ERIC Number: EJ873419
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2006
Pages: 11
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1741-8887
EISSN: N/A
Paradigms Lost: Academic Practice and Exteriorising Technologies
Land, Ray
E-Learning, v3 n1 p100-110 2006
Using Milton's "Paradise Lost" as metaphor, this article examines shifting positions of authority, and the role of technology, in higher education practice. As higher education becomes caught up in the performative agendas of globalised market rationalism, technology is mobilised in a specific way which sits uncomfortably with disciplinary culture, making academics complicit in a potentially problematic fashion. Learning technology serves a process of exteriorisation, rendering academic practices visible and calculable, and more amenable to the influence of management, to the authority of organisation, and less to tradition and the authority of the discipline. Trust and the ability to live with uncertainty and risk are displaced by audit; critique gives way to domestication. The more shadowy, private "collegium" must be open to survey within the transparent administrative "universitas". Yet these same technologies remain potential sites of disciplinary resistance, or "culture jamming" through the spaces they make available for contestability and interconnectivity. (Contains 1 figure.)
Descriptors: Higher Education, Figurative Language, Power Structure, College Faculty, College Administration, Administrative Principles, Educational Change, Global Approach, Evaluation Criteria, Educational Philosophy, Educational Policy, College Environment, Foreign Countries, Educational Trends, Educational Principles, Electronic Learning, Technology Integration, Educational Technology, Influence of Technology, Instructional Design
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A