Digital artefact for #EDCMOOC on youtube

Made a short clip - sort of sketch for a documentary I'd like to make if I were a documentary maker (quod non) and if I had the time (idem). I'd call it a History of the future of education and I wuld try to go back to Greek times, but in this clip I show clips from 1939 and 1951, interlaced with screencasts of Tweetdeck about MOOCs this february. Comments welcome:






Submission looks like this in the Coursera page



https://class.coursera.org/edc-001/human_grading/view/courses/314/assessments/10/submissions

Reading for week 4: On Bostrom (2005) ‘Transhumanist values vs Wrestling with transhumanism (Katherine Hayles 2011)

The teachers asked in week 4:

• What is your own response to the ‘values’ he proposes?
• Do you find them attractive or repellent?
• On what basis?
• Bostrom mentions education a few times here: what might his vision of transhumanism mean for the future of education?
• What would a transhumanist theory of education look like?

Nick Bostrom (2005) ‘Transhumanist values’ reproduced from Review of Contemporary Philosophy, Vol. 4, May (2005) http://www.nickbostrom.com/ethics/values.html

"The transhumanist view that we ought to explore the realm of posthuman values does not entail that we should forego our current values"

Evolution is slow and about the whole and not one specific species. We can't be transhumans, but should strive to be trans-ecosystem, or trans-planetary. From Science Fiction, Dune comes to mind.

"Transhumanism promotes the quest to develop further so that we can explore hitherto inaccessible realms of value. Technological enhancement of human organisms is a means that we ought to pursue to this end. There are limits to how much can be achieved by low-tech means such as education, philosophical contemplation, moral self-scrutiny and other such methods proposed by classical philosophers."

What are "the hitherto inaccessible realms of value"? Is it possible to know the future? Speculation is not knowledge. In any case, survival on this planets seems a good value, worthy of pursuit. Education is called a low-tech means, but education is a process which has always been enhanced with technology.

"collective problem-solving capacities of our species"

And other species too, cf Bees, ants, etc. The problem solving should be regarded in contexts and environments.

"Collectively, we might get smarter and more informed through such means as scientific research, public debate and open discussion of the future, information markets, collaborative information filtering. On an individual level, we can benefit from education, critical thinking, open-mindedness, study techniques, information technology, and perhaps memory- or attention-enhancing drugs and other cognitive enhancement technologies."

Certainly worth while for education. Cognitive enhancement should be investigated but caution taken for long term reverse effects.

"Given the limitations of our current wisdom, a certain epistemic tentativeness is appropriate."

tentative? 'epistemic tentativeness' - Had to look this up. Should mean something like 'cognitive provisionality'. But what does this sentence mean? Our current knowledge is always limited so any conclusion must be provisional.

http://www.metanexus.net/essay/h-wrestling-transhumanism - Wrestling with Transhumanism (Katherine Hayles 2011)

"perform decontextualizing moves that over-simplify the situation and carry into the new millennium some of the most questionable aspects of capitalist ideology. Why then is transhumanism appealing, despite its problems? Most versions share the assumption that technology is involved in a spiraling dynamic of co-evolution with human development."

Apparantly Hayles is less enthousiastic about transhumanism, or technology per se than Bostrom.

"How can we extract the valuable questions transhumanism confronts without accepting all the implications of transhumanist claims? One possibility is to embed transhumanist ideas in deep, rich, and challenging contextualizations that re-introduce the complexities it strips away."

I read in this circular reasoning. Transhumanism is the stripping away of complexities and consists of certain claims about the future. Of course the future asks valuable questions, and transhumanism, like any other -ism, is a (logically constructed) simplification: an angle to look from. It seems impossible to embed a simplification in a deeper context.

There has been a discussion on the Coursera site, whether Transhumanism equals religion.
"As a sample of transhumanist rhetoric, consider the following passage from Max More, a prominent movement spokesperson:"

We seek to void all limits to life, intelligence, freedom, knowledge, and happiness. Science, technology and reason must be harnessed to our extropic values to abolish the greatest evil: death. Death does not stop the progress of intelligent beings considered collectively, but it obliterates the individual. No philosophy of life can be truly satisfying which glorifies the advance of intelligent beings and yet which condemns each and every individual to rot into nothingness. Each of us seeks growth and the transcendence of our current forms and limitations. The abolition of aging and, finally, all causes of death, is essential to any philosophy of optimism and transcendence relevant to the individual.

