6.5 EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY AS SOCIAL MOVEMENT

An outside observer reading the educational technology literature over the past half century (perhaps longer) would be struck by the messianic tone in much of the writing. Edison's enthusiastic pronouncement about the value of film in education in 1918, that "soon all children will learn through the eye, not the ear" was only the first in a series of visions of technology?as-panacea. And, although their potential is now seen in a very different light, such breakthroughs as instructional radio, dial-access audio, and educational television once enjoyed enormous support as "solutions" to all manner of educational problems (Cuban, 1986; Kerr, 1982).

Why has this been, and how can we understand educational technology's role over time as catalyst for a "movement" toward educational change, for reform in the status quo? To develop a perspective on this question, it would be useful to think about how sociologists have studied social movements. What causes a social movement to emerge, coalesce, grow, and wither? What is the role of organized professionals vs. laypersons in developing such a movement? What kinds of changes in social institutions do social movements bring about, and which have typically been beyond their power? How do the ideological positions of a movement's supporters (educational technologists, for example) influence the movement's fate? All these are areas in which the sociology of social movements may shed some light on educational technology's role as catalyst for changes in the structure of education and teaching.

6.5.1 The Sociology of Social Movements

Sociologists have viewed social movements using a number of different perspectives: movements as a response to social strains, as a reflection of trends and directions throughout the society more generally, as a reflection of individual dissatisfaction and feelings of deprivation, and as a natural step in the generation and modification of social institutions (McAdam, McCarthy & Zald, 1988). Much traditional work on the sociology of mass movements concentrated on the processes by which such movements emerged, how they recruited new members, defined their goals, and gathered the initial resources that would allow them to survive.

More recent work has focused attention on the processes by which movements, once organized, contrive to ensure the continued existence of their group and the long-term furtherance of its aims. Increasingly, social problems that in earlier eras were the occasion for short-lived expressions of protest by groups that may have measured their life spans in months are now the foci for long-lived organizations, for the activity of "social movement professionals," and for the creation of new institutions (McCarthy & Zald, 1973). This process is especially typical of those "professional" social movements where a primary intent is to create, extend, and preserve markets for particular professional services.

But while professionally oriented social movements enjoy some advantages in terms of expertise, organization, and the like, they also are often relatively easy for the state to control. In totalitarian governments, social movements have been controlled simply by repressing them. But in democratic systems, state and federal agencies, and their attached superstructure of laws and regulations, may in fact serve much the same function, directing and controlling the spheres of activity in which a movement is allowed to operate, offering penalties or rewards for compliance (e.g., tax-exempt status).

6.5.1.1. Educational Examples of Social Movements. While we want to focus here on educational technology as a social movement, it is useful to consider other aspects of education that have recently been mobilized in one way or another as social movements. Several examples are connected with the recent (1983 to date) efforts to reform and restructure schools. As noted above, there are differing sets of assumptions held by different sets of actors in this trend, and it is useful to think of several of them as professional social movements. One such grouping might include the Governors' Conference, Education Council of the States, and similar government-level official policy and advisory groups with a political stake in the success of the educational system. Another such movement might include the Holmes Group, NCREST (the National Center for the Reform of Education, Schools and Teaching), the National Network for Educational Renewal, and a few similar centers focused on changing the structure of teacher education. A further grouping would include conservative or liberal "think tanks" such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, People for the American Way, or the Eagle Forum, having a specific interest in the curriculum, the content of textbooks, and the teaching of particularly controversial subject matter (sex education, evolutionism vs. creationism, values education, conflict resolution, racial tolerance, etc.). We shall return later to this issue of the design of curriculum materials and the roles technologists play therein.

