The commonly-held view that technology is a panacea for solving all problems and improving all activities creates a strong momentum towards ‘technological determinism’, whereby professors, administrators and students all assume that universities need the most up-to-date technologies in order to be effective.
Herd instinct comes into play, and without necessarily measuring the real benefits of technology, people may just pile in and invest in new technology because ‘everyone else is doing it’.
If a university fails to invest in the most up-to-date technology, it risks being perceived by students as old-fashioned and therefore not a desirable place to study.
Technology producers and developers, working for companies that must demonstrate profit growth to shareholders, will be incentivised to encourage these perceptions. Sophisticated commercial marketing departments, staffed by experts whose job is to create demand for product, will be far more adept than university administration departments at targeting marketing campaigns so as to fuel the perception that up-to-date technologies are essential if universities are to attract the best students, and if students are to attain the best qualifications.
The huge investment that universities end up making in technology then needs to be justified. Part of the justification may be that technology helps people do the things they already do more efficiently – preparing and disseminating lecture notes, for example, used to be done using type-writers and photocopiers, and can now be done using word processors and email.
But separately, there is a lot of pressure to demonstrate that technology can reform education – can make education happen in new and exciting ways.
So, the expenditure made in new technologies will generate pressure for educational reform.
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