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McDonaldization in Cyberspace:

Examining Commercial Education Web

Sites

Brian A. QuinnTexas Tech University, [email protected]

This paper is posted at eScholarship Repository.

http://esr.lib.ttu.edu/lib fac research/27

McDonaldization in Cyberspace: Examining Commercial Education Web Sites

Nearly a decade ago, a sociologist named George Ritzer proposed an unusual thesis- that

the principles of the fast food industry were gradually coming to dominate more and

more aspects of society. This process, known as Mcdonaldization, became one of the

most controversial and influential ideas in the field. This study examines commercial

education Web sites in order to determine whether they have become McDonaldized, and

if so, to what extent. It analyzes seven of the better-known sites, in terms of the four

basic components of the McDonaldization process: efficiency, predictability,

calculability, and control.

McDonaldization and Commercial Education Web Sites 3

In the early 1990’s, George Ritzer, a sociologist at the University of Maryland,

published a controversial book called The McDonaldization of Society (Ritzer, 1993).

The book caused quite a stir among sociologists because it contained a bold thesis. Ritzer

claimed that the principles of the fast food industry were increasingly pervading all

aspects of society, including the field of education.

Much of Ritzer’s thesis was based on the work of the distinguished German

sociologist Max Weber. Writing at the turn of the century, it was Weber who first

suggested that society was becoming more rationalized. By this he meant that people

were increasingly guided by a system of formal rules and regulations designed to help

them achieve the optimum means to a given end. Weber called this formal rationality

(Weber, 1968), and stated that it was bureaucracy that best exemplified the process of

rationalization. In a bureaucracy, a rational hierarchy of offices is created, governed by a

system of formal rules and regulations designed to achieve a given end. Typically this

involves breaking down a task into a series of sub-tasks and assigning each office or

department the responsibility of overseeing a particular sub-task, usually in a pre-

designated sequence. Weber was convinced that no other social structure epitomized the

optimal means of achieving pre-determined goals like that of a bureaucracy.

Weber was careful to point out that bureaucracies offer certain advantages like the

ability to be fast and efficient. However, he was also concerned that highly rationalized

bureaucracies could generate certain irrationalities. Many of us are all too familiar with

what can happen when bureaucracies get so encumbered with rules and procedures that

they create various forms of red tape (Bozeman, 2000). Not only can bureaucracies be

annoyingly inefficient to the clients they are supposed to serve, but they can also be


detrimental to those who work in them. Workers who find themselves performing a

series of rigidly constricted, narrowly-defined tasks can become alienated from their

work and from “the system.” Weber believed that carried to extremes, bureaucracy could

become an “iron cage” that hindered human growth rather than facilitated it.

For Ritzer, it is not bureaucracy that constitutes the essence of rationalization, but

the fast food industry. McDonald’s and other fast food chains have become an

inescapable, ubiquitous aspect of American society and represent a growing international

presence as well, with outlets in Moscow, Beijing, and Nairobi. Many other businesses

have adopted the principles of McDonald’s, among them Wal-Mart, Jiffy Lube, and

Pearle Vision Centers. Menus at K-12 schools are frequently modeled on fast food

restaurants, and college and university cafeterias have become fast food arcades serviced

by numerous chains.

If McDonaldization appears to be an increasingly pervasive phenomenon, the

question arises as to whether and to what extent McDonaldization has affected the World

Wide Web. It is the purpose of this study to examine one particular sector of the Web—

commercial education Web sites—to see if McDonaldization has made inroads there.

Along with the rise of the “dot.com” industry, commercial education Web sites have

mushroomed. Many appear to be positioning themselves as direct or indirect competitors

with both primary and secondary educational institutions, as well as colleges and

universities.

According to Ritzer, the McDonaldization process can be broken down into four

fundamental components: efficiency, predictability, calculability, and control (Ritzer,

1995). These four elements of McDonaldization will be used as a framework for


analyzing the extent to which commercial education Web sites can be regarded as

“McDonaldized.” Each element will be discussed in turn, citing relevant examples from

commercial education Web sites whenever appropriate.

