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Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and the Seduction of Knowledge, Teaching, and Learning: What Lies Ahead for Education

Abstract This review essay cum discussion paper outlines areas of concern with the underlying terms and conditions of the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in education. The books that instigated this foray (Barrell, 2001; Cuban, 2001; Maeroff, 2003) are representative of the field and represent inquiry and opinion that reflect uncritical and critical acceptance and implementation of ICT as both a curricular agenda and device. Each book lays tiles in the mosaic of discourse surrounding the inexorable and ubiquitous overlay of ICT in everyday life as germinated in classrooms for a variety of well-intentioned but often misguided and wrong-headed reasons. The hopes, dreams, and drama that form the core issues arise from a deeper “who’s steering the boat?” tension. Does ICT serve education, or does education serve ICT? Because education is redefined as a means to social mobility and is connected to status, its commodification challenges the Deweyan notion of “education for the purpose of further education,” and transforms it into the pursuit of more adept consumerism only attainable by degree. Promotion and policy development at all levels draw special attention to the increased earning power that further education brings, thus validating its worth. Other writers and thinkers have tweaked this particular aspect of commercialized learning, including Kehl (2004), Kohn (2004), Noble (1998), Nordkvelle and Olson (2005), and Postman (1985, 1993). Combining their perspectives in the context of global movement toward education as a trade in service, a culture of name-branding, competitive accreditation, knowledge ownership, and hegemonic determinism seems inevitable. The likely-to-be postponed signing of General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) (due January 2005; see Kehl, 2004) will temporarily defer the commercialism of higher education, but will not draw much attention nor encourage further debate in the to-ing and fro-ing on the meeting grounds of cross-cultural credentialism and the commodification of teaching and learning unless alarm bells are rung.