Kepler Revisited

In 1619 Kepler wrote a treatise whereby he used mathematical and music formulas to show the planets and other celestial bodies produced music of their own as they traveled thru space.  Here is an example of that…

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Comments from mthies

Although this piece of technology is being presented playfully its probably going to find its way into the market at some stage and will be lauded as the next ‘cool’ tech to have. Referencing Miller (2011) using this and similar devices is setting humans on a path to a cyborg nation without many probably even realizing it! I dont believe that the dark fictional wet-ware type integration between human bodies and electronics will ever catch on (ala Borg from Star Trek ) as the aesthetics of technology will trump any usefulness by almost all except the most hardcore of technologists. Instead it will be more along this style of design and may well be a combination of all manner of devices into an all seeing, all knowing, all sensing and full experience delivering devive

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Comments from cmiller

“Out of interest, what is it about this type of digital interaction that you are finding motivating?”

The background of other people, who are looking at the same subjects and coming up with radically different ideas. Some are clearly well practiced scholars, who know how to write in an academic voice, some are not. But all see things that I can use in my blog posts with my own voice. The fact too that despite all our differences in experiences, motivations and ambitions, we are all pulling in the same direction, as a community. We’re free to drop in at any point, comment, have our own posts commented on. It’s an incubation period at the moment perhaps, but I really enjoy the discussion around the ideas, and the forming of what might yet become a holistic view on the subjects raised which would never be possible to achieve if you were operating in isolation.

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Comments from cmiller

I really do not like looking at twitter, or perhaps I just have to become accustomed to it. It used to be such a simple, almost elegant piece of design and it’s now just a cluttered mess of adverts, promotions. The direct messaging works well enough, but holding an asynchronous discussion via the main twitter feed is tricky compared to less crowded areas such as this blog comment section; a moodle forum, or even Facebook. It could be an issue of familiarity.

Twitter is good for bookmarking links though now that IFTTT is working smoothly. I’ll certainly go back and try to put a sentence or two of context with the links I have been sharing.

The idea of me doing my week in VR hasn’t gone too well so far. I haven’t managed to get it all set up. I’ll hopefully get to that tonight.

Thanks for the feedback. You didn’t comment on my note on constructivist activity. Given the feedback I had on my essay, I’ll assume that I need to go back and read some more on that subject before I can use it comfortably in conversation.

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Comment from Clare

Hi Clare,

That is a really interesting article.

I don’t know if its coincidence but I have been noticing quite a lot of similar stories in the news this week about technology being used to advance healthcare.

If recent news is to be believed then we could increase our lifespan through technology assisted medicine rather than mechanical parts.

Do you think that is still cyborg-esque?

When I think of cyborgs I picture a character similar to the one in this week’s video ‘We only attack ourselves’. But what if there is no immediate visual sign of technology present?

Stuart

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Comment from Helen

This is a really fantastic weekly summary Helen!

Great to see you reflecting on your specific lifestream items, and drawing this together into themes.

Binaries, dualisms, and oppositions seem to found everywhere don’t they? Perhaps they are ways of ordering the world that we find useful, or even comforting. They rarely seem to account for the nuance and complexity of the world around us, I’d argue.

Interesting ideas here around the combativeness of posthumanism too. Braidotti’s The Posthuman (http://ift.tt/2kGHEUi), if you can get hold of it, might be a good read here, given that she describes critical posthumanism as the end of the opposition between humanism and anti-humanism. Nevertheless, I do see your point here, and the critical here may tend towards the confrontational. I wonder, though, if some of that is warranted, given the discrimination with which a ‘Eurocentric humanism’ has exported and privileged a particular model of human being, to the detriment of all others.

Looking forward to reading more of your blog.

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Comments from chills

Fantastic summary here Cathy!

Great to see you referencing specific lifestream items, and reflecting so interestingly on your EDC explorations in week 2.

The whole earth catalogue is a great link for our discussions of ‘cybercultures’: technology framed directly as an alternative space. You rightly identify the critical angle here around utopian thinking, and the tendencies that have masked much of Silicon Valley’s alignment with questionable social practices.

Can we make a link here with calls for ‘learning cultures’ that call for personalised technology, or social networks that challenge the hierarchy of the institution?

‘Fake news’ is a nice link here, and highly relevant to our third block on algorithmic cultures. Look forward to surfacing more of this discussion then. It is certainly topical!

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Comment on Enhanced – discourse and other pretty bots by jknox

Really enjoyed this Chenée!

This was a fantastic idea – to undertake a bit of a micro-ethnography/discourse analysis of BETT, drawing on Bayne’s TEL critique (2014), and I really like the way you approached it. We’ll be doing more around micro-ethnography in the next block!

Really liked your comments on Snapchat filters too. I think this is such an interesting area (and one we’ll perhaps touch on in block 3 when we look at algorithms): automated visuals that change our appearance. It reminds me of the ‘selfie’ camera on one of my phones (a Xiaomi), which helpfully tells you your gender and your age when you look into it. Of course, its hilarious, because it usually gets it completely wrong. However, really fascinating issues around normalising gender and age appearances.

Great to see that you bumped into my colleague too!

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Comment on Performativity and collapse of context in an educational space. Week 2 by jknox

This is a really interesting post Chenée, and performativity is certainly a productive way of analysing lifestream blogs on this course. Do remember, however, that the focus of these weekly summaries should be directed at your lifestream content specifically, rather than general reflect on the course. We need to see how you are explaining your lifestream choices each week.

Nevertheless, this is a super reflection, and one that definitely has a place in your blog. The nature of what we’re trying to do with the lifestream – logging our activity on the web – necessarily blurs the boundaries between our ‘learner’ and our ‘social’ identities (amongst others). I do feel that we need to curate our lifestream, as part of showing our awareness of how we present ourselves, and our activities, online. Working on the public web as we are on this course will encourage more of a ‘content collapse’ than other courses, however we should be making choices about what is relevant.

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Comments from Linzi

Useful summary here Linzi!

Glad to hear that you are more enthusiastic about your lifestream after week 2. Do try to remember that you need to reference and discuss your specific lifestream items in the summary – it should be your chance to say what you added in the previous week and why you have added it.

The issue of aggression is really interesting. I’d encourage you to try and frame this in educational terms, perhaps looking specifically at the readings in this block and making connections with the ideas expressed there. How might the theme of ‘cyberculture’ frame issues of behaviour online, and what kind of assumptions might we carry into education?

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Comments from cmiller

Hello Colin, thanks for sharing this video and the accompanying post.