(Max More, “Transhumanism: Toward a Futurist Philosophy” (1996), http://www.maxmore.com/transhum.htm.) Indeed, this sounds like religion. "critiques of transhumanism enacted in these SF fictions". Described are:

• Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood’s End
• Vernon Vinge, Rainbows End: A Novel with One Foot in the Future
• Greg Bear, Darwin’s Radio
• Nancy Kress, Beggars in Spain
• James Patrick Kelly, Mr. Boy

Each of these scenarios involves complexities for which the transhumanist philosophy is simply not able to account or to understand, much less to explain. Reason is certainly needed, but so are emotion, systemic analysis, ecological thinking, and ethical consideration

. This shows Hayles' criticism on Transhumanist ideas.

framework in which transhumanism considers these questions is, I have argued, too narrow and ideologically fraught with individualism and neoliberal philosophy

Too narrow, fraught with neoliberal philosophy. I tend to agree.

Short Questionaire in Google Docs on MOOC per faculty / subject

made a short Questionaire in Google Docs https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1fxxREfqb6bI4rhTDEHq5x0ugREx9snaUjziCBitesvA/viewform hopefully it works - love to have some feedback.

Surveillance & privacy in education

Saw "Plurality", a film directed by Dennis Liu and written by Ryan Condal



It was uploaded to youtube on October 1st 2012, and released by Traffik Filmworks.

"Plurality" depicts a highly developed surveillance system that has caused the crime rate of 2023 New York to drop "below that of Cheyenne, Wyoming". and is faultless within a margin of 0.001%. "I think anyone would sacrifice a little bit of privacy for that kind of personal safety", is the well known argument from the protagonists of more police powers. Benjamin Franklin's quote comes to mind: 'They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.'.

In today's social and educational practice people seem to worry a lot about privacy and the dangers of 'Big Brother is watching you'. Advocacy groups such as Bits of Freedom (Netherlands or the European Digital Rights Initiative keep a close watch on developments in legislation and jurisdiction. In education we need to keep a close watch on developments, but large scale breaches of student privacy have not been reported to my knowledge. Checks and balances should be in place, and the larger MOOC's and platforms like Coursera become, the more vulnerable they will become, to identity theft, viruses and breach of privacy. Teaching the value of privacy and digital safety in general, starting in elementary school, seems to be the best safeguard against runaway surveillance societies.

Further reading might be: Davis, K. & James, C. (2013). Tweens' conception of privacy online: implications for educators. Learning, Media & technology, 38(1), 4-25.

Diploma Mills vs Natives & Immigrants

From the learning resources of week 1 of #EDCMOOC https://class.coursera.org/edc-001/wiki/view?page=DeterminingThePast I read "Digital natives, digital immigrants" by Marc Prensky (2001) and "Digital diploma mills: the automation of higher education" by David Noble (1998). These two authors take a standpoint almost opposite of eachother. Prensky's utopian view of students whose brains are altered by the ubiquitous environment of internet contrasts quite starkly with the warnings of Noble who warns us for "driving this headlong rush to implement technology" and "risk of student and faculty alienation". Privatization of public education will turn universities in "patent holding companies' and rising tuition fees must 'subsidize the commercial infrastructure'. Already in 1998 Noble notes Lehman Brothers, an investment firm that was at the center of the 2008 banking crisis(1), as stating that:"investment opportunity in education has never been better". Universities were rapidly being taken over by commercialization, forged ahead by 'ubiquitous technozealots who simply view computers as the panacea for everything.' The darkest vision here is described in a quote from Educom president Robert Heterich: "the potential to remove the human mediation in some areas and replace it with automation - smart, computer-based, network-based systems - is tremendous, it's gonna happen.' The origin of this quotes is difficult to find, I found a scholarly reference in Weaver, 1999 in Libri Journal(2) which gives Noble 1997(3) as a source. Prensky's article also lacks references. His argument uses the metaphor of immigrant and natives to illustrate the difference between tech-savvy students and internet-deprived older folk 'who print their e-mail'. Prensky's enthousiams can work inspiring, to try out new things, and try multitasking 'at higher speed'. But his assumption that 'their brains may already be different' remains unreferenced. His part 2 article is reported to present evidence(4).

