Damijan Štefanc

Damijan Štefanc, PhD, is Associate Professor of Didactics and Curriculum Theories at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. His professional and research interests include knowledge assessment, curriculum planning in general education, the null curriculum and the impact of modern technologies on institutional education.

 

PREDAVANJE

Technological Challenges of Modern General Education: What Requires Serious Reflection and Professional and Societal Consensus?

It is a simple fact that the field of education is – as is the case for all other (sub)systems of society – subject to the increasingly pronounced impact of technologisation and digitisation. However, we seem to have a rather ambivalent, perhaps even paradoxical attitude towards these influences. On the one hand, we encourage them, believing that digital tools and solutions can contribute to improving the quality of teaching and learning, as demonstrated, among other things, by the abundant systemic funding of projects, reforms and investments promoting and leading to greater digitisation; and on the other hand, there is a growing tendency towards a radical rejection of modern computer-based technologies in the school environment, as these technologies are thought to have a negative impact on young people’s educational formation. My talk will develop the thesis that controlling the introduction of modern technologies into the school and classroom space depends significantly on whether we in today’s society are prepared to undertake some serious reflection on what we as a society expect from general education and how we envisage a generally educated person in the 21st century. What knowledge should a generally educated person have in the present day, what habits and what character formation should he or she have? And within this context, how do we imagine the position and role of the teacher as a significant other and as a subject of knowledge? These answers, combined with the answers to key questions about the effects of digital technologies on the health and development of children and youth, should be the basis for judgements and decisions about which technologies are legitimate to include in the processes of education, in what ways and to what extent.