In praise of technological determinism…

Well, maybe this post won’t quite work as the devastating defense of the dread spectre of technological determinism that I hope to write one day. But having heard the line “technology isn’t important” in discussions amongst educational technologists so many times I certainly find myself nodding in agreement with Martin Weller here… As has been said before, read the whole thing, but in the interim a few choice morsels:

…technology often doesn’t succeed because we ignore all the stuff around it – the administrative context it operates within, the time people have to use it, how it makes people feel about their jobs, etc. I know all this stuff, but what ‘the technology isn’t important’ people often really mean is ‘I want to ignore technology’. And that is surely the wrong way to go.

…from my perspective the technology isn’t important argument is used as a justification to disregard anything technologically driven and hopefully carry on as we’ve always done. In this context suggesting that technology isn’t important is irresponsible. I’m sure plenty of journalists argued that technology wasn’t important, it’s quality reporting that counts. That didn’t stop technology completely transforming their industry. And I’m sure post-Gutenberg we heard arguments that ‘printing isn’t important, it’s what’s in the Bible that counts’. And when Brunel was busy laying railway lines I’m sure horse-drawn carriage owners insisted that ‘the railway isn’t significant, it’s staying in nice inns that we should focus on’.

It’s true enough that we can get too excited by the bells and whistles of the latest techie doo-dads, but I think Martin’s post suggests we can do better when promoting the human dimension of our practice.

— Brian