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This engaging book sheds light on the ways in which adults in the twenty-first century interact with technology in different learning environments. Based on one of the first large-scale academic research projects in this area, the authors present their findings and offer practical recommendations for the use of new technology in a learning society. They invite debate on: Why ICTs are believed to be capable of affecting positive change in adult learning. The drawbacks and limits of ICT in adult education. What makes a lifelong learner. The wider social, economic, cultural and political realities of the information age and the learning society. Adult Learning addresses key questions and provides a sound empirical foundation to the existing debate, highlighting the complex realities of the learning society and e-learning rhetoric. It tells the story of those who are excluded from the learning society, and offers a set of strong recommendations for practitioners, policy-makers, and politicians, as well as researchers and students. © 2006 Neil Selwyn, Stephen Gorard and John Furlong. All rights reserved.

It is argued by influential commentators such as Ulrich Beck and Scott Lash that we now live in a ‘reflexively modern' age. People are seen to now be free of the structures of modern society and driven instead by individualised opportunities to reflexively engage with their fast-changing social worlds and identities. Taking the notion of reflexive modernisation as its starting point, this paper explores the roles that information technologies (ITs) may play in supporting adults' reflexive judgements about, and reflexive engagements with, education and learning. Through an analysis of interview data with 100 adults in the UK the paper finds that whilst a minority of interviewees were using ITs to support and inform reflexive engagement with learning, the majority of individuals relayed little sign of technology-supported reflexivity when it came to their (non)engagement with education. For most people ITs were found, at best, to reinforce pre-established tendencies to ‘drift' through the formal education system. The paper concludes by considering the implications of these findings for ongoing efforts in developed countries to establish technology-supported ‘learning societies'.

It is acknowledged that communication researchers need to develop more sophisticated and nuanced accounts of the social and individual dynamics of the internet in everyday life. Based on a household survey of 1001 adults with 100 in-depth follow-up interviews, the present article explores people’s (non)use of the internet by asking: (1) who is (and who is not) using the internet in everyday life; (2) for what purposes people are using the internet and how are they developing their own constructions of the internet; and (3) how these understandings and uses of the internet are shaped by existing socioeconomic factors and circumstances. From this basis the article goes on to identify the key issues underlying adults’ (non)use of the internet in terms of interest, relevance, mediation of significant others and the role of household dynamics. It also considers, from this basis, how non-users may be encouraged to make use of the internet.

Cambridge, Policy Press, 2007, 209 pp., £15.99 (paperback), ISBN 978‐0‐7456‐3881‐2 Educational technology is a forward‐looking but often acritical field of study. As a long‐standing advocate of cri...

There is a strong need for both educators and researchers to be aware of students' attitudes toward using and interacting with computers in 16-19 education (i.e. year levels 12-14)--but as yet little work has been carried out in this area. This article therefore describes the development of an instrument for measuring the attitudes toward computers of students aged 16-19 years. Initial item selection produced a pilot scale consisting of 49 items which was administered to 266 students. Subsequent factor analysis revealed four structurally independent attitude constructs and justified retention of 21 of the original items. The revised scale was then administered to 87 Year 12-14 students for formal validation. The full instrument was found to have both a high internal reliability coefficient (0.90) and test-retest reliability (0.93), and significant construct validity (P

One notable ‘disruptive’ impact of massive open online courses (MOOCs) has been an increased public discussion of online education. While much debate over the potential and challenges of MOOCs has taken place online confined largely to niche communities of practitioners and advocates, the rise of corporate ‘xMOOC’ ventures such as Coursera, edX and Udacity has prompted popular mass media interest at levels not seen with previous educational innovations. This article addresses this important societal outcome of the recent emergence of MOOCs as an educational form by examining the popular discursive construction of MOOCs over the past 24 months within mainstream news media sources in United States, Australia and the UK. In particular, we provide a critical account of what has been an important phase in the history of educational technology—detailing a period when popular discussion of MOOCs has far outweighed actual use/participation. We argue that a critical analysis of MOOC discourse throughout the past two years highlights broader societal struggles over education and digital technology—capturing a significant moment before these debates subside with the anticipated normalization and assimilation of MOOCs into educational practice. This analysis also sheds light on the influences underpinning how many people perceive MOOCs thereby leading to a better understanding of acceptance/adoption and rejection/resistance amongst various professional and popular publics.

