This study examines the underlying metaphors that structure educational technology discourse in the social studies.\u00a0 Contemporary research in cognitive linguistics asserts that the use of metaphor, or understanding one thing in terms of another, is not merely an ornamental feature of language, but rather is a crucial factor undergirding how humans derive meaning from experiences (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999). \u00a0According to this theory, human conceptual understanding becomes encapsulated in language in what Lakoff and Johnson (1999) called \u201cprimary metaphors\u201d (p. 46) that are based upon physical, embodied experiences.<\/p>\n
One category of examples are spatial metaphors<\/em>, which are based upon physical orientation (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). \u00a0Examples include \u201chappy is up; sad is down\u201d and \u201cmore is up; less is down\u201d (p. 15). \u00a0The physical basis for the initial example is that sagging posture generally corresponds with sadness, while an erect posture generally indicates a positive emotional state. \u00a0In the latter example, adding more to a pile makes a stack higher.<\/p>\n Spatial metaphors are one category among many primary metaphors that may exhibit \u201csystematicity,\u201d or a coherent and systematic organization that corresponds with physical experience. \u00a0Many primary metaphors are acquired unconsciously in our earliest years of experience (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999, p. 47). \u00a0Later, humans explicitly learn more complex conceptual metaphors <\/em>that are based upon primary metaphors, which are utilized in higher, conscious reasoning processes.<\/p>\n While metaphors help structure conceptual understanding, they also have the potential to constrain comprehension, as they may obscure aspects of experience that are not consistent with the metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 157). \u00a0Because metaphors are often used unconsciously, particular dimensions of experience that do not align with the deployed metaphor may be unintentionally ignored. \u00a0In this way, metaphors have ideological implications in that they privilege one interpretation of experience over others (Hart, 2008).\u00a0 The use of metaphor may at times obscure a lack of factual or conceptual grounding for an argument (Musolff, 2012), meaning that a critical analysis of metaphor may help reveal flaws in argumentative reasoning that would otherwise go unnoticed.<\/p>\n Gozzi (1999) made a distinction between deep metaphors and surface metaphors. \u00a0Deep metaphors exhibit systematicity and structure discourse. \u00a0These metaphors may or may not be explicitly stated (p. 59), but are revealed by identifying a preponderance of explicitly stated surface metaphors. \u00a0<\/em>Surface metaphors may take the form of both primary and conceptual metaphors. \u00a0Gozzi\u2019s categorization of surface and deep metaphors was utilized in the analysis report here.<\/p>\n In recent years, multiple articles have reviewed research on educational technology in the social studies, although they have focused primarily upon the implementation of new technologies in various contexts (see Berson, 1996; Bolick, Berson, Friedman, & Porfeli, 2007; Bolick, McGlinn, & Siko, 2005; Fabos & Young, 1999; Hicks, Lee, Berson, Bolick, & Diem, 2014; Tally, 2007). \u00a0To date, no scholarship has systematically investigated the underlying rationales for the inclusion of new technologies in the social studies. \u00a0As metaphors are often employed to make sense of new dimensions of experience, social studies scholarship is rife with metaphors used to comprehend the new experiences and pedagogical possibilities surrounding digital media technologies.<\/p>\n Metaphor analysis is a relatively new area of research in education.\u00a0 Scholars have utilized it to explore how preservice teachers (see Brown, Parsons, & Worley, 2005; Kim, 2012; Koc, 2013; Shaw & Mahlios, 2008) or novice teachers (Fisher-Ari & Lynch, 2015; Gatti & Catalano, 2015) make meaning of their educational experiences. \u00a0Popular educational discourse has been studied through metaphor, with examinations of the \u201cteacher as professional\u201d (Maxwell, 2015) as well as the act of \u201cteaching as performance\u201d (Pineau, 1994) metaphors, yet literature on metaphor analysis of educational scholarship is limited, particularly related to educational technology.<\/p>\n One exception is Smith\u2019s (2013) explication of the \u201cdigital natives\u201d and \u201cdigital immigrants\u201d metaphors.\u00a0 Smith argued that these simplified generational metaphors marginalize teachers by positioning them as immigrants in a new world while valorizing technology as a savior of education.\u00a0 Smith\u2019s framing of these metaphors informs this study, although he did not investigate specific research that employs these metaphors.<\/p>\n Gozzi (1999) identified several metaphors in education discourse, including the conduit metaphor of communication, the metaphor of the market in education reform discourse, and the technological race metaphor used in arguments for standards-based measures, integration of new technologies, and other matters.\u00a0 Although Gozzi revealed important metaphors used in education, he did not conduct a specific textual analysis.\u00a0 The intention of this study is to fill the gap in the literature by performing an examination of the metaphors used in social studies research in order to better understand how researchers have utilized metaphor to make meaning of the rapidly changing realm of educational technology.<\/p>\n Within the field of social studies, the importance of metaphor on thinking has been acknowledged in recent publications on educational technology (see Hicks & van Hover, 2014; Manfra, 2014), yet there is an absence of systematic analysis about the uses of metaphor in social studies scholarship.\u00a0 In the late 1990s, the metaphor of technology as a \u201csleeping giant\u201d was employed by Martorella (1997) and was later reexamined in a year of special themed issues in the social studies section of the journal Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education <\/em>(CITE Journal<\/em>) in 2014. \u00a0<\/em>The authors who published in the journal during this period used the sleeping giant metaphor to frame their studies and conceptual arguments, although none performed an intensive analysis of the use of metaphor in the sense that Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 1999) conceived of it as conceptual grounding for abstractions rooted in embodied experiences.