Efficiency

Central to the process of McDonaldization is a concern for achieving a given end

as quickly and easily as possible with the least expenditure of effort, time, and resources.

One of the most important reasons that people eat at fast food restaurants is because they

consider it to be an efficient way to obtain sustenance. No time or effort is lost in

preparing the meal or cleaning up afterward. Drive-through windows epitomize

efficiency by allowing customers to pick up an order and whisk through in an orderly,

systematic way, without even getting out of the car (Hall, 1978).

In a similar manner, commercial education Web sites claim to make education

available in a fast and easy way by offering desktop convenience and around-the-clock

access, much like a 24-hour convenience store. One commercial education Web-site,

bigchalk.com (2001, Mission section, para. 4) states that they help teachers create “a

learning environment that breaks the barriers of classroom walls, fixed hours and limited

school resources.” Bigchalk.com (2001, Mission section, para. 12) reinforces the idea of

efficiency by stating that “We also offer students and teachers remote home access to our

services to provide maximum opportunity for research and enable students to pursue class

assignments and personal study after hours.” Education thus becomes a “product” that

can be consumed at the location and time of the student’s choice, with a minimal

investment of effort. The student does not have to go to school or to the library to obtain


an education. Bigchalk.com enables the educational product to be delivered to the

student much like a Domino’s pizza, a kind of fast food for thought. The Web site

suggests that by allowing the student 24-hour access, the student will be encouraged to

become an avid consumer beyond the “normal hours” that students are expected to keep

(Presser, 1998).

Students are not the only consumers who can take advantage of the efficiency

offered by commercial education sites. A site called Classroom Connect.com (2001,

About Classroom Connect section, para.3) features a resource called Connected

University. The page features a slick advertising banner running across the top of the

page that has a photo of a person in pajamas and slippers followed by the slogan “Any

Pace, Any Place.” The copy below goes on to tout “round the clock resources” and

“cost-effective, time-efficient” professional development for teachers.

Another site called School Center.com (2001, Internet Management Tools section,

para. 6) promotes a program called Jump Start that is aimed at making it easier for

teachers and administrators to create a Web site for their school. “Are you having trouble

finding time to set up your school or district’s website? Let us do it for you!! School

Center’s Brand New Jump Start program is the quick and easy solution to getting a web

presence fast.” Just as a meal at McDonald’s serves as an efficient solution to a busy

mother who is too harried to cook dinner, School Center.com offers the preoccupied

school teacher or administrator an efficient “quick fix” in the form of a school Web site.

Those who register for the Jump Start Program are promised a starter’s kit which is akin

to a digital Happy Meal. The customer submits the order and is promptly served up a

customized (“Have It Your Way”) Web site.


Along with students and teachers, parents can find commercial education sites

that offer to make them more efficient parents to their school-aged children. Family

Education Network.com (2001, History section, para.1) began as an education newsletter

designed to bring “thousands of time-starved parents the information they needed.” With

the development of the Internet, Family Education Network created a Web site that

“became a one-stop resource for busy parents.” It now offers online exchange between

users about education, family, and children. Users are in “constant conversation,

anytime, anywhere.” Family Education Network claims to have “powerful education

resources” that are “instantly accessible.” Speed and efficiency are of the utmost

importance, and just like a menu at McDonald’s, all FEN resources are “within just a

click of each other.” It offers a kind of “one-stop shopping” on the World Wide Web,

eliminating the need to perform time-consuming searches and then having to sift through

pages of results (Raeder, 1996).

The Web sites of commercial education purveyors are themselves models of

efficiency. Resources are carefully arranged in neat categories of links and often

highlighted by colorful graphics, icons, and symbols to make them easy to identify and

navigate. Some of the busier, more cluttered ones even resemble a McDonald’s menu

board. The organization of the Web sites is typically logical, though not always intuitive.

