Building as Interface: Sustainable Educational Ecologies

• Main Authors: Suzanne de Castell, Milena Droumeva, Jen Jenson
• Format: Article
• Language: deu
• Published: MedienPädagogik 2014-09-01
• Series: MedienPädagogik: Zeitschrift für Theorie und Praxis der Medienbildung
• Online Access: https://www.medienpaed.com/article/view/174

This paper begins with the most obvious, and yet most elusive, of educational media ecologies, the buildings which are ‹home› to pedagogic communication and interaction, and considers how we might understand «building as interface», construed first as a noun, («a structure with roof and walls» – OED) referring to places as physical structures, and then as a verb, («the action or trade of constructing something» – OED), referring to the activities of construction through which we can engage technologies central to theory, research and practice. Our concern is with exploring the larger question of educational sustainability: with what ‹sustainability› means when applied to a specifically educational context, and with the sustainability of the kinds of emerging educational environments in which new information and communications technologies play a significant role. This question of sustainable educational environments is driven by a need to be responsible and accountable for the impact of the technologies and practices we eagerly embrace in the name of «21st century learning», even as prospects for a 22nd century are so rapidly receding from view. As one prominent media ecologist put the point: «we have to find the environments in which it will be possible to live with our new inventions» (McLuhan 1967, 124).