Why it Doesn't Work
A Series on Technology and Instructional Labour in Traditional Higher Ed (Part 1)
Technology changes work. As we implement new technologies into work processes, job responsibilities change. Skills required change. Organisations create a new division of labour. Some workers are hurt in the process, while others benefit.
Technology reshapes labour in common ways across diverse industries. Yet the impact of technology on academic work presents a few surprises; the differences can help us understand the state of digital education and its future.
Candles placed atop poles once lit city streets. The people lighting the candles, “lamplighters”, lugged ladders or poles or both through neighbourhoods at dusk and dawn, turning lights and off. They became a familiar and comforting sight, someone keeping an eye on the community while others slept. A city as large as London (UK) employed tens of thousands of lamplighters. Wages paid to lamplighters, though, could support a family.
The era of the lamplighter proved short-lived. In the early 19th century, municipalities began replacing their oil and gas lights with electric lights. Though each street light still needed to be switched on one at a time, the work of the lamplighter became safer and more straightforward. Children replaced adult lamplighters. In time, a single employee working from a central location could manage the street lights remotely. Today, of course, street lights are largely automated.
In broad terms, the changes experienced by lamplighters have been repeated in industry after industry, decade after decade. While the details differ, the effects of technology on labour have common patterns. Typical characteristics of the change include:
The number of functions typically involved in the occupation declines while the number of roles assumed by technology increases;
The skills, knowledge and credentials required for the occupation decline;
New occupational categories are created, leading to a new division of labour.
The threat to people who work these positions can include:
Lowered job requirements and credentials leading to lower wages;
Part-time and contingent work replaced full-time and permanent work;
Labourers lose professional autonomy and decision-making authority;
Some positions are replaced by technology entirely.
A Net-Gain
Of course, technology creates new jobs as it diminishes others. Indeed history suggests that the new occupations are often safer, less mind-numbing, and better compensation. Moreover, the application of technology to work processes has been critical to the overall growth of productivity enjoyed by advanced economies over the past two-and-a-half centuries (see Figure A). Before the Industrial Revolution, personal income doubled every 6000 years, but every 50 years since 1750. Washing machines, plumbing systems, and other technologies reduced the time required to maintain a home. Products that were once affordable only to a society’s most wealthy are now accessible to an expanding mass market. The efficiency of agricultural production jumped, raising living standards and health.
“In the Future, Sure. But Not Now. Not Here”
So, technology can produce significant benefits, but it has also upended people’s lives: reducing wages, putting them out of work, and indirectly disrupting families, communities, and traditional ways of living.
The people, families, and communities hurt by technology’s continual disruption of labour are rarely those that enjoy its benefits.
When people find their work lives upended by technology, it can take many years before they and their community recover financially. Most of us are familiar with the case of middle-income artisans in England during the early 18th century. Artisans worked at home or in small shops, either as one-person businesses or with a few other people - often family members. They created objects for sale or trade for others in their immediate community, such as shoes, textiles, and tools.
By the mid-1800s, entrepreneurs investing in new technologies and systems of production were changing these lifelong practices. Workers began toiling for wages in new industries, characterised by centralised shops and specialised machinery. A focus on productivity compelled a more significant division of labour, increased managerial control, and working to the clock. Products became standardised; workers’ lives were transformed.
Carl Benedikt Frey points out that it took middle-income artisans in England three generations to regain the losses created by mechanisation. The impact on labourers went far beyond income. Historians identified a shortening of life expectancy, a drop in the average height of adults, and other effects.
It’s difficult for individuals to quickly retrain for new types of work when demand for their occupation starts slipping. For example, demand for semi-skilled labour has been declining for decades in the manufacturing sector. Automation has been rising in its stead. But those individuals who earned sufficient and steady income as semi-skilled labourers in manufacturing in the past will struggle to acquire the skills and credentials necessary to be part of the shift to automation. The skills required are different but also greater in magnitude.
Changes to labour conditions demand labourers quickly acquire new skills and knowledge, which is especially difficult when the old occupation is embedded in a community and its’ culture -- as is the case in traditional industries like mining and fishing.
It is safe to assume that most people in the 21st century recognise the persistent march of technology into the workplace and its’ subsequent influence. And they can, at least in the abstract, appreciate technology’s long-term importance in improving the standard of living—a net gain.
Appreciation for technology’s benefits appears to rise with education and income levels among those who may be better able to weather the tide of disruptions brought about by technology. More educated labourers may also be less inclined to strike a less adversarial stance toward their managers and other lords of industry, given their aspirations for upward mobility.
Different When Personal
Regardless of the potential threat, we can expect workers of all stripes to push back on technology when it affects them personally. We may appreciate the long-term benefits of technology, but we’ll still do whatever we can to keep our jobs.
Instructional labour shares a good deal in common with the practices of 19th-century artisans. Like a shoemaker and others, academics operate by and large as one-person operations. While other people may be assigned to assist with course development and delivery, such as assistants or instructional designers, the bulk of the work — and all of the responsibility — lies with the individual academic. Unlike virtually all other 21st century professionals, academics enjoy a great deal of professional autonomy. They “own” the courses they teach. This way of working has deep roots in the institution, buttressed by conventions and solidified by contractual agreements and principles of academic freedom.
Given the nature of academic work, it is no surprise that the introduction of educational technology generated apprehension within the ranks. Many academics understood how technology could reconfigure the roles and responsibilities of the lone academic as it pertains to the design and development of instructional materials. Rightly, academics fear declining status, autonomy, and labour market value.
Few academics chose to criticise digital instruction publicly. However, I met very few who had no concerns about the influence of technology on their careers. (Much more on this in subsequent posts.)
“What would I do?”
1999, a department colleague on the faculty, in response to discussions about the growing interest in educational technology.
Concern amongst faculty mirrored that of workers in other occupations. They saw how other, well-established businesses and institutions had been weakened by the Internet and related technologies, including bookstores, book publishing, journalism, and the record industry (music). Affected industries include those closely aligned with higher education like libraries, encyclopaedia/reference book publishing, and textbook publishing. Industry pundits argued that higher education was ideally suited (i.e. a target) for change, given the capabilities of current technologies.
The faculty knew how these new technologies could be applied. In almost all scenarios, the transformations create a reduced role for academics. For example, universities could purchase the best available instructional content on the open market rather than rely on internal operations. ; acquire simulations, adaptive lessons, storytelling, and other relatively sophisticated materials. Unless an academic is one of the lucky ones with skills and background to play a role in the production of course materials, they will likely experience reduced market value, far less autonomy, and possibly diminished status.
“Although the number of jobs destroyed will be surpassed by the number of ‘jobs of tomorrow’ created, in contrast to previous years, job creation is slowing while job destruction accelerates.”
World Economic Forum. The Future of Jobs Report, October 2020
Dire scenarios like these inspired some academics to publish harsh criticisms of the turn to educational technology. In the next instalment, we look at one significant example.