I’ve watched the first ten minutes of the video and am enjoying it. I wonder whether it would be possible to bring some of the ideas alongside the content from the readings? If you’re finding the readings challenging (although I see you’ve already tackled Hayles so well done on that), you might want to start with those by Miller and by Bayne as I think some of their ideas come through quite clearly and might lend themselves to thinking about some of the ideas in your blog. Bear in mind you can always revisit an idea or post in your blog – it’s your blog, after all.

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Comments from cmiller

Hello Colin, thanks for a nicely clear summary.

‘Reading and commenting on other blog posts has been a great motivator’

Out of interest, what is it about this type of digital interaction that you are finding motivating? And how does it compare to your interaction on Twitter which has featured in your lifestream but you don’t mention?

As you know I’m going to spend more time commenting on ideas within your blog in the coming weeks, however I just wanted to say not to worry if you don’t feel you can grasp all the ideas in the readings just yet. Some of the ideas we are confronting within this early section of the course are quite challenging whilst at the same time being new to many of the group. This being the case I would be surprised if you *didn’t* find some of the ideas quite challenging to comprehend (which they are).

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Comment from rpoor-hang

Hi Roxane, great to see that your lifestream summaries are under way!

Sorry to hear that you’ve had technical difficulties with the lifestream, do please get in touch with me directly if you need guidance for using IFTTT, very happy to help you get set up with a couple of feeds.

Twitter would be a great start. Remember that you do have some control here – within IFTTT you will be able to define the kind of Twitter content that goes in to your lifestream. You might limit it to Tweets with the course hashtag, for example.

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Comment from Clare

Superb summary post here Clare!

You are referencing and explaining specific lifestream content, and drawing together relevant and interesting themes. Nice work.

Hand’s ‘narratives of promise and threat’ paper in this blocks readings will reflect your utopian and dystopian themes, as would Johnston’s ‘Salvation or destruction: Metaphors of the Internet’, a bit of a classic if you ask me: http://ift.tt/2jOTHhq

I think you centre in on a rather productive critical perspective here: when we continue to see technology as utopian (it is making our lives better) or dystopian (it is challenging our authentic humanness), we often miss important analytical frames. The relationship between ‘Ed Tech’ and business is certainly a critical perspective that is often overlooked.

Really interesting reflection on marginalisation here too. I wonder if we couldn’t see the opposite here too? If the cyborg is about enhancement, wouldn’t its technological mixings be limited to those that can afford them? The ‘digital divide’ might also encompass those who are affluent enough to be ‘enhanced’. Aren’t those that can use search engines on their mobile devices already hugely advantaged in terms of getting hold of information and knowledge?

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Comment on Week 2 Synthesis by jknox

Useful summary Daniel!

Good to hear that you are now happy with your blog, and well done for persisting with the organisation and customisation. These first two weeks are definitely an opportunity to experiment, and you’re now hopefully in a good place to work on the content.

Remember that the weekly summaries should be direct reflections on your lifestream content from the previous week – why you added specific videos or tweets, and how they relate to your thinking about the course. Try to get that kind of focus in future summaries.

Perhaps you could tweet specific posts that you’d like to get comments on? I’m sure people will respond to a request!

‘1.) Record a cybernetics inspired spoken word improvised music piece with my band.’

This sounds fantastic! We’re definitely trying to encourage audio (as well as visual) responses to the course themes, so this would be a superb addition to the block.

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Comments from smilligan

Hello Stuart, thanks for a very clear weekly summary. And well done this week for tackling the course readings and weaving the ideas into your blog.

‘I’ve been considering old ways of life and how they have been modernised by use of technology.’

My eye was caught by your reference to ‘old ways of life’ and wondered whether you needed to unpick this a bit. I’m not immediately disagreeing but if you could perhaps link it to a particular bit of content from your blog I’ll follow it up there. I’ve been enjoying reading (and commenting) on different parts of your blog just now so perhaps I’ll find the connection (as I did with your references to Sterne and also to digital inequality). However if you could do a bit of ‘signposting’ that would help a little bit (and means I don’t miss out on reading something you’ve been working in).

Again, thanks for the weekly summary which looks like a good record of what’s been happening in your lifestream this week.

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Comments from smilligan

Hello Stuart, Daniel – I’ve enjoyed reading your conversation here.

I’m glad that Sterne is including in the reading for the EDC course because I do think that sound is often under-considered, particularly in comparison to the visual. In fact I think this is reflected in what you have both said here, the sense that sound isn’t always fully attended to or investigated or though-through. Possibly of interest, you might have seen from Jeremy’s video introduction at the beginning of week 3 that we are keen to invite pieces of music in response to some of the ideas we are exploring here: perhaps you might suggest a song in response to Sterne, for instance?

‘I have also been considering the histiography of cyberculture that Sterne proceeds to investigate. He mentions transition from analogue to digital – To that I’d add digital immigrants to digital natives, human to cyborg, offline to online and physical to virtual.’

I don’t always think that talking in terms of transitions around technology is always very helpful. I can see why it’s convenient or helpful to do this in order to recognise change, however I think there’s the danger of suggesting clear cut binaries, whereas in reality I think we see a more complicated (and maybe untidy) co-existence of digital and analogue, online and offline, and so on. That said, I recently read that Norway was about to switch off FM radio in favour of digital so maybe things are a little more clear cut in some places after all!

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Comments from smilligan

Thanks for this thoughtful post, Stuart. And well done also for weaving-in ideas from the reading by Hand.

Something I particularly like about your work here is the recognition of the complexity surrounding the digital and education and society. As we’ve touched on during the film festival, technology so often seems to be framed in a utopian/dystopian binary: in contrast you expressed your own enthusiasm for the digital whilst recognising that it also has its darker side. At the same time you’ve made the point (by drawing on Hand) that we need to see digital technologies as enmeshed with society and human, rather than imagine that they exist in some form of vacuum.

I was also intrigued by your point about inequality and I imagine this idea might resurface in the other blocks within the course. Your anecdote reminds us that we need to be really careful in making sweeping judgements about access to technology within education. We so often hear a technological determinist position which argues that education needs to adapt in order to keep up with the technical interests and abilities of learners: but in this clamour to embrace the digital, who gets left behind? I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to see Dirk’s blog however like you he has been exploring ideas around inequality and society and seems to be making the point that the effects of transhumanism might not be felt equally across society.

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Comment on Weekly round-up: Week 2 by jknox

Really nice summary Eli!

It’s good to hear this feedback about IFTTT. It’s not perfect, but it does seem to have the kind of flexibility we need for the lifestream in this course: being able to add feeds from a wide range of sources.

