IS POSTMODERN THEORY RELEVANT TO EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY? Listed below, are eight relevant (and practical) ideas for postmodern instructional design.

Postmodern is a concept that is still in flux. There is no simple definition--trying to find one could lead to chaos. It is not really an ideology, but rather a "condition."
The following few words and phrases--that are not necessarily definitions--may help to give the flavor of the postmodern condition: 
Perceptual montage 

                                                                                                 The wisest of them all knows this only: that he knows nothing yet. Baurillard
Eclectic
Difference over Uniformity             
Multiple interpretations
Multiple responses
Multiple discourses
Multiple options
Conversations that are: open and honest, have many answers, and are never finished.
David Lodge (1977) identifies five basic postmodern characteristics: Contradiction, Discontinuity, Randomness, Excess, and Short Circuit--characteristics that are probably the antithesis of a well-thought-out traditional instructional design system.

From(Andrew Yeaman 1994)

1. There are probably several workable solutions to every instructional design problem, not just one ideal solution. 
2. Consider needs and not just technologies. Your task is to solve real world problems and not to advocate computers or other technologies just for the sake of technology. Technologies do not miraculously solve all problems.
    
    
3. Evaluate technological fixes. Has the original problem been solved? If so, what else has changed? Have new problems been created?
   
   
4. Break away from traditional communication that assigns power to the creator's instructional messages, but denies it to the learners. This authoritarian approach will fail.
5. Avoid the idealistic notion that there is a perfect meeting of the minds. Although people engage in communication all their lives, there is rarely an absolute correspondence in understandings.
   
6. Look for and avoid self-contradictions in your own messages and in other peoples' messages.
7. Expect diversity in the way students and trainees understand and in what they understand. Advocate these myriad pathways of understanding as superior to our past reliance ona linear, pipeline transmission of knowledge. Each learner is unique and brings to learning his or her own background, interests, needs, and perspectives.
   

   

8. Examine and learn from instruction that seems to fail as well as instruction that succeeds as predicted.
    
    

Postmodern, poststructural, critical theory (along with constructivism) enlarges the “debate about the purpose and role of education in designing and delivering instruction” so that “social, ethical, and cultural responsibilities must be addressed.” (Walster, 1995).
“Designing, managing, and delivering good instruction is different from creating instruction that is materially and intellectually beneficial for people. The ethical question we should always ask is not about doing our work well but ‘Are we doing good?’” (Yeaman, 1996)
“There are times in life when the question of knowing if one can think differently than one thinks, and perceive differently than one sees, is absolutely necessary if one is to go on looking and reflecting at all.” (Foucault, 1985)

Doreen Clough
Department of Educational Technology
San Diego State University