Dewey and Technology

3. In educational settings, discuss how technology enhances the teaching and learning environment. What do the viewpoints of Dewey, Bruner, Elliott, McLuhan, and Eisner provide for our consideration when thinking about technology, performing arts, and the process of teaching and learning. Although John Dewey wrote in the late 19th and early 20th century, not the much talked about 21st, his thoughts seem increasingly perceptive.

Many people working to construct technologies for learning now cite Dewey, primarily in terms of his advocacy of learning by doing. They propose models for learning based on immersion in practices of the larger society. This approach would certainly find some support in the progressive education movement that developed from some of Dewey's ideas.

Challenging us to reflect on what we do, Dewey would ask us to pause to think more about how learning through technology serves as a point in the development of experience. Dewey would certainly value learning about new technologies, especially if that were through participation in authentic social practices that use those technologies. Finally, Dewey would certainly value learning technology, if it means that students become more capable of participating in society and enlarges the scope of their abilities to communicate.