6.5.1.1.1. Educational Technology as Social Movement. To conceive of educational technology itself as a social movement, we need to think about the professional interests and goals of those who work within the field, and those outside the field who have a stake in its success. There have been a few earlier attempts to engage in those kinds of analyses: Travers (1973) looked at the field in terms of its political successes and failures and concluded that most activities of educational technologists were characterized by an astonishing naiveté as regards the political and bureaucratic environments in which they had to try to exist. Hooper (1969), a BBC executive, also noted that the field had failed almost entirely to establish a continuing place for its own agenda. Of those working during the 1960s and 1970s, only Heinich (1971) seemed to take seriously the issue of how those in the field thought about their work vis-à-vis other professionals. Of the critics, Nunan (1983) was most assertive in identifying educational technologists as a professionally self-interested lobby.

The advent of microcomputers changed the equation considerably. Now, technology-based programs moved from being perceived by parents, teachers, and communities as expensive toys of doubtful usefulness to being seen increasingly as the keys to future academic, economic, and social success. One consequence of this new interest was an increase in the number of professional groups interested in educational technology. Interestingly, the advantages of this new status for educational technology did not so much accrue to existing groups such as the Association for Educational Communication and Technology (AECT) or the Association for the Development of Computer-Based Instructional Systems (ADCIS), but rather to new groups such as the Institute for the Transfer of Technology to Education of the American School Board Association, the National Education Association, groups affiliated with such noneducational organizations as the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), groups based on the hardware or applications of particular computer and software manufacturers (particularly Apple and IBM), and numerous academics and researchers involved in the design, production, and evaluation of software programs. There is also a substantial set of cross-connections between educational technology and the defense industry, as outlined in detail by Noble (1989, 1991). The interests of those helping to shape the new computer technology in the schools became clearer following publication of a number of federal and foundation-sponsored reports in the 1980s and 1990s (e.g., Power On!, 1988).

Teachers themselves also had a role in defining educational technology as a social movement. A number of studies Of the early development of educational computing in schools (Hadley & Scheingold, 1993; Olson, 1988; Sandholtz, Ringstaff & Dwyer, 1991) noted that a small number of knowledgeable teachers in a given school typically assumed the role of "teacher-computer, buffs," willingly becoming the source of information and inspiration for other teachers. It may be that some school principals and superintendents played a similar role among their peers, describing not specific ways of introducing and using computers in the classroom but general strategies for acquiring the technology, providing for teacher training, and securing funding from state and national sources. A further indication of the success of educational technology as a social movement is seen in the widespread acceptance of levies and special elections in support of technology-based projects, and in the increasing incidence of participation by citizen and corporate leaders in projects and campaigns to introduce technology into schools.

6.5.1.1.2. Educational Technology and the Construction of Curriculum Materials. Probably in no other area involving educational technologists has there been such rancorous debate over the past 20 years as in the definition and design of curricular materials, Textbook controversies have exploded in fields such as social studies (Ravitch & Finn, 1987) and natural sciences (e.g., Nelkin, 1977); the content of children's television has been endlessly examined (Mielke, 1990); and textbook publishers have been excoriated for the uniformity and conceptual vacuousness of their products (Honig, 1989).

Perhaps the strongest set of criticisms of the production of educational materials comes from those who view that process as intensely social and political, and who worry that others, especially professional educators, are sadly unaware of those considerations (e.g., Apple, 1988; Apple & Smith, 1991). Some saw "technical," nonpolitical curriculum specification and design as quintessentially American. In a criticism that might have been aimed at the supposedly bias-free, technically neutral instructional design community, Wong (199 1) noted:

Technical and pragmatic interests are also consistent with an instrumentalized curriculum that continues to influence how American education is defined and measured. Technical priorities are in keeping not only with professional interests and institutional objectives, but with historically rooted cultural expectations that emphasize utilitarian aims over intellectual pursuits (p. 17).

Technologists have begun to enter this arena with a more critical stance. Ellsworth and Whatley (1990) considered how educational films historically have reflected particular social and cultural values. Spring (1992) examined the particular ways that such materials have been consciously constructed and manipulated by various interest groups to yield a particular image of American life. The new study of Channel One by DeVaney and her colleagues (1994) indicates the ways in which the content selected for inclusion serves a number of different purposes and the interests of a number of groups, not always to educational ends.