<\/p>\n The special themed issues of CITE Journal<\/em>, which included an updated version of the popular article on guidelines for technology instruction (see Hicks et al, 2014; Mason et al, 2000), signified that the field of social studies had arrived at a more grounded assessment of the possibilities of educational technology to enhance teaching and learning.\u00a0 Hicks and van Hover (2014), whose article was included among the special themed issues, illustrate the point:<\/p>\n Can technology serve as a forceful agent of change?\u00a0 Based on our data, no\u2026. The notion of technology as a sleeping giant \u2013 a potentially powerful and autonomous force that, when woken can alone foster change within classrooms stubbornly clinging to coverage and control of factual content \u2013 carries with it the essence of a fairy tale.\u00a0 What is missing is the influence of context, the agency and purpose of teachers, the battle against the deep grammar of schooling with its habituated routines and antecedent subject subcultures of the discipline.\u00a0 (p. 152)<\/p>\n The authors asserted that the sleeping giant metaphor should be retired and any new metaphors regarding digital technologies should emphasize the learning process in particular contexts.\u00a0 These points make important contributions to the discourse.\u00a0 However, from Lakoff and Johnson\u2019s (1980, 1999) perspective, most metaphors are more mundane than the florid sleeping giant metaphor.\u00a0 Moreover, metaphors are often used unconsciously by writers to either describe new experiences in terms of more familiar ones or to describe abstract experiences in terms of physical ones.\u00a0 Uncovering such metaphors and their assumptions requires a careful and sustained analysis of language, which critical metaphor analysis is intended to provide.<\/p>\n Critical metaphor analysis (CMA) has been identified as a subfield of critical discourse analysis (see Gatti & Catalano, 2015).\u00a0 CMA, like critical discourse analysis, assists in uncovering the practices and social relations made possible by the deployment of language.\u00a0 However, in critical discourse analysis there is an assumption of conscious intention among language users (Charteris-Black, 2004), which is consistent with constructivism (Kivinen & Ristela, 2010).\u00a0 This assumption leads to analyzing the ideological intentions of the text creator.\u00a0 By contrast, CMA emphasizes primary bodily experience as an unconscious grounding and, thus, focuses on examining the assumptions that text creators employ as underlying reasoning for their arguments, which may or may not be consciously invoked.<\/p>\n The idea of unconscious experience providing the framework for metaphor is more consistent with the philosophy of pragmatism than with constructivism.\u00a0 Thus, the forthcoming text analyses will be similar to critical discourse analysis, but will focus more narrowly on the metaphors that provide the justification for normative claims regarding the deployment of new technologies.\u00a0 By uncovering assumptions through metaphor, the results could potentially reveal the cultural and ideological assumptions of text authors, even if those assumptions are not consciously intended (Charteris-Black, 2004).\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n Epistemologically, this study was influenced by the critical research tradition of pragmatism.\u00a0 Lakoff and Johnson\u2019s (1980, 1999) explication of metaphor is consistent with the pragmatists\u2019 embodied theory of meaning, along with the pragmatists\u2019 recognition that \u201cthere is a continuity between the material world and the world of consciousness, meaning, interaction, and communication\u201d (Biesta & Burbules, 2003, p. 72).<\/p>\n The conception of metaphor as providing an unconscious foundation for linguistic conceptions is consistent with John Dewey\u2019s (1922) social psychology, which posited human action as largely automatic until a disruption triggers conscious awareness.\u00a0 The purpose of educational research, according to pragmatism, is to make human actions more intelligent (Biesta & Burbules, 2003, p. 38), and a critical examination of metaphor can reveal assumptions that could potentially allow educational researchers and practitioners to proceed with more focused intention when considering the role of educational technologies in teaching and learning.<\/p>\n Pragmatists recognize the importance of experimental science, but also identify other ways of knowing, such as aesthetic and artistic perception, as vital elements of intelligent inquiry (Cherryholmes, 1999).\u00a0 Under Lakoff and Johnson\u2019s conceptualization, metaphors permeate human thinking and make vital contributions toward the ability to think abstractly.\u00a0 Utilizing this conception makes an all-embracing, fully comprehensive analysis of metaphor within educational technology discourse impractical, because metaphors must be interpreted within particular contexts and in relation to other metaphors in a process that defies static categorization.<\/p>\n The intention of this study was to perform a critical, interpretive explication of the surface metaphors that may lead to one or more deep metaphors that provide the underlying rationale for arguments advocating for the inclusion of new technologies in education.\u00a0 Deep metaphors will be identified through pinpointing clusters of surface metaphors in particular articles, which will subsequently be compared across articles to look for prevalent metaphorical themes within the overall discourse.<\/p>\n As a brief illustration of what such an analysis would entail, consider the aforementioned article by Martorella (1997).\u00a0 In addition to writing about a sleeping giant, he also employed a plethora of other metaphors that may not have been consciously intended, yet nevertheless revealed assumptions about how he perceived the function of technology in the social studies.\u00a0 For example, Martorella asserted that \u201cwe have entered<\/em> the information age\u201d (p. 511). Note that italics are used within the text and have also been added within quotations here and elsewhere to highlight the metaphors being analyzed.