I really liked some of the topics discussed here. This division between technology as a legitimate aid or a necessity is interesting, isn’t it? One might think about that in terms of where we situate the boundary between the human and the technology: the former seems to imply an authentic human ability, which the technology seems to ‘enhance’, while the latter doesn’t seem to be as clear. If the task cannot be done by humans alone (number crunching huge amounts of data, for example), it seems to indicate something more like the entangled condition that Bayne (2014) discusses? If we can’t perform a task without technology, then, when we get the tech that does it for us, we change our behaviour as a result, right?

Great to see you experimenting with the format here. It seemed pretty well done to me, although I guess I was focusing more on the audio than the visual. I recommend thinking about the 250 word length guidelines here, and how they might translate into a summary of this sort. Everything you were talking about here was relevant and interesting though, but do try to stay within the discipline.

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Comments from mthies

Hi James,

Thanks for the comprehensive feedback. I was a little worried it was going to be somewhat inaudible but it seems to have been okay. Admittedly, I was intentionally trying to mimic a comically cyborg type voice so as to drive home the overarching theme of high level AI’s in this part of the course. I was also cogniscant of your advice to try different mediums and spun this together with a consistent thinking from one of the secondary readings.

The reference to digitally representative versions of ourselves is definitely in reference to that which we will see directly. But in considering this further we are seeing this with our current, limited view. I imagine that 20, 30 or even 50 years from now there will be ways of perceiving others that goes to a level we cant even begin to fathom yet as the limits of electronic based technology begins to be overtaken by organic engineering. Learning through the actual gifting of experience could be much closer and wouldn’t require us to learn anything the ‘hard’way again!

I didn’t even pick up on the avatar headshot and the voice. Very nice!

Thank you again!

Myles

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Comments from mthies

Upon reading Sterne (, J (2006) The historiography of cyberculture, chapter 1 of Critical cyberculture studies. New York University Press. pp.17-28. ) I was immediately struck by the fact that up until now there was little investigation into the non visual aspect of high technology in media and culture. Science Fiction is traditionally very visually stimulating as its job is to conjure radically different visions of futures best understood through a lens. But we are probably missing a good portion of the experience of the future of human existence by dismissing sound, feeling, smells even. All these things will exist in future so they should receive their own amount of focus at some stage too.

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Comment on Watching https://t.co/wXl8P9SUOO the key = ‘correctly’ (2:01 mins in). But what does it mean/look like? Cf. https://t.co/BgN7Z5Nlka #mscedc by msleeman

Thanks, James – and, any others, either as visitors or exhibitors, what was it like as an event? I’d not anticipated some might be exhibitors: that, to my mind, widens the aperture quite a bit. Up until now, I’d only thought about people going to ‘consume’ the show, not to ‘produce’ it. The interface there is especially interesting.

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Comment on Week 2 Summary by jknox

Super summary here Renée,

The DeBaets paper looks great, thanks for sharing that, it’s now on my reading list! Transhumanism, for me, trends to inherit something of the Eurocentric humanism that has privileged a particular model of human being (white, male, rational), and assumed this to be an underlying authentic kind of universalism. From that position, ‘enhancement’ through technological means is rather specific, and limited, and directed towards particular ideas around cognition, and reason.

So, it is great to see you reflecting on some of the ethical issues surfaced in ‘cybercultures’. The normalising of particular human conditions seems to be apparent here doesn’t it? certainly, that would be one productive way of analysing the film clips we have viewed. If you can get hold of Braidotti’s book ‘The Postman’ (http://ift.tt/2kGHEUi), that provides some good critical post humanist perspectives in this area.

Following Helen, I liked your final point her about asking questions about the ‘purpose’ of using technology. This reflect Bayne’s point about the commitments and values we have for teaching, I think, and how we might bring these to bear own our decisions about technology use.

Coming back to the politics of Transhumanism – for which I really need to read that paper! – there is something to be said here for ‘taking a position’ in relation to humanism. This is precisely where critical posthumanism differs from anti-humanism: it’s not necessarily a rejection of all those Eurocentric, essentialist ideas, but rather an opportunity to (re)evaluate them. That, to me, sounds like an ethical way of working with the theory.

Well, lots to make me think here, thank you! Now, must get on to reading your analysis of Ghost in the Shell, sounds interesting!

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Digital String Quartet…amazing… https://t.co/2Vrpz6gwlZ #mscedc

Using several helicopters and musicians and sound recording techs in each one, digital music is presented in a most unusual form.  The sounds of the helicopters are digitalized and emitted into a musical arrangement.  This is only a short video but it captures another facet of converting the components of high tech machinery into a beautiful digital arrangement of music.

#mscedc

 

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Comments from mthies

Thanks for sharing this, Myles, it’s absolutely fascinating. I wonder, would you be able to add a short bit of metadata – just some notes, to contextualise this? Looking across the blogs I think we’ve been under-considering the aural dimension so it would be nice to give this a short explanatory note to open it up to the group.

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Comments from mthies

Hello Myles, thanks for this fascinating and thoughtful weekly summary. I found the delivery – in your cyborg-voice – compelling.
I’ve just listened to it three times in-a-row. I think this really effectively shows how within digital educational environments there are particular opportunities to match the medium with the meaning, so that something like your voice becomes in itself a critical device. We’re all for this in the EDC course.

This is possibly by accident, but what I also liked was the contrasting representation between your own Soundcloud avatar and the ‘not-quite-human’ voice. While both are digital in that they depend on sophisticated processors and calculations, there was something about the juxtaposition that made me think about both the papers by Bayne and Miller in the way that they point to the complex nature of the relationship between human and technology.

In your summary I was particularly interested in your suggestion that:

‘In a future that will be dominated by more digitally representative versions of ourselves’

I wondered whether you meant this in specifically visual form, or whether you were alluding to ideas around machine intelligence and emotion, touching on some of the themes that have emerged during our film tutorial discussions? As time allows, I would be interested to read – or indeed, hear – more of your thoughts on this.

Meanwhile, I’m going to listen to the soundclip again.

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Comments from Schwindenhammer

Hello Dirk,

Thanks for this video. You’ll have to forgive me if I’ve misunderstood what you had in mind, however I really like the point you’re making that we need to see the digital (whether that be ideas around transhumanism or whatever) as part of a society more generally: as you say, ’no digital without social.’

Your video seems to challenge those who would excitedly proclaim the possibilities of digital technology without seeing how they might be subject to, or perpetuate, inequality. If the technologies exist that can transform education/what is means to be human, who has access to these technologies, whether through wealth or opportunity? When we talk about embracing digital technology in education, who gets left behind?

