Technology in Education: The Blurring of Boundaries!

McPheeters 1

Technology in Education: The Blurring of Boundaries

Dallas McPheeters

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dallas McPheeters is an Educational Technologist for a private K12 school in Colorado and
Adjunct faculty at Colorado Mountain College.
Technology in Education: The Blurring of Boundaries! McPheeters 2

Abstract
This paper reviews 21st century literature concerning the impact of technology on education.
Two opposing sides are in the forefront of the debate regarding whether the impact of technology
on education is positive or negative. Both sides may be labeled immigrants since neither is native
to the new cyberculture. Those immigrants in favor of technology in education call for increased
use of technology as an instructional aid. Those immigrants who oppose the use of technology in
education take issue with technology’s effectiveness as an instructional aid and see the attributed
costs as exorbitant and unjustified upon assessment. Opposing immigrants call for increased ac-
countability and verifiability of technology’s efficacy. However this paper presents a third view
labeled Cyborg Learning Theory. The cyborg view is emerging from among the new generation
known as technology natives and is generally omitted from the contention between the technol-
ogy immigrants of the past three or four decades. The conclusion of this paper purports that this
third view, when inevitably adopted by the mainstream of society, will create a paradigm shift in
the global education experience and practice.
Technology in Education: The Blurring of Boundaries! McPheeters 3

Technology in Education: The Blurring of Boundaries

“The Internet is composed of a ‘cloud’ of computers, constantly shifting,

never stable and that will therefore have a direct effect on our notions of time and
space, and the traditional boundaries associated with those concepts when they
are fixed rather than fluid.” (Lawson & Comber, 2000, pg. 420)

What impact is technology having on education in the 21st century and how should we view
it? This question has been the subject of much study during the past three decades, both in the
United States and Europe. The focus of these studies falls mainly in one of two schools of
thought. The first school of thought will be labeled the Technofascists who view technology a
wonderful tool to use in the education process and therefore promote its spread by way of legis-
lative control. The second school of thought will be labeled the Technophobes who fear the rapid
spread of the use of technology in education and therefore try to slow its spread by way of legis-
lative control. Notice that both sides wish to control technology but for different reasons. And
both sides view technology as other, alien, and something to be governed or controlled. But a
third view has emerged among the new generation of technology natives that does not view tech-
nology as other. This new generation sees technology as an extension of human identity; hence,
the label “Cyborg” is applied indicating a kind of hybrid of human and technology (Cybernetic
Organism). Rather than technology being applied to human identity, technology actually be-
comes part of the human expression itself. Thus the clear boundary between man and machine is
being blurred by the technological revolution and to legislate such a revolution becomes irrele-
vant in the view of Cyborg culture.
The two traditional schools of thought among the technology immigrants react differently to
the blurring of cultural boundaries caused by the technological revolution of the postmodern (and
posthuman as Cyborgs believe. See page 9) world in which we live. Let me explain a bit further
before introducing the salient arguments from both sides and issuing my own conclusive call for
a radical paradigm shift in mainstream pedagogical practice based on the emerging native view.

HISTORICAL APPROACHES TO EDUCATION

Consider the boundaries that have neatly defined our society and culture for centuries. Since
the time of our nation’s founding, clear-cut boundaries defined gender, profession, status, and
rank. From the rigid and external Behaviorist views of reward and punishment as motivating fac-
tors in learning, to the internal perspectives of Cognitivism, each social theory of learning sought
to explain our world in black and white. The box was understood and taught clearly in order that
future generations would be able to think inside the box. Then the Constructivist theory came
into vogue as the “New Deal” among social learning theorists, defining a somewhat blended and
macro approach to education, viewing learning as the result of social construction. Even the re-
cent developments labeled as Connectionism or Connectivism seem little more than a variation
of Constructivism, only with technology added as an additional factor in the social connection
equation. Regardless, all of these attempts are based on the premise that learning, education,
schools, and schooling are based on domains of knowledge that can fit in a box, even if that box
Technology in Education: The Blurring of Boundaries! McPheeters 4

