The design and use of information technologies are not as easily separated as they may seem. Designers have much at stake in the use of their software, while users are greatly influenced by the design of the software that they use. Here, I explore the relationships built up between the designers and users of educational technologies. I develop and apply a three-step process for studying the design and use of a software product in its social context. First, it is important to focus on the social worlds of designers and users that influence the development of the technology. Next, the emphasis shifts to the technology itself, which can be viewed as a boundary object emerging from the intersection of the contributing social worlds. Finally, the technology exhibits agency by reshaping the relationships and interactions among the contributing social worlds.
Simulations of frog dissection and human anatomy are the two case studies explored in this dissertation. For human anatomy simulations, I identify the contributing social worlds as simulation designers, gross anatomy instructors, and educational administrators. For frog dissection simulations, the contributing social worlds are simulation designers, biology educators, and animal advocates. In both cases, some hybrid individuals are members of more than one of the contributing social worlds, and conferences serve as meeting points for members of the contributing social worlds. Data collected for this study includes interviews with simulation designers and users; participant observation in design laboratories, conferences, and classrooms; and direct evaluation of the software.
In the conclusion, I develop a new model of non-human agency. Instead of viewing non-human agency as purely a result of the relationships between non-humans and humans, I view agency as an emergent property which has evolved over a period of millions of years, thus placing human agency as one point on a larger spectrum of bioagency. I then create a parallel spectrum, cyberagency, which can be used to understand the emergent agency of technologies. The central argument here is that agency is largely a product of code, either genetic code in the case of bioagency or binary code in the case of cyberagency.
My Research