Online Only Classes and Critical Dialogue: Toward a Faustian Bargain Ideal for Virtual Education

As distance learning and Online Only Classes (OOCs) become more prevalent in higher education, it becomes increasingly urgent that critical-democratic educators continue to work toward a better understanding of liberatory praxis through technology. The goals of this essay are to explain why critical dialogue cannot be realized in OOCs, describe how blended brick-and-mortar/virtual classes may be advantageous for a critical agenda, and help orient future scholarship concerning critical pedagogy and technology toward a “Faustian bargain” ideal argued by Neil Postman. In order to reach these goals, I outline two types of educators that I believe have the most at stake in the use of the Internet in educational spaces, conceptualize how I understand critical dialogue, and use two different metaphors about technology to further understandings of the implications of technology in education