Like McDonald’s, the design of these Web sites generally appears to be geared toward a

mass audience and has a dumbed down, lowest common denominator quality to it. Most

of the sites are organized in outline format and begin with basics like “What’s New,”

“About Us,” “History,” “Overview,” “Mission,” or “Vision” then proceed on to

“Products,” “Services,” “Tools,” or “Resources.” Many sites conclude with “For More


Information,” “Feedback,” “Recommendations,” or “Subscribe Today!” The resources

and the site are frequently categorized according to the audience they are geared toward:

students, teachers, administrators, or parents. In case any users are in a hurry, many Web

sites feature site maps to allow them to zero in on a particular resource. At

Lightspan.com (2001, About Lightspan.com, para. 13) even leisure pursuits like puzzles

and games have their own neat categories and links.

One of the reasons why McDonald’s has become a model of efficiency is because

it lets customers do much of the work themselves. Customers must order and pick up

their own foods. Once their order is ready, they add their own condiments, fill their own

drinks, and then empty their trays when finished.

Commercial education Web sites have adopted a similar approach to efficiency

(Greengard, 1998). Students are expected to identify and locate their own instructional

material through a process of pointing and clicking. Once located, the lesson, puzzle,

game, quiz, etc., is often interactive, forcing the students to do the work of educating

themselves. The teacher is usually absent, having in some cases been eliminated from the

education process altogether.

Much like a salad bar, commercial education Web sites offer a kind of educational

smorgasbord. Students are free to pick and choose from the offerings available at the

Web site. Traditional notions of sequence and selectivity with regard to curriculum

content do not necessarily hold true here. In the bigchalk.com library (2001, Library

Resources section, para.1) students must formulate their own questions, conduct their

own searches, sort their own results, and print them themselves. Teachers, parents, and

even schools must do their own work as well. At Lightspan.com (2001, Teachers section,


para.1) teachers are asked to create their own quizzes, and schools must create and post

their own projects on the Web to compete in CyberFair, an online learning program.

Similarly, at FamilyEducation.com (2001, Parent section, para.2) parents are asked to

take a quiz called “End of School-Year Checklist” which rates them on how well-

prepared they are for “those final, hectic weeks of school.” This same site asks teachers

to create their own grade books and Web sites.

Another way that fast food restaurants increase efficiency is by strictly limiting

the choices of food available on their menu. Despite Burger King’s old slogan, “have it

your way,” the number of selections consumers can order at a fast food establishment are

strictly limited. It is possible to order slight variations in the way menu items are

prepared, but customers that do often have to wait longer than customers who do not

make special requests. Beyond these slight variations, a customer who asked for any dish

that differed significantly from the standard fare would be told that it would not be

possible.

Commercial education Web sites similarly limit their offerings to a relatively

small number of resources. Some sites may offer links to other sites, but generally the

selections are quite limited (Devlin, 1997). The typical commercial education Web site

offers a limited number of options to each of its target consumer groups: students,

teachers, administrators, and parents. The resources offered to these groups, such as

lessons, games, and puzzles for students, are not only limited in number but are rarely

able to be customized by the user to any significant degree.

Bigchalk.com (2001, Mission section, para.10) claims that its reference, research,

content and curriculum offerings can be “customized and personalized to the specific


needs of each bigchalk.com member.” ”Yet its use of templates that allow teachers to

create sites and assignments, by definition, limits options. Many sites feature pull-down

menus with pre-determined options sorted by a student’s grade level. A number of sites

also offer pre-determined topics of the day, week, or month. If the featured topic of the

week is Congo gorillas and a student needs information on dolphins, the student, like the

fast food restaurant patron, must go elsewhere. Nonetheless, it is common to encounter

sites claiming to be “comprehensive solutions” to the Internet needs of users, or “one-

stop resources” for those users with little time to spend searching the Internet. Some

commercial education Web sites like Lightspan.com (2001, Showcase Features section,

para.1) have attempted to mimic the McDonaldized efficiency of the shopping mall by

compiling thousands of links to other Web sites at their own site.