If time allows, I’d be really interested to hear your own thoughts on the video – a director’s commentary 😉 – which isn’t to say that it doesn’t stand alone or need explanation: I’m just intrigued.

Thanks again,

James

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Comment from Helen

Hello Helen.

By coincidence I just commented on Matthews’s blog (where he talks about the BETT show) speculating on whether any of the group who attended the event would have had their experience affected by reading Bayne’s article in advance: and here you are reflecting on the same experience!

‘This perception is a key reason why technology adoption fails: questions about how technology and practice are complexly intertwined and how technologies necessarily change, affect, and radically alter processes and behaviours are infrequently considered.’

This really struck a chord with me and I think emphasises how important it is that we think critically around the digital and education, rather than defaulting to ideas around technologies satisfying educational outcomes.

What your reflections here also remind me is that the relationship between education and technology is subject to a range of interests beyond developing understanding: profit, a culture of performativity and so on. Without having attended the BETT show, I wonder whether the framing of ‘technology as tools for achieving education goals’ reflects the interests or pressures of those attending: the need to show results.

Talking more generally about your weekly review, I’ll be interested to read more about your recipes next week – in fact I think your critical reflection on the BETT show merited a separate blog post in its own right. All the same interesting reading and I’m looking forward to dipping into your blog as the week unfolds.

James

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Comments from npainter

Hello Dirk,

Thanks for this video. You’ll have to forgive me if I’ve misunderstood what you had in mind, however I really like the point you’re making that we need to see the digital (whether that be ideas around transhumanism or whatever) as part of a society more generally: as you say, ’no digital without social.’

Your video seems to challenge those who would excitedly proclaim the possibilities of digital technology without seeing how they might be subject to, or perpetuate, inequality. If the technologies exist that can transform education/what is means to be human, who has access to these technologies, whether through wealth or opportunity? When we talk about embracing digital technology in education, who gets left behind?

If time allows, I’d be really interested to hear your own thoughts on the video – a director’s commentary 😉 – which isn’t to say that it doesn’t stand alone or need explanation: I’m just intrigued.

Thanks again,

James

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Comment on Jarvis AI: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know https://t.co/nwmg9u9AZg Using technology as subservient here, responding to life’s needs. #mscedc by jlamb

Hello Joy, I think this would help with a short explanatory note – what the Course Handbook refers to as metadata – offering a short explanation as to why you included it in your lifestream. For instance, what does it have to say about some of the course themes we are exploring in this block? Alternatively you might approach it as a blog post in its right, perhaps relating the content of the article to some of the readings – Miller (2011) for instance?

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Comment on Making robots more human by jlamb

When you say ‘difficult’, Joy, do you mean hard to achieve technically (for instance, ‘how can we programme emotion into this robot?’) rather than human characteristics that can be problematic e.g. emotion, feelings?

And out of interest, what is it about the Bender and Gumdrop characters that made you like them more than some of the other characters in the films (and which ones, out of interest)?

Perhaps there’s an opportunity to think about this in relation to some of the course readings for this block?

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Comments from npainter

Hello Dirk, thanks for your thoughts on the video – if we had imagined it would be critiqued in such a detailed way we might have done it differently 😉

That said, although it was quite an impromptu exercise, it did reflect some particular intentions we had in mind. We wanted to emphasise how the EDC course provides a great opportunity to be simultaneously playful and scholarly. At the same time the video shows that, although we’re using a blog format which tends to privilege words on screen, there’s still space for using video or other forms (as you have already been adeptly doing!). We also felt that, while we could have conveyed the same factual information purely through language, we wanted to show our faces/ourselves – we felt perhaps there was something more personal in that. Finally, while we would have preferred to have put something more polished together (we literally had five minutes to record it while the theatre hands went about other business) I hope the video also shows that other members of the group needn’t be discouraged from experimenting through concerns about their work not looking too polished.

And I take your point about the way that naming the film spoiled things a bit. I agree. That was simply me bowing to pressure around acknowledging sources and so on.

Thanks for your feedback all the same, Dirk!

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Comments from Schwindenhammer

Hello Dirk, thanks for your thoughts on the video – if we had imagined it would be critiqued in such a detailed way we might have done it differently 😉

That said, although it was quite an impromptu exercise, it did reflect some particular intentions we had in mind. We wanted to emphasise how the EDC course provides a great opportunity to be simultaneously playful and scholarly. At the same time the video shows that, although we’re using a blog format which tends to privilege words on screen, there’s still space for using video or other forms (as you have already been adeptly doing!). We also felt that, while we could have conveyed the same factual information purely through language, we wanted to show our faces/ourselves – we felt perhaps there was something more personal in that. Finally, while we would have preferred to have put something more polished together (we literally had five minutes to record it while the theatre hands went about other business) I hope the video also shows that other members of the group needn’t be discouraged from experimenting through concerns about their work not looking too polished.

And I take your point about the way that naming the film spoiled things a bit. I agree. That was simply me bowing to pressure around acknowledging sources and so on.

Thanks for your feedback all the same, Dirk!

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Comment on Watching https://t.co/wXl8P9SUOO the key = ‘correctly’ (2:01 mins in). But what does it mean/look like? Cf. https://t.co/BgN7Z5Nlka #mscedc by jlamb

Without watching the timer on the video, I was also stopped by the point just after two minutes: ‘When used correctly, technology will allow for greater connections’.

Whilst recognising the commercial interest of the show, the video has a really instrumentalist feel: technology are ‘tools’ we can use to equip learners with skills. Like you then, I think there’s great value in the work of Bayne and other researchers who encourage us to critique the way that the digital is framed in relation to education, for instance problematising this idea of tech as tools for carrying out our educational aims.

I know that other members of the EDC class did attend Bett either as exhibitors or visitors: it would be fascinating to know whether their experience of the event was affected in any way by reading Bayne’s paper in advance?!

Anyway, a really interesting and critical reflection on the content – thanks Matthew.

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Comment on Lifestream summary, week two by jlamb

And more generally in response to the weekly summary and you’re blog over the last week, well done on trying to make the connection between content and course themes, whilst at the same time bringing in some of the ideas from the literature. I’m going to comment separately on some of your other entries, beginning with your reflections on the Bett show video which I’ve been thinking about.

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Comment on Lifestream summary, week two by jlamb

Hello Matthew (and Colin) – interesting conversation here.

Your comment Matthew about ‘practice that works well in this or that setting’ immediately reminded me of the Manifesto for Teaching Online from the Digital Education team which argues that:

‘There are many ways to get it right online. ‘Best practice’ neglects context.’

