Week 2: (Annotated Bibliography) Hamilton & Friesen (2013) Online Education: A Science and Technology Studies Perspective
I created this meme using images taken from Lutz, J. C. (Director). (2015). Hotline Bling [Music video]. USA: Apple Inc.
The authors admit that essentialism and instrumentalism are not theories of technology but “general orientations that typify many discourses on technology”. Hence, I will take the opportunity to use this post to check my understanding of the article and key concepts presented.
Hamilton and Friesen (2013) highlight the overreliance of the philosophical approaches of essentialism and instrumentalism in justifying the pedagogical value and potential of new technologies. From an essentialist perspective, new technologies are considered to be necessary for progress because they have certain intrinsic positive qualities. In contrast, instrumentalism views new technologies as neutral, but the most appropriate, tools for teachers and students to achieve their teaching and learning goals respectively. Hence, regardless of which perspective an individual adopts, new technologies are seen as the only logical way forward. In doing so, the sociotechnical aspects of a new technology’s design are largely, if not entirely, ignored.
In essence, they argue that there should be:
- more academic or scientific rigour in the questioning of the efficacy of and rationale for new technologies in education;
- a more comprehensive review of the sociotechnical motivations behind their designs;
- and greater involvement from pedagogical experts (e.g. teachers, academics, researchers) right from the start of the design process.
One example of the adoption of a new technology for teaching without much pedagogical consideration, is the use of teleconferencing applications. As the Covid-19 pandemic drove many countries into lockdowns, educators quickly turned to readily available teleconferencing applications, such as Zoom, Collaborate and MS Teams, to conduct their lessons remotely. I must admit that my colleagues and I are equally guilty of this. Most of these applications have the same key features. Therefore, it is hard to say which one is the best.
This expeditious embrace of teleconferencing simply because they possess enough features to replicate most aspects of a traditional face-to-face lesson pretty much highlights Hamilton and Friesen’s argument about instrumentalism. In an article on Weareteachers.com, Fink (2020) calls Zoom “an amazing resource” with “fun features” for teaching. In this display of essentialism, the author does not provide any explanation as to how these features will aid teachers in accomplishing their lesson objectives. In Singapore, there were no calls for any proof of the legitimacy of Zoom’s teaching capabilities by the powers that be (i.e. the Ministry of Education and school leaders). The application was only abandoned because of security beaches (Baharudin, 2020). This exemplifies Hamilton and Friesen’s (2013) point on the need to question what is included in the decision-making criteria in the approval (or in this case, abandonment) of a new technology.
Zoom’s CEO Eric Yuan was recently praised for giving K-12 schools in the United States free access to his platform (Konrad, 2020). As generous as this gesture may be, I agree with Hamilton and Friesen (2013) that we need to view this act with some skepticism. This move may not be entirely altruistic. Zoom may become a “necessity” in the education landscape as schools become more and more reliant on it.
Hamilton and Friesen’s (2013) point on involving experts in the design process of such new technologies struck me the most. Personally, I have worked with many language teachers who are trained in education but possess little linguistic knowledge. I have always been very critical of them and their lesson plans. For example, some time ago I got quite incensed when a former colleague showcased a lesson she conducted that took into account the different learning styles that student might have. I asked why she thought the lesson was a success and her matter-of-factly reply was, “because it was engaging, and they enjoyed it”.
Firstly, there is a lack of evidence to prove that learning styles exist (Newton, 2015) and the methodologies that have been employed to prove that they do are often questionable (Pashler, McDaniel, Rohrer & Bjork, 2008). More importantly, any pedagogical approach in language teaching must take into account linguistic theories because they explain how the language processor works. According to the Pienamann’s (1998) processability theory (PT), any second language learning follows “certain, theoretically established and empirically supported developmental sequences”. Essentially, if language learning were a video game, the players must progress through the stages sequentially and they are unable to skip stages. Therefore, regardless of how fun and/or engaging an activity is, it will not benefit the learner in terms of language learning if it does not take the PT into consideration.
Lastly, I’d like to highlight something that Huw Davies said during our online session. Any hasty implementation is akin to a social science experiment where ethical considerations should made. But this is almost never the case. Zoom started out as a teleconferencing tool for business, but now has its tentacles wrapped around education. This allows it to collect extremely valuable and sensitive data. For example, students are sharing their names, email addresses and even personal details of their lives. Are administrators, teachers, and students aware of this? Have they thought about the possibly ramifications?
Essentially, we need to question our instruments.
References:
Baharudin, H. (2020, April 9). Coronavirus: No more Zoom for home-based learning after hackers show obscene photos to Singapore students. The Straits Times. Retrieved from https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/hackers-hijack-home-based-lessons-on-zoom-to-allegedly-show-obscene-photos-to-children#:~:text=SINGAPORE%20%2D%20All%20teachers%20will%20stop,obscene%20picture%20to%20some%20students.
Fink, K. (2020). Zoom 101 for teachers. We are teachers. https://www.weareteachers.com/zoom-for-teachers/
Hamilton, E. & Friesen, N. (2013). Online education: A science and technology studies perspective. The Canadian Network for Innovation in Education 39(2).
Konrad, A. (2020, March 13). Exclusive: Zoom CEO Eric Yuan is giving K-12 schools his videoconferencing tools for free. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2020/03/13/zoom-video-coronavirus-eric-yuan-schools/?sh=1deabe844e71
Newton, P. M. (2015). The Learning Styles Myth is Thriving in Higher Education. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1908.
Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D. & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9(3), 105-119.
Pienemann, M. (1998). Language processing and second language development: Processability theory (Studies in bilingualism; v. 15). Amsterdam; Philadelphia: J. Benjamins.
This is an excellent post – and not because you sighted me! You show you’ve clearly understood how technology is socially constructed. One thing I would add it’s no an “overreliance of the philosophical approaches of essentialism and instrumentalism” – these are usually unintentional approaches – Hamilton and Friesen suggest people are are so embedded or invested in their communities of practice that they don’t think about alternative approaches, or not thinking critically incentivised for them – people are thinking about results and profits instead.