6 - Optimism and pessimism when it comes to theorising technology

Summary

I have looked at theorising learners and learning, teachers and teaching, and finally technology itself in the previous three chapters and I can now step back to consider a wider theme: how far should we see technology, including its impact on education, in positive or negative terms? This represents a change of perspective. This is looking at wider narratives about technology, not just at theories developed within academia. This is important as what we think about technology is heavily influenced by a wider discourse and in this chapter I present two starkly different kinds of narratives. I go on to then suggest that a more balanced approach is possible. I cover:

• • Optimistic accounts of technology

• • Pessimism about technology

• • Comparing optimistic and pessimistic perspectives

Optimistic accounts of technology

The optimistic view is informed by the idea that technology has enabled fantastic scientific and cultural achievements and made us who we are today. Our history as a species is an uninterrupted line of technological development, going right back to the invention of neolithic stone tools. This idea is captured in iconic form in Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The film famously begins with an anthropoid monkey that picks up an animal bone, and realises this can be transformed into a tool, in the story the bone becomes a club. With tools begins language and with tools plus language everything is possible. To stress the point, the film fast forwards to a space station of the future; from a simple realisation that artefacts can become tools we end up being able to traverse the universe.

For the optimist, technology makes our lives longer, more comfortable, more varied, more interesting. Tools can be used destructively for sure, but optimists stress our ability to tame baser instincts and channel tool use into creative and unselfish ends. This is captured powerfully in the advertising of digital tools. Apple in the 1980s managed to re-invent personal computing from something geeky or business oriented into something cool. In time Microsoft followed: ‘Where do you want to go today?’