Fast food restaurants represent only one example of the McDonaldized efficiency

that has become pervasive in contemporary society. In his book on McDonaldization,

Ritzer mentions the package tour as another example of how efficiently tourists are

shuffled from city to city on a tight schedule. There is little time to linger in a location if

a tourist finds it interesting or to diverge from the itinerary should travelers decide they

would like to visit other destinations. Since each stop on the tour is relatively brief and

only allows time to visit the main attractions at that location, the traveler ends up with a

superficial and cliched impression of that site. The tour is nonetheless an efficient way of

seeing a large number of cities in a relatively brief time at an affordable price.

Commercial education Web sites have created digital versions of the package tour

by offering to take students on virtual tours of exotic locations (Ritzer, 1997). Classroom

Connect.com (2001, Classroom Connect, para.1) for example, offers “interactive


expeditions” to the Amazon. The tour consists of articles and lists of resources about the

Amazon, as well as links to other Web sites offering facts and activities about it. Photos

of exotic and unusual Amazon plants and animals are included, along with maps and

other learning aids. All of this is efficiently packaged and presented in a series of highly

colorful and graphic pages that resemble an online version of an old geography textbook.

There is even a biweekly Quest Newsletter that allows users to stay current regarding all

the Quest activities.

Providing a wide array of educational resources to promote teaching and learning

is another way commercial education Web sites emphasize efficiency. K-12 teachers are

able to navigate through an orderly sequence of screens that prompt them for their

subject, grade level, and other factors to help them locate activities, projects,

assignments, lesson plans, readings, and tests that will be relevant to the particular class

they are teaching. The resources are designed to make the teaching process much more

efficient by saving teachers time and effort. FamilyEducation.com (2001, Teacher Vision

section, para.1) includes a Web page called Teachervision.com that features a Lesson

Planning Center to “make your teaching life simpler.” Lesson plans are arranged

according to various themes and summer readings lists are also provided. A series of

links to resources on how to improve teaching and manage the classroom better is also

included. The site even provides ready-made handouts that teachers can give to parents.

Commercial education Web sites represent an enhanced source of efficiency for students

as well. They provide students with study aids, electronic message boards, lessons

disguised as “fun” activities such as games and computers, sample test questions, live

chats with scholars, and online texts. By using these resources, students are able to work


outside the classroom in the location of their choice, in a vivid medium that many prefer

over traditional paper textbooks. Beyond logging on and exercising basic navigational

skills, all the work has been pre-packaged for them in a user-friendly, colorful, graphic

format that makes studying similar to watching TV in some ways. Much of the “work”

of being a student—of locating and organizing information, has already been done for

them (Albanese, 1999).

Predictability

Another aspect of the rationalization process that is characteristic of

McDonaldization is predictability. This refers to a need on the part of consumers to be

able to know what to expect of a product. Manufacturers strive to make their products

look, taste, smell, and feel the same from one use to the next, and from one location to

another. One of the reasons that people go to McDonald’s is because they understand

that the Big Mac they eat in Boston will be remarkably similar to the ones served in San

Diego, Tokyo, or Paris. That is because McDonald’s uses the same ingredients and

prepares them according to precise standards in order to ensure that they do not vary from

one location to another. Not only is the food at McDonald’s fairly predictable, but names

of menu items like “Big Mac” and “Happy Meal” are the same, and the atmosphere tends

to be similar as well—the same bright, cheerful colors are used in many of the

restaurants. McDonald’s customers prefer this sameness and seek it out when they travel

to unfamiliar locations. They do not want surprises and McDonald’s offers reassuring

consistency that they feel that they can rely on.