<\/p>\n In this context, the verb enter is a journey metaphor, which is a spatial metaphor describing travel or movement.\u00a0 Such metaphors are often connected to idealized visions of social progress realized through technological advancement, which is reinforced by the term the information age<\/em>. This term suggests that contemporary times are fundamentally different and, in particular, more advanced than previous eras.<\/p>\n The passive voice in the phrase implies an inevitable journey that is not under human control.\u00a0 Additional evidence for this interpretation can be located a bit later in the document when Martorella (1997) stated, \u201cOur past technology has reinvented<\/em> itself to accommodate the growing dominance of computers as media\u201d (p. 511).\u00a0 In this case, the author personified technology, affording it its own intentions, which is consistent with the metaphor of the sleeping giant of technology as a personified, autonomous force.<\/p>\n Later on the same page, Martorella (1997) stated, \u201cThe Internet, both as a medium of communication and as a repository and catalog of information, continues to grow<\/em> at a mind-boggling rate\u201d (p. 511).\u00a0 Here, a biological metaphor of growth is used to conceptualize the proliferation of the Internet, which carries the assumption of a natural process not directly controlled by humans.\u00a0 This perspective is also consistent with the previous metaphors identifying technology as an autonomous force.<\/p>\n Using Lakoff and Johnson\u2019s (1980, 1999) conception, Martorella\u2019s metaphors of the sleeping giant, personified technology, and a biologically growing Internet exhibit systematicity by cohering around the assumption that technology has its own agency independent of human actors.\u00a0 Thus, arguably a deep metaphor of technology as autonomous agent<\/em> was employed within the sleeping giant article by Martorella.<\/p>\n Hicks et al. (2014) argued that Martorella\u2019s perspective has given way to a more realistic analysis of educational technology in social studies research.\u00a0 Given this perceived shift in the discourse in recent years, this study tested this assertion by analyzing the last three years of social studies scholarship within CITE <\/em>Journal, which is the official journal of the College and University Faculty Assembly of the National Council for the Social Studies for educational technology research and, thus, represents an important center of discourse regarding these areas of inquiry.<\/p>\n Because prevailing metaphors usually represent the taken-for-granted assumptions within a community-of-practice (Martinez, Sauleda & Huber, 2001), any prevalent metaphors should be significantly present across multiple studies and could be understood to represent substantial aspects of discourse within the discipline.\u00a0 Because of the immense amount of financial investment in new educational technologies in recent years, along with the expansive amount of research devoted to the field including entire journals devoted to educational technology such as CITE Journal<\/em>, a close interrogation of the assumptions that undergird this area of research is warranted.<\/p>\n An initial review phase entailed an interpretive reading of a total of 17 articles in the social studies section of CITE Journal<\/em> from late 2013 to late 2016, with a focus on the metaphors used to justify claims about using new technologies in the social studies.\u00a0 In this case, such claims were understood to mean that the authors made an overt justification for why teaching with new or digital technologies was necessary, important, or useful.\u00a0 This particular aspect was isolated because it targets concerns suggested by science and technology studies scholars and was preliminarily identified by the educational studies by Gozzi (1999) and Smith (2013) that problematic assumptions are present within educational technology discourse.<\/p>\n Within this initial review, notes were made regarding any surface metaphors that were identified. \u00a0Surface metaphors were conceived in light of Lakoff and Johnson\u2019s (1980, 1999) framework of conceptual metaphors based on primary bodily experiences.\u00a0 Context was also considered when labeling surface metaphors.\u00a0 If a metaphor was used to describe a point of view that was clearly different from that of the author, it was not included for further analysis.\u00a0 Only metaphors that authors used to advance their own positions were considered in the analysis.\u00a0 One article made no direct claims or justifications about new technologies and was thus excluded, leaving 16 articles for further analysis.<\/p>\n In the second phase of analysis, a subsequent interpretive reading of each article was performed. \u00a0In this reading, closer scrutiny was given to the surface metaphors in each article and initial conceptual categories were identified by a repeated use of the same or similar surface metaphors around a single conceptual category; an example would be repeated assertions about \u201cscaffolding\u201d and \u201claying a foundation\u201d which are construction\/building <\/em>metaphors.\u00a0 Surface metaphors were also considered against other prevalent metaphors in the article to search for evidence of consistency or inconsistency in how metaphors were utilized, which is relevant for considering whether a deep metaphor was present.<\/p>\n In a third phase, notes were studied in order to group identified metaphors into firmer conceptual categories.\u00a0 Categories of metaphors that were identified less than three times in any particular article were excluded from further analysis, as these could be explained as authors\u2019 simply using expressive language rather than a metaphor structuring their thinking.\u00a0 In a fourth phase, metaphor categories that were deemed significant in single articles were considered across other scholarship to locate patterns that could be understood to represent deep metaphors as underlying assumptions in the discourse.\u00a0 Greater repetition of particular metaphors and wider variety of metaphors that intersected around clear conceptual categories were taken as stronger evidence that a deep metaphor was underlying the author\u2019s prose.<\/p>\n Metaphor categories that were identified three or more times were deemed significant, while those that were identified six or more times were labeled as extensive in the analysis, as the greater presence of these metaphors made it more likely that they were acting as a structuring conception for the authors.