(Image: Deviant Art)
So it really feels like I’m getting out of the staring gates very late indeed and wel after everyone has passed the first corner. Being away from my normal environment for a week with a heavy dose of international travel has thrown me quite a bit particularly with the EDC’s alternative method or participation and assessment. Additionally it appears that any of my fellow students are the proverbial ducks and are producing some rather incredible lifestream content by the minute. My aim this week (we’re already in week 2) is to catch up and match the standard (if I indeed can!)
Having dived into the first set of videos, some recent conversation and picking up a similar theme from some of the tweets and comments throughout the course Im developing a rather strange sense of….darkness?
Much of the sentiments revolving around some of the initial content has been quite dark. Dark in the sense that future technology, in it various forms and imaginings (whether it be stoic, blood spattered androids on roof tops in the driving rain, cyborg humans suffering devastating breakups or even disappointed desktop travelling desk toy bots), is overwhelmingly seen to ultimately end up in a melancholy way. Even my discussions with colleagues around the ultimate use of tracking by internet companies was negative. I even watched Snowden (2016) on the plan back from Lisbon which was even more unsettling.
Im now perplexed by the different ways that the use of technology and the advantages its brings is only really separated by time and familiarity. All our fears of killer AI cyber punks developing from our creation of smart robot assistants in years to come may just end up being as boring as the television now is. When it first appeared TV was portended to end whole societies and family structures. And it seems to go with a lot of new ideas that way. Thanks Phillip K. Dick, your work is now complete here!
Even one of first readings is titled ‘Whats the matter with ‘technology enhanced learning?’ (Bayne (2014)’. Heres hoping the themes turn more positive soon 😉