Aviram c i Be r Education

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AHARON AVIRAM

FROM COMPUTERS IN THE CLASSROOM TO MINDFUL

RADICAL ADAPTATION BY EDUCATION SYSTEMS

TO THE EMERGING CYBER CULTURE

ABSTRACT. Despite the huge investments in the last two decades in the introduction of

ICT to education and the grandiose expectations accompanying them, ICT has not been

widely integrated into educational systems throughout the post-industrial world; further-

more, there is no clear evidence that ICT leads to the improvement of students outcomes,

enhances desired modes of learning or teaching of desired social values. Indeed, on the

basis of the outcomes realized to date, one could characterize the rapid and costly response

of Western educational systems to the ICT revolution as much ado about nothing.This paper focuses on the two questions stemming from awareness of this state of

affairs:

Why have so few outcomes resulted from the huge investments in ICT?

What must happen in order for educational systems to successfully adapt to the ICT

revolution?

In contrast to some recent writers on this issue who have criticized the rush to compu-

terization of education, this paper argues that educational systems cannot abstain from

joining the ICT race. Abstention is not really an option since the ICT revolution is an

important aspect of a deeper and broader cultural revolution that is changing Western

culture from modern (or, industrial) to postmodern (or post-industrial) and schools, if they

want to survive, have no option but to adapt themselves to the era in which they function.

However, successful adaptation requires:

1. a radical breaking of the organizational glass ceiling (i.e. schools modern organiz-

ational structure) now preventing the true adaptation of education to postmodernity,

2. the accompaniment of this radical restructuring by a well-formed strategy based on a

clear understanding of the new emerging culture and explicit values and educational

aims.

The paper argues that currently, computerization processes in post-industrial societies

suffer acutely from total ignorance of the need for such radical organizational restructuring

and for its accompaniment by a cultural-ideological strategy hence the explanation to the

above much a do about nothing phenomenon.

ICT AN D EDUCATION: MUC H ADO ABOUT NOTHING?

Over the past two decades, several waves of the Information and Commu-

nication Technology (ICT) revolution have impinged upon and drastically

Journal of Educational Change 1: 331352, 2000.

2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.


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332 AHARON AVIRAM

changed the lives of all individuals in postindustrial societies. These

include the development and rapid spread of the personal computer,

the fax, multimedia, the laptop, the palm point, cellular communication,

satellite communications, fiber optics, the Internet, artificial intelligence,mobile connectivity to the Internet, the continuous exponential growth in

the capacity of computers, smart agents and virtual reality.

Each of these developments has had an impact on all levels of human

life on modes of interpersonal communication, work, leisure activities,

consumption, structures of organizations, the labor market, our under-

standing of knowledge and learning and hence on our life styles and

identities. It is still too early to estimate and evaluate their combined effect,

although it is evident that a dramatic and rapid technological revolution is

taking place that has far reaching implications.

The ICT revolution has been presented and accepted as the epitome

of progress by almost everyone individuals, corporations and govern-

ments alike. Education systems throughout the postindustrial world havenot been excluded from this process. ICT has been automatically iden-

tified with progress, and governments and educational authorities have

invested increasingly large amounts of money in equipment and software

that have to be constantly upgraded or renewed, and in the training of

personnel. Over the last two decades, many billions of dollars and a lot

of energy, good will, and time have been invested by otherwise econom-

ically constrained education systems, into introducing several generations

of computers, multimedia and the Internet.

Despite these huge investments and grandiose expectations, ICT has

not been widely integrated into educational systems throughout the post-

industrial world; and to the extent that it has been integrated, there isno clear evidence that ICT makes a difference to student outcomes,

enhances desired modes of learning or desired social values, or brings

about desired changes in approaches to teaching (Alexander, 1999; Healy,

1998: Melamed, 1999). Indeed, on the basis of the outcomes realized to

date, one could characterize the rapid and costly response of educational

systems to the ICT revolution as much ado about nothing. Furthermore,

the introduction of ICT into education has often been carried out with

vague and confused conceptions of the desired model of learning which the

new technologies were supposed to enhance and without clear conceptions

of any guiding educational values (Postman, 1992; Healy, 1998; Aviram,

1999a, 1999e; Agalianos, 1997: Agalianos & Witty, 2000).

This paper is devoted to the substantiation of the above claims and totackling two main questions that stem from them:


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COMPUTERS IN THE CLASSROOM 333

Why have so few outcomes resulted from the huge investments in

ICT?

What must happen in order for educational systems to successfully

adapt to the ICT revolution?In contrast to some recent writers on this issue who have criticized the

rush to computerization of the school (Postman, 1992; Healy, 1998), this

paper argues that educational systems cannot abstain from joining the ICT

race. Abstention is not really an option since the ICT revolution is only one

aspect of a deeper and broader cultural revolution that is changing Western

culture from modern (or industrial) to postmodern (or post-industrial).

