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The interesting thing about edtech is not technology, but ideas.
Behind every educational technology initiative is a set of assumptions, beliefs, and world-views.
Technologies employed in higher education don’t fund and implement themselves. Rather, they are the product of the actions of lots of people - people working within and outside of the postsecondary system - who have made decisions about where to focus and invest.
Efforts to unpack the ideologies of the people enmeshed in the edtech ecosystem can be problematic.
None of us just one thing or another. We are all complicated and conflicted.
Further, to the extent that we can identify any specific ideologies attached to our beliefs and actions around educational technology, these beliefs and actions don’t map well to political ideologies.
I don’t think it is possible to tell how progressive or conservative, critical or enthusiastic, one person will be about the intersection of technology and education based on their political preferences. Other’s may disagree.
With these caveats, I’ll try to articulate a possible edtech ideological spectrum - and then make some observations about where an edtech ideological middle ground may exist. (Hint…the answer is in committing to listen to each other).
At one end of the edtech ideological spectrum there are those of us who are deeply critical of educational technology industry, and of any claims that meaningful improvements in postsecondary education will result from technological progress. We are a group that is not anti-technology, as in our professional and personal lives we may be early adopters.
Rather, we are deeply worried that technologically-focused policies and initiatives are in reality covers for a range of regressive (in our minds) educational policies. These include as public defunding of public institutions, the loss of faculty autonomy, and a capitulation to the adjunctification of the professoriate.
In this critical conception, the educational technology agenda understood to be a mechanism to advance a neoliberal (or perhaps even libertarian) view of higher education policy - one that privileges productivity, the market, and the value of competition over other values such as equity, inclusion, and equality.
At the other end of the edtech ideological spectrum, there are those of us who believe that technology will be the primary catalyst and mechanism of postsecondary change. We think that the current postsecondary system needs to make non-incremental changes in the domains of access, costs, and quality - and that educational technology will be a main driver of these changes.
Those of us who are more positive about the potential of edtech to drive meaningful postsecondary change are heterogeneous when it comes to politics and policies. Many of us are also big advocates of greater levels of public investment - although some are not.
Where we differ from our more critical edtech colleagues is that we tend to see the for-profit edtech sector as part of the potential solution rather than as part of the problem. We tend to like the heady mixture of entrepreneurial energy and traditional campus life - as we tend to see higher education as a diverse and exciting ecosystem.
Many of us with more positive beliefs towards educational technology are just as worried about adjunctification, issues of faculty autonomy, and the challenges of tuition-dependent small liberal arts schools as our more critical edtech colleagues.
The difference being, that perhaps, we hold more faith in the power of technology to offer solutions for positive change.
How else do these edtech ideological camps differ?
Critical edtech folks tend to be suspicious of the role of the Gates and other foundations in influencing postsecondary reform. Edtech champions may have concerns about effectiveness, but tend to look at the interest of Gates and other foundations in driving higher ed change as on balance a very good thing.
And then there is the whole issue of edtech companies and for-profit education (although these are different issues).
Some of us in the edtech community are deeply distrustful about the motives and actions of the for-profit edtech sector. Others of us believe that the people who work in the for-profit edtech sector tend to share our beliefs about the ability of higher education to be an engine of opportunity creation - while believing that the market can be a force for good in directing resources towards positive societal educational goals.
Maybe its as simple as the Uber litmus test. (Although given the apparently toxic corporate culture of Uber, even the most enthusiastic techno-boosters are having a hard time using Uber as a model for anything).
Some of us deplore the role that Uber has played in lowering wages, avoiding regulations, and explicitly driving towards a future where drivers are replaced by self-driving cars.
Others of us are excited by the idea that Uber is able to use the technologies of the cloud, the phone, and the app to create a whole new transportation option for riders - and a whole new employment opportunity for drivers in the short-term - while pushing towards a safer driverless future in the long-term.
Both Uber boosters and Uber critics see lessons for higher ed and edtech - although both groups tend to draw completely different lessons.
I worry that neither side of this ideological edtech divide are really taking the time to listen to each other.
We are all so convinced of the veracity of our beliefs around technology and education that we close ourselves off from the ideas and opinions of those in which we disagree.
What’s worse - we tend to impugn the motives of those who have different beliefs than our own. We have a hard time believing that people on both sides of the edtech ideological divide believe in creating more opportunity.
We don’t believe that we share similar goals around costs, access and quality - but differ in how we think the most effective methods are to achieve these goals.
The best middle ground may be to recognize that all of us come to this edtech conversation with good intentions.
We are all personally impacted by our system of higher education - as educators, as researchers, as parents, as employers, and and as taxpayers.
The middle ground in edtech may be to spend more time listening to each other.
Can you do a better and fairer job than I’ve done in describing our edtech ideological spectrum?
Where do you stand on the Uber (or at least the idea of Uber - not the reality of the company)?
Where do you fall on the edtech ideological spectrum?