Commercial education Web sites also emphasize predictability. Much of the

content of these sites is specifically designed to imitate and replicate as much as possible

an ideal K-12 world so familiar to students, teachers, parents, and librarians. The

structure, content, features, and even the names of these sites (“bigchalk,” Netschools,”

“Classroom Connect,” and “School Center,”) all use traditional imagery to make teachers

and students feel that they are in a comfortable, familiar, predictable environment. The

people pictured at these sites who represent students, teachers, and parents are all

attractive-looking models who appear friendly, intelligent, intellectually engaged, and

highly motivated. One never encounters disinterested students, unhappy parents, or

frazzled or weary teachers. There is less emphasis on creativity and innovation, and

much more on making these Web sites seem like online versions of traditional

educational settings (Albert, 1996). Schoolcenter.com, for example, advertises that it

allows teachers to post homework assignments and special events as well as create Web-

based review tests and display student work via an electronic scrapbook. Teachers may

also promote class discussion using a messageboard. None of these activities, however,

are radically different or novel when compared with the kind of activities that occur in

the traditional non-electronic school setting. Commercial education Web sites have

simply taken many of these familiar activities and transferred them to the online

environment. Users of these Web sites are thus assured of a predictable setting that is

designed not to diverge significantly from what the teacher or student encounters in a

typical school.

Parents are offered a similarly predictable array of familiar educational tools like

student handbooks, permission slips, and school calendars that are digital copies of the


standard items. One commercial education Web site, FamilyEducation.com (2001,

Family Education section, para.3) offers parents an online list of “Sunny Day Activities,”

designed to keep children occupied “when your kids get tired of the beach or the ball

field. If the weather turns bad it offers indoor activities to keep the children distracted.

At this site, teachers will find the same reassuring tools they are used to working with in

school: lesson plans, bibliographies, and articles on teaching styles and managing

classroom behavior.

Commercial education Web sites use other means to assure that their users will

find them predictable. Beyondbooks.com (2001, About Beyond Books section, para.2) is

careful to use program content that has been written by “award winning teachers” (what

awards they have won is never specified). These teachers write in a style targeted toward

secondary school students, one they will find reassuringly predictable. This site also

provides thousands of “grade-appropriate” links for students and teachers designed to

complement the programs offered at the site. The links are annotated with brief reviews

so that teachers and students will know what they are accessing before they even click on

the links. This assures predictability and a lack of any surprises, either positive or

negative. Classroomconnect.com (200l, About Classroom Connect section, para.5) even

advertises that its content has been “classroom-tested,” to help assure that it is predictable

and safe. For parents, Lightspan.com (2001, Parents Section, para.1) takes the

uncertainty out of parenting by providing a link called “Grade by Grade.” It enables

parents to gauge the development of their children by informing them of exactly what

students should know by a particular grade.


Another way that commercial education Web sites assure predictability is by

aligning their content with national, state, or local education standards. Netschools.com

(2001, NetSchools Orion section, para.2) offers its own online curriculum alignment and

integration system. It features a search engine that allows teachers to select a standard

and then search for Web sites that are related to it. “Alignment to standards is no longer

a hit or miss process,” the site proclaims. Similarly, bigchalk.com (2001, Mission

section, para.13) features online tests and diagnostic instructions that are geared toward

statewide assessments. The site even touts that its content meets AASA (American

Association of School Administrators) standards. These standards are designed to create

a benchmark for the quality of Web content and to assure that it is correlated to standards.

These kinds of quality assurances are an additional way that commercial education Web

sites try to ensure predictability. The standards themselves are a way of guaranteeing that

educational content is predictable and uniform (Spady, 2000).

Calculability

Along with efficiency and predictability, the third aspect of the rationalization

process that contributes to McDonaldization is calculability. McDonald’s and many

other fast food franchises place a tremendous emphasis on numbers, counting, and the

quantification of many aspects of their business. For many years McDonald’s displayed

signs at its restaurants that proudly proclaimed “Billions Served.” The purpose of the

sign was not just to emphasize the success of the company. It was also to imply that the

huge sales could somehow be attributed to the quality of the burgers served. This process

by which fast food outlets equate quantity with quality is the essence of calculability.


