Educatlonal systems among machines and networks

Abstract

The author discusses how information and communication technologies became the base of contemporaneous society's ideology, being pointed to as the solution for the main problems that are being confronted: violence, unemployment, development, education, health, etc. It considers the relation there is between new technologies and education, highlighting the importance of questioning the type of use and the foundations of virtual networks for education. It ernphasizes that virtual distance learning networks are incapable of promoting the critical and reflexive interaction the contact between students and teachers is able to estimulate, posing the risk of limiting the educational process to the pragmatic transmissíon of information. It also highlighis the changes that have been taking place in education regarding the teacher and student roles, the function of the book and of culture, as well as lhe relevance of the social movement´s use of technologies with actual educatíonal goals.