Calm Technologies: A New Trend for Educational Technologies

Abstract

Over the last 50 years, technological development has been significantly influenced by computers and associated technologies. The massive investments made in information technology and communication development have benefitted all the world's economies, and especially the interconnected ones. All business areas have therefore adopted computers as an indispensable tool, and all economic and social processes have come to rely on computers for support and intermediation. The education field has been, and will continue to be, receptive to the evolutions of information- and communications-related technologies. Educators will use them on a wide scale in projects such as e-books, e-learning, university networks, and digital libraries. Technological miniaturization and steady improvements in performance have resulted in the abandonment of classical technologies (white chalk, blackboard, paper, pencil, etc.) and their extensive replacement by PC tablet, video projectors, intelligent boards, e-pen, and other new applications. According to various authors, deculturalization is one megatrend predictable for the long-term future of human society. Information technologies and communication will become increasingly omnipresent and will progressively acquire calm technology characteristics. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the contribution that these new educational technologies may have on deculturalization, and on the role of calm technologies in education.