is constructed socially and especially if that box was outside all previously known boxes. Cy-
borgs realize humans are not box shaped and therefore limitations that fit in boxes are irrelevant.
As a further illustration, when I was growing up in the ‘50s, we were taught absolutes. Even
Hollywood depicted clearly who the good guys were and who the bad guys were by of the color
of their hats. As children, we knew that boys would grow up to marry girls and girls would marry
boys. We expected to learn a trade or career and work for 40 years and retire with a gold watch.
We would raise a family in the suburbs consisting of 2.1 children and including two cats and a
dog as pets. The knowledge-base du jour was manageable and we could learn everything neces-
sary for our living in 12 or 16 years of education. But today, the half life of our knowledge-base
is fewer than 4 years; the time it takes to get a college degree. The box has outgrown our mental
grasp. And as we continue to spin toward an unknown future, the older generations of technology
immigrants seem to be frantically racing to define what may be beyond definition; even bigger
than the whole itself. We are living in a conundrum whose solution is not possible with the old
formulas. Today we are living in what has been described as a “culture of uncertainty” (Lawson,
2000) with each domain of knowledge increasing faster than we can learn it. How can education
teach what cannot be learned?

COMFORTABLE WITH THE UNKNOWABLE

Children today – as natives to technology – are growing up in a world where boundaries are
blurred. Within the present and politically-correct society, gender distinctions are in question. We
understand that Race no longer has a scientific basis. The corporate hierarchy and rank that in-
dustrialized the world is being replaced by project oriented, team playing personnel whose “roles
are ill-defined and shifting” (Lawson, 2000). Even our physical human identity is blurred by the
introduction of virtual worlds enabling participants to engage in multiple realities both physical
and imagined. Clearly delineated time boundaries are blurred by asynchronous communication
tools. The Internet brings information to us that is no longer boxed in by time and space. And
according to Thomas Friedman, author of New York Times bestselling book, The World is Flat,
says we are at the “end of the beginning” (flat earth, 2000). Friedman believes we are only see-
ing the tip of the iceberg compared to what lies before us. According to Friedman’s research, we
are embarking on a shift of a magnitude that boundary-restricted minds are unable to conceive or
manage. He calls this next wave of technology to come, Web 3.0. I call its impact on learning
“Education 3.0” and technology will drive us there whether we prepare for it or not. Just as we
moved from Web 1.0 (Static web-based documents with hardware as the intersect) to Web 2.0
(Social networking with software as the intersect), we are now on a collision course with Web
3.0 where the Internet itself becomes the intersect. In the same way the World Wide Web has
evolved, education has evolved from teaching the three R’s (1.0) to the incorporation of multiple
channels of input and interaction (where we are today – 2.0), to the fluid and boundary-less fu-
ture (3.0) on the horizon. The impact of this shift will be as paramount as the invention of the
wheel, but the speed of the change could occur in the twinkling of an eye.
The distinction between the two immigrant schools of thought reacting to these changes is
important to understand if we are to critically discern the situation for what it is and our role in
its transformation. Those insisting on going back to the good ole’ days of clearly defined bounda-
Technology in Education: The Blurring of Boundaries! McPheeters 5

ries (we could call this group the fence builders) see the coming changes as other and therefore
uncomfortable and difficult to navigate with the customary tools of the modern age they thought
they knew. These technophobes perceive technology as outside, apart, and foreign to human ex-
istence (though some acknowledge technology’s added convenience). Technophobes don’t mind
progress as long as it fits in a box and can be taught in the traditional way. Yet even the techno-
fascists differ little in their final assessment despite their desire to increase technology’s use in
education. Technofascists still seek control in order to manage (box in) the increased use and
usefulness of new technologies.
These two sides – represented by the technofascists and the technophobes – take issue with
each other at every juncture along the path of current pedagogical theorizing. The fence builders
believe the construction of the computer as “educational” is hype induced by political and corpo-
rate greed. Neil Selwyn, when researching what he saw as a techno-romance between U.K. gov-
erning authorities and the use of the computer in education, wrote, “There is now currently
mounting political pressure on teacher and other educationalists to ‘prove’ technology’s worth
after the past 20 years of apparently ineffectual use” (Selwyn, 2002, pg. 441). Selwyn goes on to
claim the hype is motivated by media-driven greed and has taken on a religious fervor “contain-
ing elements similar to faith, belief, and heresy” (Ibid). Selwyn believes the fixation we have on
computing as ‘educational’ is discursive and driven by non-educational motives. And based on
the present state of education, from Selwyn’s 1.0 viewpoint based on his 1980s research, he may
be right. But alas, the world outside the box is changing faster than our boundary-laden minds
can keep up and this change has to be taken into account in the final analysis.