<\/p>\n The vast majority of surface metaphors were grouped into one of five conceptual categories (see Table 1), although metaphors are rarely fully systematic and exclusive.\u00a0 Thus, some overlap is inevitable and requires a hermeneutical analysis to unpack.\u00a0 Categories emerged out of the analysis.\u00a0 They were inspired by examining key concerns from authors associated with science and technology studies (STS), including such authors as Andrew Feenberg, Don Idhe, Leo Marx, Neil Postman, and Christopher Lasch.\u00a0 STS conceptions were considered in light of Lakoff and Johnson\u2019s (1980, 1999) research into metaphor as a largely unconscious feature of discourse based upon primary bodily experience.\u00a0 Media studies scholar Raymond Gozzi (1999) previously identified the technological race metaphor, which is included within the fifth category of journey metaphors.<\/p>\n Table 1<\/strong> <\/p>\n The first category is identified as manual labor<\/em> metaphors,<\/em> which suggest that teaching is akin to performing physical labor; these sometimes overlapped with construction\/building metaphors, <\/em>which were consistently cited in passing but were only significantly present in two of the 16 articles.\u00a0 <\/em>The pervasiveness of such metaphors in general education may account for their presence in this study, but they do not appear to be essential to understanding educational technology research and will thus be ignored.\u00a0 The third category, mechanistic metaphors, <\/em>indicate that teaching and learning is like a complex machine.<\/p>\n The fourth category is technology as biological organism\/agent metaphors, <\/em>which imply that new technologies are biological organisms and appear to be closely tied to the additional assumption that such technologies have their own autonomy and agency.\u00a0 The fourth category was often used in conjunction with the fifth and final category, journey metaphors, <\/em>which suggest that the field of education is on a journey leading toward greater use of new technologies which will yield positive consequences for teaching and learning.\u00a0 The fourth and fifth categories intersected in instances where writing intimates that technological devices have agency that is propelling the journey toward improvement.\u00a0 As will be further explained in the discussion section, the fourth and fifth categories appear to have particular significance for considering how educational technology discourse is structured through metaphorical conceptions.<\/p>\n The presence of manual labor metaphors was significant in eight of the 16 articles.\u00a0 The single most pervasive metaphorical term in the literature described technology as tools<\/em>.\u00a0 This metaphor is widely employed for devices that are used for abstract labor, but in Lakoff and Johnson\u2019s (1980, 1999) conception, such metaphors are necessarily rooted in primary embodied experiences.\u00a0 Considered in relation to embodiment, a tool is a handheld device used to accomplish some form of physical labor.\u00a0 A tool, such as a hammer, aids in a human\u2019s ability to apply physical force to an object.<\/p>\n An accompanying metaphor was often the term impact<\/em>, which is a description of force applied from one object to another.\u00a0 For example, teachers might \u201canalyze classroom practice and student learning for impact<\/em> of Web 2.0 tools<\/em>\u201d (Hicks & van Hover, 2014, p. 144).\u00a0 Another commonly employed metaphor was leverage, <\/em>which implies exerting force using a lever, a pivoting bar that aids in the lifting of heavy objects.\u00a0 When teaching is conceptualized as manual labor, one can use tools<\/em> and levers<\/em> to increase one\u2019s strength and efficiency.\u00a0 Thus, in this conceptualization researchers might examine how \u201csocial media can be leveraged\u201d (Krutka & Carpenter, 2016, p. 53) to improve teaching and learning.<\/p>\n Mechanistic metaphors, which compare teaching and learning to a machine or mechanism, were significantly present in 10 of the 16 articles studied and extensively present in \u00a0seven of them.\u00a0 The most commonly employed term was integration, <\/em>in the form of \u201cintegrating\u201d technology into the classroom.\u00a0 To integrate means to put parts together to make something complete; online dictionaries use examples of an integrated circuit, although the term is often used in other domains.<\/p>\n On its own, this term most likely does not suggest a deep mechanistic metaphor in the discourse, although it does imply that education is incomplete without the addition of new technologies.\u00a0 However, the term integrate was often utilized in conjunction with other mechanistic metaphors, such as connection.\u00a0 <\/em>To connect means to bring two things together.\u00a0 In terms of the physical world, connection usually involves a cord that connects a piece of machinery to an electrical outlet or a bridge that connects two towns.\u00a0 Thus, researchers might analyze the \u201cconnection<\/em> between beliefs and technology integration<\/em>\u201d (Shifflet & Weilbacher, 2015, p. 368).<\/p>\n In several articles, when something within the classroom environment did not go as expected, it was described as a disconnect.\u00a0 <\/em>The act of disconnecting implies unplugging a cord.\u00a0 One example referred to a \u201cdisconnect<\/em> between the IWB tools<\/em> and the teachers\u2019 preferred way of teaching\u201d (Sheffield, 2015, p. 555).\u00a0 In this case, the technology and the teaching method connect <\/em>within the metaphorical \u201cmatrix\u201d of the classroom, and the disconnect<\/em> implied that the mechanistic association of the teacher and tool has broken down. \u00a0Other terms such as link <\/em>and network<\/em> also regularly appeared in the discourse and have similar implications.<\/p>\n The final two categories appear to be crucial for uncovering the role of deep metaphor in educational technology discourse.\u00a0 The previous metaphorical groupings, although commonly invoked within the reviewed articles, consisted of a few specific terms that were used repeatedly by several authors.\u00a0 Arguably, although the previous categories drew upon the source domains of mechanisms and labor, the cited terms have long been applied to educational technology and thus do not provide convincing evidence of unexamined assumptions in the discourse.