One issue that I don't think we probably talk about enough when it comes to using technology for educational purposes is what the effect is of asking students to use particular software packages, especially commercial software packages? When we choose textbooks, I suppose that we don't worry about the "brand" behind them so much as we worry about the content of the books themselves. I hope this is the case when we decide on what software to use.
I'm not, however, sure that this is the case insofar as many of our decisions are made for us by the institutions in which we are working. For example, the fact that we are conducting our workshops in the Arc lab means that we do not effectively have the option of using, for example, Firefox as our web browser or OpenOffice as our office suite.
Is there an ethics to asking (or not asking) students to use PowerPoint? Are we willing to avoid commercial software altogether and rely on less ubiquitous and (sometimes) less-supported open-source software? (more…)