Although not fully established, the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) initiative is already being presented by both government and industry as offering students, teachers and school extensive freedom and autonomy in their day-to-day work. However, this paper argues that the official discursive construction of the NGfL in this way, as a 'panacea' to educational problems, obscures vital issues of power and control that may only become apparent once the initiative is fully integrated at the classroom level. Drawing initially on the work of Foucault, and then Poster's more recent conception of the electronic 'SuperPanopticon’, this paper re-examines the basis of the NGfL and its role in extending and reinforcing existing power configurations in education. The paper concludes by considering directions for future research into the NGfL, and educational use of the Internet in the light of this analysis.

With many students' access to computers at home out-weighing their use of Information Technology (IT) in school, the importance of home computing has grown immensely over the last decade. This paper therefore seeks to examine the nature and extent of students' domestic use of computers and the subsequent relationship with their use of IT in schools and colleges. Using a sample of 16–19-year-old students, quantitative and qualitative data were gathered to explore students' experiences of home computing. The results suggest that students using computers at home have significantly more positive attitudes toward using computers yet do not necessarily make more use of school or college-based IT; compensating for the inadequacies of educational IT with their use of computers at home. Nevertheless access to, and benefits gained from, home computers were found to differ significantly according to students' gender.

Teachers’ work is increasingly conducted through digital technology. This chapter will draw upon the latest research to provide a policy framework that schools can adopt and adapt to encourage a “better practice” approach towards teachers’ use of digital technologies. The policy will cover concerns regarding email, social media, digital overworking, and data privacy and surveillance, as well as considerations for leadership and teachers in this area.

The chapters in this book have certainly resulted in a markedly different portrayal of education and technology than is usually the case with academic discussions on the topic. None of these chapters has concurred with the notion that educational technology is simply a matter of “harnessing” the “power” of largely neutral, benign technologies in ways that support and empower individual learners. Instead, as all the authors in this collection have shown, there is a lot more to education and technology than simplistic descriptions of “technology-enhanced learning” and “personalized learning networks” suggest. Indeed, the important point of contesting the commonsense language of technology and learning was ably critiqued in the chapters by Friesen and Williamson, and remained a recurring theme throughout other contributions. The plurality of interests, values, and agendas that have come to inhabit seemingly unassailable notions such as “twenty-first-century skills,” “e-safety,” and “one-to-one computing” was laid bare in the contributions from Shutkin and Hope. The chapters by Rudd and by Dessel, Ferrante, and Sefton-Green remind us of the influence of national politics and the ambitions of nation-states, while Selwyn also reflects the importance of interests operating above/below the level of the nation-state.

Although the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) has been thrust upon the education sector amidst a blaze of publicity, the 'physical' construction of the Grid promises to be a slow process, with the government giving an optimistic target of 3 years before the initiative will approach full operation. In the meantime, a major initial step in the construction of the NGfL has been the marketing of the Grid to an educational sector historically resistant and sceptical towards Information and Communications Technology. This paper therefore explores the emerging discourse of the NGfL by examining seven examples of marketing and promotional material produced by industry and the government. From these texts, we can therefore gain a sense of how the NGfL is beginning to be shaped at a macro level by its key actors. After presenting the seven texts, the paper explores the predominant themes underlying this discursive construction and highlights an underlying deterministic positioning of the Learning Grid. The paper c...