All of these examples suggest that technologists may need to play a more active and more consciously committed role regarding the selection of content and design of materials. This process should not be regarded as merely a technical or instrumental part of the process of education but rather as part of its essence, with intense political and social overtones. This could come to be seen as an integral part of the field of educational technology, but doing so would require changes in curriculum for the preparation of educational technologists at the graduate level.

6.5.1.1.3. The Ideology of Educational Technology as a Social Movement. The examples above suggest that educational technology has had some success as a social movement, and that some of the claims made by the field (improved student learning, more efficient organization of schools, more rational deployment of limited resources, etc.) are attractive not only to educators but also to the public at large. Nonetheless, it is also worth considering the ideological underpinnings of the movement, the sets of fundamental assumptions and value positions that motivate and direct the work of educational technologists (see also 2.2.3, 9.7.2,10.2.3).

There is a common assumption among educational technologists that their view of the world is scientific, value neutral, and therefore easily applicable to the full array of possible educational problems. The technical and analytic procedures of instructional design ought to be useful in any setting, if correctly interpreted and applied. The iterative and formative processes of instructional development should be similarly applicable with only incidental regard to the particulars of the situation. The principles of design of CAI, multimedia, and other materials are best thought of as having universal potential. Gagné(1987) wrote about educational technology generally, for example that:

... fundamental systematic knowledge derives from the research of cognitive psychologists who apply the methods of science to the investigation of human learning and the conditions of instruction (p. 7).

Rita Richey (1986), in one of the few attempts to integrate the diverse conceptual strands that feed into the field of instructional design, noted that:

Instructional design can be defined as the science of creating detailed specifications for the development, evaluation, and maintenance of both large and small units of subject matter (p. 9).

The focus on science and scientific method is marked in other definitions of educational technology and instructional design as well. The best known text in the field (Gagnè, Briggs & Wager, 1992) discusses the systems approach to instructional design as involving:

... carrying out of a number of steps beginning with an analysis of needs and goals and ending with an evaluated system of instruction that demonstrably succeeds in meeting accepted goals. Decisions in each of the individual steps are based on empirical evidence, to the extent that such evidence allows. Each step leads to decisions that become "inputs" to the next step so that the whole process is as solidly based as is possible within the limits of human reason (p. 5).

Gilbert (1978, p. 81), a pioneer in the field of educational technology in the 1960s, supported his model for "behavioral engineering" with formulas:

We can therefore define behavior (B), in shorthand, as a product of both the repertory [of skills] and environment: B=E·P

The assumption undergirding these (and many other) definitions and models of educational technology and its component parts, instructional design and instructional development, is that the procedures the field uses are scientific, value neutral, and precise. There are likely several sources for these assumptions: the behaviorist heritage of the field and the seeming control provided by such approaches as programmed instruction and CAI; the newer turn to systems theory (an approach itself rooted in the development of military systems in World War II) to provide an overall rationale for the specification of instructional environments; and the use of the field's approaches in settings ranging from schools and universities to the military, corporate and industrial training, and organizational development for large public-sector organizations.

In fact, there is considerable disagreement as to the extent to which these seemingly self-evident propositions of educational technology as movement are in fact value free and universally applicable (or even desirable). Some of the most critical analysis of these ways of thinking about problems and their solution are in fact quite old.

Lewis Mumford, writing in 1930 about the impact of technology on society and culture, praised the "matter of fact" and "reasonable" personality that he saw arising in the age of the machine. These qualities, he asserted, were necessary if human culture was not only to assimilate the machine but also to go beyond it:

Until we have absorbed the lessons of objectivity, impersonality, neutrality, the lessons of the mechanical realm, we cannot go further in our development toward the more richly organic, the more profoundly human (1962, p. 363).

For Mumford, the qualities of scientific thought, rational solution to social problems, and objective decision making were important, but only preliminary to a deeper engagement with more distinctively human (moral, ethical, spiritual) questions.

