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Logan Holder
Jessie Richards
Writing 2010-005
March 30, 2016

Contribution Paper: Cost and Technological Determinism

Campus Life
Technologies that were researched to improve campus life arent always cheap. As the
quality of the technology increases, the more students will have to pay to get that technology.
Campus life is supposed to be the innovative and a great learning environment. The cost is what
cuts off this demand for innovation. That is one of the worst parts of innovation of technologies.
The points that we look at in these articles are how the technologies improve the quality of
education and how they affect the cost of education. The technologies will converge with each
other, and all articles connect and agree with one another. In reviewing the literature on campus
technologies and education, I will show that both ideas relate and come together to one idea that
doesnt push against itself, and what is at stake in this conversation is how to improve
technologies to improve education. The terms we will talk about are blended learning,
technological determinism, and transition generation. Technological determinism is a very
complex term and needs further research, and we will describe it later.
Blended learning is learning through two paths being put together. The advancement of
technology has allowed learning to happen at home on the computer. Blended learning is
learning at home on the computer and on campus. Its a combination of physical contact and
communication through the computer. Technological determinism is defined as societys
technology drives the development of its culture and social structure. For an example,

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technological advancements for the iPhone have caused less physical contact and more contact
over the phone with apps such as Facetime, Skype, and others. Culture is what we live in today;
its something that is peculiar to the group that claims that culture. Culture is affected by
technological determinism in several ways. The drive to make new technology has affected our
cultures way of communication. That is technological determinism in a short sentence.
Transition generation currently is going on now. Its the transition from paper to electronic
documents. An example would be moving from a typewriter to a computer or from regular
handwritten documents to printed documents.
Some of the highlights that these articles talk about are the types of technology that will
improve the campus life and the technologies that will improve the education on campus. The
technologies that want to be developed will improve the education on campus. That is how these
ideas connect and coordinate with each other. Technology on campus and how technology will
affect education are the topics and the main clusters. The sub-topics are the costs of putting these
technologies into the campus and the system. I will look at how it will affect the education and
whether or not it will improve the campus enough to be profitable.
These clusters do not push against each other. They all connect on how technologies will
make a campus and education better. They pull together to make one idea on how to improve
campus life and the education process. All of the ideas are different of course, however, in the
end, they will come together to make one big idea on how to improve education. One of the
greatest things about school is where you live. If someone doesnt live in a pleasant environment,
how can they learn? That is why making a college campus better will improve the quality of the
learning environment which will promote the education of the student. The quality of campuses
is a big thing to the learning environment. If someone has an uncomfortable, small spaced, slow

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networked campus that hasnt been taken care of for a long time, it will produce a terrible
learning environment. If someone has a campus that is up to date on the networks and is taken
care of, it will make for a better learning environment. This divide or bridge is what make the
difference between major universities and their campus lifestyle. Technology is what sells the
mind of educator and student. The university that has the most on their land will look the best
and make the best students. This is the thought of students that are looking at universities.

Technological Determinism and Digital Divide

When we look at additional research to look for an answer to the question whether the
innovation of campuses will make costs of tuition go up. We watch the term technological
determinism and blended learning. We look at these two terms and how they are defined to
predict what will happen in the future of the innovation of campuses. When we look at the idea
of technological determinism, we will predict that innovation will rise. However, blended
learning is something that could reduce the cost of the innovations of technologies because if
technologies improve enough people wouldnt have to go all the way to campus to go to class.
However, this could impact the people who arent available to communicate or computers that
are required to use this innovation to save money. The term, digital divide rst appeared in a
series of reports by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA,
1995) that identied the gap between people who had access to telephones and those who did
not. (Qureshi, 216). This digital divide is one of the main arguments when it comes to whether
technological determinism is a good thing to happen, or if it is a bad thing that will happen. Like
I have said before, when you look at the iPhones and how fast they keep growing, we can see
that many people will keep spending money so they can have to fastest and the best phone on the