Just as you (and Colin) say, when we bring a critical eye to education and technology, we begin to unsettle some of the commonly put forward ideas, whether that’s to do with education necessarily aiding learning, or the notion of there being a single ‘best’ way of doing things that we strive for. As you suggest, things tend to be more complex and thus call for a more nuanced approach.

In case the Manifesto is of interest or new to you:
http://ift.tt/2bHFKiZ

Thanks for the interesting conversation.

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Comment on Reading Sian Bayne through biblical eyes by msleeman

cmiller, thank you for some really helpful input here. I’m tracking three things in particular out of what you’re saying.
First, the need for clarity as to what I’m meaning. I’m in complete agreement with that. It’s a challenge to express a bigger discourse idea in a short(ish!) blog entry, and I appreciate you engaging with what I provided. I’ll keep working on the clarity as I post further. I’m especially keen not simply to talk to a narrow population of ‘insiders’, so to speak.
Second, I’m helped by your prodding at stages of development within the technology/theology interface. I’ve not really explored this, but want to. By previous training, I appreciate a genealogical approach to issues, and it would help here. Regarding ‘christohumanism’, I coined the phrase in the moment, and hadn’t googled it. I’ve done that since, especially together with ‘posthumanism’ to sift the results a bit, and some helpful stuff looks like it’s out there.
Third, I agree that many churches and ministers are using technology, even as adept with it. I’m keen to probe whether they’re thinking theologically about it. Thus, for instance, in my settings we often now project the hymns and songs we sing on to a screen, rather than reading from printed books. I’m interested in whether there is any shift in us theologically, fed by such a practice, e.g. a move away from consciousness of the overall ‘flow’ of say a hymn towards the ‘eternal present’ of what is before us on the screen. And does that matter – does it east away at, say, a big-picture sense of things more generally, thinking of Haraway’s dismissal of ‘salvation history’ in her 2007 piece from our set reading (pp. 35, 54). The technologies we use shape our practices, our loves, our imaginings, and I’m keen to explore those dimensions through a theological lens.

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Comment on Lifestream summary, week two by msleeman

cmiller, thanks for the interaction. Two responses I would make, I think. First, I guess not all our digital engagements will be directly appropriate to education per se, but we’re trying to engage with digital cultures and so breadth of digital encounter is going to be important. But a tension – hopefully a generative one – between these two horizons. Second, I wonder whether ‘pockets of excellence’ might be better framed contextually: something like ‘practice that works well in this or that setting’. For myself, I find that easier to work with than a decontextualised sense of excellence. I wonder if that will help us frame our experiences more fruitfully too.

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Is “The Forbidden Planet” Still Off Limits?

In The Forbidden Planet, scientist Dr. Morbius, discovers on a remote planet of course, an ancient civilization, the Krell, which has been extinct for thousands of years.  Left behind is a vast machine the Krell developed that allowed them to enhance their mental capabilities far beyond normal.  Finding the Krell machine still operable, Morbius soon learns that the machine not only increases his mental and intellectual functions, it also brings into the real world his dark side, manifesting from the unreachable depths of his unconscious mind a creature that eventually kills his entire team and threatens the astronauts sent to rescue him and his daughter.  And of course, being a movie from the 1950s, there is the love interest between Morbius’ daughter and the rescue team commander.  But that is beside the point here.  So, movin’ on . . .

What we also have is the cinematic introduction of Robby the Robot, who later becomes a star and develops his own cult following.  In The Forbidden Planet, Robby is portrayed as a robot of course, but endowed with limited emotions and the ability to basically do anything from making whiskey to moving a house off its foundations.  Of course, he is programmed to self destruct should he be ordered to hurt or kill a human being, which is a clever way to imply he has a conscience and understands good from evil.

So why have I subjected my readers to this?  I think this is a great example of how AI can achieve both good and evil, depending upon how it is used.  Of course, the same can be said of just about anything; a pencil for example.  But what we have here are two opposing points of view of AI.  First, there is Robby.  He is a robot designed to act as a tool to assist humans in manual labor and other things.  He has been programmed with a limited array of emotions which in the film are displayed via warnings of danger and so on.  Robby is an example of where AI is today.  Second, we have the machine the Krell left behind.  True, it also was designed to help the Krell in a huge variety of tasks and was extremely powerful in that task.  The apparent unintended result of this machine was that it developed the capability, by design or otherwise, to tap into the deep-seated, unconscious emotions of the Krell.  The bad ending for them comes when the machine converts those destructive emotions into real-world manifestations.  Dr. Morbius picks up on this and to his eventual dismay and ultimate destruction, finds the machine doing the same to him.

I just wanted to share this as another facet of our discussions on AI and how it can be used, or misused.  In the future, I believe the questions faced by the Krell and Dr. Morbius will have to be answered.  I know, I know, that sounds a bit extreme.  But I have noticed that sometimes Hollywood comes up with something that may seem like fantasy now, but in years to come becomes all too real.

WEEK 2 Summary: Will AI Change Who and What We Are?

The one overarching theme I that really took hold of my attention and my imagination this week is the use of machines as tools to reach academic and personal objectives.  As I have read others’ blogs the issue that seems to have grabbed is the confluence of human and machine in terms of using machines or applications as educational tools. I am not sure why this issue has hit me so hard; perhaps I see in the world today real progress (or some would say digression) toward the expansion of the human experience, especially in terms of education.

A powerful sub-theme has been the physical and intellectual integration of machines and humans.  In The Manifesto for Cyborgs, Haraway (2007) states, “we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machines and organisms” (p. 35). Haraway uses the cyborg as the metaphor for blurring of boundaries between man and machine.  Many of my posts have addressed this very issue.  For the most part, the cyborgs and androids we have seen from Hollywood have been a mix of malevolent and the benevolent.  In most, not always, there is a common absence of human emotion that would determine the actions of good or evil, depending of course, on the desire of the creator or programmer.

In The Transhumanist FAQ, Bostrom (2003) states, “No threat to human existence is posed by today’s AI systems or their near-term successors.  But if and when superintelligence is created, it will be of paramount importance that it be endowed with human friendly values” (p. 24).  This, I believe, is a very telling statement.  If we continue to develop AI for our use, might we be in danger of creating ultimately, sentient beings that have the capability of self-thought and self-realization?  And what does this mean for us as educators and how we approach learning? In fact, what will learning even be like say, 100 years from now?

I know I have gone over my 250-word limit but believe me, I can go on and on.  I will post later a clip from the movie Forbidden Planet.  I think this movie could be the ultimate in what we could face in AI development.

Bostrom, Nick (2003). The Transhumanist FAQ. World Transhumanism Association, pages 1-56.

