Technologies of Power and Technologies of the Self or Why my Educational Technology Classes Have Changed so Much

Abstract

National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) form a contact point between technologies of power (TP) and technologies of the self (TS). TP in education form an ensemble of interrelated elements including discourses, institutional policies, administrative procedures and technical designs. TS are ethical practices including expressions of professional integrity and political commitment. As an educational technologist, I discuss my classroom practices to question the media, technoculture and instrumental reasoning as TS. I emphasize my efforts to integrate NETS. As a contact point, NETS constrain my classroom practices through an implicit embrace of narrowly defined meanings of central concepts such as evidence, knowledge, skills, dispositions and ethics. NETS discourage critique of and reflection on the limits of technology. What forms of classroom practice remain to pursue my commitment to my students and to educational technology while refusing the assumptions of this technology of power contributing to economic, racial and gendered inequities in education?