Conclusion Using Metaphor Appropriately

In this book, we have explored many different metaphors, and no doubt some will have been more successful than others. The metaphors have focused on different aspects of educational technology, with the online pivot arising from the COVID-19 pandemic being a recurring theme. Before considering the nature of metaphors used in this book, then, let us consider how we might approach ed tech in its more central, pivotal role. As I have argued, higher education as a system needs to reflect on the lessons from the online pivot and develop a means of improving its overall resilience without relying on unsustainable expectations among those working within it. Developing an approach to ed tech that promotes its central role while maintaining an appropriately critical and ethical stance to its use will be key to developing this resilience.

One way of thinking about this is to imagine that you are in charge of a fund to procure educational technology or, if you prefer, responsible for such a budget at your institution. What would be your principles or criteria for determining which ones to procure? From the analysis in this book and the lessons that we can draw from the metaphors, following is an attempt at defining such an approach.

Treat ed tech implementation like research. Start with definite research hypotheses, such as “implementing this will improve student retention by 5%.” Developing such hypotheses will both focus attention on what the technology can do for students and inform the institution if it is actually realizing these aims. In the sections on “Blockchain and Alchemy” and “The Ed Tech Rapture,” I argued that often claims made about technology are couched in terms of fear or revolution. Developing a more practical evidence-based approach acts as an antidote to much of this rhetoric.

Consider social impacts of technology. Ask questions such as where does this technology come from? What will be the impacts on students and educators? Technology does not exist in a social vacuum, and, as the section on “Castell Coch and the Lure of Ed Tech” illustrates, there is a strong appeal in education to many technology companies, so investigating the motives is important. The “VAR and Learning Analytics” section emphasizes the human element in education, and the impacts that technology can have on behaviour, attitude, and satisfaction are significant considerations.

Track the data implications. Related to the previous point, questions that all institutions should ask about technology pertain to data, such as what data does the institution generate? Who owns the data? How will the data be used?

Avoid hype and question metaphors. The chapter on “Ed Tech Criticism” focused on how metaphor and language are used to frame the contexts of solutions. As soon as anyone mentions disruption, revolution, transformation, and so on, suspicions should be raised. To return to the first item on this list, the use of such terms is usually a disguise for not having a clear, testable, and therefore falsifiable benefit.

Focus on achievable goals within a year. Related to the above, if the technology is capable of an improvement, then it should be demonstrable within a year. It might be modest at this stage, but some initial findings will be detectable.

Avoid inverse investment scrutiny. Ed tech often suffers from an inverse scrutiny problem. If an educator wants to try something small scale and experimental with one class, then she has to justify every aspect of it. If the institution wants to invest millions of dollars, then vague goals and rhetoric are sufficient. This should be flipped around, as I argued in the section “Rewilding Ed Tech,” and small-scale experiments—lightweight and without some of the testing constraints that I am listing here—should be encouraged. Institutional structures should allow for the type of guerrilla research set out in the section “Hussites and Guerrilla Research.” Conversely, large-scale investments need to be clear about what they intend to achieve and why.

Give educators and learners agency. Tools that help educators to teach more effectively or in different ways and thus help their students will be received with more enthusiasm than those that seek to make them redundant. Technology that reduces the role of an educator or makes teaching feel less worthwhile is a losing proposition from the start. Similarly, structures and technologies that give agency and control to students can aid their sense of engagement in the educational process.

Talk in educational terms. Students are not customers or data points. Learning is not a marketplace transaction. Much of this language is transferred from the technology sector, for example with Uber-type approaches to education. Ed tech projects should communicate in a language that is meaningful to students and educators.

Address sustainability and reproducibility. With significant investment and attention, it is always possible to gain some benefit. It is worth asking if that effect will still be present 5 years from now and for different students. There is a caveat, though; if you are targeting a specific group, for example students with disabilities, then it does not need to be applicable to all learners.

Appreciate student diversity. Not all learners are the same. What works for some will be despised by others, what is easy for one student will be a barrier to another with a different set of needs, and what is helpful in one place is interfering in another. As in the section “VLE/LMS,” there needs to be a balance between allowing diversity and experimentation while maintaining robust systems for students.

Reward appropriate work. Often a technology-related approach will succeed on a small scale, and the credit will be given to the technology, but it arises in fact from a substantial amount of hidden labour. As the section “Hidden Labour and Hunter-Gatherers in Open Practice” highlighted, effort is required to bring to the surface, recognize, and reward such labour, particularly as it relates to care and support.

