Rethinking Educational Technology:

A Post Modern View

Section VI

Conclusions: Are We Headed the Right Direction?

If we are heading towards true democracy as a society, than I would say we are heading in the right direction. Schools are the starting point for the social body that constitutes a nation. If we are to be democratic as a people, then so must schools. Muffoletto says:

In positioning education as a major socializing institution, with a major role in forming the world views and subjectivities of its participants, the products and processes of educational technology do play a major role in how communities of individuals think about others and self. (54)

Unless we are to radically change the role of education, it is better to change the process by which our children are educated, by focusing in on some of the ideals established by both the feminists and those involved in postmodernistic educational reform.

Through the process of critical theory, at least a conversation about possible states of being beyond the positivist tradition are being discussed. The function of critical theory and deconstruction is to get at those skeletons in the closet, and bring them to the light.

Important questions still need to be answered; other important questions have yet to be asked. In a shift from a universal-principle based educational process to a situated-context understanding of who we are, where we are located, and why we are there, it is inevitable that the number of questions will continue to expand, because there is no longer any one way to think or act that will suffice.

The most important thing that we can do is to listen to each other; to take criticism and advice from individuals and communities to which we might not normally pay attention. Our own education about education and educational technology will take place in dialogue, not in self-centered contemplation. It is in this dialogue that I believe we will find value.

In asking questions in the postmodern tradition, we can come to expect surprising answers. As stated by Jamison:

Such questions are important. Not because the answers make us better systems experts or educational technologists... but because the questions help us become more responsible human beings. (69)