Technological Determinism in Virtual Education

The technology around us that has developed over the recent years has made communication and the transportation of information exponentially increase to a rate where the access to information is instantaneous. Computer-mediated instruction on higher education can be seen as a positive impact to the very busy and vastly changing world that we are living in. This is due to the fact that it provides a personal and efficient user interface to keep up with our fast-paced lives, helping students succeed in higher education. The reason computer-mediated instruction on education is a positive is due to the idea of functionalism, which states essentially that this media used in virtual education serves a purpose and is useful in today’s educational society. One could counter that point and say that this takes away from human interaction and could decrease the amount of learning going on between professor and student, however, I believe that in today’s world the student needs to be more independent and cannot always access the teacher. Therefore, this does help the student learn and succeed in higher education settings by providing immediate access to content and information about the class.

Computer-mediated instruction on higher education could be a result of technological determinism as well, which states that the media causes changes in society and culture. The technology that exists creates these fast-paced lives and makes life more efficient, as explained before, but that changes society and culture by creating the need to keep up with these changes at the same time. That is why virtual education could be seen as a result of what society has created, and agrees with the fact that it is a result of technological determinism, emphasizing its current help to society. It also coincides with technological determinism’s ideal that media now substitutes as storytellers, teachers, and even parents.

Virtual education on higher education is an innovation and result of a need; the critical mass states that there needs to be a minimum number of people for it to be effective, and mass distributing it to multiple universities across the world fills that need. This branches from the idea of reinvention, which emphasizes the fact that technology is so flexible and is always being redesigned to serve the user. These interfaces stem from the internet, which stems from computers, so these technologies build upon each other’s successes in society and, once again, serve a functional purpose to help make everyday life easier. Virtual education on higher education can be seen as a positive to the vastly changing world we live in.