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Casting a Critical Eye on Educational Technology Marvin Elroy Howard Iowa State University

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Casting a Critical Eye on Educational Technology Marvin Elroy Howard Iowa State University Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2007 Sailing up Olympus: casting a critical eye on Educational Technology Marvin ElRoy Howard Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd Part of the Instructional Media Design Commons, Online and Distance Education Commons, and the Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons Recommended Citation Howard, Marvin ElRoy, "Sailing up Olympus: casting a critical eye on Educational Technology" (2007). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 15928. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/15928 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Retrospective Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Sailing up Olympus: casting a critical eye on Educational Technology by Marvin ElRoy Howard A dissertation submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Major: Education (Curriculum & Instructional Technology) Program of Study Committee: Jackie Blount, Major Professor Ann Thompson Denise Schmidt Robert Hollinger Denise Vrchota Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2007 Copyright © Marvin ElRoy Howard, 2007. All rights reserved. UMI Number: 3274870 UMI Microform 3274870 Copyright 2007 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii ABSTRACT iv INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1 17 CHAPTER 2 36 CHAPTER 3 70 CHAPTER 4 95 CHAPTER 5 114 CHAPTER 6 149 CHAPTER 7 176 CHAPTER 8 196 CHAPTER 9 232 REFERENCES CITED 259 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to thank all my instructors, classmates, and friends at the Center for Technology in Learning and Teaching at Iowa State University. It has been a long and enlightening journey. To the real Bill and Jeff: thanks, guys, for letting me include you in my little story. I want to thank my committee members, Ann Thompson, Denise Schmidt, Robert Hollinger, and Denise Vrchota, for their feedback, advice, and encouragement. And of course, big thanks go out to Jackie Blount for agreeing to take on both me and this project. You’ve been great, and your inspiration and guidance shows on every page. There aren’t enough words to properly thank my parents, Gilbert and Winnie Howard. Their refusal to accept anything less than my best has led me to challenge myself repeatedly, and to always set my goals one step higher. Thank you so much, Pop, for being my role model. We’ll go boating again someday. And thanks to the rest of my family. I know, it seems like I’ve been in school forever, doesn’t it? Most of all I want to thank my wife, Barbara Ann Mitchell Howard, whose love and support during this voyage up the mountain made it all possible. Always, forever, and then some, Barb. iv ABSTRACT The goal of helping our students learn to use technology in education well tasks us to develop ways of seeing beyond the quantifiable elements of the technology we are presenting to the qualities and assumptions that lie within. This broadened perspective will allow us to accompany instruction on how to use technology with a challenge to our students as to why the use of a given technology is appropriate. This dissertation relates in narrative form how various selected technologies have been introduced into education over time, deconstructs the motives and goals of those responsible for introducing those technologies, and discusses the social effects technology has had on education. 1 INTRODUCTION An instruction I remember well from my high school days began with the simple phrase: “in your own words.” Instead of the teacher distributing a multiple choice or short answer test, redolent with the bitter aroma of mimeograph ink, my classmates and I were instructed to take out our notebooks and “in our own words” compare and contrast two countries, or books, or fish; or we might be told to describe the nature of the universe or the workings of a carburetor; or we could be tasked with interpreting the hidden meaning within a sonnet. I enjoyed those sorts of assessment activities more than the standardized tests, the allegedly psychotropic nature of mimeograph ink notwithstanding, because they gave me an opportunity to not only relate what I had learned but also demonstrate my ownership of the content by putting it “in my own words.” When we relate our experiences and understanding to others in narrative form, we do so with a variety of goals. For example, for a student the goal as mentioned earlier is to demonstrate understanding of a topic. In our everyday lives, Roger Schank in Tell me a Story (1990) states that we tell stories to each other: to illustrate a point, to make the listener feel some way or another, to tell a story that transports the listener, to transfer some piece of information in our head into the head of the listener, and to summarize significant events. (p 48) Each of these goals has an underlying mythic quality that embodies the story that we are telling. When we hear the word “myth,” we of the twenty-first century often think of stories of heroes, gods, and monsters, tales that we see as appropriate only to a classical studies setting or a Saturday morning children’s cartoon. We also apply the word to anecdotes of 2 dubious validity, such as the ubiquitous “urban myth” stories circulating about the Internet by way of e-mail. I am using the term here in its traditional definition, that of a narrative tale “explaining some natural or social phenomenon.” (OAD, 2005) In Primal Myths: Creating the World, Barbara Sproul (1979) tells us that myths “organize the way we perceive facts and understand ourselves and the world.” (p 1), and are therefore a powerful form of the phrase “in your own words.” While myths are told in the narrative format, they are more than mere stories. Myths lend identity to those who hold them. They are a way of coming to understand one’s self. Most importantly, our myths illuminate who we are as a people or group. Regardless of culture, nationality, or point in history, they are what we use to describe the world and our place in it. Sproul describes our need for myths: There is no escaping our dependence on myth. Without it, we cannot determine what things are, what to do with them, or how to be in relation to them. The fundamental structures of understanding that myths provide, even though in part dictated by matter and instinct, are nevertheless essentially arbitrary because they describe not just the “real” world of “fact” but our perception and experience of the world. (p 2) Much like any other group that shares common interests, we in the field of instructional technology have our own myths. We have the myths that explain how the field developed, and myths that examine the impact various technologies have had, both positive and negative, on education. Our myths are not static; on the contrary, they change and grow in the telling. Sproul again: Myths are true to the extant that they are effective. In a sense, myths are self- fulfilling prophecies: they create facts out of the values they propound. (p 3) 3 It would be appropriate at this time to share a little bit about my background and how I came to undertake this project. I began my study of computer science when computer programs were encoded on foot-thick decks of punched cards before trudging them across campus to the data center for processing. I was an early adopter of personal computer technology, buying my first Apple at a time when the cassette tape was the most affordable storage medium. Unlike many of my classmates in the field of instructional technology, I entered into the realm of computer-based training in the pre-World Wide Web days when program content resided on mainframes and students accessed their courses by way of dumb terminals. It was my experiences in computer-based training that led me to return to college and pursue a graduate degree in education. Before beginning my doctoral program, however, I took advantage of being back in school to indulge a lifelong passion for reading by completing a second bachelor’s degree in English literature, and writing a master’s thesis examining how the folklore of the Scottish border populace in the late seventeenth century was a way for them to deal with the cultural changes forced upon them by the outside world. It is because of my multi-disciplinary scholarly background that I have chosen to present my dissertation in a narrative form. I believe that my work in the fields of computer science, literature, folklore, and instructional technology has allowed me to develop what Elliot Eisner labels an “enlightened eye” regarding our uses of technology in education. Elliot Eisner is a professor of education and art at Stanford University where he has worked for decades in the fields of arts education, curriculum studies, and educational evaluation (Eisner, 2006). In his book The Enlightened Eye: Qualitative Inquiry and the Enhancement of Educational Practice (1991), Eisner describes the “enlightened eye” as a form of educational connoisseurship that goes beyond merely observing and reporting. Students use 4 not only the scholarly techniques they have developed to present their unique interpretation of the subject, but also the art of appreciating what it is they are studying.
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