New teacher functions in cyberspace - on technology, mass media and education

Abstract

Information technology allows the education system to do its job in new ways.  Conceptions of what it means to be educated are changing both for teachers and for students.  A teacher’s professional duties are not limited to acting as a disseminator of knowledge and facilitating learning processes for the student.  Teachers must also relate their position to new constructions of time and space.  However, these new constructions of what it is to be an actor in time and space mean that some of the functions that have as a matter of course been assembled in the person of the teacher have been displaced into other positions.  Information technology exposes the teacher’s performative choice in how teachers act in certain situations, which intensifies reflexivity.  This article is about how teachers must meet increasing expectations to perform on the premises of mass media and how this displaces the premises for educational practice.  Specific examples will be provided from a situation in the master’s program in media and ICT.