Leaving educational systems outside this process would mean subjecting

them to marginalization or even extinction.

Schools should be computerized not because of evidence that

computers do the educational job better, but because new ICTs are both

the representation and the medium of the new way of doing things inthe postmodern world (Negraponte, 1995; Tapscott, 1998), and schools,

if they want to survive, have no option but to adapt themselves to the

era in which they function (Hough, 2000). However, successful adapta-

tion requires a well-formed strategy based on a clear understanding of the

new emerging culture and explicit values and educational aims. Currently,

computerization processes in post-industrial societies suffer acutely from

total ignorance and lack of such a strategy (Aviram, 1999, 1999a,b).

ICT AN D EDUCATION: THE EARLY ZEALOUS RESPONSE

Educational systems in the western world have not ignored the ICT revolu-

tion. In fact the opposite is true they began responding to it in the early

1980s, when the revolution was at an extremely immature stage. This

response was basically administrative, i.e. characterized by the massive

acquisition of new hardware. Thus, for example, in the U.S.A. there was a

massive influx of computers into schools during the 1980s (Becker, 1991).

Whereas in 1981, 18.2 percent of schools were computerized, by 1990 the

number had risen to 97.2 percent. As for the ratio of computers to students,

in 19841985 the ratio was one computer for every 62.7 students. By

19961997 this ratio had changed to one computer for every 7.4 students

(U.S. Department of Commerce, 1997).

During the 1990s, schools began to acquire CD-ROMS for multi-mediause and to link to the Internet. In the early 1990s there were almost no

multimedia equipment or links to the Internet in American schools. By

1994, 21 percent of schools had laser disk players, 27 percent had modems,


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21 percent had communications networks and 25 percent had CD-ROMs.

By 1997, the proportions had risen to 35.5 percent, 47.7 percent, 37.7

percent and 54.1 percent respectively. In 1994, 35 percent of the public

schools in the United States had Internet access. In 1996, 65 percent hadaccess, and 87 percent of the schools that were not connected planned to

connect by 2000 (Tapscott, 1998: 308).

This zealous acquisition and distribution of computers was accom-

panied, at least in its early stages, by attempts to use computers mainly

as drill and practice learning machines, or to improve the teaching

of specific disciplinary subject-matters through the addition of several

computer-assisted teaching functionalities.

It should be stressed that the rapid rate of response in the USA to ICT

by educational administrators was not characteristic of all other western

countries. In Europe, for example (except for the Scandinavian countries)

the rate of response in the 1980s and early 1990s was much slower. But

it is important to note that European countries (along with all other post-industrial societies) too regard the above administrative response as the

one best way of responding to the ICT revolution.

WHAT HAS CHANGED?

Has this administrative response, characterized by massive and expensive

computerization of educational systems, been successful? In this and the

next two sections, an attempt will be made to trace what has and has not

happened in educational systems as a result of its implementation.

At a theoretical level, there has been a profound revolution in the

conception of the role of ICT in education. Initially, computers were

viewed as marginal tools to aid in practice and drill, or to add func-

tionalities to prevailing didactic structures or improve them. Today there

is a broad consensus that there is no clear and unequivocal proof that

the computer has any advantages as a tool for practice and drill or as

an extension of traditional didactics; and that the real potential of the

ICT revolution is in the unprecedented possibilities it presents for active

or research-oriented learning (Gorweis, 1996; Duffy & Jonassen, 1992;

Papert 1980, 1992, 1996; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994; Semerau & Boyer,

1996; Wiburg, 1994). This has led to a preference for computers to be

located in classrooms instead of in computer laboratories and for ICT to

be integrated into daily learning in modes to allow and encourage active orresearch-oriented learning.

Practically, the most meaningful development accompanying the ICT

revolution has taken place outside schools as reflected in the impressive


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leap in the number, both absolute and relative, of students who study at

home and do not belong to any formal educational system. In the United

States the number rose from a few tens of thousands in the 1980s to one

million in 1994, or about two percent of the total number of children ofcompulsory education age (Aiex, 1994), to somewhere between two and

four millions at the end of the nineties. A similar leap has taken place in

other countries including Australia, Canada and the U.K. (Meighan, 1997).