Jacques Ellul, a French sociologist writing in 1954, also considered the relationship between technology and society~ For Ellul, the essence of "technical action" in any given field was "the search for greater efficiency" (1964, p. 20). In a description of how more efficient procedures might be identified and chosen, Ellul notes that the question is one

... of finding the best means in the absolute sense, on the basis of numerical calculation. It is then the specialist who chooses the means; he is able to carry out the calculations that demonstrate the superiority of the means chosen over all the others. Thus a science of means comes into being-a science of techniques, progressively elaborated (p. 21).

"Pedagogical techniques," Ellul suggests, make up one aspect of the larger category of "human techniques," and the uses by "psychotechnicians" of such techniques on the formation of human beings will come more and more to focus on the attempt to

... restore man's lost unity, and patch together that which technological advances have separated [in work, leisure, etc.]. But only one way to accomplish this ever occurs to [psychotechnicians], and that is to use technical means.... There is no other way to regroup the elements of the human personality; the human being must be completely subjected to an omnicompetent technique, and all his acts and thoughts must be the objects of the human techniques (p. 411).

For Ellul, writing in what was still largely a precomputer era, the techniques in question were self-standing procedures monitored principally by other human beings. The possibility that computers might come to play a role in that process was one that Ellul hinted at, but could not fully foresee. In more recent scholarship, observers from varied disciplinary backgrounds have noted the tendency of computers (and those who develop and use them) to influence social systems of administration and control in directions that are rarely predicted and are probably deleterious to feelings of human self-determination, trust, and mutual respect. The anthropologist Shoshana Zuboff (1988), for example, found that the installation of an electronic mail system may lead not only to more rapid sharing of information but also to management reactions that generate on the part of workers the sense of working within a "panopticon of power," a work environment in which all decisions and discussion are monitored and controlled, a condition of transparent observability at all times.

Joseph Weizenbaum, computer scientist at MIT and pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence, wrote passionately about what he saw as the difficulty many of his colleagues had in separating the scientifically feasible from the ethically desirable. Weizenbaum (1976) was especially dubious of teaching university students to program computers as an end in itself:

When such students have completed their studies, they are rather like people who have somehow become eloquent in some foreign language, but who, when they attempt to write something in that language, find they have literally nothing to say (p. 278).

Weizenbaum is especially skeptical of a technical attitude toward the preparation of new computer scientists. He worries that if those who teach such students, and see their role as that of

... a mere trainer, a mere applier of "methods" for achieving ends determined by others, then he does his students two disservices. First, he invites them to become less than fully autonomous persons. He invites them to become mere followers of other people's orders, and finally no better than the machines that might someday replace them in that function. Second, he robs them of the glimpse of the ideas that alone purchase for computer science a place in the university's curriculum at all (p. 279).

Similar comments might be directed at those who would train educational technologists to work as "value-free" creators of purely efficient training.

Another critic of the "value-free" nature of technology is

Neil Postman, who created a new term--Technopoly--to describe the dominance of technological thought in American society. This new world view, Postman (1992) observed,

... consists of the deification of technology, which means that the culture seeks its authorization in technology and finds its satisfactions in technology, and takes its orders from technology. This requires the development of a new kind of social order... Those who feel most comfortable in Technopoly are those who are convinced that technical progress is humanity's supreme achievement and the instrument by which our most profound dilemmas may be solved. They also believe that information is an unmixed blessing, which through its continued and uncontrolled production and dissemination offers increased freedom, creativity, and peace of mind. The fact that information does none of these things--but quite the opposite--seems to change few opinions, for such unwavering beliefs are an inevitable product of the structure of Technopoly (p. 71).

Other critics also take educational technology to task for what they view as its simplistic claim to scientific neutrality. Richard Hooper, a pioneer in the field and longtime gadfly, commented that:

Much of the problem with educational technology lies in its attempt to ape science and scientific method.... An arts perspective may have some things to offer educational technology at the present time. An arts perspective focuses attention on values, where science's attention is on proof (p. 11).

