Teaching the Socio-Technical Practices of Tomorrow Today
- Publisher:
- Information Sciences Reference (an imprint of IGI Global)
- Publication Type:
- Chapter
- Issue Date:
- 2009
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This chapter explores the challenges associated with teaching the principles of socio-technical systems in the
dynamic climate that characterizes work in today’s—and tomorrow’s—world. Avoiding a “socio-technical
gap” involves preparing the designers of tomorrow in such a way that they can anticipate society’s future needs
and technology’s future potential and prospective peril. By way of a narrative that draws on the author’s own
experiences teaching social informatics (SI) as part of an information studies degree program, this chapter
discuss how her own research perspective in relation to socio-technical and social networking systems coevolves
with the classroom experience. The case study offers examples of tutorial activities and assessments
to illustrate how the suggested approach to teaching and learning can be applied in an STS classroom.
Habits are useful but they can also be deadly. They are useful when the conditions in which they work are
predictable and stable. But what happens if and when the bottom falls out of the stable social world in and
for which we learn? Is it possible that learning itself—learning as we have come to enact it habitually—may
no longer be particularly useful? Could it be that the very habits that have served us so well in stable times
might actually become impediments to social success, even to social survival?
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