ABSTRACT
This chapter develops the conceptual and value orientation that guides the remainder of the authors' arguments. Briefly, this orientation is built around three challenges to conventional thinking about new technologies and education. First, questioning the phrase "information technologies" as a way of characterizing some of these technologies. Second, proposing a relational view of technology, and third, arguing for what we call a "post-technocratic" policy perspective, a different starting point for thinking about the ifs and whys of new technologies for teaching and learning. Deliberations over the potential benefits and limitations of new technologies for education highlight the ways in which policy choices often require a reframing of the issues at stake, and not simply a "balancing" or "tradeoff" between assumed givens. The chapter suggests a distinctive tone or feel to what the post-technocratic stance might mean: not just weighing "risks" and "promises" against each other, but of seeing their fundamental inseparability.
