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Feature essay: IT Education and Democratic PracticeDrew Whitworth, University of LeedsPage 1 ¦ Page 2 In 1970, Robert Wolff [1] suggested that it was the duty of every US citizen to familiarise themselves with the debates within nuclear science: the effects of fallout; the potential efficacy of shelters and government policies for keeping order after an attack; the mentality behind first-strike and second-strike strategies. He suggested that only through doing so could citizens make informed decisions when electing representatives who claimed to hold certain positions. More usefully, they could interrogate them on these positions, when it was the usual desire of candidates for office to gloss over these big questions in favour of more transient, but voter-friendly concerns such as tax, and the state of the local train service. Nowadays we might make a similar suggestion with regard to government policies on the information society. The following is a selection of the important issues where information policy is often concealed, or left entirely to the whims of the market:
When these debates do emerge into the public sphere, the issues are often trivialised. As an example let me mention a campaign that has been running for the last few months to bring broadband capability to the town of Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire (my home town). On the surface this is a political issue, or should be. But the campaign has been sold mainly to the converted, as if the benefits are obvious, and the key terms understood by all. There is no discussion of deeper concerns, such as: why, in the fourth-largest economy in the world, does an affluent town of 10,000 people located between two of Britain’s largest conurbations have to run such a campaign to acquire this public good? Why must the campaign focus only on the telecoms provider, and not local government, who claim no dominion here? What of the substantial proportion of the population who do not have the equipment, technical knowledge or motivation to make use of broadband in any case? What, indeed, will Hebden Bridge, as a community, do with broadband when and if it gets it, and why? These are merely examples: there are many more ways in which our society’s technical, political and conceptual relationship with information and information technology can and should be queried. And it has always been the role of higher education institutions to supply students with the knowledge needed to make such queries. The Dearing report (in section 5.11), as well as acknowledging the obvious need to take account of the concerns of industry, states plainly that the purposes of higher education are also:
Does information technology have a role to play here? On the surface it appears as if IT provision within the UK education system is in a strong position. IT is a key skill, compulsory at every level. At a time when other disciplines, particularly in the "hard" sciences, are facing cutbacks, IT education seems relatively awash with resources and support. Is this a sign that the UK education system is addressing the duties mentioned so far? Unfortunately it is difficult to believe that. What is primarily being taught as IT is only the second part of that term, technology. Students are taught which buttons to push, but not why to push them, and thereby, the role of information in "shaping a democratic, civilised, inclusive society" is neglected or at best underplayed. Even the technological elements are narrower than they could be, with a near-total emphasis - understandable, but limiting - on Microsoft products, rather than on foundational knowledge about the technicalities and historical concepts underlying them. Nor is there much agreement on who should teach IT: individual departments, libraries, computing specialists? The lack of coherence and the failure to root IT in the intellectual side of university study probably contribute to high student drop-out rates. University managers press for more courses to incorporate substantial online elements for what they see as reasons of cost, yet the pedagogical implications of this are only beginning to be explored. Return to the top of this page Footnotes1. Wolff, Robert Paul (1998). In Defense of Anarchism. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 17. [return] 2. Selwyn, Neil and Stephen Gorard (2002). The Information Age: Technology, Learning and Exclusion in Wales. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, pp. 54-7. [return] 3. Gauntlett, David (2000). "Web Studies: A User’s Guide" in Gauntlett, D. (ed.), web.studies: Rewiring media studies for the digital age. London: Arnold, p. 11-12. [return] 4. Shenk, David (1997). Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut. New York: HarperCollins. [return] Observation: if ever sponsorship was sought perhaps see if Amazon were willing to pay small sums to link these to pages selling them on their site? | |