ABSTRACT
These four different ‘genres’ of technology use provide clear illustrations of the ideological nature of educational technology. Virtual, open, games and social technologies are all sites for the ‘working out’ of values associated with libertarianism, neo-liberalism and the needs of the ‘new’ economy — giving these ideologies symbolic form as well as grounding them in new sets of educational processes, practices and relationships. These are all educational technologies that constitute a powerful cultural support system for wider ideological agendas. From this perspective, it makes little sense to pursue specific debates over the ‘rights’ or ‘wrongs’ of particular technologies in education (e.g., the value of providing ‘an iPad for every student’, or the mass provision of higher education through ‘MOOCs’). These are all proxy battles for much broader struggles over the nature, form and function of education in the early twenty-first century. As has been suggested throughout this book, educational technology continues to be enmeshed with long-running conflicts concerning the role of education in contemporary society — that is, tensions between market and state; private and public good; and the primacy of individual as opposed to collective interests. Of course, the relationships between these wider ideological conflicts and educational technology are not wholly deterministic. The forms of digital technology just described in this book are not straightforward manifestations of wider ideological values and agendas. Instead, the ideological nature of these educational technologies needs to be understood in less direct and more nuanced ways.