Furthermore, in the last decade there has been a radical change both

in the nature of the home-schooling population and in the attitude of

the establishment to home schooling. In the late 1980s the majority of

parents who preferred to keep their children at home belonged to peri-

pheral groups or acted out of ideological opposition to the dominant trends

in society and the established educational system. Since the early 1990s,

however, most of the parents who have opted for home schooling have been

professionals: members of the middle class who believe that the chances

for their childrens advancement are greater at home (aided by teachingmaterials and support groups usually based on the Internet) than at school

(Meighan, 1997; Hargreaves, 1997; Smrekar, 1992). Also, until the 1980s,

the political-educational establishment in countries such as the U.S.A. and

the U.K. tended to oppose these trends. Since the early 1990s, however,

there has been a change in policy: the establishment has tended to accept

these trends and sometimes has even facilitated them.

In view of the fact that the rapid spread of home schooling and the use

of the Internet have occurred simultaneously and many home schoolers

rely heavily on the Internet to provide and support their studies (Meighan,

1997), it is reasonable to assume that the rapid growth in the use of the

Internet has contributed significantly to the spread of home schooling.

WHAT HAS NOT CHANGED AND WHY ?

As intriguing as the developments that have taken place are those that

have not taken place. First, little evidence has accumulated of the positive

impact of ICT on student learning outcomes in schools (Alexander, 1999;

Dillenbourg, 2000; Healy, 1998; Melamed, 1999).

Second, most schools have not succeeded in fully integrating ICT into

the process of teaching and learning. Most computers in schools in the

Western world are still located outside the regular classroom, mostly in

computer laboratories or libraries, and most teachers do not use them at allor use them only for the most trivial functions, such as word-processing.

Traditional curricula and teaching methods have remained dominant, and

as teaching tools, computers are still marginal (Becker, 1991; Campoy,


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1992; Cuban, 1989; Ely, 1993; Johnston & Johnston, 1996; LaFrenz &

Friedman, 1989; Mrchinkiewicz, 1994; Papert, 1996).

To cite from a recent study quoted in Harmon (2000), although 95

percent of American schools now have Internet access, most teachers stilldo not really know what to do with it.

According to a survey by Market Data Retrieval, 61 percent of teachers in elementary

or secondary schools consider themselves somewhat prepared or not at all prepared

to incorporate technology into their lessons. Many of these teachers feel intimidated by

having computers in their classrooms, especially when their students may have more

computer experience than they do, while other teachers simply do not think computers

add anything to the educational process. (p. 22)

Third, expectations that ICT would lead to a different understanding

of knowledge and the promotion of active, situational, research-oriented,

authentic modes of learning (Aviram, 2000a), have remained almost

completely unfulfilled. To quote Gardner (2000): Few institutions havechanged as little in fundamental ways as those charged with the formal

education of the next generation (p. 14).

In view of the above assertions, it is worth asking: Why has ICT had

such little impact on teaching and learning?, Why has ICT not been fully

integrated into schools? and Why havent student learning outcomes

improved as a result of ICT? Six answers are commonly given to these

questions:

1. This is a radical process of adaptation (both to ICT and to research-

oriented teaching-learning methods) and schools need time to make

such radical adaptations.

2. Teachers, being adults who grew up in ICT-poor environments, havenatural emotional and cognitive difficulties in adapting to the new

culture and need more time and training.

3. The technology is still immature, hence difficult to use and often

unreliable, therefore schools adaptation is very difficult and slow.

4. There have been changes but they are of a new kind not captured by

prevailing evaluation tools.

5. Education is by its very nature conservative and always responds

slowly to external changes.

6. Serious structural obstacles built into the organization of current

forms of schooling prevent real change in learning/teaching methods

necessary to take advantage of new ICT.

All six answers contain grains of truth, but when examined ration-

ally, none, except for the sixth, can really explain the slow adaptation of

educational systems to the new ICT culture. The first four answers are


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unsatisfactory because over the past two decades all kinds of organiza-

tions have undergone radical changes motivated by ICT and have done so

quickly, in spite of the fact that a large part of their personnel grew up

in ICT-poor environments, regardless of the fact that the technology hasbeen immature, and often with impressive results using standard evaluation

methods (Drucker, 1993; Handy, 1989; Peters, 1994; Zuboff, 1988).

This suggests that there has to be something in the nature of schools

and school systems which has prevented the expected changes. Is it, then,

the fact that education is essentially a preserving force that prevents or

slows down change (as claimed by the fifth answer)? This answer would

have more credibility if it was not for ample evidence of the ability

of educational systems to adapt very quickly and radically to changing

circumstances or ideologies. The most obvious example of this ability is

the formation of the modern standardized, mass-oriented, state-governed

educational system out of the pre-modern pluralistic, heterogeneous, elite-

oriented educational system that existed in the West for many centuriesuntil the end of the nineteenth century. Other examples of rapid adaptation

to changing ideological or social circumstances include: the transformation

of the educational system in Palestine in the early decades of the twentieth

century from a Yiddish (or French or German) speaking, basically reli-

gious system into a secular, Zionist, Hebrew speaking system (Azaryahuo,

1954); or the rapid ideological transformation, within a span of very few

years, of almost all the educational systems in Eastern Europe as a result

of the collapse of the Communist regimes and the Communist-oriented

educational ideology.

