How has postmodernism been used in educational technology?
Traditionally, educational technology seems to advocate that there is one best way, whether process or product. The best process is supposed to be a systematic approach. The best product or medium is the current one: Today is it the WWW, yesterday it was the computer, last year it was the television. But surely there is no one best way, and there is no one master medium. Our field learned that long ago, for example when we moved to the idea of ‘media attributes’, or earlier when we accepted the concept of a continuum of media along a ‘cone’. The postmodern view is not frightening, is not leading society towards chaos, and is not suggesting that ‘every hue of every view’ is valid. But what postmodernism does do is to legitimize alternative discourses. It is important , indeed critical, that we explore our field and our potential to the educational enterprise through multiple-vision glasses, not just in one or two ways. Why am I a postmodernist? Because that is how I grew up. I was ‘marg
