinda is thinking about a way she can harness the students’ emotional connections to technology. Do you think Marinda could do this to improve her students’ learning? What are some things she would have to think about? You are encouraged to reference other modules when you respond to this question.

I think Marinda could make use of subjective technology and intimate machines to improve her students’ learning, because one of the most powerful motivators for learning occurs when an “object” stirs fascination/interest in a person through its usage. The challenge, however, would be the structuring of the lessons so that students learn the things that are relevant to the curriculum.

Those who have built and rebuilt things using Lego blocks to make the perfect race car/plane/etc. would probably know how one’s emotional connections to technology could motivate learning. In Marinda’s case, if her students were provided with Lego’s Mindstorm kits, and that the students were asked to build machines that would achieve certain goals (i.e. win a race), the students would need to learn how to program the robot so that the robot would respond in certain ways to achieve the goal. This would be a good usage of intimate machines because learning is the goal. The emotional connection would in this case be a “bonus” to motivate students to want to learn more about the machine.

Some things for Marinda to consider:

• Funding
• Time
• Seymour Papert’s Constructionism
• She might also need to consider stating in advance that the students might not be able to keep the objects they build if the objects were purchased using school funds.

Respond to these questions after reading Dall’Alba & Barnacle’s article and the “Turkle part 2” summary. Do you think that our relationship with video games has changed since Turkle wrote her article in the 1980′s? Which do you think holds more weight, our influence on videogames or the influence of videogames on our lives? Has playing video games become a sort of embodied knowing? Explain.

In my opinion, I think our relationship with video games has not changed since Turkle wrote her article in the ’80s, because people continue to differ in the amount of interest for gaming and how much they want gaming to be a part of their lives. Perhaps the only difference is the number of people who allow video games to be a part of their lives. Those who do not see the point of gaming will continue to not see the point of it; those who do and enjoy gaming will continue to invest time and money on video games.

The amount of influence that video games will have on people changes too over time and circumstances. A 12 year old child will see the value of gaming differently when s/he becomes a parent. Those who do not see the importance of using the time on gaming to attain real-life skills will continue to spend time on attaining gaming skills.

I think gaming has become a sort of embodied knowing for those who have allowed gaming to be a part of their lives, because the amount of time invested in gaming yields the amount of content-specific knowledge. This sort of embodied knowing is comparable to the knowledge that we gain by participating in the MET program discussion forums.

Please examine the website created by Discourse Leadership Group #8 members for more information on the topic.