The Bigum Chapter looks at the issue of computers in schools
using ANT. It also has some insight into futurology, and predictions about technology.
Bigum, C. (2012). Edges, Exponentials and Education:
Disenthralling the Digital. In L. Rowan & C. Bigum (Eds.), Transformative Approaches to New Technologies
and Student Diversity in Futures Oriented Classrooms: Future Proofing Education. London: Springer
The idea behind ANT is that everything is treated as a
continuously generated effect of the webs of relations in which they are
located. Nothing has reality or form outside of the enactment of those
relations.
So the use of computers in schools is based upon the network
built up over time of computers/software/teachers etc, and their practices. John Law describes this
as resulting from a ‘hinterland’, which comprises the persistent patterns of
relations performed – the routine realities and the statements about those
realities.
For computers to be ‘real’ in schools they need to draw upon
an appropriate hinterland. This means fitting in with the patterns of school
practices – classrooms, timetables, curricula etc. So the impact of past ways
of doing things influences the way we image what can be done. In other words
thinking about the future is really thinking about the present – using our
present narratives, and the ‘hinterland’ we inhabit or draw upon to make
predictions about what could or should happen in the future. We need to look to
an alternative hinterland to make alternative futures.
The problem with trying to look to an alternative hinterland, or to predict a future dominant discourse is that it's very difficult, if not impossible, to do. Most futurology uses contemporary dominant discourses, so it is really describing an alternative present rather than a future. In the same way that science fiction isn't really about the future - it's about contemporary morals, politics, and economics transposed onto an alternative world where ideas can be extrapolated and developed as 'what if...' scenarios. Because futurologists are using contemporary discourses, rather than predicting what discourses might exist, then it is very easy to say things like 'in the future all exams will be marked by computers'.
The problem with trying to look to an alternative hinterland, or to predict a future dominant discourse is that it's very difficult, if not impossible, to do. Most futurology uses contemporary dominant discourses, so it is really describing an alternative present rather than a future. In the same way that science fiction isn't really about the future - it's about contemporary morals, politics, and economics transposed onto an alternative world where ideas can be extrapolated and developed as 'what if...' scenarios. Because futurologists are using contemporary discourses, rather than predicting what discourses might exist, then it is very easy to say things like 'in the future all exams will be marked by computers'.
If the dominant narrative is of commodification, competition,
efficiencies etc – i.e. the narrative of neoliberalism, then that is how new technology
will be embedded in the school/university.