Commercial education Web sites also place considerable emphasis on

calculability. At Lightspan.com, both general and specific numbers are cited to suggest

the quality of the site and its value. Lightspan.com (2001, Company Information section,

para.4) is more specific: “Many of the over 400 staff at Lightspan are former

educators…” Quoting figures and quantifying aspects of their business is an important

way that commercial education Web sites project or imply quality and also reassure users

and prospective users that they are serious enterprises and not mere fly-by-night

operations.

One way for a commercial education Web site to suggest that it is not an

ephemeral presence on the Web is by alluding to the size of its customer base.

Classroomconnect.com (2001, About Classroom Connect section, para.4) for example,

claims that its Quest Channel “allows hundreds of thousands of students” to become

“virtual explorers.” When a visitor clicks on “About Us” the first sentence reads:

“Classroom Connect currently helps more than half the country’s K-12 schools make

sense of the Internet.” Bigchalk.com (2001, Mission section, para.12) is more specific in

the figures it advertises: “Currently, our research and reference services have been

licensed for more than 40,000 of the nation’s 110,000 schools and approximately 2,000

public libraries, creating a large base of established customers…” On the same page,

another sentence alludes to the size of its subscriber base “Currently, more than 9,000

schools have posted Web sites on bigchalk.com.”

Another way that commercial education Web sites use quantity to imply quality is

by promoting the breadth and depth of their offerings (Ojala, 2000). Beyondbooks.com

(2001, About Beyond Books section, para.3) claims to “link to thousands of Internet sites


to complement every focus area covered in our programs.” At FamilyEducation.com

(2001, Teachers Section, para.2) teachers are purported to be able to “access thousands of

assessment quizzes written by teachers like you.” Some sites are able to be more specific

in their effort to suggest quality. Netschools.com (2001, NetSchools Orion section,

para.4) for example, boasts “over 47,000 pre-screened Web sites.” Bigchalk.com (2001,

Library Resources section, para.2) equates the quality of its bigchalk Library with

quantity by offering the following statement along with a detailed breakdown: “Quality

information from seven media types: “Magazines-900 titles, Newspapers-185 titles,

Reference Works-175 titles, Transcripts-70 programs, Maps-7 collections, Images-15

collections, Audio/Video-4 collections.”

Perhaps the most impressive way that commercial education Web sites attempt to

convince potential customers of their quality is by quantifying results. Lightspan.com

(2001, What is Lightspan Achieve Now? section, para.2) promotes its Lightspan Achieve

Now curriculum program by quantifying its popularity with children: “Kids love our

interactive lessons, Lightspan Adventures, so much that 88% of them spend half an hour

or more on the Adventures every day after school. That’s an extra two and a half hours

studying the core curriculum, every week.” Lightspan.com (2001, What is Lightspan

Achieve Now? section, para.3) also offers statistics on the effect that their program has

on parents: “Two thirds spend at least half an hour with their children on the core

curriculum, every night.” These statistics are calculated to convince consumers that

commercial education Web sites are valuable and effective. Lightspan.com (2001, What

is Lightspan Achieve Now? section, para.6) has also surveyed and quantified the teaching

segment of its audience in order to underscore the quality of its products: “In a survey of


more than 250 teachers, 98% said that Lightspan Achieve Now makes a real difference in

student motivation.” By quantifying various aspects of their products and services,

commercial education Web sites attempt to offer hard evidence of their quality (Hawkins,

1999). Yet the numbers themselves cast doubt on the quality of these sites. When

Lightspan.com (2001, About Lightspan.com section, para.6) boasts that it is a “one-stop

resource for more than 1,500 of the best online lesson plans,” the question arises, how

can there be 1,500 “best” of anything? Similarly, when a claim is made on the same page

that Lightspan offers “115,000 grade-appropriate, expert-selected sites” some users might

wonder how “selected” the sites really are.

