Rethinking Technologies

Grounded on the assumption that the relationship between the arts and the sciences is dictated by technology, the essays in Rethinking Technologies explore trends in contemporary thought that have been changing our awareness of science, technology, and the arts.

"Among the many challenges facing public schooling in the United States is the often irrelevant usage of technology in the classroom - in ways that support the textbook and computer industries more than student learning and achievement. This primer reframes the longstanding debate about instructional technology in school classrooms and challenges the reader to think more critically and conscientiously about the fundamental communication and technological processes that mediate learning and ultimately define education. The primer offers educators at all levels a three-dimensional map for exploring the philosophical, pedagogical, and practical uses of technology to serve rather than subvert the public purposes of education in a democracy."--BOOK JACKET.

This essential reference for all students of architecture, design and the built environment provides a convenient single source for all the key texts in the recent literature on architecture and technology. The book contains over fifty carefully selected essays, manifestoes, reflections and theories by architects and architectural writers from 1900 to 2004. This mapping out of a century of architectural technology reveals the discipline's long and close attention to the experience and effects of new technologies, and provides a broad picture of the shift from the 'age of tools' to the 'age of systems'. Chronological arrangement and cross-referencing of the articles enable both a thematic and historically contextual understanding of the topic and highlight important thematic connections across time. With the ever increasing pace of technological change, this Reader presents a clear understanding of the context in which it has and does affect architecture.

Much of the discussion about new technologies and social equality has focused on the oversimplified notion of a "digital divide." Technology and Social Inclusion moves beyond the limited view of haves and have-nots to analyze the different forms of access to information and communication technologies. Drawing on theory from political science, economics, sociology, psychology, communications, education, and linguistics, the book examines the ways in which differing access to technology contributes to social and economic stratification or inclusion. The book takes a global perspective, presenting case studies from developed and developing countries, including Brazil, China, Egypt, India, and the United States. A central premise is that, in today's society, the ability to access, adapt, and create knowledge using information and communication technologies is critical to social inclusion. This focus on social inclusion shifts the discussion of the "digital divide" from gaps to be overcome by providing equipment to social development challenges to be addressed through the effective integration of technology into communities, institutions, and societies. What is most important is not so much the physical availability of computers and the Internet but rather people's ability to make use of those technologies to engage in meaningful social practices.

This volume seeks to offer a new approach to the study of music through the lens of recent works in science and technology studies (STS), which propose that facts are neither absolute truths, nor completely relative, but emerge from an intensely collective process of construction. Applied to the study of music, this approach enables us to reconcile the human, social, factual, and technological aspects of the musical world, and opens the prospect of new areas of inquiry in musicology and sound studies. Rethinking Music through Science and Technology Studies draws together a wide range of both leading and emerging scholars to offer a critical survey of STS applications to music studies, considering topics ranging from classical music instrument-making to the ethos of DIY in punk music. The book’s four sections focus on key areas of music study that are impacted by STS: organology, sound studies, music history, and epistemology. Raising crucial methodological and epistemological questions about the study of music, this book will be relevant to scholars studying the interactions between music, culture, and technology from many disciplinary perspectives.

Publisher description

Technology has shrunk the physical world into a "global village," where we all seem to be connected in an online community worldwide. Yet while we think of platforms such as Twitter and Facebook as accessible to all, in reality, these are commercial entities developed primarily by and for the Western world. Considering how new technologies increasingly shape labor, economics, and politics, these tools often reinforce the inequalities of globalization, rarely reflecting the perspectives of those at the bottom of the digital divide. This book asks us to reconsider "whose global village" we are shaping with the digital technology revolution today. Sharing stories of collaboration with Native Americans in California and New Mexico, revolutionaries in Egypt, communities in rural India, and others across the world, Ramesh Srinivasan urges us to reimagine what the Internet, mobile phones, or social media platforms may look like when considered from the perspectives of diverse cultures. Such collaboration can pave the way for a people-first approach toward designing and working with new technology worldwide that embraces the realities of communities too often relegated to the margins

The digital revolution in education is well under way, with more and more learners plugged into the online world. How can schools make the most of both the technology and the learning potential of today’s “born digital” students? In this new edition of their groundbreaking book, Collins and Halverson argue that new technologies have transformed our workplaces, our lives, and our culture and it is time we take the next step to transform learning—in and out of schools. The authors show how, over time, public schooling was so successful that it became synonymous with education. But new technologies risk making schools obsolete and this book explains why and how today’s educators, policymakers, and communities must adapt to provide all learners with access to the new learning tools of the 21st century. “Allan Collins and Richard Halverson are not by any means arguing that teachers or schools should go away. Rather, they are saying that they should open their doors and windows, connect to other real and virtual places, be crucial tour guides, and send their children on flights of fancy through our modern memory palaces.” —From the Foreword by James Paul Gee, Arizona State University “The most convincing account I’ve read about how education will change in the decades ahead—the authors’ analyses are impressive, fair-minded, and useful.” —Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of Education (from first edition)