Haraway, D. (2007). A cyborg manifesto. In D. Bell & B. M. Kennedy (Eds.), The cybercultures reader (2nd ed, pp. 34–65). London ; New York: Routledge.

Comment on Enhanced – discourse and other pretty bots by @rennhann @Eli_App_D what Renée said, Eli. I’m in blissful ignorance. #mscedc – Helen’s EDC blog

[…] educational technology consultant and I’m conscious that I could ‘sell’ myself (enhance myself?) more effectively through social media. It will be interesting to see if the maintenance which I […]

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Comment on Enhanced – discourse and other pretty bots by hwalker

A brilliant video Chenee and a really interesting area to consider: how we can use technologies to enhance the image of ourselves which we present. One much-discussed element of this is, I guess, how our social media self is a product – often a much improved and ‘enhanced’ version of our RL self.

I’m so pleased that you unpicked and questioned many of the meaningless slogans which surrounded us at BETT: TEL presumptions defined much of what was offered and the discourse around it.

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Comment on Comment on Myles’s Week 2 Summary by Chenée by cmiller

Hi Chenée,

Maximising the auditory senses via floatation tanks http://ift.tt/2kIotsq ? I didn’t do any searching on it via google scholar, but that commercial website does claim flotation as a means to enhance learning. I am also minded of the Sci-fi series “Fringe” which made major use of flotation tanks, and talked about guiding voices as audio which could transfer in to the tank and in to the person floating there…. I can’t find any relevant clips on youtube, but this one gives you an idea if you haven’t seen the series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJIhngSpz0Q

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Comment on Week 2 Summary by hwalker

Having spent the week at BETT, where many vendors are trying to sell technologies into schools, your last paragraph struck a chord. Bayne’s observation of the complex interrelationship between the human and the digital is also key to thinking about the use of technology in education; the ‘complex entanglements’ of the human and the technical must be considered. At BETT, I frequently heard TEL perspectives and assumptions reiterated.

(And yes: thank you for the help with getting the IFTTT streams established!)

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Comment on Weekly round-up: Week 2 by cmiller

I found the animation to be some what nauseating. Similar, to that which can happen in some VR experiences. Two things to get around that

1) Provide a fixed point of reference or frame the movement – perhaps in this case, having the presentation appear on a computer screen inside your recording would work?

http://ift.tt/2kHCdrx

2) Mouse scroll smoothing. I don’t even know if that’s a thing….

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Comment on Reading Sian Bayne through biblical eyes by cmiller

I read your post twice and skimmed it several times, went out for some fresh air, then came back to it with a cup of tea, before committing to this comment. I don’t have an existing field of studies to draw upon to make more sense of it than I do. I’m not a scholar by trade, but I embarked on this MSc to learn, and I am interested in what you write because I can feel it scratching away at my brain, even if it’s beyond my initial attempts to unlock its meaning or access the background it comes from.

“I want to help them learn how to read and relate with technology theologically” That quote defines a problem which I could with time, get my head around, and likely end up with a better understanding, as I’m sure your students will too. This course must be boon for you in that regard?! I hope that you get to pursue your area of interest through the programme and in to the dissertation.

From reading Silver (2006 p.1-2) I get a sense of how, like Internet Studies, Technology and Theology could pass through the four stages of development, if it hasn’t already. I googled “christohumanism” and see there’s a raft of information about it already. Is this something you have studied/taught previously? What stage is it at already? I’m sure there is a lot to gain for other elements of AI and robotics to understand more about what makes us human, from every perspective. Religion is bound up in the formation of ethics, culture and more in the UK, and even those who follow no religion would be naive to suggest they are free from influence of a church.

I have two ministers (Church of Scotland) in my immediate family, though I’m not following any religion myself. I see technology in the Church as having similar questions around as it does in Higher Education at a practical level at least. Churches have websites, use powerpoint HD projectors; use social media; hold conferences, workshops and of course services. HEIs do those things too albeit with lectures rather than services. Technology both informs the way things are taught and what is taught, and as is required for the development of technology, it is informed by educational practice. Both strive to answer questions about our existence, and both seem to have serious questions to answer about how to remain relevant in the face of unbridled neoliberal advances for politics and economic practice in many “democratic” countries at least.

My brother-in-law is massively technology adept. He has created online communities around his work in the Church; he has used technology to change the shape of his services and that has had impact on his father’s practice (who is also CoS minister). In turn, the Church is looking at ways that it can do with technology and how it fits in a world with technology (http://ift.tt/2k6fKBj).

But beyond that I look forward to reading more, least of all so I can enjoy some new areas of discussion beyond that of which I would get the chance to, outwith the occasions when I catch my family with a free moment to think on them.

(ref: Silver, D (2006) “Where is internet studies?” pp1-14 in Silver, David, Adrienne Massanari, and Steve Jones. Critical Cyberculture Studies, edited by David Silver, et al., NYU Press, 2006. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ift.tt/2jFVNCz.)

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Comment on Lifestream summary, week two by cmiller

Hi Matthew,

“3. I’ve sought to tie readings and digital encounters back to education. This isn’t always easy to do, “.

I’ve been wondering about this too. I have a working exposure to the connection between education-tech and education (IDEL in the first semester helped greatly with this), and I have a similar grasp of the interface between entertainment technology (films, games, VR) and society. I’m now piecing my thoughts together to try to get the connection to flow through the readings, my own experience and the educational context.

I’m wondering where the evidence is of the past 20-30 years of educated thinking on these subjects has actually got us in UK higher education. There are pockets of excellence in the UK HEI sector, and there are pockets of excellence within individual institutions, but the baseline level for education tech improving the attainment of our students? In my experience, it seems to first be used as a means to increase the numbers of students, and only after that has reached a steady state, does the thinking change to drive strategy to actually improve participant’s understanding and ability.

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Comments from smilligan

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for taking the time to comment on my post.

That’s a good point about the 3D radio – thinking back it was odd that it was showcased at an accessibility event. However it was a good example of the point I was trying to make in how our senses can be manipulated to become more virtual.

I also didn’t mean to make any reference whatsoever to religion. I meant spiritual as in the mind and soul as apposed to physical attributes – but I guess I could have used a different word.

Thanks for the suggested reading too – I’ll be sure to read it.

Stuart

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Comments from smilligan

Slightly ironic that in an accessibility conference they were showcasing a technology that is inaccessible to me due my monoaural hearing problems. Still, I don’t begrudge people their new toys.

What I found interesting was the idea of how usage is making this a viable technology. Binaural recording has been available for quite some time now, I remember learning about it 12 years ago in music college. What’s perhaps making this more viable for the BBC is mobile technologies and people listening through headphones rather than off single speaker radios. There would have been no point to binaural sound if most people were still listening off old transistor radios.