RESISTANCE IS IRRELEVANT

Traditional approaches to change the traditional methods has become irrelevant and the neo-
native Cyborg culture knows it. As Gabriele Piccoli notes in her study of virtual learning envi-
ronments, “The frustration with technical issues may also be masking a more fundamental cause
of dissatisfaction. ...This lack of familiarity and developed learning strategies for the new envi-
ronment may lead to feelings of isolation and anxiety” (Piccoli, 2001). In other words, measuring
the effectiveness of emerging technologies with antiquated systems may be difficult to perform
accurately without first coming up with new methods of assessment, (we can’t put a stone wheel
on a sports car and then measure the cars honest capability for speed).
The pressure placed on the educational institution today has lead to the overburdening of
educators to endlessly test and assess for effectiveness. But isn’t our appetite for assessment sim-
ply our 1.0 and 2.0 worlds striving to make sense of changes, to neatly define and package the
increasingly blurred 3.0 world toward which we are racing? “Internet technologies are having a
significant impact on the learning industry...but little is known about their effectiveness com-
pared to traditional classroom education” (Piccoli, 2001). We have grown so accustomed to the
mountains of data measuring the effectiveness of traditional classrooms that we are uncomfort-
able with our inability to measure non-traditional means. And what we don’t understand, we of-
ten fear and seek to control. Both fascists and phobes are hungry to control a new reality that is
bigger than all of us.
Technology in Education: The Blurring of Boundaries! McPheeters 6

The important matter to understand here is that the crisis created by the Internet (Lawson,
2000) is only a crisis for the two schools of thought represented by the immigrants. The power-
struggle today exists between the immigrant Technofascists and the immigrant Technophobes,
both of which fight to regain the former, secure, walled world in which they came of age. The
former wish to control it in order to profit from it. The latter wish to control technology in order
to slow its fast-paced growth. However, Cyborgs, as natives to technology, should be thought of
as neither acculturated nor UNacculturated. They are native and not immigrant and therefore do
not need to adapt to their own emerging culture. Therefore, the contention exists primarily be-
tween the immigrants who embrace technology and the immigrants who resist it. Where it may
be quite true that, “the mouse is more powerful than the remote control” (Lawson, 2000), both
are other to immigrants whereas the power of neither is relevant to the native Cyborg of today’s
posthuman cyberculture. Virtual equality is achieved via a superhighway of communication
where status, age, and gender can easily be masked.

