There are those who instantly reject the concept of postmodernism. Some claim that it is anarchistic. Some claim that it is counter-productive. Some claim that it destroys the logical, scientific mind set of contemporary society and replaces it with a vision of chaos. Some claim that it is philosophically unsound, because it revels in relativism. Thus a recent article in the prestigious Encyclopedia of Educational Research, sixth edition says boldly:

A final group of philosophers of education and educational theorists, categorized as postmodernists, have reacted strongly to the foundationalist urge and reject it with varying degrees of ferocity. ...From the fact that observation is theory laden -- that foundationalism is false -- they draw the extraordinary inference that subjectivism is true and that knowledge is relative to time place and culture. (Erickson, p xxx, Encyclopedia of Educational Research).

The quotation above is remarkable in several ways. First, the reliance on rhetoric clearly gets in the way of an objective comment. Words like "reacted strongly" , "ferocity" and "extraordinary" provide a curious bias to the text. Second, if one extrapolates phrases from the rhetoric, one can question the truth value of the statements. The author in a throw-away phrase argues against the statement that "subjectivism is true." Read alone, one must ask why not? Surely it is true that humans are subjective and that this has a powerful effect on how we read a text. "Knowledge is relative to time place and culture." Again is this often not so? The value of a subject varies depending upon context.

But what is important here is to illustrate the vehemence of the typical argument against postmodernism. The critics wish nothing less than to discredit postmodernism as the root problem of the end of the twentieth century. The final blow, when the above arguments fail to convince, is to argue that postmodernism is nothing more than neo-nazi philosophy and radical feminism in disguise.

Yet, the critics needn't worry. Postmodernism is not an ideology which one buys into such as Marxism or even Behaviorism. Postmodernism is described by Jean Francois Lyotard as "a condition." It is a condition of contemporary society, and it is a condition which many now think has been caused by technology. If that is so, then educational technologists are part of that condition. Charles Newman writes "Post-modern means the first culture in history totally under the control of twentieth century technology." The significance of that statement must have implications for educational technologists and what we do.

You don’t have to like postmodernism, but you do have to know it exists. Quite simply, if you think that the world is troubled by chaos, multiple meanings, lack of direction, uncertainty, irony, and confusion, then you have encountered the postmodern condition. Fortunately there probably is a remedy for this condition. But the first step comes in recognizing the symptoms. This chapter will identify six postmodernisms, or six symptoms of the postmodern condition. See if you can recognize any of them in the contemporary classroom.

Two additional caveats are necessary before we look at the six symptoms. First, our focus will be on the last fifty years, which shall be, for convenience, divided into modernism and postmodernism. Second, the examples are blatantly Canadian. American readers may not empathize with these examples, or in some cases may not even understand the examples, or may not recognize the power of the "Canadian" issues under discussion. If that happens, you are experiencing the powerlessness of a displaced minority voice, struggling to be heard. In other words, the examples are intentional.

Here now are six postmodernism looking for an author (a situation which the postmodernism will immediately recognize as impossible, and therefore totally realistic.

The modern classroom spoke with voice of the teacher and the voice of the textbook. Most often, there was nothing else. The role of the student was to absorb both voices. Usually, the voice of authority was that of the textbook, with the teacher in the hermeneutic role of interpreter. (The last four sentences might equally be written in the present tense, since arguably, many teachers and many classrooms are still modernist.)

In the postmodern classroom, that myth has been exploded. Knowledge is appearing so fast, that often there is no text. Teachers elect to use readings, or parts of selected texts, or even the daily newspaper. While once only the teacher and preacher in a community were literate, now parents and friends and even the students themselves are literate (albeit differently). That means that the teacher is no longer the sole interpreter of a text. At the very least, a student can say "But I saw it on TV". A parent can have as much or more education than his child’s teacher. The mass media only add conflicting voices. Television, radio, popular music all have something to say on almost every topic.

Educational technology can support the status quo and provide a voice which echoes the voice of the powerful. But more likely, educational technology can and does provide new voices, new ways, new methods. Edgar Dale's famous Cone of Experience was, in retrospect, a mapping of the different ways educational technologies could speak to the learner.

There are indeed problems when multiple voicing takes over. Some voices are empowered while others are silenced. Society develops a dangerous selective conscience, in which it becomes politically correct to empower certain voices only. Teachers themselves can become sources of misconceptions. Honest attempts at encouraging multiple voicing can backfire and result in new and unanticipated stereotyping.

