Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

Book corner: Questioning Technology

Karen A. Ferneding, a professor of curriculum and instruction in the College of Education, revisits current technocentric educational reform policy and examines the meaning of educational reform within the context of a technological society and globalized market economy in her new book, “Questioning Technology: Electronic Technologies and Educational Reform.”

Having colonized the politics of educational reform, technocentrism has narrowed the social space of educational reform discourse by invalidating alternative social visions germane to the tradition of social justice and the development of a civic society. This book interrogates current technocentric discourse through the voices of educators who engage in the practice of “questioning technology” and raises significant issues regarding the dominance of a technology-based reform agenda, techno-utopianism as a dominant social vision, and the positioning of teachers within school cultures reconfigured by control technologies and performity. Ferneding argues that educators need to create a deliberative approach to technology adoption, for only by assuming a more questioning stance toward the adoption of technological innovations can they hope to avoid technological determinism and take responsibility for the consequences of inventions.

Through her research at the UI, Ferneding examines the role of teachers and the political and sociocultural context of education, specifically the dynamics of globalization, electronic technologies, media and youth culture.

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Announcements Marcelo Garcia, professor of civil and environmental engineering at The Grainger College of Engineering.

Illinois faculty member elected to National Academy of Engineering

Champaign, Ill. — Marcelo Garcia, a professor of civil and environmental engineering in The Grainger College of Engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

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Engineering Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Nishant Garg, center, is joined by fellow researchers, from left: Yujia Min, Hossein Kabir, Nishant Garg, center, Chirayu Kothari and M. Farjad Iqbal, front right. In front are examples of clay samples dissolved at different concentrations in a NaOH solution. The team invented a new test that can predict the performance of cementitious materials in mere 5 minutes. This is in contrast to the standard ASTM tests, which take up to 28 days. This new advance enables real-time quality control at production plants of emerging, sustainable materials. Photo taken at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. (Photo by Fred Zwicky / University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

Researchers develop a five-minute quality test for sustainable cement industry materials

A new test developed at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign can predict the performance of a new type of cementitious construction material in five minutes — a significant improvement over the current industry standard method, which takes seven or more days to complete. This development is poised to advance the use of next-generation resources called supplementary cementitious materials — or SCMs — by speeding up the quality-check process before leaving the production floor.

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