Open Access
Open Journal of Social Sciences, 2014, 2, 7-11
Published Online February 2014 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/jss
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jss.2014.22002
How to cite this paper Ferreira, N.S.C., et al. (2014) Educational Technology and Educational Management in the Higher
Education: New Ways of Forming Professionals. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 2, 7-11.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jss.2014.22002
Educational Technology and Educational
Management in the Higher Education: New
Ways of Forming Professionals
Naura S. C. Ferreira1, Monaliza E. O. Haddad2, Adriano A. Faria3
1Master and Doctorate Degrees in Education, Tuiuti University of Paraná, Curitiba, Brazil
2Learning and Development Institute, Araucária, Brazil
3Doctoral Program in Education, Tuiuti University of Paraná, Curitiba, Brazil
Email: nauraf@uol.com.br, monalizahaddad@uol.com.br, adriano@edusol.org.br
Received September 2013
Abstract
Discussing the importance of Educational Technologies is essential for building the Educational
Management in the Higher Education since it has a strong indication on the necessity of discussing
problems that involve the scientific-technological context and the social context. Aiming to under-
stand how the educational practice is dealt with and how it can add valuable contributions to the
challenge of searching for knowledge. With this premise, we present the problem: How should we
use the Information and Communication Technologies in Education for the Higher Education?
What is the role of the teacher in the Higher Education and how his/her networking discourse
contributes to create more symmetrical relations than the ones we have in a traditional educa-
tional context? Is the use of Information and Communication Technologies able to establish a new
way of coexisting with a world that strives to become more human, demanding new means of in-
tervention to humanize the relations? With these questions in mind, we developed a research with
the objective of analyzing the usage of educational technology in the Higher Education. Nowadays,
the Educational Technology has to be thought, learned and used as a resource and a mean to qual-
ify and humanize everyone. This research was carried out through considerations and investiga-
tions on the Research Line of “Public Policies and Educational Management” of the Post-Gradua-
tion program in Education of the Tuiuti University of Paraná/Brazil. From this research, we could
infer that using the Information and Communication Technologies in Education as a pedagogical
resource is necessary as a valuable “support” in forming the creative and critical thought when the
apprentice takes ownership of the theoretical-methodological and ethical-political basic prin-
ciples of Information and Communication Technology.
Keywords
Education; Higher Education; Information and Communication Technologies; Pedagogical
Resource
N. S. C. Ferreira et al.
8
1. Introduction
The real changes that occurred in the world of work and in the social relations as well as the science and tech-
nologies advances at the age of globalization, and the so called “Knowledge Society”, demand a thorough ex-
amination of the decisive role that Educational Technology plays in the Higher Education while forming quali-
fied and capable professionals for the professional practice and for displaying social responsibility. It also de-
mands the examination of the responsibilities and possibilities of applying the technology, the risks and chal-
lenges brought by this reality and the investigation on overcoming the risks, comprehending the need of ideas,
contents and values systematization as well as its appropriate use in Higher Education.
This project presents considerations developed from the research in the Research Line of “Public Policies and
Educational Management” of the Post-Graduation program in Education of the Tuiuti University of Paraná/
Brazil. These considerations aim to: a) use the Educational Technologies of Information and Communication in
Higher Education as a pedagogical resource that promotes in the student a conscience regarding these resources;
b) the role of teachers in Higher Education and their networking discourse contributing in the creation of more
symmetrical relations than the ones we have in a traditional educational context; c) the usage of Information and
Communication Technologies establishes a new way of coexisting with a world that strives to become more
human, demanding new means of intervention to create more humanized relations.
To investigate is to consider that the human formation of professionals of education, or any other professional
or even regular citizens, needs to incorporate all scientific and technological progress developed by men for the
good of all human kind.
2. A Contradictory Reality
The most remarkable characteristic of the working world in the beginning of this century is the global aspect. At
the same time that the Capitalism globalization occurs, “even considered as a civilizing process” [1], the world
of work globalization takes place. Within the scope of the global factory shaped under the new international di-
vision of labor and production, that is the transition from Fordism to Toyotism and the dynamics of the world
market extensively favored by the electronic technology, new forms and meanings of work demand new ways of
comprehending and new competences regarding the usage and the decisive role of Educational technology on
forming not only new capable professionals but also social responsible citizens. The “Knowledge Society”
enables the human being to “go forward” and become “astonished” with the possibilities of “going forward”,
even with all the contradictories contributions.