CYBORG LEARNING THEORY

The third school of thought is held by those Charles Garoian names the Cyborgs. Cyborgs go
beyond even postmodern thought to what Garoian calls posthuman. “Posthuman thinks of the
body as the original prosthesis we all learn to manipulate” (Garoian, 2001, pg. 340). Garoian is
saying in effect that human identity is not replaced by technology but rather that technology has
become the extension of human expression just as our physical body expresses our mind, as has
already been noted earlier.
The third view emerges from the Cyborg culture but this view is near impossible to see from
the immigrant’s perspective. For Cyborgs, the battleground is not the use of computers in this
arena or that sphere, but rather the view of technology as other, as separate from human identity
rather than technology being the evolved expression of the posthuman creature (Garoian, 2001).
Consider, as an example, the transition experienced by our agrarian society during the industrial
revolution of the late 19th century. Agricultural society’s sedentary practices were emulated by
“the segmentation and dynamism of machine technology” (Garoian, 2001, pg. 334). The mid
20th century witnessed the “development of cybernetics as the means by which intelligence
could be separated from the body and installed in machines” (Ibid). These two developments –
machination during the industrial revolution and computerization during the technical revolution
– both attempted to mimmic the electro-chemical human by electro-mechanical means. With
machination, the bigger the better. With computerization, the smaller the better. Therefore the
intellectual human supersedes the physical though both can be expressed in material terms. Now
meld these two developments. The body in cyberculture is a body that “combines the virtual and
the real, the avatar and the actual” (Ibid). Where immigrant cultures see inventions such as hear-
ing aids, pacemakers, and prosthetics as other, Cyborgs blur the boundaries between the human
and the non-human. In a world fighting over boundaries, Cyborgs are nomads reterritorializing
on deterritorialization itself (Ibid). Cyberculture is the new paradigm but not from the vantage-
point of technofascist immigrants. Immigrants see a mind/body distinction but Cyborgs see a
physical/virtual distinction. Yet even more “the cyborg ... signifies ... a continual state of ...
ephemerality ... as an unfinished aesthetic. Cyborgs are simultaneously entities and metaphors,
Technology in Education: The Blurring of Boundaries! McPheeters 7

living being and narrative constructions” (Ibid, pg. 338). This is why the future is unknown and
why boundaries are irrelevant. The posthuman experience remains indefinable by nature.

BLURRY BEYOND EDUCATION

Now let us turn to the social context outside of education and examine the corporate business
world. The recent global financial crisis should be proof enough of the irrelevancy of old para-
digms and the fast changing nature of technology-based platforms blurring the vision of old-
school expertise with its failed practices. If education serves the purpose of preparing the young
to function in society, surely business is a driving force as the primary benefactor of the educated
community. And if technology is affecting the educational community, certainly it must be hav-
ing a similar effect on the corporate community. Trond Petersen’s study of the effect of technol-
ogy on hiring practices, published in the year 2000, compared the influence of merit versus so-
cial networks in the hiring process. In the hiring arena, abstraction has increased with techno-
logical advances. Where once clear boundaries were governed by meritocracy, today (thanks to
the Internet and Web 2.0) social networks are setting the new precedent. Technology use in the
hiring process has blurred both gender and age boundaries where once the treatment of such de-
lineations bordered on discriminatory, to say the least. Concerning social networks, Petersen
claims, “their importance is unambiguously and extensively documented for several countries”
(Petersen, 2000, pg. 768). Minorities and women were more restricted in the non-technological
and hierarchical past and therefore discriminated against more easily. The playing field of busi-
ness is more level today because of technological advances and this is the field for which our
youth are being educated and trained. Technology makes available social networks of every kind
such that participants can meet people who have similar interests, read the same authors, enjoy
the same foods, destinations, hobbies, and the list goes on. Web 2.0 is about social networking
and this is having a transformative effect on the corporate framework. It’s only reasonable to ex-
trapolate the same effect on education. If meritocracy is being diluted in the workplace, surely
the meritocratic focus in the sphere of schooling (i.e.. grading structures) must follow suit. Social
networks affect final salary offers (Petersen, 2000). In other words, social networks pay off in
one of two ways; they can drive or trap participants.
The challenge that perpetuates the battle is that even though the integration of technology has
narrowed the space/time gap, the virtual is “still acquiring its meanings” (Stella, 2004). But
never forget that these so-called meanings only bear importance in the eyes of immigrants who
seek to understand how the boundaries are being blurred and attempt to prevent it if not reverse it
altogether. Like building a wall along the U.S. and Mexican border, such enterprises are not im-
portant to everyone. In fact, building barriers is becoming less relevant. Nomads do not dispute
over borders and Cyborgs are nomads. But times of transition bring out the immigrant in those of
us born pre-technology, and the acculturation struggle continues. According to Stella, it’s all or
nothing. “Developments in any country affect the ... scenario globally” (Stella, 2000). Yet Stella,
an immigrant to technology himself, asks, “Can technology replace human contact without sig-
nificant loss of quality?” To this I would restate that to Cyborgs, technology is human contact.
When this understanding is adopted by the majority, the stigma attached to learning platforms
Technology in Education: The Blurring of Boundaries! McPheeters 8