Finally, there is the possibility that there is something in the structure

of modern education systems that explains their lack of adaptation to theICT revolution. Thus the reasonable hypothesis is that the answer lies in

the rigid structure of the current system which acts like an invisible but

strong glass ceiling that prevents real change.

THE GLASS CEILING HYPOTHESIS

According to this hypothesis, the inflexible modern organizational struc-

ture of the classroom and the school has an unseen but hermetically

blocking effect on the educational systems ability to exploit the potential

inherent in the ICT revolution and realize a research-oriented model ofteaching and learning (Cuban, 1993). According to this hypothesis, this

organizational structure has two traits that prevent successful adaptation,

namely rigid lococentricity and rigid hierarchy.


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By rigid lococentricity is meant the unconditional dominance of the

principle of unity of time and place in the school. According to this prin-

ciple, learning is performed in such a way that all students are concentrated

in the same place (the school building, the classroom) at the same time(the school year, a school day, a lesson) in homogeneous age groups

(classes) and are (usually) exposed to the same units of material or

subject-matter in the same fashion (Aviram, 1992). Rigid hierarchy

refers to the principle whereby most of the activities that occur within

schools, including their content, order, structure and methods, are dictated

to both teachers and students by the overall system or by the school, and

roles within the hierarchy are fixed and determined for a long term. Thus,

the operational meaning of being a physics teacher or a student is

largely dictated by the system, including the fact that a school should have

a physics teacher and a physics teacher cannot suddenly become an art

teacher or vice-versa and a student cannot become a teacher or vice-versa

(Tyack, 1974).According to the above hypothesis, these two principles affect learning

adversely by allowing only for a narrow consideration of individual differ-

ences among students in the context of learning styles, ability and fields

of interest. The consequences for student learning outcomes of not taking

into account individual differences are well documented (Aviram, 1992;

Callan, 1988; Dunn & Grigg, 1988; Gardner, 1993).

These two principles also create the glass ceiling which prevents

research-oriented learning and hence the true integration of ICT into

education. Genuine research-oriented learning (as well as the genuine

integration of ICT in education) demands a high level of flexibility that

these principles prevent. If academic researchers were forced to performtheir activities in a fixed period of 45 or 90 minutes, and those activities

changed five or six times a day from one to the next, with no relationship

between them, and were not activities they themselves had chosen, and if

they had to work within a framework which did not enable them to locate

and exploit their relative advantages, to circumvent their weak points and

to express their own styles, and they had to do all of the above in company

they had not chosen and who were not interested in the same things they

were, it would most probably take them very little time before they reached

the conclusion that their research-activities could not be performed, and

would abandon them.

One could make similar comments regarding the ability to learn from

data bases or the Internet. Such learning by surfing is hypertextual throughand through (at least in its creative brain storming phases). Ideally, it is

similar (again at least in its creative phase) to a tourists discovery of a


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beautiful new foreign city by wandering through its streets. Is it possible

to imagine a tourist continuing to discover the city, if told every 45 or 90

minute to stop her wandering in a certain area to move to another, totally

different area? (Papert, 1980, 1992)Beyond these significant and explicit difficulties, however, the

prevailing structure of the school carries two very important and

destructive hidden messages. They are that:

wisdom resides in schools and to acquire it, one must go to school

(the message transmitted by the lococentric structure of the system);

knowledge is a defined commodity, and those who develop the

curricula and the teachers who impart it have a monopoly on it (the

message transmitted by the hierarchical structure of the system and

hence of the curriculum).

These two messages, to a large degree, may have been true in thepast. Today, as a result of the ICT revolution, they are rapidly becoming

untrue. Not only have they become untrue, but they contradict the basic

tenets of research-oriented learning (relevance, authenticity, enterprise,

curiosity, openness and flexibility). Knowing the impact of schools hidden

curriculum in general on young people, it can be assumed that these

hidden messages are at least partly to blame for arresting the potential

for research-oriented learning and the real integration of ICT in educa-

tion (see also: Fiske, 1992; Hough, 2000; Perelman, 1992). To illustrate

this point, Agalianos and Whitty have recently presented an elaborate

and enlightening analysis of the way the British educational system has

succeeded in removing from Logo all its potential for revolutionizing

didactics (Agalianos, 1997; Agalianos & Whitty, 2000).

