Click to Submit: The Problems of "Technology" in Educational Research and a Case for Critical Software Studies

• In Event: Roundtable Session 55
  In Roundtable Session: Moving Away From Technology for Technology's Sake: Effective Practices for Student and Teacher Learning

Abstract

As software increasingly “mediates and shapes” (Berry, 2012) society, including education, teachers and school leaders must be exposed to the ways such mediation can affect pedagogy and professional culture, especially in ways that contradict the aims of equitable democratic education. This paper presents “critical software studies” (Author) as a conceptual framework that can be used to challenge optimistic assumptions about the role of technology in education and in so doing expose the ways software affects teaching, learning, and public perception of our public school system. The paper offers both methodological recommendations to researchers and to teacher education programs.

Author

• Tom Liam Lynch, Pace University