Digital Technology and the End of Social Studies Education

Covers both practical and theoretical
Posted by: stacykessler on Mon, 09 Jun 08 23:40:21 +0000

This narrative-style paper is cohesive and fairly well-organized, and for a relatively short (17 pages) paper encompasses many of the issues facing today's social studies educators and educators in general. Tally contextualizes his thoughts in response to Neil Postman's critical stance of educational technology, and explicitly lays out questions to be approached, but not necessarily answered. From researchers to organizations to anecdotes, he draws upon a range of perspectives, both ideologically and institutionally. Perhaps the most rewarding part of this piece was Tally's coverage of this question from both a theoretical and practical perspective, as I consider the lack of reconciliation between these facets to be one of the most glaring problems throughout educational research. I also appreciated the questioning of the connection between online use in social contexts and online fluency in learning contexts and how he did not assume a blanket level of student technological literacy. I do however wish that this narrative included more explicit quantitative research and sources. Overall an interesting and valuable read.