Nuffield Curriculum Centre

D&T issues

PATT 18
Author: David Barlex

www.iteaconnect.org

A couple of years ago John Dakers had the intriguing idea of inviting seven top philosophers of technology to a seminar in which they would present their ideas to technology educators who had to respond to each presentation. This response would then provide the stimulus for an open 'whole audience' discussion.

For most of us this idea would never have attained reality but in John's case, with the support of his partner, Wendy Dow, the idea did indeed become a reality in Glasgow on June 21 and 22. As if that was not enough, John and Wendy also organised an immediate follow-on conference where delegates presented over 50 papers concerned with technological literacy. This conference lasted 3 days - 23, 24 and 25 of June. Significantly the philosophers of technology stayed on for this education-focussed conference and strongly indicated both their interest and their intention to stay in touch with the technology educators.

There were some memorable 'social' moments in the second half - an open top bus tour that took place in a thunder storm, a whisky tasting session, the piping in of the haggis with a reading from Robbie Burns, followed by an exhibition of Highland sword dancing!

The Philosophers' Tales

Don Ihde and David Barlex
John had invited seven philosophers of technology. Why these particular philosophers? They had all contributed to the book he edited Defining Technological Literacy: Towards an Epistemological Framework. The authors, their chapters and responders were as follows:

- Don Ihde (right) talked to his chapter The Designer Fallacy and Technological Imagination and David Barlex responded;

Joseph Pitt and Susan McLaren
- Joseph Pitt (left) talked to his chapter Human Beings as Technological Artefacts and Susan McLaren responded;


- Andrew Feenberg talked to his chapter What is philosophy of Technology? and Steve Keirl responded;





Andrew Feenberg and Steve Keirl, Leonard Waks and Margarita Pavlova


- Leonard Waks talked to his chapter Rethinking Technological Literacy for the Global Network Era and Margarita Pavlova responded;



- Douglas Kellner wrote the chapter Reconstructing Techno-literacy: A Multiple Literacies Approach but could not attend so Howard Middleton (right) presented AND responded;




- similarly, Michael Peters wrote the chapter From Knowledge to Information: Virtual Classrooms or Automated Diploma Mills but could not attend so Frank Banks (left) presented AND responded;

Marc de Vries and John Williams
- Marc J. de Vries (left) talked to his chapter Technological Artefacts: An Analytical View and John Williams responded.

At the end of the conference, each philosopher and their respondent plus interested parties conducted a 45 minutes discussion around matters arising from the presentations. These were recorded and the aim is to turn each into a chapter of a book concerned with the relationship between the philosophy of technology and technology education.

An even more intriguing notion is to take these discussions plus the debates from conference as a whole and distil these into an account of the philosophy of technology that could be presented to pupils as a graphic novel!

Conference Highlights
The difficulty with 50 papers over 3 days is that the conference has to run parallel sessions so delegates are spoiled for choice and have to make difficult decisions. Here are some papers that I found particularly interesting.

Using the sociology of knowledge as a lens to analyse Technological education by Scott Pollock from Canada. Scott notes that 'when scholars begin to speak past one another, honest academic debate can give way to unproductive diatribes' and that 'the sociology of knowledge can help researchers avoid this problem'. I wonder whether the sociology of knowledge would be useful in helping us understand the conditions necessary for cross-curricular collaboration?

Technological literacy - what is that? by Eva Blomdahl from Sweden. Eva explored the notion of technological literacy by means of an example of project work carried out by grade 6 pupils who after investigating the concerns of those living in a town where it was proposed to build a new tower block, developed design proposals for the block which took into account the views of those who would live there and those living in the immediate vicinity. This project, she argues, gave a rounded experience towards technological literacy as it embraced both technological awareness (the impact of the new tower block) and the technological competences such as the ability to work collaboratively to solve design problems and communicate the resulting thoughts and ideas effectively.

Moving beyond 'Artifactual Knowing': Emergent ideas for a 21st Century Technology Education by Leo Elshof from Canada. Leo provided delegates with an assault on the senses via a battery of politically charged images leading to his concept of the Eco-Technology Advantage Mindset through which, he argued, we should be involved in the critique and renewal of culture, Eco-Tech Tracking and the Redesign of Classroom Practices - heady, inspirational stuff!

Why can't I design as well as other people? I thought I understood the process and what was required. by Stephanie Atkinson from England. Stephanie presented findings based on a comparison of the work of those students who were successful at design activity and those who struggled. It emerged, from this small scale study, that the least successful were those who preferred to process information in wholes, and yet, possibly because of inputs from academic staff, had felt the need to produce more sheets showing details of ideas than sheets displaying complete ideas and who therefore designed in a mismatched mode. Clearly, detailing design ideas is essential but the pedagogic message here seems to be that a premature engagement in this is, for some student designers, less than helpful.

The Edade and Paulo Freire's pedagogy: an approach by Antonio Martiniano Fontorura from Brazil. Antonio described the educational philosophy of Paulo Freire and how this is being applied in EdaDe (the Portuguese acronym for Education by Design). The philosophy is radical and revolutionary, seeing education as a 'practice of freedom' and, through EdaDe, connecting with the student's daily life whilst at the same time, through critique, developing aspirations towards betterment.

PISA's tasks for Teaching and Assessing Technological Literacy by Osnat Dagan and Dov Kipperman from Israel. Osnat and Dov have taken on the monumental challenge of developing pencil and paper type 'tests' that can be used for the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment. This is a monumental challenge and they presented their initial thinking which included a 3-fold conceptual framework for technological literacy: Technology concepts, Technology knowledge and Capabilities and skills. Their mission is to develop 30 PISA pen and paper tasks plus 8 design, make, and appraise tasks. They are interested in conversations with those who have views and/or expertise in the area of assessment.

Systems in the shade of the artefact: Content foci of a systems approach - an analysis of six national curricula or guidelines for technology by Claes Klasander from Sweden. Claes is in tricky territory as there is much muddled thinking about systems in technology curricula. He has made an interesting and impressive start by identifying five different content foci from his analysis of the curricula/guidelines. These are: scale and complexity; components; relation between components; interaction with surroundings and production. These are not what one would necessarily expect to emerge from such an analysis and their relationship to established systems theory is not clear. The concentration of many curricula on the production of essentially simple products marginalises systems thinking and to some extent denies pupils the chance to consider the large technological systems that impact on all our lives. Claes's analysis helps us to see how we might redress the situation.

Digital democracy - a new role for technology education by John Williams from Australia. John took as the basis for his presentation the emergence of Web 2.0, the rapid rise of 'social computing' and the ability this gives for personal expression on each and every issue. Despite appearances to the contrary, John is a radical and believes in education for democracy. His final paragraph is testament to this.

'Left to current patterns of control and decision making, the world is not going to get better. But this degeneration is insidious, standards of democracy, personal freedom and well-being are diminished in small steps which neither make big news nor become the focus of attention. So life progressively becomes more technologically determined without attracting attention to the trend. The thesis of this paper is that if people are informed about technological issues after having studied technology at school, and the mechanism is available for them to express their beliefs, then the move toward a more democratic technological order is possible. '

The full conference proceedings are available on the web at the url at the top of the page (http://www.iteaconnect.org/Conference/pattproceedings.htm). They run to almost 450 pages but are well worth the cost of the printer cartridges!

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