Control

The final aspect of the rationalization process that furthers the growth of

McDonaldization is control. One of the most important characteristics of a rationalized,

McDonaldized society is that it attempts to control any irrationalities that may occur in

the system. The optimal functioning of a McDonald’s restaurant leaves little room for

unpredictable imprecision, or inefficiency. The goal of McDonald’s is to control every

aspect of the restaurant experience so that there is nothing left to chance. When a

customer enters a McDonald’s, the customer becomes part of an elaborate, carefully

planned, orderly dining sequence. Each customer lines up, reads the menu, makes a

selection, then observes as the meal is prepared by machines tended by a kitchen crew in

a highly systematized, assembly-line manner. The customer pays for the food, picks it

up, fills the drink cup and picks up condiments, utensils and napkins, and then sits down.

After the meal, the customer cleans up and carries the tray to a waste bin and disposes of


the leftovers. Every aspect of the dining sequence is planned and controlled, right down

to the questions and responses of the counter help.

It has taken many years for McDonald’s and other fast food restaurants to obtain

this level of precise control over the dining experience. Over the years, more and more

aspects of the human role in the process have been gradually replaced by machines. It is

machines that now automatically broil the burgers, and cook the French fries. This is to

eliminate human uncertainty and judgement about whether the food is cooked enough.

The whole process of preparing and cooking the food has become so mechanized and

automated that the kitchen crew must choreograph and synchronize their actions to the

machines.

The ultimate goal of McDonaldization then, is to eliminate all human irrationality

and uncertainty from the dining process and replace humans with machines. That is

because machines are more rational, efficient, predictable, and controllable than humans.

Commercial education Web sites attempt to exert this same kind of control over people in

the education process. They use technology, specifically computers and the World Wide

Web, to control those who use their services to pursue educational aims. Teachers and

parents use technology to control students, and administrators use it to control teachers.

These forms of control are often quite overt, and some commercial education

Web sites actually promote it as a benefit for users. Schoolcenter.com (2001, Tech

Coordinators Section, para.4) for example, touts in a bold heading “You always have

control.” Beneath the heading are bulleted subpoints, that delineate the forms of control:

You grant or deny user’s access level,” “You design the look of the site,” “You choose

your own Web address.” Variations on the theme of control are offered throughout the


sites. A subsequent page states “Only your User ID and Password will allow for any

changes to be made to your pages.”

Other commercial education Web sites similarly reinforce the theme of control by

reminding teachers that they not only regulate access, but also the content of the site.

Classroomconnect.com (2001, Quick Tour section, para.1) allows teaches to check

whether students have started an assignment and how much progress they have made.

Teachers can even examine the class notes and portfolios of the students. At

NetSchools.com (2001, NetSchools Orion section, para.7) their system features an online

calendar that displays important days on the school calendar, as well as meetings and

holidays. The site reminds teachers: “You can enter calendar events that will appear on

your students’ calendars.” NetSchools.com (2001, NetSchools Education Services

section, para.16) claims to offer proprietary software, that “assists you in controlling the

use of student laptops.” Teachers cannot just control them, but also monitor them.

Control of student work goes beyond surveillance to include actual content. A good

example is a feature of NetSchools (2001, Products section, para.6) technology called

Desktop Monitor, which includes the following description: “Desktop Monitor permits

teachers to control which programs students may run while they are in the teacher’s

classroom. Teachers may, for example, completely disable student machines during

lecture periods, or they may exercise more selective control such as disabling E-mail and

Web browsing during a quiz.” Netschools.com (2001, Products section, para.8) is so

enamored of this technology that it proclaims that it has a patent pending on it. A further

measure of control is afforded by what the company refers to as an anti-theft control

system, which includes student laptops that feature a “teacher-defined timing device that


makes them inoperable after the time limit expires.” Technology is thus being used not

as an educational tool but as a form of behavioral control (Kahn and Friedman, 1998).