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market. This idea represents technological determinism well. However, it makes the digital
divide bigger because everybody cannot keep affording to buy the new iPhone that comes out.
Cost is the biggest issue with technologies that are coming out today. If you look how
technology keeps advancing, you see that technologies that were innovative five years ago, like
flip phones, cost nothing today. That is the downside of technological determinism. A college
campus cannot keep innovating after five years because it would cost too much. It would put a
growth rate on tuition. When you look at innovation, you have to look at the costs, effects and
drawbacks of students. In developing countries, people who do not have computers or the
Internet go to public-access computing (PAC) venues such as libraries, telecenters and Internet
cafes. (Qureshi, 217). Countries who have individuals who seek education but just cannot afford
the items that are needed to help students succeed. Libraries are one of the biggest things
required for studing and a students success. If there is not a library, where is the student going to
get a textbook or do research? They are not going to have access to so many things without one.
A solution that Qureshi has looked at was public venues like coffee shops with public computers
or libraries with public computers. However, in Qureshis research, they find that these venues
are used mostly for the persons welfare. They dont use it to do research; they use it for
shopping or social media. Social media is the biggest thing that they use these computers for.
After looking at the research that Qureshi has done, the computers provided by the coffee shops
or libraries are not put to the correct use that they were purchased for.
Technological determinism theory has a complexity that is difficult to see. This general
denition seems, on the face of it, reasonable enough; it is certainly a familiar common sense
account of social change. However, this general explanation is muddy and imprecise; using it
analytically requires greater precision about exactly what is being described (Oliver, 374).

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Oliver talks about technology being unquestioned because questions about the efficiency are
replaced by political and ethical questions the go back to the usage of the technology. If the
technologies efficiency is used correctly and is supposedly helping the environment or the
culture, it would be unethical or unreasonable politically to question it. Olivers article talks
about how social factors are effected by technology. Technological determinism is controlled by
the social factors in the culture or community that is making it move forward and keep
innovating. If someone take a look at todays society, they will see the social push for more
technology, more inventions, more innovations, and less cost. Society pushes for more, and we
cannot control the need. Technological determinism cannot be controlled because of societies
push for more technology. They want technologies that are more efficient or are greener than the
ones before them. In the mainstream culture, its not controllable. However, there are still some
societies that can control technologies. This society or culture is the Amish culture.
The Amish society may look like they have been left behind because they choose not to
have the technology that is available to them today. Coming from a society that is run by
technology, we may thing they are stupid for doing things the hard way, without the technology
of the modern age. They still have technology, just none from our age. The way the Amish live
controls technology and the theory of technological determinism. They havent innovated their
technologies for many of years. Amish believe that the new technologies of these days are evil
and corrupting. The Amish believe that the lines of technology are taking over our lives like it
has today. The Amish, however, use some technologies to help with them when they farm or
build a house. They completely are not left in the dark. They just use technologies that they can
control to an advancement of technology. For an example, they will not use phones because of
their constant advancement. They simple just dont believe in that kind of way. When you look

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at the belief and conclusion of the Amish thought, they control technology and technological
determinism. However, this control will only slow down technological determinism. You cannot
stop the movement of other cultures on one culture. Influential ways will find their way to the
Amish to make them innovate or move forward with technology just a little bit like they have
today. For an example, they moved from wagons to owning some trucks and cars. These little
movements of technology are still the movement of technological determinism. It is moving
slow. However, it is still making slow progress. Thus the idea of technological determinism
being a part of all cultures exists.

