Information technology

Abstract

Educational discussions about computers invariably focus upon how to teach computing (literacy) and how to use computers in teaching. Unfortunately, this leaves both teacher and student with the erroneous impression that the computer is the proper focal point for study and that it is a value-free tool. Redefinition of the computer as a metamedium and evocative object, and recognition that it is but an element of information technology, lead to an examination of the human impacts---cultural and social---of information technology and the computer. They affect our language, our thoughts, our self-image, our values, and our world-view. They challenge our ethics, our organizations, the meaning and role of work, and the role of information and information systems in our welfare. Examination of some of these impacts leads to identification of these educational issues: education for change, education for an information society, and education in an information society. It then becomes clear that federal policies are required to support and encourage changes in teacher education and re-training to provide: role models for integrative thinking and lifelong learning; emphasis on values, value clarification, and ethical behavior; and the knowledge to use information utilities. Federal policy is also required to prevent a few large purchasers from defining the educational software to be available to all purchasers, and to maintain education as the universal (without regard to ability to pay) human service it must remain. Information utilities remain largely unregulated in this country and will have significant bearing upon the costs of all human services, especially education, yet their design is" ... no less than our design of the new individualism." Federal policy is required to provide assurance, to each of us, of equal access to the educational process and the best that it has to offer.