The glass ceiling hypothesis can also provide a very plausible answer to

the question concerning the causes for the dramatic increase in the incid-

ences of home-schooling. The perceived failures of the public educational

system in the United States in particular and in the developed world more

generally are not new; they were being debated long before the 1990s (See,

for example, Coombs, 1968, 1985). Therefore, by themselves they cannot

explain the tremendous leap in the number of middle-class parents who

are dissatisfied with the schools and do not want to send their children to

them. What has changed in the 1990s is:

public confidence in the capacity of schools to achieve a genuineimplementation of new conceptions of teaching and learning;

the capacity, as a result of the ICT revolution, of parents and children

to implement that conception in their own homes.


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According to the glass ceiling hypothesis, if in the past the dissatis-

faction of the middle class with public schooling was tactical, today it

is strategic. They perceive schools as incapable of putting into practice

the research-oriented conceptions of learning and development which arenecessary for success in postmodern organizations, in the labor market and

for personal development. They have also discovered, particularly with the

emergence of the Internet, that it is no longer necessary to send their child

to a school to access new approaches to learning (Aviram, 2000; Meighan,

1997).

THE WAY FORWARD

What must happen in order for educational systems to successfully adapt

to the ICT revolution? An important starting point is to recognize that:

as proposed by the glass ceiling hypothesis, expectations regarding

the impact of ICT have not been realized mainly because massive

investments in equipment and training have not been accompanied by

the necessary radical organizational restructuring;

ICT is being introduced to education not because it does a better

job: it is being introduced because it does the job differently and

because this different way of doing things is now rapidly conquering

the world, is radically changing it and schools do not have the option

of ignoring it; and

there are good reasons to suppose that ICT has powerful positive

potential, and that the use of ICT can have meaningful beneficial

effects on the users, both cognitively and personality-wise, as well as

beneficial social consequences, if appropriately structured and guided

(Aviram, 1999b,c; Aviram, Bar-On & Atias, 2000; Bar-On, Aviram &

Atias, 1997).

If the above claims are accepted the glass ceiling hypothesis, the claims

about the defining nature of ICT and the unavoidability of the ICT revolu-

tion, and the claim about its potential beneficial outcomes the practical

conclusion should be a thorough organizational revolution characterized

by two complementary aspects, namely:

a curtailing of the dominance of the modern lococentric and hierarch-

ical structure of schools, rendering not only its organization but alsoits didactics and curricular structure much more flexible; and

an ongoing quest for ways to enhance the beneficial educational

aspects of ICT and limiting its dangerous ones.


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Such a breakthrough would both enable schools to fully integrate the ICT

equipment many of them already have, to really realize research-oriented

learning, and bring about improved student learning outcomes (Bruce,

1995; Aviram, 1999).Breaking the glass ceiling is no small matter, however. It amounts to

pulling the carpet from under the most essential characteristics of the

prevailing system of schooling. If students and teachers were allowed to

perform a large part of their learning activities flexibly from distance and

at varying times; if greater emphasis were to be placed on non-disciplinary,

research-oriented learning based on authentic problems; and if, on the

organizational level, there was to be flexibility in the definition of roles

such that a teacher for a certain issue/problem can also choose to deal with

a totally different subject or to become a learner, and a learner if satis-

fying relevant requirements can become a teacher will there be anything

left of the modern educational system as we have known it since the late

nineteenth century?

THE NEED FOR STRATEGIC THINKING

Undoubtedly, breaking the glass ceiling implies a radical macro-strategic

change in western educational systems. It would be extremely irrespon-

sible to take such a step or even suggest it without having in mind an

image of the educational system desired within postmodern democratic

societies. Thus, strategic thinking about such a desired and possible system

must be undertaken by educators and decision makers throughout the post-

industrial world as a precursor to successful adaptation of their educational

systems to the cyber culture.

Such strategic thinking should have three basic elements. The first is

a coherent and comprehensive understanding of the postmodern reality

a reality in which the ICT revolution and the cyber-culture it has brought

about are major elements closely linked with other elements (the spread

of relativistic cultural moods, de-engineered or crazy organizations,

the globalization of the economy, the end of work) and of its impact

on the prevailing educational systems basic concepts and suppositions

(Aviram, 1996, 1999c).

It is important to emphasize that due to the interconnective nature of

various aspects of the ICT revolution and other aspects of postmodernity,

there is no point in thinking piecemeal about certain ICT developments oreven in limiting thinking to just the ICT revolution (Aviram, 1996, 1999c).

The second complementary element is the ideological perspective and

concerns, desired values and aims of education. The fact that the ICT


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revolution is unavoidable and that it is a defining revolution does not

necessarily mean that all its aspects are positive. Educational systems

cannot ignore or reject the ICT revolution but they can try to distinguish

between its positive and negative consequences, in the light of the ideo-logical perspective, and try to limit the latter while enhancing the former.

That is why the ideological perspective or what is referred to henceforth

as criticism or evaluation in light of ideological commitment are necessary

(Aviram, 1993, 1997).