upper Marc Prensky - theage.com.au and under: David F. Noble cla.umn.edu (1) Baba, N.& Packer, F. (2009) From turmoil to crisis: dislocations in the FX swap market before and after the failure of Lehman Brothers; Journal of International Money and Finance. http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/wbs/subjects/finance/confpapers09/baba_packer_paper.pdf. (2) http://www.librijournal.org/pdf/1999-3pp142-149.pdf. (3) Noble, David F. 1997. “Digital Diploma Mills” (October) [article on-line]; URL: http://www.hronline. com/forums/labour/9711/0271.html; accessed October 6, 1998 [not online anymore, feb 2013]. (4) Digital natives, digital immigrants Part 2: Do they really think differently? M Prensky - On the horizon, 2001 - emeraldinsight

4 films illustrating Utopian / Dystopian views on technology

After watching these 4 films: - Bendito Machine III - Zumbakamera 2009.
- Inbox - Madonne Ashwin, 2012
- Thursday - Matthias Hoegg, 2010
- New Media - Julian Cooke, Sebastian Dias, 2012

As mentioned in the resources for #edcmooc week one, I thought about the films, how they were made, if they portray a Utopian or Dystopian narrative, and if they shed any light on the way we might look at learning and technology. The first three titles seem to have a friendly undertone, that would make them suitable for children too. The fourth film , "New media" has quite a dark and surrealistic atmosphere, and reminded me of 'War of the Worlds'.

Bendito Machine III shows a tribe that worships artifacts of technology that comes from above, from the clouds. After the objects of worship malfunction, they are discarded and a new piece of technology is raised on the socle. The three pieces seem to get bigger one after the other, but it looks like they do the same: they make noises and show images. In one way this film might be regarded as Dystopian (portraying fictional society with frightening aspects) because of the primitive superstition with which the tribes folk regard the objects of their worship. On the positive side, life seems to go on regardless of the cycle of new technological god figures.

On a more romantic basis, "Inbox" and "Thursday" show a couple and their reaction to technological possibilities (Inbox) or profound mechanization of society (Thursday). The first seems to be on the Utopian side, the second more weighing on a Dystopian narrative. The bird in Thursday may symbolize nature, or could be an "agent" on its own. Is it coincidental the bird bites the electrical wires, thereby bringing the Machine to a standstill?

After watching the short films I started reading Daniel Chandler - Technological or media determinism. Unfortunately the server was unresponsive halfway in my reading, probably because too much EEDCMOOC-folk were trying to get access. Luckiliy I found and printed a PDF version. Interesting discussions can be seen in this paper, about free will, determinism and the role of technology in evolution. Although I don't consider myself a determinist, or believer of technological autonomy, I do think it is important to treat technology in society and education with caution, as if it were deterministic. I was pleasantly surprised to see the mention of Asimov 1981 - "Asimov on science fiction. New York: Avon. Checking if this is available in a library in the Netherlands,... yes, the Amsterdam Public library has one on loan!

After seeing the four films, and reading Chandler and John Daniel's "Technology is the Answer: What was the Question?", my preliminary conclusion on technology and education would be that education may be helped (specially in view of access and speed) with technology, but learning being a holistic activity, technology can never fully replace face to face contact between teacher and student (just like an orchestra without a physical present conductor seems impossible). For example see: Deka, Tedi S. & McMurry, Patrick (2006): Student Success in Face-To-Face and Distance Teleclass Environments: A matter of contact? in IRR ODL - http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/251/468 (seen Jan. 30th 2013).

Entering the class room

this morning around 10.30 MET I eneterd the classroom for #EDCMOOC . After watching two short films, I signed up for Synchtube and copied the Room URL Http://synchtube.com/r/Dv2013, Which on an Ipad is not so straightforward. going to watch the next two film clips.