\u00a0 However, the fourth category offers a stark contrast through its wide variety of discrete terms that were often creatively deployed by authors.<\/p>\n This assortment of terms and phrases coalesced into two interrelated conceptions of technology as a biological organism<\/em> and technology as an autonomous agent<\/em>, which appeared three or more times in nine articles, out of which six articles featured extensive deployment of such metaphors that provided the main structure for the authors\u2019 arguments.<\/p>\n Some of the identified terms suggesting that technology is a biological organism included arguments about the evolution <\/em>of technologies, referring to new technologies as the next generation<\/em> or being in their infancy<\/em>, wondering when technologies will be adopted<\/em>, noting that technology has spawned <\/em>other developments, and statements that speak to the nature <\/em>of technologies.\u00a0 Among them, evolution <\/em>was the most common and was significantly present in seven articles.<\/p>\n By definition, evolution is a natural process by which organisms change through adapting to their environments in order to survive.\u00a0 Organisms successfully evolve when they adapt over successive generations in order to better meet environmental demands.\u00a0 Arguments about the evolution<\/em> of technology, thus, imply a conception of technological change that is natural and beyond direct human control.\u00a0 For example, \u201cStarting around 2004, the Internet began to evolve <\/em>from what was essentially a one-way conduit of information to one in which anybody could easily and immediately post content online\u201d (Friedman, 2014, p. 15).<\/p>\n By using the evolution metaphor in this manner, new technologies were positioned as naturally adapting to better fit learning environments over time.\u00a0 This positioning suggests that fear and hesitancy are unwarranted, as the educational efficacy of new technologies is improving and will only continue to improve.<\/p>\n Another example associates the metaphor of evolution with a journey metaphor on a path that has a predetermined destination, stating \u201cthe end stage<\/em> of this technological evolution<\/em> is that teacher education students will eventually not require instruction in geospatial tools\u201d (Hammond, 2014, p. 280).\u00a0 Here, technology was again positioned as natural and, in this case inevitable, with students becoming better users over time and technology becoming easier to utilize, thus lightening the burden on teachers.<\/p>\n Other metaphors referred to technologies as both biological and life-generating: \u201cthe growth<\/em> of the Internet spawned<\/em> the plethora of digital history resources that are now available\u201d (Friedman, 2014, p. 14).\u00a0 In this example, digital history resources were positioned as a natural development reared by a maturing Internet.\u00a0 In another example, the claim was made that geographic information systems (GIS) software is, \u201cmigrating<\/em> from a clumsy, client-tool<\/em> requiring a steep learning curve to far more user-friendly web services.\u00a0 The next generation<\/em> of GIS tools will be on mobile devices, with far more intuitive interfaces, such as drag-and-drop tables\u201d (Hammond, 2014, p. 280).<\/p>\n Migrating is a journey metaphor, which will be discussed in the next section, but in conjunction with the term the next generation <\/em>implies someone moving to a more technologically advanced country and having children, who would presumably be a better fit for the culture.\u00a0 Again, the metaphor is organic and natural, with the technology becoming a greater benefit to teachers over time in a process that was positioned as inevitable by way of the metaphors.<\/p>\n There was a strong overlap between authors who conceptualized technology in organic terms and authors who envisioned technology as having autonomy or agency independent of human actors, suggesting that these conceptions were associated in the thinking of many authors.\u00a0 There is a logical connection between biology and agency, as biological organisms exhibit their own intentions in the world.\u00a0 Technological agent metaphors generally made claims about what technology can accomplish in education independent of human involvement.<\/p>\n One example asserted that during 1999-2000, \u201cthe Internet had begun to make inroads<\/em> in schools and received wide acclaim in the social studies literature\u201d (Friedman, 2014, p. 15).\u00a0 In other cases, the agency of technology was positioned as superseding that of teachers.\u00a0 An example in one article claimed that \u201cemerging technologies require<\/em> new<\/em> roles<\/em> for both teachers and students\u201d (Manfra, 2014, p. 6).\u00a0 In both cases, technologies were positioned as having intentions or performing actions independent of humans.<\/p>\n Other authors also wrote about the power<\/em> of technologies to affect learning in autonomous terms (Friedman, 2014; Krutka & Carpenter, 2016).\u00a0 Some of the strongest claims for technology\u2019s agency came from Hammond (2014), who explicitly invoked Martorella\u2019s sleeping giant and contended that as long as technology integration continues in classrooms<\/p>\n geospatial tools<\/em> will make their way<\/em> into the discourse.\u00a0 As they do, these technologies will reinforce<\/em> powerful teaching by allowing<\/em> teachers to deepen<\/em> curricular content, highlight <\/em>conceptual frameworks<\/em> for historical understanding, and connect<\/em> to local history.\u00a0 If the teacher education community takes an active interest in geospatial tools for history, this day will come faster and the changes will be more profound.\u00a0 But, given enough time, the giant<\/em> of geospatial technology will awaken<\/em>, and the history curriculum will not be the same as before.\u00a0 (p. 281)<\/p>\n This passage illustrates in rather stark terms what is present in a substantial portion of educational technology discourse in the social studies, according to these findings.\u00a0 Technologies have been, in many cases, positioned through metaphors as having intentions that are largely independent of human actors, and such processes were deemed natural and inevitable.<\/p>\n The final category holds profound implications for deep metaphor and is evidenced by a wide variety of different phrases and terms that center on movement or travel.