And yet, the postmodernist knows that we can never again ask "Which voices should we silence?"

When things were simpler, if they ever were, there was a single canon. Modernity taught that we learned certain Shakespeare plays (Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth); we learned the standard quota of Charles Dickens (Great Expectations; Tale of Two Cities); we studied a particular view of history, that of the dominant ruling class. But the multiple voicing argument has resulted in challenges to the canon. Should we not teach Canadian authors in Canadian schools? Should not Margaret Lawrence, George Ryga and Stephen W.O. Mitchel be on the curriculum. My children learned about the Oklahoma drought depicted in The Grapes of Wrath, but never studied about the Canadian drought of The Drylanders. They learned about racism in southern US from In the Heat of the Night, but never about Canadian racism illustrated in the works of George Ryga. They studied American history, but have never read about the French and Ukrainians in the Western Canada of Gabrielle Roy.

But to make these changes, something has to go. Will it be Shakespeare? Dickens? The Glass Menagerie?

Modernism immediately sense a danger in this sort of argument. It advocates the destruction of the traditional canon, "the best that has been said and thought" in the words of Matthew Arnold.

The role of educational technology clearly is to challenge the existing canon. First and foremost, technology wants to add television to the canon as several decades ago it attempted to add cinema. To the detractors of postmodernism, the argument here is easy. How, they ask, can we take serious a curriculum which would teach The Simpsons, Jay Leno, David Letterman and Cheers. The postmodernist response is "we must." And the Canadian postmodernist will add a post-script: notice that each of those four TV shows, just as popular on Canadian television as anywhere else in the world, are in fact not Canadian. Or, in fact, are they Canadian after all. The Simpsons is shown on Canadian television channels, with all US commercials carefully replaced by Canadian counterparts. Perhaps that is enough to be Canadian?

So, once again, postmodernists soon realize that there is another question we can never ask again: Whose culture should we marginalize now?

Derrida writes of the supplementary nature of the postmodern condition. The supplement, he argues, has two functions: It adds on and it eventually replaces. Educational media has long been called a supplement to teaching, but this was said in a derogatory way. To those who saw technology as supplementary, it meant that media was an add on, an extra. First you taught what you had to. Then, if you had time, you could show a movie... As an extra. Usually on Friday afternoons. Heinich wrote a major paper documenting just that phenomenon. Educational technology as an add on would never have any effect. Educational technology must be an integral part of the curriculum process from the beginning.

Contemporary deconstruction reverses the discussion of supplementarity. A supplement in fact takes over from the original and becomes the new content. Consider the famous multiple volume Oxford English Dictionary. When it is time for revision, the entire dictionary is not re-issued. Rather, a supplement is produced. The supplement is meant to do more than add new words. Old words perceived in new ways are also included. The reader must know enough to look up some words in both the original dictionary and in the supplement. Eventually, the supplement will supercede the original.

Educational technology as never before is providing a Derridian supplement to information. Textual information is often considered dated, so is replaced by newer information via handouts and readings. These in turn are replaced by the latest most up to date sources via the information databases of the Internet.

Postmodern educational technologists know that the single textbook is no longer enough, yet they are also cognizant of the very real problems which arise from teaching without a text or from contradictory texts.

Which texts ultimately get chosen? In the schools I have examined the rule is simple and straightforward: The text you will use is the text which is located in enough quantity in the textbook storage room.

Modern education is linear education. Linear models abound. Textbooks are linear. Classes are linear, following an exact number, an exact timeline and an exact schedule. A lecture is linear. Linear teaching is comfortable, effective, and efficient. Give the students a statement of objectives and teach to the objectives. The student learns. Modernist theorists argue for the necessity of this model if we are to have order. Listen to three comments by Stephen Covey (1990):

Principles are guidelines for human conduct that are proven to have enduring, permanent value. (P 35)

Begin with the end in mind. (P 99)

Look "beyond the words at the real meanings behind the words."

All of these are modernist statements advocating one best way.

If only teaching and learning were really like that! Postmodern education, trying to come to grips with the information explosion, finds content everywhere and all at once. Of course it would be just fine if first things came first. But in fact, things come as they come.

Postmodern educational technology is unique in its ability to deliver content in non-linear ways. The power of hypertext is only beginning to impact the classroom, but already researchers are recognizing hypertext as the first concrete phenomenon completely grounded in postmodern literary theory. To study the meanings of hypertext, one needs to follow the leads of Landow, Heim and similar researchers.