Innovation at the End

In conclusion, I looked at how these articles came together to make one idea of how to
improve the college campus and education system. Keith Kirkpatrick believed that improving
systems that check academic fraud (plagiarism) was the best way to improve education on a
college campus. Ken Law, Brian Bozell, and Marcia Layton Turner believe that improving the
quality of the campus would help improve education. Even those two articles have different ideas
on how to change to improve the quality of students education at major universities. However,
when you look at the innovation of technology or technological determinism, we can see that
there will always be a challenge to keep up with technology. It will always be on the rise because
people make products now so that they can innovate and build better products. The issue is the
cost, and the problems that change will cost. How are they looking at how these changes will
impact the future of cost to students? How will the universities look at how the costs and see if
its worth it to innovate and replace the technologies? These questions will require more research
because the sources I have collected dont answer these questions. John S. Daniel wrote an
article called, "Mega-universities and Knowledge Media." This article supports significant

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moves on the point of more research because it defines what mega-universities are. Daniel says,
"The mega-universities are large business enterprises. As well as selling a wide variety of
products to a large consumer population distributed all over their country and beyond, they also
have to organize an elaborate 'after-sales service' which involves multiple transactions with each
customer." (Daniel, 133). Daniel's article shows how universities are built on money. That is why
it is useful to understand what mega-universities are. Why does looking at technological
determinism matter? Why does the digital divide matter? I think it matters because to have
technological determinism and innovation you have to have money. Where this money comes
from is out of the pocket of students, and sponsors. One day, the sponsors will run out because if
you innovate every five years, that sponsor will run away screaming because the university will
have spent all of their money doing so. At the end of the theory of technological determinism, it
says that technology will run humanity and take over. We will end up like the movie, Terminator
or WALL-E. I use those two movies as a reference because, in one movie, technology completely
takes over and tries to destroy the human race. In the other movie, technology gets so advanced,
that we rely on it to live, move, and breathe. This makes the human race lazy, fat, and unable to
move around at our will. At the end of technological determinism, technology will control the
human race and its culture.
When you look at technological determinism and transition generations, youll find that
the transition generation is part of the definition of technological determinism. We transition
from the age without internet to the age with the internet and complex technologies like
computers. This is where technological determinism speeds up and comes into play. When we
come into the conclusion of technological determinism and our generation of technology om
campus. We will find that innovation will never stop. We take a look at the Amish culture and

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how they have put a slow to technological determinism by not taking part in the innovation of
the technologies and just dealing and making with of what they have. However, they still use
technologies to help them build or advance territory. They havent stopped innovation to a
complete stop; they have only slowed it down and slow as it can possible go without being left
too far behind. The Amish culture can deal with the slow of technology, the modern cultures
around the world cannot. Thats why the drive of society and the drive of innovation will keep
technological determinism moving forward at a quick rate. We look at the plans of innovating to
make a network system faster according to Brian Bozell, and we will see the costs shoot up.
Technological determinism wont stop in main cultures around the world. This also means that
the cost of items wont go down. They will be on a slow rise just like technological determinism
is today. This is one of the biggest issues that concerns students with tuition. Will the costs of
innovation increase tuition? We will just have to see if the major innovations in the future will
make tuition jump. I believe in technological determinism and that we cannot stop it. So I
conclude that we will keep paying for higher tuition. If you look at the examples that I have
given like the iPhone, youll see that the innovation and advancement have made them cost more
over time. There will be a cost to the innovation of technologies. Universities just have to decide
with they will pursue to make tuition and other costs more due to technological determinism.

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Works Cited
Bozell, Brian, and Ken Law. "Building Control Technologies: Campus BAS Upgrade."
ASHRAE Transactions 120.1 (2014): 1-7. Academic Search Premier. Web. 1 Mar. 2016
Oliver, M. "Technological Determinism In Educational Technology Research: Some Alternative
Ways Of Thinking About The Relationship Between Learning And Technology." Journal
of Computer Assisted Learning 27.5 (2011): 373-384. Academic Search Premier. Web.
18 Apr. 2016
Qureshi, S. (2014). Overcoming Technological Determinism in Understanding the Digital
Divide: Where Do We Go From Here? .Information Technology For Development, 20(3),
215-217. doi:10.1080/02681102.2014.930981
Daniel, John S. "Mega-universities and Knowledge Media." Google Books. Technology
Strategies for Higher Education, 1996. Web. 02 Mar. 2016.