The third element of the desired strategic thinking consists of opera-

tional planning to enable educational systems to mindfully and critically

channel their investment in ICT selectively, in light of desired values.

This process should be based on the understanding that it is not the

introduction of computers to the classroom that this challenge is about,

but rather a change in the meaning of education and schooling in light

of the radically new possibilities and requirements of cyber-culture or

postmodernity (Aviram 1993, 1999, 1999a,b).The following sections will dwell in a more detailed way on the first

two elements, their rationale and meaning and the need to strike a delicate

balance between them. This will be followed by a brief discussion of a

possible operational meaning of the third element and of the extraordinary

cognitive and emotional difficulties standing in the way of the adoption of

the necessary strategy by educators together with some modest reasons for

optimism.

THE NEED FOR A BROAD CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING OF

TH E ICT REVOLUTION AND ITS IMPACT

Often the ICT revolution is understood within educational discourse as

comprising a series of new tools for processing and transferring inform-

ation that are neutral with respect to prevailing, book-oriented curricular

and didactic structures. However, it is important to recognize that what has

been created in the past decades is not just a series of new tools, but a

whole new virtual living environment that wraps up all the technological

developments of the IT and CT revolutions of the past 150 years. In a

few years time, this is going to be the environment in which we will live,

communicate, work, consume, do business, and spend large parts of our

social lives. The effects of this environment will be immeasurably greaterthan the impact of the separate developments that make up the new envi-

ronment. The new environment is a defining environment, changing the

nature of organizations, societies and the individuals living in it.


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To give a few obvious examples of both positive and negative aspects

of these defining changes, being hypertextual and multimedia based, the

ICT revolution will change our ways of thinking and learning, making

them more lateral, associative and visual. In doing so it will probablyenhance our imagination and creativity, but it may also be threatening the

dominance of the linear, logical, abstract structures which have dominated

western culture over the past 2500 thousand years and which are vital to

any process of reasoning and criticism, thus enhancing superficiality and

charlatanism (Negraponte, 1995; Hirsch 1987).

Being audiovisual, and given constantly improving speech and written

text-recognition, it might render reading and writing redundant in many

cases; hence, it is likely to diminish the importance of literacy in society.

(Birkerts, 1994). This in turn might open the door to more equality among

individuals endowed with different intelligences (to use Gardners term)

but might also encourage even further the demise of rationality, which has

always relied on literacy (Hirsch, 1987; Hough, 2000).Since it facilitates immediate connections among individuals through-

out the world, the ICT revolution is bound to extensively facilitate indi-

viduals abilities to connect on the basis of similar interests, quests or

problems, and thus has an important empowering effect; in doing so,

however, it also exponentially increases the number of relationships one

has and renders each of them more superficial, fragmentary and temporary,

thus perhaps contributing to increasing emotional flatness (Gergen,

1992).

Since it allows anyone to form, structure, present and access knowledge

anywhere and at any time, the ICT revolution threatens the authoritative

structures of knowledge that are blocking the way to many democratizationand empowerment processes, but in doing so it also leads to the blurring of

the clear distinction between valid knowledge and superstitions, which has

facilitated so much of the scientific advancement in the past two centuries

(Gendron, 1997).

Since it is flooding organizations with real-time information, it compels

them to adopt much flatter, more flexible and more democratic structures

which can respond and change quickly, according more power to the field

people. This in turn contributes to the empowerment of many individuals,

but at the same time it also changes all the work patterns in an organization,

making them much more hectic, and forcing organizations to hire most

of their employees on a temporary basis. This in turn radically changes

the labor market, in which at present only 40 percent of the workforceare tenured. This, of course, leaves many more people continuously in the


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labor market and in this way contributes to even more stressful, hectic life

styles (Handy, 1989; Peters, 1994).

The ICT revolution will also lead to accelerated automation and effi-

ciency, which suggests a shortening of the working week, which in turn(together with the lengthening of life expectancy) ushers in the End of

Work society a society in which, for the first time in human history,

most individuals will be able to enjoy (or suffer) leisure most of the time

(Rifkin, 1995; White, 1997).

In connecting billions of individuals, companies, and services, and in

passing on multi media information in real time, ICT dramatically extends

the possibilities of work, relationships and entertainment open to indi-

viduals, but also accelerates the rate of change, rendering life much more

hectic, saturating our egos, changing the relationship between old and

young people, and the social authority structures based on them and hence

threatens social stability (Anderson, 1997; Gergen, 1992).

The ICT revolution is therefore a defining revolution that is all-encompassing, irreversibly affecting every aspect of our lives, for good

and for bad. It also threatens the most basic assumptions of schooling.