This article reports on a study of 267 primary children (Year 2 and 6) in five schools in South and Mid Wales. It examines their use of information and communications technology (ICT) both in school and at home using a combination of interview and questionnaire data. These data reveal that although the vast majority of children are making some use of computers in school, patterns of sustained and varied engagement with ICT are rare; with educational use of computers curtailed by a variety of classroom factors. Moreover, although many children could be considered to be sophisticated and knowledgeable consumers of ICT, their outside-of-school access to technology is varied. The findings raise questions about the nature of ICT use in primary classrooms and the need to ensure meaningful and regular access to technology in school for all children.

As information and communications technology (ICT) becomes more commonplace in educational settings the use of computer mediated communication (CMC) between teachers is increasingly being seen as a valid form of professional dialogue and support. Indeed, the promotion of online discussion groups as “virtual meeting places” for teachers has formed a central part of the UK government's £1 billion drive to make ICT use part of day-to-day practice in British schools. However, amidst the enthusiasm for creating “virtual communities” of teachers, little is known about how educational professionals are using such resources in practice. To this end the present paper reports on a study of UK teachers’ use of an established online discussion group over a two-year period. It shows that, although the online forum was widely being used both as an information and empathetic exchange resource, many of the claims of establishing collectively focused virtual communities of teachers remain exaggerated as the forum was limited by a number of caveats associated with CMC groups in general.

‘Children’ and ‘childhood’ have been long established as discursive sites through which adults can conceptualize and (re)construct past, present and future aspects of society. In this way the notion of the ‘child’ acts both as a nostalgic and futuristic device through which societal changes are portrayed and discussed in popular and political arenas. Over the last 30 years, the notion of the innocent child has been constantly evoked by politicians and the media in developed countries, in relation to diverse ‘issues’, from domestic violence to Third World famine. Thus notions of children and childhood have become central components to our understanding and shaping of an ever-changing world: Childhood ‐ a temporary state ‐ becomes an emblem for our anxieties about the passing of time, the destruction of historical formations, or conversely, a vehicle for our hopes for the future. The innocent child is caught somewhere over the rainbow ‐ between nostalgia and utopian optimism, between the past and the future. (Jenkins, 1998: 5) Recently, this emblematic role of the child has been exemplified in ongoing debates concerning the increasing role of technology in society and the perceived shift of countries such as the UK into a post-industrial era and associated ‘information age’. The notion of the ‘child computer user’, be it in terms of the omnipotent young computer ‘hacker’ or Internet-using ‘cyber-kid’, has proliferated in popular and political visions of the technology-based near future. Thus we are regularly informed by popular and academic commentators that the computer is the ‘children’s machine’ (Papert, 1993) and that children are ‘at the epicentre of the information revolution, ground zero of the digital world’ (Katz, 1997: 173). As

The use of information technology in education is now a political orthodoxy, seen by many politicians and educators as a ready means of widening participation to those social groups traditionally excluded from learning. However, the role of technology in overcoming social exclusion in education and lifetime learning practices has often failed to be objectively discussed, with a tendency for many educationalists to adopt either overtly optimistic or pessimistic positions. From this background, the present article objectively examines both current patterns of exclusion from education and technology alongside the range of ongoing policies and initiatives established in the United States concerned with technology and education. Moreover, based on a range of North American and European research literature concerned with participation in education, the article then discusses the issues and problems faced by U.S. educationalists and policy makers in proactively using technology as a means of reducing social exclusion in lifelong education. Opportunity for all requires something else today—having access to a computer and knowing how to use it. This means that we must close the digital divide between those who have got the tools and those who do not.

Large quantities of data are now being generated, collated and processed within schools through computerised systems and other digital technologies. In response to growing concerns over the efficiency and equity of how these data are used, the concept of ‘open data’ has emerged as a potential means of using digital technology to democratise data access and use within whole school communities. Drawing on participatory design research in two Australian secondary schools, this paper explores the possibilities of making existing school data openly available in digitised form for teachers, administrators and students to access, interpret and use. The results of these interventions – while only partially successful – provide valuable insights into the technical, informatic, organisational and social issues surrounding the use of data in schools. The paper concludes by considering the practical and theoretical limitations of attempting to democratise data engagement within school settings.