Michael Apple (1991), another critic who has considered how values, educational programs, and teaching practices interact, noted that:

The more the new technology transforms the classroom into its own image, the more a technical logic will replace critical political and ethical understanding (p. 75).

Similar points have been made by Sloan (1985) and by Preston (1992). Postman's assertion that we must

... refuse to accept efficiency as the pre-eminent goal of human relations ... not believe that science is the only system of thought capable of producing truth . . . land] admire technological ingenuity but do not think it represents the highest possible form of human achievement (p. 184).

necessarily sounds unusual in the present context. Educational technologists are encouraged to see the processes they employ as beneficent, as value-free, as contributing to improved efficiency and effectiveness. The suggestions noted above that there may be different value positions, different stances toward the work of education, are a challenge, but one that the field needs to entertain seriously if it is to develop further as a social movement.

6.5.1.1.4. Success of Educational Technology as a Social Movement. If we look at the field of educational technology today, it has enjoyed remarkable success: Legislation at both state and federal levels includes educational technology as a focus for funded research and development; the topics the field addresses are regularly featured in the public media in a generally positive light; teachers, principals, and administrators actively work to incorporate educational technology into their daily routines; and citizens pass large bond issues to fund the acquisition of hardware and software for schools.

What explains the relative success of educational technology at this moment as compared with 2 decades ago? Several factors are likely involved. Certainly the greater capabilities of the hardware and software in providing for diverse, powerful instruction are not to be discounted, and the participation of technologists in defining the content of educational materials may be important for the future. But there are other features of the movement as well. Garrison (1975) discusses features of successful social movements and notes two that are especially relevant here.

As educational technologists began to urge administrators to take their approaches seriously in the 1960s and 1970s, there was often at least an implied claim that educational technology could not merely supplement but actually supplant classroom teachers. In the 1980s, this claim seems to have disappeared, and many key players (e.g., Apple Computer's Apple Classroom of Tomorrow [ACOT] project, GTE's Classroom of the Future, and others) sought to convince teachers that they were there not to replace them but to enhance their work and support them. This is in accordance with Gamson's finding that groups willing to coexist with the status quo had greater success than those seeking to replace their antagonists.

A further factor contributing to the success of the current educational technology movement may be the restricted, yet comprehensible and promising, claims it has made. The claims of earlier decades had stressed either the miraculous power of particular pieces of hardware (that were in fact quite restricted in capabilities) or the value of a generalized approach (instructional development/design) that seemed both too vague and too like what good teachers did anyway to be trustworthy as an alternative vision. In contrast, the movement to introduce computers to schools in the 1980s, while long on general rhetoric, in fact did not start with large promises but rather with an open commitment to experimentation and some limited claims (enhanced remediation for poor achievers, greater flexibility in classroom organization, and so on). This too is in keeping with Gamson's findings that social movements with single or limited issues have been more successful than those pushing for generalized goals or those with many subparts.

It is likely too early to say whether educational technology will ultimately be successful as a social movement, but the developments of the past dozen or so years are promising for the field. There are stronger indications of solidity and institutionalization now than previously, and the fact the technology is increasingly seen as part of the national educational, economic, and social discussion bodes well for the field. The increasing number of professionally related organizations, and their contacts with other parts of the educational, public policy, and legislative establishment are also encouraging signs. Whether institutionalization of the movement equates easily to success of its aims, however, is another question. Gamson notes that it has traditionally been easier for movements to gain acceptance from authorities and other sources of established power than actually to achieve their stated goals. Educational technologists must be careful not to confuse recognition and achievement of status for their work and their field with fulfillment of the mission they have claimed. The concerns noted above about the underlying ideology that educational technology asserts--value neutrality, use of a scientific approach, pursuit of efficiency--are also problematic, for they suggest that educational technologists may need to think still more deeply about fundamental aspects of their work than has been the case to date.