Digital Technology and the End of Social Studies Education

Contributing Organization(s): Education Development Center


Author(s)/Creator(s): Bill Tally

Publishing Date: 2007-04-01

Issue Areas: Education and Literacy; Computers and Technology

Ownership/Rights Info: Copyright 2007 College and University Faculty Assembly of National Council for the Social Studies. All rights reserved.

File info: 17 pages; 353 KB file size

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In Fall 2000, when "Theory and Research in Social Education" (TRSE) first dedicated an issue to technologies in social studies education, Neil Postman contributed a View Point piece to this issue. Postman, who died in 2003, was an interesting choice because he was an outspoken critic of educational technology who believed that, as he said at the time, "the new technologies both in and out of the classroom are a distraction and an irrelevance." Taking his cue from Postman, the author addresses the issue of digital technology in social studies education by telling a story of his own. He offers a wandering narrative -- and an old-fashioned one at that -- common in the religious stories that Postman saw as the prototype for all cultural stories: the narrative of faith, tested by doubt, emerging reaffirmed. He also discusses two elements that he believes need to be far more present in social studies education, at the pre-service and K-12 level: (1) Clearer disciplinary perspectives; and (2) easier ways of working with data within these perspectives. Technologies, if carefully designed, can be helpful in both areas.

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Intended Audience: College/University Professors; Policy Professionals; Researchers; Teachers-middle school; Teachers-high school

Type/Format: Whitepaper

Language code: English

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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.