\u00a0 Such metaphors were significantly present in 11 articles, and among those, journey metaphors were extensively deployed in seven of them.\u00a0 Examples include new technologies affording access<\/em> to learning or areas that are uncharted territories <\/em>or unexplored frontiers, <\/em>referring to technology as a route <\/em>to success, arguments about technology moving<\/em> education away<\/em> from one thing (usually passive learning and teacher-centered instruction) toward<\/em> another (usually active, student-centered learning), arguments about overcoming barriers <\/em>or decrying the lack of speed in implementing technology, all suggesting some relation to furthering or impeding a journey through the deployment of new technologies.<\/p>\n The idea of moving beyond <\/em>existing practices appeared multiple times in the discourse.\u00a0 One article argued that \u201cresearchers and practitioners in the field of social studies have clearly begun moving beyond<\/em> the perceived reluctance to embrace<\/em> digital technologies as change agents<\/em>\u201d (Hartshorne & Waring, 2015, p. 202).\u00a0 Here, a journey metaphor was combined with a technology as autonomous agent metaphor to state that progress in the discipline\u2019s journey toward betterment is dependent upon an open acceptance of new technologies.<\/p>\n In the article titled \u201cStruggling to Move Beyond Projection,\u201d Sheffield (2015) considered the barriers that impede the use of interactive whiteboards in classrooms.\u00a0 The idea of barriers<\/em>, obstacles<\/em>, hurdles, <\/em>or roadblocks<\/em> hindering the implementation of new technologies appeared in several articles, with the implication being that once the barriers are removed, the journey toward educational progress can resume.\u00a0 Impediments to the journey can also be expressed with more florid metaphors, such as being victimized or imprisoned: \u201cnew teachers, fresh<\/em> from their universities, may be expected to escape<\/em> this reluctant attitude, but many of them seemingly fall victim<\/em> to\u201d what the author identified as various hurdles to implementing new technologies (Pearcy, 2013, p. 6).<\/p>\n Sometimes journeys were conceptualized through the use of speed or racing metaphors.\u00a0 One example contended that teachers \u201chave been slow to infuse<\/em> ubiquitous technologies, such as the smartphone\u201d (Sheffield, 2015, p. 542).\u00a0 Another example stated \u201cthat a field grounded<\/em> in citizenship education seems continually to lag behind<\/em> during an age of historically unprecedented technological change is particularly problematic\u201d (Krutka & Carpenter, 2016, p. 39).\u00a0 In either case, the solution is to speed up the immersion of digital technologies into the social studies classroom, which will implicitly allow the journey toward betterment to resume.\u00a0 New technologies can move the field away from passive, teacher-centered learning toward active, student-centered classrooms (Pearcy, 2013), according to the positioning of the race metaphor.<\/p>\n Another example employed the metaphor of transition<\/em> to describe this journey, which is defined as a move from one state or stage to another:<\/p>\n as the consumption-based model of technology integration transitions<\/em> to a participatory approach and technology transitions<\/em> from a tool<\/em> for accessing information to a tool <\/em>to (a) support student authoring and creativity, (b) facilitate collaboration, communication, and social learning, (c) allow for more efficient organization and accumulation of resources, (d) provide <\/em>venues for student voices through publication and sharing, and (e) support <\/em>student immersion in learning environments, educators also transition<\/em>.\u00a0 (Hartshorne & Waring, 2015, p. 203)<\/p>\n Here, the journey from one stage to another combined with a metaphor of technology as autonomous agent, as the description suggested that the role of the teacher will inevitably coincide with the transition that is being led by new technologies.<\/p>\n Because humans cannot effectively write or think without using metaphors (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999), metaphors should not be identified as positive or negative features of discourse without specifically interrogating their implications.\u00a0 Evaluating metaphors is best executed in specific discourse communities by assessing the particular consequences in application.\u00a0 Given this orientation, the first category of manual labor<\/em> metaphors appears to be relatively benign.\u00a0 However, it would sharpen educational technology discourse for researchers to consider how digital technologies do not function in the same ways as hammers or other manual tools.<\/p>\n The next category, mechanistic metaphors, <\/em>which conceive of the process of teaching and learning as a complex machine, is potentially more problematic.\u00a0 The idea of integrating technology can be useful when it implies that technology is merely one part of a larger project of teaching and learning.\u00a0 It becomes potentially problematic if taken to mean that teaching and learning is incomplete without new technologies, which reduces the roles of teachers as contextual decision makers by giving over their agency to the presumed inevitability of new technologies.<\/p>\n From this perspective, mechanistic metaphors<\/em> can become particularly problematic when used in conjunction with technology as biological organism\/agent<\/em> and journey metaphors<\/em>, because this framing could result in the concerns and goals of teachers and the needs and desires of students getting lost in the thrust to impose new technologies.<\/p>\n Other mechanistic metaphors such as connect, disconnect, <\/em>and networks <\/em>are all common parlance in discourse about technology in popular culture, so it is unsurprising that scholars also employ them.\u00a0 However, the metaphorical conception of a mechanism that underpins these words is rarely explicitly considered.\u00a0 Educational technology researchers would benefit from a more serious consideration of these terms and how they structure the discourse in ways that may often be applied uncritically.<\/p>\n As one hypothetical example of potential significance, conceiving of a group of citizens as a \u201ccommunity\u201d versus a \u201cnetwork\u201d may lead to very different assumptions about the productive roles and behaviors of citizens.