A perspective

[ Technology ] [ Pedagogy ]

One of the most manifest characteristics of the public debate on technology and pedagogy is the lack of historical perspective. The field has been, and is, a area for strong meanings based on the present-day situation. The growth of the Internet as attracted great interest from pedagogues as well as more general observers. The challenge inherent in this technology is so fundamental, and in a lot of respects new, that we easily loose sight of the recent history and the experiences that we have. There are even participants in the public debate which takes a deliberate distance to the history based on a point of view that the changes are so profound that we have little to learn from history.

I do not share this opinion and claim that we have access to a lot of thinking and experience that can help us understand and analyse the situation we are in. Reflections based on experience are as useful in this area as in most other areas. This article has as its main objective to contribute to reflections of this kind.

A historical perspective on information technology and pedagogy can be made very comprehensive. Ideally we should include traditional media as radio, video and television.. We might even include other types of technologies like blackboards and overhead projectors. I will not take this broad view and will limit the perspective to computers and technology for digital communication as we know it from the Internet. I will limit the scope to digital technology, if you like. I will limit the historical perspective to the last 30 years.

The article is limited to issues related to the technology as an instrument, in one form or an other, to enhance or support learning or education. The technology as an objective for learning is not discussed, even if some of the reasoning is based on experience from this area.

The article is not precise when it comes to ages, and try to focus issues which are independent of age and subject.

I have chosen a simple approach to a time line that focus two points in time, and thus describes three periods.

One of the central points in the analyses is to look at the dependence between technological development and pedagogical thinking and praxis in the three periods.

Technology

It is necessary to make some comments on the technological time line. It is not as simple as it may seem, and it is a lesson to learn from the difference between what is technological possibilities and what is generally available and widely used. Availability has to do with a lot of things: Marketing, standards, infrastructure, usability, support, economy and competence, or if you like literacy.

Focus is on the introduction of Apple's Macintosh in 1983-84 as an important milestone. This event is chosen because it introduced a new way of relating to the computer for the majority of users. Consistent graphical user interface were made available on the mass market. Concepts like "the desktop metaphor" and WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) were suddenly there for everyone to use and understand. Everyone with some insight in the history of computing knows that such graphical interfaces and a lot of the concepts of the Macintosh has a longer history. We find parts of the technology realised on workstations as far back as Sutherland's Sketchpad[1] in the 60's. The software, which relies heavily on an object oriented approach, has it roots in Simula[18], also from the 60's. We know that Rank Xerox had a complete graphical user interfaces on their commercial workstations years before Apple's Macintosh and Lisa.

Similar reasoning is to an even greater extent valid for the next event on the time line, the introduction of the World Wide Web. When Berner-Lee at Cern i Geneva defined HTML[2] as a tool for exchanging documents on the net, he built on well-known technology. The net was there and the standards for encoding documents was established. The revolutionary growth of the web can only be understood in light of a mature user society. The concept of the web is described as early as 1945 by Vannevaer Bush [3], although he had an other technological solution in mind. Ted Nelson had for years, before Mosaic, advocated his Xanadu project[4] for seamless interchange of information. Many of the communication forms which we today use on an experimental basis were demonstrated as early as the 60's. Douglas Engelbardt demonstrated the use of mouse, cooperation on one document and parallel TV-communication in 1963[5].

Pedagogy

It is a clear connection between the generally available technology and the ideas and the thoughts that develops as basis for applications of the technology and the way we relate to technology in general. We can analyse this in a lot of areas, both in history and in present, and pedagogy is no exception.

The three names which are connected to the periods, Skinner, Piaget and Rousseau, is chosen because they stand out as very clear profiles for most of us who have only a basic education in philosophy and pedagogy. Skinner, with his association to a behaviouristic approach to human endeavour, will be an exponent for a mechanistic approach to education. Piaget is an exponent for a view that emphasis the different stages in the way we learn. The article will also stress the point that these stages are related to different channels which may, or may not, be used i parallel. Rousseau will, probably not voluntarily, be an exponent for a view where technology is considered as nature. A nature which we cannot understand completely, but which we can learn from, and at best live in balance with.

The article stress the typical aspects of the three periods, and does not attempt to be complete in any way. Some emphasis is put on experiences from the Nordic work in the field in the 80's. Note especially that Papert's Logo[6] is treated as a part of the Piaget period, even if it was introduced before 1984. Logo does in many respects illustrated some reasoning which are typical for the Piaget period, and it was realised on graphical technology which was available before Macintosh.