This way, economy globalization and productive restructuration, the macro strategic components that set the
flexible accumulation, establish a new model of economical “development” that in the last decades [2] have le-
veraged the role of Knowledge as a protagonist.
The growing integration of science and technology to the productive and social processes, working for the in-
ternationalized capital accumulation process, sets an apparent contradiction: the more the tasks are simplified,
the more will be the knowledge required from the worker, and therefore expanding their education to the Con-
tinuing Education.
The connection between education and work is now seen through the amount of knowledge and higher cogni-
tive skills, since the Taylorism/Fordism and its different ways of having the work done, be it through physical
strength, hands or specific abilities that demanded fine coordination and visual acuity.
Changes from electronics to microelectronics bases, or from rigid procedures to flexible ones have reached all
areas of social and productive life. In the last decades, it has become essential the improvement of cognitive and
behavioral capabilities such as analysis, synthesis, forming relations, responsiveness and creativity facing un-
known situations, clear and accurate communication, interpretation and use of different forms of language, abil-
ity to work in groups, process management, determining priorities, criticizing answers, validating procedures,
pressure endurance, facing permanent changes, allying logical reasoning to creative intuition and continuously
studying [3].
Rapid changes have profoundly affected the men, the environment and social institutions. Especially these
suffer a huge impact caused by the use of new technologies that, usually, change habits, values and tradi-
tions that seemed unchangeable [4].
N. S. C. Ferreira et al.
9
Within this context, institutions, such as universities, are challenged to follow and adapt to environmental
changes provoked by the application of new technologies usually implemented by the private sector, and they
are challenged to produce technologies that will guarantee their graduates the abilities to an excellent profess-
sional performance.
This new reality requires higher qualifications in any professional area or service, making educational needs
each time bigger. Those who do not follow technological changes are prematurely inept for work.
All those transformations happen so fast, and they have changed, at the same speed, all determinations in the
world, such as the violence, a determinant element during diurnal life. As the ICT (Information and Communi-
cation Technology) has given so much rapidity to all human kind, everyone’s frame reference has changed.
Everyone lives, feels, thinks and acts in high speed, violently, disrespecting all human forms of labor and social
coexistence. We live under the violence of communication speed; we live under the violence caused by the
transnationality of thinking, feeling and acting from all cultures, shaking those very cultural and their local so-
cial values, “transmuting” the traditional forms of existence production and social organization. We live at a
time when “everything happens because everything is allowed and does not have any value anymore”. Every-
thing is allowed! Within this amorality, violence takes place in its most degrading forms, affecting not only in-
dividuals but families, social institutions and nations.
This new international setting that intensifies the violence as something regular, demands from us rethinking
about modernity in its philosophical, scientific and artistic implications as well as rethinking citizen and profess-
sional’s formation. It is also necessary to examine the responsibilities and possibilities of technology employ-
ment within the purpose for what it has been created, and this means a resource and instrument to personal qua-
lification, for the good of human kind.
It is necessary to examine the risks and challenges that we face with this new reality to conceive and plan
more committed ways to build a fairer and humanized world. It is also necessary to examine how to overcome
the risks effectively using ideas, contents and values systematization.
The contradictory reality, with all scientific and technological growth at the same time, present us with all
possibilities of living and it forces us with all forms of competitive individualism that awakes the rivalry, hate,
revenge and many other wicked feelings.
As an example we have the television that, paradoxically, has the power to conceal at the same time that
shows, to inform in a way that goes inadvertently or that seems insignificant, or even to elaborate the informa-
tion, so it takes a completely different meaning from reality, it has the power to mask the reality according to the
interests of those who own the channel.
Journalists have particular lensesthrough which they see some things and do not see others, and what
they see, they perceive it in a special way. They select and soon elaborate on what they have selected [5].