Recognize educational technologists. One common complaint among educational technologists is that often universities don’t know quite what to do with them. If you look at where learning technology units are placed in organizational structures, then this uncertainty is highlighted: sometimes they are aligned with the library, other times they are part of IT, or within the Faculty of Education, or perhaps under the direct aegis of a Vice Principal. As technology is increasingly viewed as the means by which strategic change is realized, and its significance has increased, where such units sit and what they do are subject to political, financial, and tactical changes by senior management. Learning technology units often perform a strange mix of functions, and this varies across different institutions, so there is no agreed structure. In some institutions, they are service units, responsible for ensuring things such as lecture capture and VLE work. In others, they might also have a role in designing learning, or researching new technology, or being experts in pedagogy, or undertaking staff development in technology. The chapter on “Ed Tech as an Undiscipline” highlighted its diverse nature and different approaches to it, but trusting members of the unit, giving them stability, and involving them in decisions are ways to address the issue of rootlessness.

Know your metaphors. Finally, I hope that this book has raised the significance of metaphors when approaching the area of ed tech. Fundamentally, how people conceive of the relationship between education and technology will be couched in metaphors. It is worth raising them explicitly, including your own. Often they are unacknowledged, for example with the lecture as a model for online education. In turn, using new metaphors can generate new insights into and understandings of ed tech.

Metaphors are a means of approaching each of these recommendations. In this book, a range of such metaphors has been proposed. Undoubtedly, they will not be the metaphors that you would have chosen. I am not an expert scholar in subjects as diverse as Welsh history, Hussite rebellion, hunter-gatherer anthropology, or rewilding ecology, but I hope to have given these subjects sufficient details (though not drowning them in excessive details) to be useful as metaphors and enough depth to be respectful to the topic. Experts in these subjects undoubtedly will be able to point to simplifications or absences that would change or invalidate the metaphors. I accept this problem and apologize to those experts, but I would argue that the metaphors are still useful and valid for most readers. The diversity of metaphors in this book is an attempt to demonstrate that almost anything can be a metaphor, although not necessarily a useful one. The range is also intended to highlight that, for those working in ed tech, often they will have to work with people from different disciplines. Using metaphors from their own disciplines can improve engagement with, and understanding of, ed tech, and hopefully some of the metaphors in this book will provide inspiration for such an approach. My intention in this book is to reveal some insights into ed tech and to highlight the power of metaphors (and language more broadly) in how we shape our relationships with it. If you accept my contention at the start of the book that ed tech, particularly since the pandemic, will play a central role in how higher education will be realized in the future, then developing tools for thinking about it, questioning its role, assessing the motives of those behind it, and deploying it for the benefit of learners will be increasingly important for everyone involved in education.

Metaphors are powerful tools, but that does not mean that they are always beneficial. They should be approached with caution. I set out a number of examples of how metaphors have been used to frame the problems of education to the benefit of interested parties. In addition to this dubious deployment of metaphors, they can exclude people. Metaphors often gain their power from a shared understanding of the base domain. However, this can also be a drawback to their use. For example, if I use a metaphor of a children’s television program that I watched as a child, then it would appeal to those who remember that program but exclude those who are too young or from different cultural backgrounds. In my selection of metaphors, it is impossible to remove the self from their influence and range. If you live in Kenya or Fiji, say, then undoubtedly there will be metaphors related to local customs, food, entertainment, politics, or geography that will be more powerful for people in that context. This is both the power and the issue with metaphors. As Loveless (2019, p. 13) puts it, “all I can hope is that what is missing does not overshadow what is present, and that the claims at the heart of this book come across with respect and care.”

In this book, different types of metaphors have been used and put to different purposes, including

• a means of thinking about the deployment of new technology (e.g., “VAR and Learning Analytics”);
• where we should exercise caution about the motives of proponents (e.g., “Castell Coch and Ed Tech Investment”);
• how a problem is framed to suit those with a particular agenda (e.g., “Education Is Broken”);
• the nature of educational technology as a field (e.g., “Digital Mudlarking”);
• the nature of open practice (e.g., “Hidden Labour and Hunter-Gatherers in Open Practice”);
• how research can be conducted and shared (e.g., “Hussites and Guerrilla Research”);
• how to approach the impact of external events such as the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., “Digital Resilience”); and
• a method for rethinking online pedagogy (e.g., “Rhizomes”).

If any of these purposes is relevant to your practice, then I would argue that metaphors provide a means for working through the complex issues surrounding each of them. They might not provide a perfect solution, but they do offer a “mental sandpit” in which to explore issues from different perspectives. Given the central role that ed tech will play in much of higher education, developing this skill will help to improve our relationships with it, and I hope that this book goes a little way toward aiding that. Ed tech is not going away, but that doesn’t mean that we are powerless before it. Perhaps most of all I hope that what the metaphors in this book have illustrated is that it is possible to be creative and imaginative in our relationships with technology. Particularly during the pandemic, this relationship often has been reduced to the utilitarian and pragmatic. Although they are important considerations, there is also room for creativity, excitement, and even enjoyment in how we think and therefore deploy technology in education. Metaphors provide an alternative way of approaching technology beyond the demands of spreadsheets, budgets, and roadmaps that allows for greater flexibility and freedom in how we conceive of its implementation. Ultimately, how ed tech is developed, used, and questioned will be essential for its humane implementation.