ABSTRACT
THE DILEMMA for educators, as I have presented it, is that the very constructivist theories of learning used to justify their efforts at preauthenticating learning environments seem to foreclose on the possibility of doing exactly that. There seem to be few ropes for educators to grasp as a common reading of constructivism denies the stability of knowledge and thus leaves the door open to education’s traditionally objectivist and anticonstructivist inclinations. In educational technology, I argue, we see this in the need to preauthenticate educational tasks and environments. In this chapter, I propose that the rhetorical tradition provides a framework that might be used to resolve the challenge constructivism poses to educators as it is a framework that emphasizes the explicitly dialogic nature of learning and accentuates the role of argument and persuasion. While we may put rhetoric to work in restructuring the challenge of authenticity to education without further ado, allow me first to put forward two prior and related points: first, that a pragmatic understanding of knowledge as the outcome of rational argument salvages sufficient foundations for education, and second, that because of this, rhetoric provides a coherent framework for the process of education that accommodates our constructivist principles.
