This critical attitude and assessment is indeed important because, through our enthusiastic good intentions to improve communication instruction and enrich our students' educational experiences, we are in addition providing large numbers of students with forced introductions to a culturally sanctioned addiction, a dependence on increasingly complex, networked technologies. That addiction, as we all well know, can lead to exploitative relationships. The fee is buried in general tuition. There is a movement now initiated by several depts. If this passes, our open labs will lose funding.
Students have no input in the process.
This small anecdote illustrates how political, contextual, and hidden the dynamics of supporting our technical infrastructure can become. This presentation is based on interview and questionnaire research that began in the winter of 1995. First, I will provide a sketch of the substantial array of challenges that these facilities pose to students, teachers, technicians, and administrators in ES programs. Next, I will outline the potential instructional, curricular, professional, and institutional benefits that these respondents hoped technology-rich facilities would provide, benefits that act as a counter weight to the challenges listed previously. I will make the case that these teams, with their combined expertise and critical perspectives, have the potential to develop strategies for dealing ethically and creatively with our technical, culture-wide fantasies, with our will to technologize.