like distance education will be eradicated because the distance student will no longer be viewed
as different from the classroom student. Postmodern culture will become fully posthuman.
The immigrant conflict is not limited to the United States. Across the pond, the current de-
bate in the U.K. concerns the demand for evidence that computer aided instruction (CAI) has any
educational benefits at all. “CAI does not appear to have had educational benefits that translated
into higher test scores” (Angrist, 2002). Ouch! Teachers everywhere can empathize with this
quote from a recent study centering on the effectiveness of classroom computers and pupil learn-
ing. Test, test, and test some more so we can prove that students are regurgitating what teachers
are teaching. And because schools have included technology in the classroom experience (and
because the inclusion of technology comes with a high price), taxpayers demand proof that the
value is worth the investment. Of course, in Angrist’s study, the teaching of computer skills is not
questioned. The doubt raised focuses on the use of “computers to teach things” (Ibid). Remem-
ber, these arguments come from the immigrant schools of thought, regardless of whether fascist
or phobic. Among the technophobe immigrants is the criticism that, like Sesame Street, comput-
ers “give you the sensation that merely by watching a screen, you can acquire information with-
out work and discipline” (Ibid). To these technophobes, the resources consumed by schools for
technological enhancements is a waste of funds that should have been used to hire trained teach-
ers which “would have prevented a decline in achievement” (Ibid). Fortunately, Angrist is objec-
tive enough to conclude the possibility that the disruptiveness education is experiencing may be
due to the transition itself and the measurable benefits of computers in teaching may simply take
time to develop.
The ultimate dilemma between the fascist and phobic contenders rests in their addiction to
assessment and how assessment can be accomplished effectively. Both technofascists and tech-
nophobes acknowledge the challenge of “internet-driven change to which Education has not been
immune” (Piccoli, 2001). “Internet technologies have allowed small entrants to compete with
established dominant incumbents” (Ibid). And to complicate matters, virtual learning environ-
ments are broader than the computer aided instructional ones. The added dimension of commu-
nication in the virtual learning environment expands the individualized experience to one that
can “foster communities of learners” (Ibid). Where traditional learning environments were de-
fined in terms of time, place, and space; the virtual world, according to Piccoli, adds technology,
interaction, and control as three further dimensions. The addition of these three new dimensions
has made learning more student centered. But in terms of assessment, virtual learning presents a
far more complex challenge to resolve. And like Angrist, Piccoli understands we are in a stage of
transition that can frustrate the immigrant population in ways the natives would neither experi-
ence nor understand.

CONCLUSION

If men are indeed from Mars and women are from Venus, perhaps the same is true concern-
ing those on the two sides of the ‘technology-in-education’ debate. However, within the technol-
ogy sphere, a third view is emerging among the natives of today’s cyberculture. These Cyborgs
will not accept our three dimensional, spatio/temporal existence as an end in itself. Therefore, a
reformation must take place. But if reform is the answer, what is the question? Technology is the
Technology in Education: The Blurring of Boundaries! McPheeters 9

roadmap to an uncertain future. Technofascists embrace technology. Technophobes would slow

technology. Yet neither is relevant because both seek to box technology in. Only the posthuman,
neo-native Cyborg can adequately express the new technology-based hybrid identity and educa-
tors must facilitate the Cyborg’s introduction into this boundary-less realm. Command of the
knowledge-base can be the goal of education no longer. Lifelong learning is relevant because
discovery is the norm, not understanding. Perhaps grade schools will give way to gradeless
schools where students are no longer boxed in by gender, age, race, or ability but instead are
grouped according to domains of interest. Such gradeless schools could teach adaptability above
capability and train an uncertain culture for its unknown future in a world none of us sees clearly.
Technology in Education: The Blurring of Boundaries! McPheeters 10

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