The Experience of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the Classroom: Discipline, Control, and Noo-Politics

Abstract

The proliferation and multiplication of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) pose new challenges for educational processes, forms of knowledge construction, and subjective production. This paper inquires into the introduction of these tools in secondary education and into the ways in which technologies modify the dynamics of traditional education.

To this end, it draws on concepts provided by studies on biopolitics. It considers the notions of “disciplinary societies” (Foucault) and the axes that shaped conduct in classical education, as well as “societies of control” (Deleuze). It also addresses the concept of “noo-politics”, developed by Mauricio Lazzarato, as political action exercised at a distance.

From this arises the hypothesis that ICTs transform the disciplinary spaces of the classroom and entail modulations that are more permeable to the logic of control. The study takes as its case the Tomás Alva Edison School, a pioneer in Argentina in the incorporation of computers at the secondary level. Secondary sources and fieldwork data produced by previous research are used.

Finally, the paper seeks to reflect on the ruptures in disciplinary spaces introduced through ICTs; alternative ways of conceiving space and time in the classroom; and the new modes of subjective production implied in the work of memory, attention, perception, and concentration.