One Voice International Conference The Institute of Elemental Ethics and Education Westin St. Francis, San Francisco, USA July 5 - 9, 2008 Reconceptualizing relationships within high-tech social and educational contexts

Technologies have provided many benefits to society but have also provoked many concerns which engender both philosophical reflection and personal action. Our paper is written in response to the growing crisis of depersonalization in modern westernized society where our primary mode of communication is technology based and characterized by the depersonalization of human relationships. Depersonalization defines the extent to which human relationships have substituted face‐to‐face human interchange in preference for technologically mediated communication. This presents itself in forms of social disconnection, alienation and dehumanization, which is evident in our communities and schools. The educational and social ramifications of the commitment of western culture to a form of knowledge as power serve to provide the social conditions within which depersonalisation thrives. We argue that there is a need to reconceptualize the educational epistemology of power in such a way that the repersonalization of human relationships becomes a primary goal of the learning process. Such reconceptualization of power and resulting interrelationships would enable us to repersonalise relationships within hightech social and educational contexts to eliminate depersonalization from our lives. We can develop deep and sustainable personal relationships by immersing ourselves in high‐contact personal environments, reconceptualize knowledge as connectivity, expressed empathetically and repersonalize educational environments to find a personal sense of purpose and more meaningful pedagogy.