Distance learning (EAD), using devices such as cell phones and notebooks, was the method found by many people to replace going to school and maintain studying in times of Covid-19 and social isolation. To continue (or start) an undergraduate degree, or undertake a specialization (postgraduate degree or even a free course), students had to resort to smartphones and computers, often completing their training entirely online.

Companies like ecosystem, Samsung, Apple e Google have invested heavily in distance learning, bringing great advances in software and hardware for remote learning. In addition to global Big Techs, we can mention cases of focus on this new demand involving apps such as Young Geniuses, which uses artificial intelligence and gamification to help people with distance learning, and new businesses like the partnership between the operator Tim and the company Cogna Educação (Kroton) in Brazil, with its undergraduate and graduate offerings graduate 100% by cell phone.

Faced with this reality, we spoke with Professor Dr. Renata Cristina Lopes Andrade to find out what an Education professional's position would be regarding cell phones replacing schools as a teaching environment. Andrade has a degree in Philosophy and a PhD in Education from the Universidade Estadual Paulista/UNESP-Câmpus de Marília.

Undeniable benefits of cell phones in education

Firstly, the professor states that the help and benefits of technology in education are undeniable, including cell phones in the classroom. Andrade points out that the didactic and pedagogical use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in everyday school life, from Basic Education to Higher Education, in the teaching and learning relationship, has long been appropriate. “To express this opportunity, we can resort to theoretical alternatives from Jürgen Habermas, for example, with his concept of Communicative Reason, or from Pierre Lévy, with his concept of Collective Intelligence”.

The professor also explains that it is possible to refer to numerous studies carried out in the context of master's and doctoral programs that point out the benefits, as well as the need, of ICTs in the classroom. “I remember research such as that carried out at the Federal University of Goiás/UFG, entitled: Teacher, can I use my cell phone? A study on mobility and social networks in the school teaching and learning process. This work evaluates the use of cell phones and virtual social networks for educational purposes, to stimulate and create situations that favor learning and knowledge construction.”

According to Andrade, this research points to cell phones as an option for creating new forms of knowledge production and for developing critical thinking. In addition, cell phones can be used by students in activities that seek information on the internet and transform it into knowledge. Cell phones are also important as a tool for understanding the teaching and learning process. “Therefore, I emphasize that the benefits and assistance of technology, including cell phones, in education are undeniable.”

The risks of merely technical and instrumental training

However, when proposals such as the one brought by the Tim and Kroton partnership are analyzed, Andrade sees problems in the field of education, in the field of teaching and learning relationships and in the relationship between the training and development of students. “The teaching company, far from an educational institution, says that its objective is to expand access to education and to encourage the democratization of education, with the consequence of increasing its employability rate”.

In this way, according to the professor, “the quality of education and the democratization of teaching, when treated as a business (a service for generating revenue, a 100% digital service without any interaction and pedagogical mediation between teacher and student) are widely compromised. Mainly, when we consider the type of training that students will receive, that is, a merely technical and instrumental training”.

Human crisis

Taking as a guide Theodor Adorno, an important thinker of Critical Theory, the professor points out the risks of this type of merely technical, instrumental training, which results in the “(de)formation of the human being”. As we well know, says Adorno, there are many facts that indicate the barbarity of instrumentalized knowledge, for example, the worst of all, the paradox of civilization, Auschwitz”.

Finally, Andrade emphasizes that the merely technical and instrumental brings to the field of human experiences and daily life the “dear self” proposed by Kant, Nietzsche’s “herd morality”, Adorno’s “weakness of the self”, Freire’s “heteronomy”, Arendt’s “banality of evil”. These concepts generally reveal the submission and individualization of human beings. For the professor, the result is a true and profound Human crisis, far from autonomy, freedom, self-determination and self-legislation, critical consciousness, everything that necessarily requires a democratic and quality education.

Image: LeeJeongSoo/Pixabay/CC