Educational Policy Studies 490N: Social and Policy Perspectives on
Educational Technologies
Theme: Identity, Embodiment, and Power in Online
Interactions
Professor Nicholas C. Burbules
Office: Education 379
Office phone: 244 - 0919
Email: burbules@uiuc.edu
Office hours by appointment
Overview
This seminar will explore several issues entailed by the new kinds of teaching/learning environments made possible by digital information and communication technologies. The readings will range from enthusiasts to skeptics to critics of these environments, each dealing in different ways with the themes of identity, embodiment, and power.
Students are expected to complete the readings for each week and be prepared to discuss them. As a seminar, this course is not based on lectures. My introductory comments will generally provide background, not recount the readings. The class meets Wednesdays 2:00 - 4:50 p.m. in room 143, Armory.
Written assignment
Write an essay, half from the perspective of the Embodied Teacher and half from the perspective of the Embodied Student. Discuss the educational advantages and disadvantages for each of interacting in a virtual space - in which one's physical body may or may not constitute a constraint on the identities one assumes online or the interactions one has with others. What benefits, and what abuses, might this yield? Does the level of education, the context, or the subject matter make a difference to your answer? Use your imagination in considering what new kinds of teacher/student and student/student interactions might arise in this virtual space. Finally, does this issue look different from the perspective of the teacher and the student? If so, how?
Length: 8000 words, minimum. Due date: May 8.
Schedule of readings
Required books, available at Illini Union Bookstore:
Hank Bromley and Michael Apple, eds. Education/Technology/Power
Hubert Dreyfus, On the Internet
Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen
Jan 16 Introduction and overview
Jan 23 Turkle: Introduction, chs 1 and 2
Jan 30 Turkle:
chs 3 and 4
Feb 6 Turkle: chs 5 and 6
Feb 13 Turkle: chs 7 and 8
Feb 20 Turkle: chs 9 and 10
Feb 27 Dreyfus: Introduction, chs 1 and 2
Mar 6 Dreyfus: chs 3 and 4
Mar 13 Megan Boler (web-based article on identity - forthcoming)
MCI video advertisement
Mar 20 SPRING BREAK
Mar 27 Bromley and Apple: Introduction, ch 1
Apr 3 AERA (virtual classroom)
Bromley and Apple: chs 4 and 5
Apr 10 Bromley
and Apple: chs 7 and 8
Apr 17 Nicholas Burbules (two papers, one on the architecture of online space and place; one on the virtual as a teaching/learning context - forthcoming)
Apr 24 Don Tapscott, Growing Up Digital
May 1 Bill Joy, Why the Future Doesn't Need Us