Education in the Knowledge Society (Dec 2013)
Playing to be Gods: critical issues in education technologies
Abstract
The coexistence of education and technology drags a complicated relationship that affects asymmetrically more to the former than the latter. Its presence in schools has an uneven intensity due to factors as varied as the will of its protagonists, both teachers and learners, the social pressure, especially the learners themselves and their families, and the government initiatives, at times more invasive than they should. This landscape does not change with the universalization of digital social media but rather sharpens some gaps that were evident with means more rudimentary. The paper provides three levels of analysis, by way of on one each critical points, in order to think about technology in education, from the realization that we have decided to play to be Gods, in the sense that we have believed in the ability to create from scratch and reinvent each day.