New Book John Dowd (2016) Educational Ecologies: Toward a Symbolic-Material Understanding of Discourse, Technology, and Education. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

New Book

John Dowd (2016)

Educational Ecologies: Toward a Symbolic-Material Understanding of Discourse, Technology, and Education. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Given digital technology’s expansion of environments that teaching and learning take place, this book seeks to elucidate how both discourses and technologies themselves impact our understandings and practices of higher education. Additionally, I show how current educational movements centered primarily on new technologies are situated within broader ideological relationships among teaching, learning, notions of progress, technology, and work. I then move to analyze various strains of the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) educational movement and the primary discourses that fund them. I argue that despite the opportunities for positively transforming higher education, many iterations of the DIY movement ultimately fall short when understood through the rhetorics of neutrality, determinism, and entrepreneurialism. Thus, rather than a wholesale rejection or celebration of educational technology, it is increasingly vital that we reflect upon which changes make sense and which require adjus!
 tment.

“In this highly pertinent work, John Dowd reveals how the organizational dynamics of our symbolic-material environments have gained a foothold in the intersection of discourse and technology. With great precision and clarity, he provides a robust systematic framework that details the technological changes that confront higher education and contemporary culture. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the complex and nuanced relationships between discourse, technology, and culture.” —Corey Anton, Grand Valley State University, former president of the Media Ecology Association

“In this artfully crafted book, Dowd sets his sights on the pretensions, promises, and perils of recent innovations in higher education. Using the conceptual lens of ‘ecologies of action,’ Dowd provides a robust and profoundly engaging critique of the symbolic-material complex—the words and world—that shape contemporary developments in both teaching and learning in the twenty-first century. A must-read for anyone interested in diagnosing the current crisis in higher education or predicting its future opportunities.” —David J. Gunkel, Northern Illinois University