Anyway.

I think spiritual is a very loaded term to use. It risks attributing virtual reality technologies with a quasi-religious dimension. Possibly implying transcendence and the erasure of the body. Something that Hayles argues against in How We Became Posthuman (another of the extra readings for this block). Totally fine to use the word spiritual if that is what you intend to imply. An alternative without the religious overtones would be subjective, maybe.

The list of transitions can also be interpreted in a problematic way. Transition implies that we go from one state to another whilst with all the pairs you give the two examples continue to exist and interact together.

I also have a bee in my bonnet about the idea of digital natives and immigrants. Check out The ‘digital native’ in context: tensions
associated with importing Web 2.0 practices into the school setting, Vol. 38, No. 1, February 2012, pp. 63–80 , Oxford review of education by Charles Crook

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Comment from Helen

Hi Helen, thanks for this scannable post which I found really interesting. I started a Word doc I called Wordulisms to do the same thing, but your point about really thinking about what you are learning as you are hand writing is very apposite. I’m going to try that and see if it helps to fix definitions in my brain better! Learning definitions of words is hard – I suppose they are out of context until you have to apply them. The old learning by doing!

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Comments from mthies

Such a cool idea, Myles! I really enjoyed hearing your perspective, just after reading Sterne’s (2006) deconstruction of cyberculture scholarship too. I frequently fall into the trap of wanting my work to be visually appealing without thinking about doing something which would be aurally stimulating.

I have often thought that as an educator I have to be creative, Sterne’s perspective has made me realise that there is an expectation for tomorrow’s teachers to not only be creative but to be inventors and artists too. Much focus has been placed on how technology can improve our bodies but I think we have not focused on how we have to adapt to accommodate the technology. In this instance (using sound as tool for scholarly thought), it forces us to improve those skills that were not necessary and not even thought about in our teacher predecessors.

Thinking about the future, I wonder if sound could offer a real alternative to how information is disseminated among the academic community and whether publishers could be by-passed more easily. Sterne (2006) criticises cyberculture’s scholarship towards ‘visualist bias’, I can’t help but wonder if the reason for this is because text is much easier to handle than a recording. I can highlight words, write notes, cross out and reference on paper and on my computer. I don’t know a way to do the same with sound – but then again there might be an app for that. I’ll just have to upskill! 🙂

Sterne, J (2006) The historiography of cyberculture, chapter 1 of Critical cyberculture studies. New York University Press. pp.17-28.

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Comment on Tweet by npainting

Couldn’t find the time to get down to London this year but I would have loved to say hi too!

I want my blogged Tweets to look as good as yours, mine look like a word processor threw-up on my Lifestream 🙁

Did you or anyone post a tutorial – I’ve not spotted one yet…

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Comments from Linzi

“In a world where cyber culture takes us closer to AI, we need to keep boundaries.” –

What should these boundaries be? Should there be a social sanctions to enforce them or are you saying that there will be negative outcomes for crossing them?

Out of interest did you students not mention anything about fashion as driving their choice of technology? They seemed to have already learnt it is more socially acceptable to cite need as a motivation rather than desire.

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Comments from chills

Good shout on looking up the Turner article. I’ll need to give that a read.

Fake news is not a new concern – http://ift.tt/29zndlt

I didn’t know Pulitzer was at the centre of Yellow News culture. Perhaps if facebook manage to sort out their algorithms then Zuckerburg can start award journalism prizes in an effort to airbrush his complicity from public consciousness.

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Comments from mthies

Such a cool idea, Myles! I really enjoyed hearing your perspective, just after reading Sterne’s (2006) deconstruction of cyberculture scholarship too. I frequently fall into the trap of wanting my work to be visually appealing without thinking about doing something with aurally stimulating.
I have often thought that as an educator I have to be creative, Sterne’s perspective has made me realise that there is an expectation for tomorrow’s teachers to be creative as well as to be inventors and artist too.
Thinking about the future, I wonder if sound could offer a real alternative to how information is disseminated among the academic community and whether publishers could be by-passed more easily. Sterne (2006) criticises cyberculture’s scholarship towards ‘visualist bias’, I can’t help but wonder if the reason for this is because text is much easier to handle than a recording. I can highlight words, write notes, cross out and reference on paper and on my computer. I don’t know a way to do the same with sound – but then again there might be an app for that. 🙂

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Comment on Reading Sian Bayne through biblical eyes by msleeman

Philip, thank you for the visit and the reflection on my piece.

You mention transhumanism and the Tower of Babel. From my reading to date, I’m sensing Babel-like elements, but perhaps more regarding posthumanism.

For instance, when reading, I noted down Babel when I came across Haraway (2007: 44): “No objects, spaces or bodies are sacred in themselves; any component can be interfaced with any other if the proper standard, the proper code, can be constructed for processing signals in common language.”

And, similarly, p.45 (there are some italics in the original, not captured here): “Furthermore, communications sciences and modern biologies are constructed by a common move – the translation of the world into a problem of coding, a search for a common language in which all resistance to instrumental control disappears and all heterogeneity can be submitted to disassembly, reassembly, investment and exchange.”

Next week, I’m hoping to write a biblical response to Haraway’s essay, and this will be one part of a larger whole. I hope you’ll comment on it, in due course.

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Comment on Ethics in the age of androids and cyborgs by lmclagan

Renée, I enjoyed this post and the content delivered in visually creative way. I believe the discussion of ethics are important in a world where implications may occur. Çakir (2016) states that the makers of technology are creating a world while ignoring the legalities of the products they make. Should they consider law, morals and ethics? After all the intellectual and social entity involves people…..

Linzi #mscedc

Çakir, E. A, (2016). Cyber-humans – our future with machines. Journal of Behaviour & Information Technology,Volume 35, 2016 – Issue 6

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When Do We Cease Being Human?

Just a short note on being human.  I was looking through some “Star Trek: The Next Generation” clips and found one that focused some on the android Data, and his ability to mimic the musical styles of thousands of composers and musicians.  The question arose as to what part of the music was actually created by him in terms of feelings and emotions.  Of course, as he had none, he could not answer the question or really even consider it.

It struck me as pertinent to what we have been discussing this week: In all of our efforts to create new and exciting technology to use in just about every area of our lives, where in that process are we in danger of ceasing to be human?  Or, where is the human quality in the technology we create?  And lastly, once given up, is humanity retrievable?

Comment on Reading Sian Bayne through biblical eyes by Philip

The facet of trans-humanism that addresses the removal of human limitations is certainly theological. Having been to seminary and spent my entire life as part of a church system, I am interested in how we encourage others to transcend human weakness and rely on God, or whatever pronoun suits you, to lift us into the realm of super-humans, capable of doing anything our hearts desire.

