The warrant for constructivist practice within educational technology

Educational technology is an instantiation of technical rationality. Technical rationality depends on an objectivist epistemology and a representational model of mind. Currently, a growing number of practitioners in the field of educational technology consider themselves constructivists. Because their epistemological position conflicts with that of technical rationality, these practitioners must currently find a warrant for their practice outside the field. However, a warrant for a strong form of constructivism (enactive constructivism) can be located in recent developments in systems theory, one of the foundational pillars of educational technology. These developments have the potential to provide practitioners a philosophical mooring within the field itself. One of these developments, autonomous systems theory, with its rejection of the representational model of mind, is described, and implications of its application to educational technology are discussed.

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