\u00a0 Neither term is correct or incorrect, but employing either conception has consequences.\u00a0 It would sharpen the discourse in educational technology to become more deliberate about the use of such metaphors.<\/p>\n The metaphorical category of teaching and learning as a mechanism<\/em> creates an interesting dynamic when used in conjunction with metaphors of technology as biological life\/agent<\/em>, and six of the 16 articles showed significant use of both categories.\u00a0 In effect, the use of metaphors in these articles imbued technology with life and autonomy while it simultaneously reduced the complexity of teaching and learning by conceptualizing it in mechanistic terms.\u00a0 This approach may achieve a rhetorical goal of advocacy for educational technology, but it may also skew the dimensions of what technologies can help teachers achieve, while diminishing the status of teachers as principal decision-makers within the context of their own classrooms.<\/p>\n In this sense, such rhetorical moves may contribute to disempowering teachers while bolstering technologies, goals that incidentally align with the education reform movement.\u00a0 In addition, conceiving of technology as living and autonomous risks decontextualizing the role of technology, teachers, and students in the learning process.\u00a0 It also renders moot discussions about the appropriateness of specific technologies for particular classroom contexts, which could potentially lead to less effective implementation of new technologies.<\/p>\n Utilizing language that references technology in autonomous terms also hides the particular forces and interests that may benefit from such promotion (Selwyn, 2014).\u00a0 The National Center for Education Statistics estimated that K-12 schools spent approximately $10 billion on digital technology in 2013, demonstrating that technology companies and investors have much to gain from the ubiquitous inclusion of digital technology.\u00a0 Thus, calls for pervasive technology should be understood to represent particular interests that are not always benign.<\/p>\n Journey metaphors can be useful, for example, when describing contextual barriers to implementing new technologies.\u00a0 However, they can also be problematic when, as was often found in this study, they are based on assumptions that the present is better than the past and the future will be better still.\u00a0 A quick assessment of current national or world affairs should quickly dispel this notion.\u00a0 The tendency to conflate technological progress with social progress has been identified in science and technology studies as a common problematic assumption in American thinking (see Lasch, 1991; Postman, 2000).\u00a0 When this assumption remains unchallenged, it obscures clear thinking about the effective uses of new technologies in classrooms.<\/p>\n The future will certainly be different than the present, and new technologies will likely continue to be developed, but educational progress is only possible if educational researchers conduct thoughtful, ongoing evaluations of what is needed in particular circumstances.\u00a0 This evaluation may include many new technologies, but a more grounded assessment could allow for inclusion without the same level of anticipation, followed by the inevitable disappointment when technologies fail to meet expectations.\u00a0 Put another way, new technologies should not be exempt from processes of inquiry.\u00a0 Rather, they should be studied with the same degree of thoughtfulness and skepticism as any new classroom technique or method.<\/p>\n Another important finding is that eight articles featured significant use of both technology as biological organism\/agent metaphors<\/em> and journey metaphors<\/em> together, with the journey metaphor often being used to highlight technology\u2019s agency in furthering progress.\u00a0 This finding suggests that in a substantial portion of the discourse, there is a deep metaphor of technology as the agent or driver of social progress<\/em> underlying the thinking of many authors.\u00a0 This finding also helps to explain why mechanistic metaphors were often used to describe teaching and learning by many of the same authors, as this reductionism makes classrooms seem more amenable to technological solutions.<\/p>\n Six articles included significant deployment of mechanistic metaphors<\/em> in conjunction with technology as biological organism\/agent<\/em> and journey metaphors<\/em>, which strongly suggests that these conceptions are associated in the minds of many authors as indicating the power or agency of technology to transform teaching and learning.\u00a0 These results contest conclusions in recent scholarship (see Hicks et al., 2014) that the discourse in educational technology has become more grounded in recent years. Assumptions of technology as an active agent of social progress still appear to be a prevalent element of the discourse in the field.<\/p>\n Conceiving of technology in autonomous terms represents a form of technological determinism that rhetorically wrests agency away from teachers and communities and places it in the hands of large-scale capitalism, which unwittingly aids the forces associated with the education reform movement that are eager to reduce teacher autonomy.\u00a0 Such determinism should be resisted by employing thoughtful reflective analysis into what is needed to improve teaching and learning, which may or may not include new technologies.<\/p>\n This study found that several categories of metaphors have a strong presence in educational technology discourse.\u00a0 Some of these metaphors are largely benign, but conclusions suggest that, despite claims that the discourse has found soberer grounding, problematic assumptions persist.\u00a0 Using new technologies in ways that can improve teaching and learning begins with clear conceptions of educational goals and the ways that technologies can help achieve them.\u00a0 This process necessarily begins with examining assumptions about technologies and their uses in classrooms.<\/p>\n CMA helps make explicit the reality that technology cannot give directions in classrooms; it can only be done by teachers and other educational professionals.\u00a0 Similarly, technology cannot be an agent of change, only humans can perform that function.