It threatens the linear, authoritarian, disciplinary structure of knowledge,

the distinction between valid knowledge and superstitions, the importance

of literacy and of the written text, all of which have been basic to the

western liberal curriculum over the past 2500 years and to the modern

educational system in the last century. It rapidly erodes the advantage that

adults have over children in life experience, wisdom and understanding

of the world another basic presupposition of western education since its

earliest origins. It extinguishes the importance of a shared geographical

place and time structure for the transmission or production of knowledge the most basic characteristic of modern educational systems in the past

century.

Finally, it is taking place at the same time that at least three other

revolutions are in progress:

the Economic Globalization revolution the collapse of trade and

monetary barriers that separated nations until a decade or two ago,

and the resulting weakening of the nation-state and nation-state

oriented education systems (Drucker, 1993);

the End of Ideology revolution the transformation of western culture

from reliance on objectivist and all-encompassing modern ideolo-

gies (Scienticism, Socialism, Nationalism, and Thick Liberalism) toreliance on a mixture of skeptical and relativistic views which


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emphasize individualistic and hedonistic values over collectivist and

transcendental ones (Fukuyama, 1993).

the Social Pluralism revolution the transformation of western soci-

eties from societies relying on one universal set of definitions of basicsocial roles, to pluralistic societies allowing and encouraging a variety

of definitions of the roles of men, women, children, adults,

old people, and of basic social units or families (Fukuyama,

1993), and the resulting collapse of the automatic authority of adults

over children fundamental to education throughout western history

(Postman, 1984).

Although conceptually it is possible to distinguish between these four

revolutions (the ICT revolution and the three revolutions outlined above)

it is impossible to ignore the fact that since the 1980s they have interac-

tively enhanced one another, and that today it is impossible to imagine one

without all the others. For example, it is reasonable to claim that withoutthe Globalization and the End of Ideology revolutions, various uses of the

Internet would be curtailed by national, political, ideological and economic

borders. On the other hand it is possible to say that in the age of the

Internet, such borders make no sense and have no raison detre. On another

level, it is possible to say that the End of Ideology and Social Pluralism

revolutions have to a large extent enhanced open exchange via the Internet,

but at the same time it is reasonable to assume that the Internet, dissemin-

ating real-time images of different ways of life throughout the world and

allowing individual users to play with their identity and constantly change

it, has served as a major cause for the End of Ideology and the Social

Pluralism revolutions. The fact of the matter is that all four postmodernrevolutions (and several others not mentioned here) are so closely inter-

twined that it is impossible to tell which is the cause and which the effect

(Aviram 1996, 1999c; Hargreaves, 1993).

What follows from the above is that it does not make any sense for

educational systems to refer to the ICT revolution in its present form as

involving technological tools that the system can swallow as it did earlier

devices such as the television or the video, which did not leave any mean-

ingful mark on the educational system. Rather, we have to switch from

speaking about integrating computers into the classroom or using ICT

for the teaching of Math to fourth graders to radically restructuring the

educational system, while relying on a broad cultural perspective, in order

to enhance its adaptation to cyber culture and postmodernity, thus savingit from marginalization or even extinction.


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346 AHARON AVIRAM

THE NEED FOR AN IDEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

As the above examples demonstrate, the ICT revolution is a double edged

revolution when evaluated in light of basic humanistic values. The adop-

tion of the cultural perspective by itself is not sufficient. It is also necessary

for there to be a commitment to a set of values or aims of education

which do not stem from cultural understanding but rather enable us to

evaluate this understanding. This ideological commitment, is necessary

for a balanced, mindful and critical adaptation of education in response to

the ICT revolution.

Discussion of values and aims of education are almost universally

absent from educational discourse on ICT in education. On the one hand

this is surprising, since one would expect that the huge ongoing invest-

ments in ICT would be guided by a commitment to the aims of education.

On the other hand, given the nature of postmodernity, it is far from

surprising. As noted above, our era is also called the era of the endof ideology (Bell, 1973) or of the end of history (Fukuyama, 1993),

reflecting the decline of the ideologies which guided western society and

western education in modernity after the death of God. This has created

a void in the foundations of the educational process. Where once (only

twenty-thirty years ago) there existed clear aims that human beings lived

and were educated by, there is now a black hole (Bloom, 1987; Postman,

1996).

The deepening void underlying our educational policies and practices

has in turn led to the technocratization of educational discourse and

activity. A discourse is considered technocratic when it focuses on

means without taking into account the most fundamental question: Whatare the aims (or visions) that these means are supposed to serve? (Aviram,

1999d).

There is no area in which the technocratic nature of educational

discourse is more obvious and alarming than in the introduction of ICT

to the educational system. This is probably the most remarkable and costly

change that has ever taken place in western educational systems. But to

what purpose? It seems that this question is usually only asked when

investment decisions have already been made and even then the answers

are far from clear or consistent.