In a postmodern world, meanings do not stay put. In a postmodern classroom meanings get tangled with local contexts. Meanings (signifieds) are slippery and changing. Something means one thing to me, but something else to you. The following example has deep intellectual and philosophic meaning for Canadians, but much less for Americans:

What does Meech Lake signify? (a) Nothing. (b) The downfall of the Conservative Party in Canada under Brian Mulroney. (c) An attempt to unify Canada constitutionally from coast to coast. (d) An attempt by "big government" to enact a bill which nobody wanted. (e) A sleepy summer resort.

The correct answer is: All of the above. Different audiences can empathize with different responses. Each of the above choices is right... to certain interpretive communities. Option (b) is correct to the interpretive community with a historical sense. Option (c) is a political response. Option (d) is a populist answer. Option (e) is a tourist perspective. All are "correct."

Technology provides us with more options and more choices, and ultimately not one answer, but more potential answers, all of which are right, to someone. That is a major postmodern perspective. It may indeed appear to lead to a chaotic universe, but no-one said that postmodernism had to be fun.

In quick terms, this statement contradicts the last one, and argues that as irony, postmodernism is indeed fun! This stems from the fact that postmodernism is self-referential and self-reflective. It juxtaposes and accepts ironic situations not as being right or wrong, but simply, and existentially, as being. The results are indeed full of irony. Some examples:

A local Harvey's restaurant has two signs in its window. One says "Present coupons before ordering." while the other gives the daily US exchange rate on the dollar. Because this is a Canadian restaurant, Harvey's takes care to be bilingual, at least in spirit. So one of the signs is in French and English. The irony is that they have translated the wrong sign! If indeed the Winnipeg population needs to be served by a bilingual sign, the one which should be translated is the one aimed at the canadian clientele: "Present coupons before ordering." The other sign, the one aimed at a US clientele, is in fact the one with a French version.

A second ironic example is found in the fact that the ubiquitous Sesame St. has replaced certain sections with "Canadian content." This is easy to do in a non-linear program such as Sesame Street . Unfortunately, remote communities, especially in the Far North, get their television by satellite ... direct from the USA. Their Sesame Street does not include Canadian aboriginal elements. Instead these Canadian aboriginals get to learn a little Spanish!

Example three: A school in Winnipeg wants to ignore its own rich local heritage and change its name to Nelson Mandella School.

Example Four: Some time ago, the US declared February as Black History Month. At first, Canada went its own way. Then, Canadian teachers watching American TV, and hearing that it was "Black History Month" began to tailor their curriculum to meet the occasion. Now, it seems that in Canada too, February is Black History month. There is nothing wrong with such a designation, unless it is the fact that in Canada, there is no aboriginal history month, no German history month, no Ukrainian history month, nor even a French History month!

Technology is an integral part of the postmodern dilemma. It is not enough to reject the concept out of hand. Rather, it is necessary to re-construct educational technology in light of the philosophical implications to which postmodernism points. Postmodernism provides an important philosophical underpinning for educational technology for at least two reasons.

First, technology has too long been associated with a technical mode of operation. However, it is not a given that technology should be only examined within a technical, systematic and positivist paradigm. Curiously, and significantly, the very definition of postmodernism stems from technical concerns.

Second, to be postmodern does not imply the antithesis of educational technology. Educational technology can help us communicate within a very complex world view. Contemporary educational technology provides a platform for multiple voices. Educational technology, by providing more, better, and faster access to information, is leading to philosophic questionings of the traditional canon. Educational Technology as supplement is providing a new sense of authority from media which has never been so significant before. Educational technology operates within a non-linear mode. Educational technology, by its very encouragement of non-linearity, non-canonical texts, and multiple voicing results in "slippery signifieds" where meaning shifts. Stephen Covey's comment that critical dialogue is "that which looks beyond the words at the real meanings behind the words" is seen as a modernist view. Educational technology shows that meaning can be relative to time and place. And finally, educational technologies, by conveying the sheer amounts of information available, inevitably result in ironic juxtaposition of ideas, concepts, facts, and theories.

Educational technology research stumbled upon the postmodern dilemma in the beginnings of its research project. In those early days, when technologists hoped to find clear empirical evidence for teaching by film or television or programmed instruction, it was at first disappointing when the results came out NSD, or no significant differences. But educational technology researchers and theorists quickly recovered, and put away their comparative studies.

It became clear that educational technology as vehicle could not equate its products with one best way. It was important that educational technology as process allow for alternatives presentation modes and alternative learning styles. Educational technology has been postmodern ever since.