\u00a0 Technology may be useful for achieving these purposes in particular contexts, but utilizing language that affords undue agency to new technologies obscures a more realistic assessment of the ways that new technologies can facilitate inquiry-based and student-centered learning.<\/p>\n These results suggest that educational technology researchers should more explicitly attend to their own assumptions about technology that gets expressed in their research.\u00a0 Although metaphors tend to be employed unconsciously, writers have the ability to scrutinize their own writing for such assumptions and to reflect upon how it influences their perspectives.\u00a0 This article is intended to facilitate this process in order to encourage a more thoughtful consideration of how new educational technologies are employed in education.<\/p>\n Given the results of this study, researchers in educational technology should resist employing journey metaphors that suggest that educational improvement is solely dependent upon new technologies.\u00a0 Scholars should also consider limiting or even eliminating metaphors that imply that technology is alive or has its own intentions.\u00a0 In its place, researchers should more carefully scrutinize those who create new technologies for the underlying interests they serve and the specific goals that they can help achieve.<\/p>\n The broader consequences for teachers, parents, and communities should also be examined in light of how technology often gets positioned through journey and agency metaphors.\u00a0 A range of consequences, both positive and negative, always follows from the implementation of new technologies.\u00a0 Being more attentive to language could allow the field to more fully consider these effects ahead of implementation, potentially allowing for more pointed and effective uses of new technologies to support teaching and learning.<\/p>\n It would also be useful to consider alternate metaphors to describe the process of teaching and learning beyond mechanistic conceptions.\u00a0 For example, the metaphor of weaving a tapestry <\/em>has been suggested as a novel way to conceive of curriculum development (Simon, 2013).\u00a0 Considering how technology could fit within this tapestry would allow for creative reconceptualizations of the relationships between new technologies and education.\u00a0 Employing this and other metaphors could allow for more flexible ideas that avoid the aforementioned pitfalls while potentially fostering unforeseen benefits for teaching and learning.<\/p>\n The author would like to thank the Indiana University Kokomo Summer Faculty Fellowship for providing supporting funds for this study.Literature Review of Metaphor Research in Education<\/h2>\n
Methodology<\/h2>\n
Framing the Study<\/h3>\n
Data Collection<\/h3>\n
Analysis<\/h2>\n
\nMetaphor Categories Identified Three or More Times by Article With Common Terminology<\/p>\n\n\n
\n Article Author(s)<\/strong><\/td>\n Manual Labor<\/strong><\/td>\n Construction\/
\nBuilding<\/strong><\/td>\nMechanistic<\/strong><\/td>\n Biological\/
\nAgent<\/strong><\/td>\nJourney<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Pearcy, 2013<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n Integrationa<\/sup><\/td>\n Evolutiona<\/sup><\/td>\n Barriersa<\/sup>
\nHurdles
\nVarious terms<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n Manfra, 2014<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n Evolutiona<\/sup>
\nVarious terms<\/td>\nVarious termsa<\/sup><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Friedman, 2014<\/td>\n Toolsa<\/sup>
\nImpact<\/td>\nn\/a<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n Evolutiona<\/sup>
\nVarious terms<\/td>\nVarious termsa<\/sup><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Hicks & Van Hover, 2014<\/td>\n Toolsa<\/sup><\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Hofer & Swan, 2014<\/td>\n Toolsa<\/sup><\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n Explore<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Hammond, 2014<\/td>\n Tool
\nImpact<\/td>\nn\/a<\/td>\n Integrationa<\/sup><\/td>\n Transforma<\/sup>
\nAdopted
\nVarious terms<\/td>\nVarious termsa<\/sup><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Hicks et al, 2014<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Crocco & Leo, 2015<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n Connectionsa<\/sup>
\nVarious terms<\/td>\nVarious termsa<\/sup><\/td>\n Various terms<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Hartshorne & Waring, 2015<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n Integrate<\/td>\n Various terms<\/td>\n Various termsa<\/sup><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Shifflet & Weilbacher, 2015<\/td>\n Tool<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n Integrationa<\/sup>
\nConnection<\/td>\nn\/a<\/td>\n Barriersa<\/sup><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Mason, 2015<\/td>\n Tools<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n Integrate<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Sheffield, 2015<\/td>\n Tool<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n Integratea<\/sup>
\nDisconnect<\/td>\nn\/a<\/td>\n Various terms<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Callahan, Saye & Brush, 2015<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n Structuringa<\/sup>
\nSupporting
\nScaffolding
\nVarious terms<\/td>\nIntegratea<\/sup>
\nConnectedness<\/td>\nn\/a<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Krutka & Carpenter, 2016<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n Platforma<\/sup>
\nVarious terms<\/td>\nVarious termsa<\/sup><\/td>\n Various terms<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Maloy, 2016<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n Constructa<\/sup>
\nVarious terms<\/td>\nn\/a<\/td>\n Various terms<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Jo, 2016<\/td>\n Tool<\/td>\n n\/a<\/td>\n Integration<\/td>\n Adopt<\/td>\n Barriersa<\/sup>
\nVarious terms<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n a<\/sup>Indicates metaphor categories that were identified six or more times in a given article<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n Manual Labor Metaphors \u00a0<\/em><\/h3>\n
Mechanistic Metaphors<\/h3>\n
Technology as Biological Organism\/Agent Metaphors<\/h3>\n
Journey Metaphors<\/h3>\n
Discussion<\/h2>\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n
Author Note<\/h3>\n