If the discourse were a rational one, academics, educators and decision

makers would first ask themselves: What are the aims of education?

Can ICT serve them? And if so, in what ways? Only when they hadcome up with some answers would they introduce ICT into education.


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But since the discourse and relevant patterns of thought and activity are

technocratic to the core, policy is determined first and huge amounts of

money invested, and only then (in the best of cases) are questions asked

concerning aims and criteria. Furthermore, when empirical findings seemto indicate that ICT does not serve the specified aims, nobody seems to be

deterred from further investments in ICT. In a technocratic discourse, the

aims if indeed aims exist are devised to serve the means. Therefore,

when it seems that the means do not meet the aims, it is the aims that are

changed and not the means (Postman, 1992).

The above is not to suggest that education systems should stop investing

in ICT, since, as already claimed, ICT is an inevitable and immensely

powerful defining revolution. Rather, awareness or cultural understanding

should be balanced by an ideological commitment to a clear and coherent

set of values which should serve as the foundation for the evaluation

of what is inevitable. An ideological commitment at the foundation of

policies and practices relating to ICT in education provides the capa-city to distinguish between desirable and non-desirable consequences and

hopefully to try to channel the revolution in desirable directions.

THE NEED FOR A BALANCED APPROACH

Although the above two elements (broad cultural understanding and

ideological commitment) are not logically contradictory, psychologically

speaking there is a strong tension between them. This tension explains the

prevailing rift in the literature on the subject between the enthusiasts

who rightly understand the defining nature of the ICT revolution, butwrongly deduce from it the conception of the ICT revolution as the vehicle

of progress and the panacea to social and educational problems (Papert,

1992; Pereleman, 1992; Tapscott, 1998), and the doomsday predictors or

Luddites, who rightly diagnose some of the negative potential of ICT and

its prevailing educational uses, but wrongly deduce from it the recom-

mendation to drastically limit the influence of ICT on education (Healy,

1998; Moore, 1995).

Achieving a balanced attitude represents a real challenge because it

requires educators and decision makers to understand the inevitable and

defining nature of ICT, to diagnose both its negative and positive aspects,

and then to form plans in order to integrate ICT into education in ways

that will limit the negative potential while enhancing the positive poten-tial. There are, however, ways of achieving such a balance. To give a


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348 AHARON AVIRAM

few concrete examples: it is possible to strive to provide access to the

Internet through relatively structured and stable mediating local Intranets

that balance, to some extent, the alienation and chaos characterizing the

Internet. It is also possible to encourage the design and formation ofInternet-based games and activities that require rational analysis and plan-

ning as a means of counteracting the laterality and irrationality of the

Internet. As a final example, it is possible to balance the open-ended

surfing of young people in the Internet with accompanying structured

tutoring that enhances their ability to coherently integrate their various

experiences. For a more detailed exposition of educational processes that

are guided by this strategy, the reader is referred to Aviram (1999b,c,e;

Aviram, Bar-On & Atias, 2000; Bar-On, Aviram & Atias, 1997).

CONCLUSION

While education systems have responded vigorously to the ICT revolution

by providing schools with computers and other equipment, they have failed

to develop coherent strategies based on a broad cultural understanding of

the ICT revolution and of the potential negative and positive influences of

ICT. This has prevented the mindful and productive integration of schools

into postmodern ICT-based society.

The adoption and implementation of such strategies is the main chal-

lenge facing educational systems in the 21st century. It requires the

application over the longer term of both intellectual and political resources.

Such resources are not lacking in postmodern societies. What is lacking

right now is an awareness of the acuteness of the crisis that confrontseducation due to the rapid spread of ICT and other postmodern revolutions,

and of the opportunities that exist to channel these postmodern forces in

directions that facilitate the merger of education and cyber-culture and

optimize its effects.

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AUTHORS BIO

Dr. Aharon Avirams is a senior lecturer at the department of education and the head of

the Center of Futurism in Education at Ben-Gurion University, Israel. Dr. Avirams main

interest are the postmodern revolutions (including the ICT revolution), their impacts on the

basic parameters of education (formal and informal), higher education and learning and the

desired restructuring of the relevant organizations and processes. He has published papers,


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position papers and books about various aspects of these issues and is the editor of a series

of books about them.

Dr. Aviram serves as a consultant on the subject of ICT and education to various

organizations including the Israeli Ministry of Education and institutions of the European

Commission and is chairperson of the academic consulting committee on ICT andEducation near the Israeli Ministry of Education.

AHARON AVIRAM

Ben Gurion University

P.O. Box 653

Beer-Shiva 84105

Israel

E-mail: [email protected]

Aviram c i Be r Education

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