And while many of these Web sites would seem to offer teachers a remarkable amount of

control over students, Classroomconnect.com (2001, Connected University section,

para.7) features an online resource called Connected University which enables teachers to

take professional development courses online. Connected University, however, is

controlled by school administrators, allowing them a degree of control over teachers.

Commercial education Web sites are able to use technology to monitor and

control behavior in another way. FamilyEducation.com (2001, Privacy section, para.3)

uses cookies to monitor user behavior at its site. Cookies are technological mechanisms

in the form of message files that can track what pages a user reads, what advertisements

they click on, and what products they order. Search preferences and patterns are then

analyzed by companies to determine a user’s interests and preferences. This information

can then be shared with or sold to other marketers or advertisers (Falk, 1999). Although

commercial education Web sites like FamilyEducation.com state at their Web site that

they will never release personal information to others without permission, their use of

cookies raises questions of privacy, surveillance, and control that are unsettling. Cookies

are another way commercial education Web sites use non-human technology to impose

rationality and control over human behavior.

Conclusion

Rational processes like McDonaldization almost invariably tend to produce

irrationality in one form or another. This is something that Ritzer refers to as “the


irrationality of rationality.” Thus, while McDonald’s is purported to be a highly efficient

and expeditious way to dine, customers who eat at McDonald’s sometimes find

themselves faced with long lines. Similarly, McDonald’s has its kitchen and counter

employees carefully trained to conduct their work in a series of very rigid, narrowly

defined actions that reduce them to robot-like workers. This rigidity, combined with low

wages, helps to account for the extremely high turnover rate among fast food restaurant

employees, resulting in a loss of revenue for McDonald’s and other fast food outlets.

Rational systems, when carried to extremes, are ultimately irrational because they

dehumanize people and do not utilize their creative potential. Companies like

McDonald’s have thus been unable to develop new products and have instead merely

been successful in repackaging old ones.

The same could be said for commercial education Web sites. They tend to

dehumanize students and teachers by forcing them to act in certain prescribed ways.

Rather than harness technology to create truly innovative forms of teaching and learning,

commercial education Web sites have to a large extent merely imitated and repackaged

traditional forms of education in digital form. Visitors to these sites encounter many of

the same aspects of the K-12 world—including virtual classrooms, texts, syllabi, lesson

plans, tests, permission slips, etc.—that are common in education today. Commercial

education Web sites have in many cases deliberately imported may of these familiar

elements of conventional education settings into the digital realm in order to make their

products and services more reassuring and comfortable—and thus more marketable—to

administrators, teachers, parents, and students.


Commercial education Web sites have failed to utilize the potential of information

technology because they have not yet produced truly creative ways to educate students.

By forcing teachers and students to act on the Web much as they would act in a

traditional physical classroom, students and teachers never learn to be creative. These

Web sites have avoided the challenge of coming up with genuinely new approaches to

pedagogy and learning and have contented themselves with simply repackaging the

traditional trappings of K-12 education. They have created an illusion of innovation by

repackaging the conventional educational system using bright colors, bold graphics, slick

advertising copy, and professional models. The result is a sterile, sanitized, Disney-like,

carnival atmosphere that hides a lack of real innovation and genuinely fresh solutions to

educational problems.

Equally disturbing is the way many commercial education Web sites utilize

information technology for purposes of surveillance and control. Students, and to a lesser

extent teachers, are afforded less privacy than in a non-electronic setting. Every aspect of

their work, right down to their class notes and exchanges with other students, can be

monitored, recorded, and archived electronically by teachers or administrators. The use

of cookies by many commercial education Web sites creates the possibility of tracking

and analyzing student, parent, and teacher behavior, and of using this information to

create profiles of individual interests and preferences which can then be used for

commercial purposes. This has an ominous, “Big Brother” quality that suggests a need

for further research and investigation and which raises many disturbing issues related to

an individual’s right to privacy in electronic settings.


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