Assessing network technologies for learning

Use of communication technologies is central to designing for networked learning. This chapter offers a general scheme for thinking critically about technologies employed in networked learning. While not directly treating questions in ethics, the scheme is based on three theories of ethics. It is demonstrated how this scheme can help us think critically about aspects of networked learning: its digital platforms (such as Facebook), one of its institutions (such as a library) and its relevance for making the practice of classroom teaching flourish rather than flounder under the influence of digitally mediated social networks. The first of the three elements in the scheme draws on the ethical theory, consequentialism. This theory evaluates actions according to their outcomes, and stresses that we think carefully about the actual effects of our technologies. The second, based on Illich’s notion of convivial technologies, takes autonomy to be a central concern when thinking about network technologies. The concept of autonomy features as one of the key concepts in deontological approaches to ethics. Finally, we briefly explore Borgmann’s appeal to virtues in his account of focal practices and how they can be either supported or challenged by technologies. In this way, the three dominant ethical theories are brought to bear on examples of networked learning.