Vec-Tech:

Educational technology, gamified pedagogy, and vectoralist control in K-12 education

Abstract

Educational technology in K-12 education is at a crossroads. There continues to be a push to technologize classrooms, but the question is: who is benefiting from this technologization? In this paper, I use Christo Sims’ Disruptive Fixation to examine how technologized spaces and games-based learning privilege a certain type of student while disregarding others. Additionally, I examine how the apparatus of educational technology that is labouring as “disruptions” to old pedagogy in fact entrench disparities between students. Power structures that exist between teachers, students, ed-tech boosters, and implementors tow a line where teachers are little more than middle-managers: technology is foisted on them, and, with little support, they are expected to implement technology and games-based learning into curricula. Students are expected to understand and use technology, and, in theory, this ‘interruption’ to old pedagogy will inspire new ways of learning and prepare students to be agile, adequate knowledge production workers in an ever-changing, continually-technologizing world.