The discursive construction of the user of CD-ROM encyclopaedias, online encyclopaedias and children's internet search tools as a social and a literate subject
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(Published version)
Date
2005
Authors
Resnyansky, Lucy
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thesis
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Abstract
In the information society, Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) are having a major impact on education- its institutions, its goals and ways of teaching and learning. This impact is becoming more significant due to the increasing technologisation of the home, the growing use of computer and ICT-mediated educational and entertainment products, and the early engagement of children into digital culture, mainly through electronic games. Interactive multimedia technology is claimed to improve learning by increasing students' motivation and creating a richer and more interesting teaching and learning environment; by providing quick and easy access to information and knowledge; and by providing a possibility for better acquisition of information literacy and communicative skills. However, such claims are not always based on thorough and systematic educational and pedagogical assessments of ICT-mediated products that are offered to contemporary children and adults.
This study aims to contribute to an exploration of ICTs as 'education providers' and as sites/practices of the production of social and literate subjects in the information society. It also aims to contribute to the development of educators' agency in relation to ICTs. The study focuses on one group of ICT-mediated products: encyclopaedias published on CD-ROMs and available online and children's Internet search tools. These products and services are offered to the public as educational aids for children and school students. Public and educational thinking about these products is shaped by the conceptions developed within such fields as information and library science and information systems design. Within these fields, these products are typically constructed as reference works and as digital technologies of information storage and retrieval. In this research, CD-ROM encyclopaedias, online encyclopaedias and Internet search tools are approached as instances of computer-mediated pedagogical (discursive) practice. They are made 'visible' as pedagogical practices of subjectivity formation and literacy education.
The exploration of CD-ROM encyclopaedias, online encyclopaedias and Internet search tools as discursive practices constitutive of their users focuses on two issues: the discursive construction of the contemporary child/student as a sociocultural subject and the discursive construction of literacy and the user as a literate subject. This exploration is preceded by an analysis of a broader discursive context (represented by children's software review websites) that may affect educators' and parents' thinking about CD-ROM encyclopaedias, about their children and student users, and about being a teacher or a parent in the information society.
The analysis of CD-ROM encyclopaedias, online encyclopaedias and Internet search tools as discursive practices of the production of social and literate subjects contests the dominant construction of these products and services as powerful technologies that empower their user. The analysis shows that CD-ROM encyclopaedias, online encyclopaedias and children's Internet search tools are, firstly, selective of their users. The intended 'every user' is someone who belongs to a rather well-situated social and economic group and is socialised into a particular literate culture. Secondly, these products tend to present the advantages of computer-mediated technologies of information storage, access and presentation as automatically providing educational success, better learning and higher school achievements. Children and students are constructed as technology users having needs and interests generic for software users of all generations and occupations. Thirdly, these products do not provide equal access to the literacy skills associated with the most advanced literacies. In order to benefit from the literacy education provided by these products, the child/student needs access to experts and to cultural capital. However, these prerequisites are not made explicit in the products or in the product reviews available from children's software review websites. Rather, they are made almost unthinkable by presenting these products as powerful technologies and the user as a subject empowered by these technologies.
School/Discipline
School of Education
Dissertation Note
Thesis (PhDEducation)--University of South Australia, 2005.
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Copyright 2005 the author. This item has been reproduced by the University of South Australia here in good faith. Attempts to contact original copyright owner(s) are ongoing. We would be pleased to hear from copyright owner(s).
Description
xii, 375 leaves
ill. (some col.)
ill. (some col.)
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506 0#$fstar $2Unrestricted online access