And, in this dis(order) of things that we live nowadays, children, teenagers, adults and elderly, professionals
and “people with no jobs” also live with information and marketing “bombing” stunning minds and shuffling
thoughts, feelings and actions, leading to chaos of “fantasies” and contradictorily, “illusions”, “hopes” and
“hopelessness”.
It is important not only to collect information, but to know how to process all those information critically, pre-
paring for the true freedom exercise that is only possible to achieve through critical knowledge. By doing it,
people will be free because they will know how to choose; and they will be able to choose only when they criti-
cally understand the alternatives because without options, there is no freedom; and without analysis, the freedom
exercise is not really available. In order to achieve that, it is necessary to know how to believe and how to sus-
pect and mainly how to investigate reality.
3. The Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Education as a
Pedagogical Resource
Educational Technology in Higher Education needs to be aware about the theoretical comprehension of the
teaching methodologies in relation to the global social practices, but also considering the evaluation of commu-
nication theories and the development of new cutting-edge technologies. For this, it must be considered the in-
formation and communication technologies as a pedagogical resource, by using them inside schools and univer-
sities in a scientific and critical way or by putting its critical power into practice in order to analyze the existent
N. S. C. Ferreira et al.
10
issues and, also, study it with colleagues and students, intending to offer new alternatives and more conscious
possibilities for interpretation and decision making.
The Educational Technology is understood as a knowledge corpus that, basing upon scientific subjects that
focus the teaching practices, incorporates all the means as possible and gives answers for the accomplish-
ments of the social-historical contexts that give significance, assuming another meaning in the contempo-
raneity [6].
The current discussions about educational technology may strengthen the ideological-political and ethical-
philosophical concerns such as criticism and overcome the technicality marks that were developed in the forma-
tion of citizens and professionals in the last decades in Brazil. By analyzing the historical point of view, for a
long period the definition of the educational technology was combined to technocratic purposes that diminished
the human beings and their professional formation downward into a mere training of “neutral” competences that
“molded” them as someone abstracted of the real social and human issues.
The technology not only allows acting on the nature, and should, but also mainly permits thinking about it.
Differently from what was conceived during the technicality period, the educational technology needs to be
thought, learned and used nowadays as a resource to qualify people, aiming to overcome the violence that de-
stroys the humanity. According to it and making critics regarding the overcoming process, [7] affirmed that this
kind of power is immeasurable since it possesses all the special effects in the most different ways of its produc-
tion and that, because of it, seduces and “creates” opinions and minds according to “mercantile interests”, “au-
dience interests” or “wicked interests” without respecting and preserving the different ages. It “orientates”, but
at the same moment disorientates, people into the most chaotic directions.
It is up to the school and education the act of assuming the role and the real responsibility to learn and manage
technologies, on both the information and the communication, presupposing to clarify and help to perceive the
essential and the superfluous. With this in mind, it is important to enable the most conscious and wisest deci-
sion-making, establishing communication processes even more participative and richer in the daily construction
of a more humanized, worthiest and happiest life.
The usage of information and communication technologies in education as a pedagogical resource in not only
necessary but it is a valuable “support” for the formation of critical and creative thoughts when the apprentice
takes ownership of the theoretical-methodological and ethical-political fundamental principles of the informa-
tion and communication technologies. By knowing the process in which this evolution started and its following
development, considering its constituents, its working procedures and with whom it is developed, its conse-
quences and implications, can positively contribute to raise, in the learner, consciousness for using these re-
sources. It also creates an audience that does not exist when using other means.
The school and education relationcomprehended as “mediation that takes place among the social practices”
with the communication means, need to go beyond the formation of the critical receptor as it occurs, currently,
at homes or in all the places where people live or work with these technologies. The relation of the school and
education with the information and communication technologies needs to be based on the awareness of devel-
oping a discerning relation in the user with the communication mean.
In this way, the compromise and the pedagogical work need to overcome the usage of these means as aux-
iliary resources for the teaching process, observing its purposes that is frequently fulfilled with the change of the
“representation” for the “capability”, underusing the unexpected potential of the representation chosen and dis-
torting the reality intended to focus.
Known as a resource, due to the theoretical-methodological and ethical-political basic principles, the informa-
tion and communication technologies can become a valuable pedagogical resource for an integral formation of
children and adolescents, and also for the continuing formation of adults and professionals.
