In an atmosphere of shrinking state funds for edu cation and the glistening power of information technology, the administrators of educational institutions, especially higher education, are investing heavily in the construction and increased use of distance learning classrooms. Yet, in this rush to be both economi cally streamlined and technologically advanced, few policy makers are inquiring into the educational bene fits actually proffered to the end users, that is, teachers and students. This article advances such an inquiry by revealing how (...) the equipment in such facilities explic itly or implicitly embodies, and thereby determines, pedagogical choices. Such "hardwired" pedagogy may enhance the type and amount of data flow, but it effectively restricts the options for teaching and learn ing on the part of both the teacher and the student. Furthermore, virtual classrooms functionally transfer parametric control of classroom interaction from the participants to the equipment and therefore to the technicians, accountants, bureaucrats, manufacturers, and engineers. (shrink)

The political contours of social actions appear not only in the relationships between cultural actors but in the artifacts that surround them. This is increasingly the case as digital technology becomes the vehicle for education. This article focuses on the rhetoric that accompanies such educational technology. All too often, both the hype and the criticism surrounding technology in education implicitly accept that digital machines and media represent the impending future. However, if technology is understood as the instantiation of enduring social (...) relations, then it must always represent the sociopolitical configurations of the past, however recent that past is. Seen in this light, technology does not drive change so much as it resists it. Technology becomes a tool of maintenance, not innovation. This article spins out how this might be the case and accompanies the arguments with concrete instances of how this is being played out in public schooling. (shrink)