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Technological Applications Committee Presents Ideas*Newse Et Cetera

Fall, 1988

The TAC Bulletin provides information on educational technology which may be of interest to Grant MacEwan Community
College (GMCC) personnel. This newsletter is distributed to all GMCC staff and to interested individuals throughout Canada.

Technology and Education:
Seeking A Rational Middle Ground

by Robert N. Christie

was struck with an unbclicvable
sense of déja vu as I read Peter
Furstenau’s article "Using Computers
for Instruction: Issues For Considera-
tion" in the April 1988 edition of the
TAC Bulletin.

The topic reminds me of anever-cnding
boxing match. In one comer are the
technocrats. They argue that technol-
ogy will be the panacca of education. In
the other corner are the traditionalists.
They argue that technology is useless,
because it clearly cannot do all the tech-
nocrats Say it can do.

I've watched it happen a number of
times during my carcer in the Public
School System, at the University of Al-
berta, and during my five years as an in-
structor, and then as program head of
the Audiovisual Technician program at
Grant MacEwan Community College.
I, too, have participated in these frac-
tious debates...sometimes on one side
and sometimes on the other.

 

Of course, there is no single villain in
the piece. Technocrats (and I count
myself among them) are often a self-
satisfied lot. They regularly receive sig-
nificant budgets to purchase their
shiny, new, and often, unproven toys.
They see themselves as the messiahs of
the industry who will drag the
traditionalists kicking and screaming
into the 21st century. Technocrats tend
to focus on what the technology can do,
rather than on what the technology
should do.

On the other hand, I’ve seen many cx-
amples of situations where
traditionalists underfund the technol-
ogy, and then point to the failure of the
project as proof that the concept doesn't
work after all.

It is true that, throughout all of these
furious battles, some significant chan-
ges have occurred. Even the most tradi-
tional instructor will occasionally use a
chalkboard, almost certainly a
textbook, and maybe even a slide, over-
head transparency, film, or videotape.
Instructors are able to give cogent, ra-
tional justifications for the use of these
devices, despite the fact that these
devices arc also technological interven-
tions in the pedagogical process.

As a public sector educator, I was dis-
turbed both by the mindlcss rush
toward technology and by the mindless
resistance to these productivity tools.
Then, in 1978, the cacophony stilled. I
left the world of public education and

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