These information and communication technologies are valuable resources for networking environments and
communications among teachers, giving the possibility to update themselves, share experiences, create informa-
tive materials and theoretical improvements altogether. Researches and tangible experiences proved that the role
of teachers in Higher Education and their networking discourse contribute in the creation of more symmetrical
relations than the ones from a traditional educational context, since they work in a wider universe of data and
information. Therefore, their communication occurs, consequently, in a more competent and wider way.
For this reason, when used in a wise way and for the specific purpose of its creation and development, the in-
formation and communication technologies are contributing for the evolution of knowledge and humanity.
N. S. C. Ferreira et al.
11
4. Conclusions
The usage of Information and Communication Technologies in Higher Education establishes a new way of
coexisting with a world that strives to become more human, demanding new means of intervention to create
more humanized relations.
Technology takes part in the development of the human history. With this in mind, technology takes part in
the cultural heritage of society conjunct. It is, contradictorily, an element of power, of social control, of domina-
tion, not only from central or peripheral countries, as well as inside the teaching institutions and in the conjunct
of the society. It is established for social conditions, collective strength, cultural traditions and political options.
Culture, in its anthropological sense, is understood as a conjunct of meanings or intellectual, ethical, es-
thetical, social, technical, mythical, behavioral types of information that characterize a social group [8].
We can only understand and work the technological productions with this historical-political and social-his-
torical comprehension. According to this thought, [9] argue that:
Communication Technologies are implements in which man builds the representation and, therefore, it is
mentally incorporated later on, becoming internalized. Hence, considering our thought systems the creation
of this internalized mediation process developed by/in our culture.
It is important to reinforce the dimension of citizen’s education inside universities and in society. For this, it is
necessary to combine all the technologies in the framework of educational goals regarding the political, ethical,
social, pedagogical and didactical dimensions. Moreover, developing our criticism strength and relative auton-
omy, revaluing the learning process productions, taking into consideration that these productions are not apart
from the knowledge and power relations inside educational institutions, reinforcing the ideas of conceiving,
creating, making and thinking about the process and, also, valorizing the production and the product as well.
The human formation of professionals of education, or any other professional, inside universities needs to in-
corporate all scientific and technological progress developed by men for the good of all human kind. Therefore,
not only the technical instruments are needed, but also the purposes and the ethical-political compromises to so-
cialize knowledge and information in order to humanize the world.
Actually, this real technology is the frame to create competent and qualified professionals for the exercise of
good citizenship. Since the usage of the information and communication in education as a pedagogical resource
can not only be classified as necessary, but also considered as a valuable “support” in the formation of critical
and creative thoughts when the apprentice takes ownership of the theoretical-methodological and ethical-politi-
cal basic principles of the information and communication technologies.
References
[1] Ianni, O. (1999) The world of work. In: Freitas, M.C., Ed., The future reinvention (2nd Edition) (In Portuguese) Cortez,
São Paulo.
[2] Harvey, D. (1992) The condition of postmodernity (In Portuguese). Loyola, São Paulo.
[3] Kuenzer, A. (1999) The formation policies: Constitution of a residual teacher identity. Education & Society (In Portu-
guese), 20, 163-183. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0101-73301999000300009
[4] Ferreira, N.S.C. (1998) Education technology and the professional in Brazil: His or her formation and the possibility of
human culture. Educational Technology Magazine (In Portuguese), 26, 141.
[5] Bourdieu, P. (1997) On television (In Spanish). Anagrama Editorial, Barcelona.
[6] Ferreira, N.S.C. (1999) Education technology and the professional in Brazil: His or her formation and the possibility of
human culture. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 19, 206-209. Sage Science Press, Thousand Oaks, London,
New Delhi. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/027046769901900304
[7] Apple, M. (1989) Teachers and Texts (In Spanish). Paidós/MEC, Barcelona.
[8] Sacristán, G.J. (1994) Dilemmas and options. In Pedagogys Notebooks (In Spanish). 225, Madrid, 8-14.
[9] Coll, C., Palácios, J. and Marchesi, A. (1995) Psychological development and education: Special educative necessities
and school education (In Portuguese). Artes Médicas, Porto Alegre.