I personally believe that much of the teaching involving this transcendence of humans to a surreal world of bliss is a violation of the actual scriptural context, but I understand the psychology of our need to have an avenue of escape from the finite to the infinite. I also am a believer in the power of God in someone’s life that can be manifested in unexplained ways. And I fully understand the humanistic focus that such spiritual pathways do not exist outside of ourselves and our own human achievement.

In terms of technology, do you think we (humans) are using this technology much as the ancients did with the Tower of Babel? They strove to achieve immortality by reaching beyond themselves, using their own resources and cunning. And might we one day find ourselves in the same state as they, bereft of self-control and self-determination, at the mercy of the consequences of what we have created?

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Comment on Reading Sian Bayne through biblical eyes by hmurphy

Matthew, this is a fascinating post. Your background is leading you to have such an interesting perspective on the reading. I hadn’t picked up on the ‘finitude’ notion in Bayne’s argument, and it does suggest a different lens from how I’d been interpreting it, so thanks for writing this.

PS Former student of theology here 🙂

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Emotions: Heroes (or Heroines) or Demons? (Do I HAVE to be politically correct?)

I have noticed in the films we have been watching, and others I have seen over the years, that cyborgs/androids/AI/robots, etc., generally (not always) seem to lack one thing:  emotion.  That is, they lack emotion unless they experience some kind of revelation or crisis, then all of sudden emotions come into play and either save the day or result in massive destruction.  This isn’t always the case but I consider major “characters” over the years: HAL, Data, The Terminator, various robots/androids in The Twilight Zone or other sci-fi films/programs.  Absent are basic emotions of fear, hate, anxiety, apprehension, alarm, humor, laughter, etc.  I am just wondering why that is.  Also interesting is that when androids and such do express emotion, many times it is pre-programmed.  In other words, the artificiality of the emotions is founded upon what the human engineer who created the android thinks should be displayed.  The android (and I am using that term generally for sake of being all-inclusive) is not able to develop its own personality based upon experience and internal genetic predispositions.

Are we to think that the intrusion of emotions somehow makes us lesser than we are supposed to be?  Does Spock really think if he buries his emotions he will be a better person?  Does the display of emotion really indicate a lack of self-control?  Interestingly though, when emotions are infused in those created characters, it somehow saves the day for the humans involved, albeit not so much at times for the AI.  In many cases there results in some kind of bonding between human and android, somewhat like the human characters and Androids in I, Robot.  I really and ultimately have no answer here, just a quick observation and conclusion for which I am sure there are a myriad exceptions I haven’t mentioned. #mscedc

Are we moving toward. or have we arrived at, creating composite people much like Hollywood creates composite characters? #mscedc

Robocop, a re-made man.  He possesses a human mind but robotic features that make him into a cyborg.

 

The characters on the left were created and played by silent and “talkie” movie actor Lon Chaney, also known as “The Man Of Ten Thousand Faces”.  The right side is a composite of some characters played by television, movie and stage actor Tony Randall.

 

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Comment on Commenting on Philip’s blog by npainting

>If we were reliant on the technology, would we just stop doing these things if we didn’t have access to tech or would we just do things a different way, using different, non-digital tools?

I think the latter. I guess we need to remember that the sharpened stick, the plough, the printing press and so on were the cutting-edge technologies of their day and they were the catalyst for equally seismic cultural shifts. One thing we can be reasonably sure about is that that we’ll be doing it all differently at some point in the future and we’ll be looking back on the way we do things now with equally fond memories / bemusement depending on your view point. Oh and some people will still be using a paper calendar.

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The Price of Over-Reliance on Technology?

 

The Day The Earth Stood Still

How reliant are we on our technology?  We use calendars to set and remind us of appointments of all kinds; we use word processing programs of all sorts to prepare documents, reports, PowerPoints, etc.; we use an almost endless menu of apps and programs that influences and controls almost every aspect of our lives.

Just recently, pursuant to school policy, I took a cell phone away from a student during class.  He was not focused on the task at hand rather, he was enjoying some game or texting a friend.  His reaction was respectful enough but his demeanor still betrayed his feelings that he had just been banished to the depths of the sea with no escape.  Much like a dead sailor in the clutches of Davy Jones, forever exiled to The Locker.  And yet, was his reaction dissimilar to ours when our lives are given the once over by unfortunate circumstances?  How do we act when we lose or misplace our phones?  You would think we had the power to stop the Earth from spinning on its axis until we find it.  How can I go on?  What will I do?  My life is over!!!

Yes, the sarcasm is dripping from my lips this morning.  But think about it; how often is our daily routine determined by technology?  And if there is the slightest interruption of internet service, we start to feel out of control.  It’s kind of like being a bicycle going faster and faster downhill and you can’t seem to get your feet back on the pedals to gain some kind of control before that tree over there moves into your path.

Well, this was just a thought I had as I was reading through some of the posts in our blogs.  And then this movie came to mind, “The Day The Earth Stood Still”  The old, original one made in 1951 has a ring of truth to it today, doesn’t it?

Comment on Lifestreams of consciousness – week 1 by hmurphy

Thanks Nigel! As I said above, it’s really reassuring to find many of us feeling the same way. I managed to automate the tweets following the instructions of Cathy Hills and it worked for the first few, but then it’s been duplicating the recent tweets so I think something’s gone wrong somewhere. I plan to try and figure out what’s happened and then blog about it!

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Comment on Lifestreams of consciousness – week 1 by hmurphy

Thanks, Philip – it’s always reassuring to know that there are a few of us in this boat. I like your spatial interpretation of using IFTTT – I wonder if it speaks to our using spaces to reveal different things about ourselves, and if bringing all of that together into one space disrupts the equilibrium we think we may have established…

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Comment on More human than human by hmurphy

That’s a really interesting point, Clare, and thanks for your comment. I wonder if technology, and the speed at which it enables us to operate, to publicly make decisions, criticise, judge others, etc., is generally at odds with empathy as an emotion. Are there other emotional reactions that technology might affect, either positively or negatively?

Jon Ronson wrote an excellent book on how social media has changed our experience of shame and our shaming of others, and I’ve heard a lot recently about virtue signalling and similar ideas. Hmmm… lots to think about!

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Comment on Lifestreams of consciousness – week 1 by npainting

Helen I’ve just been reflecting in my own lifestream on the similarities between how you’re feeling and my own thoughts.

I agree with Philips comments above that ‘it’ll turn out right in the end’, although what’s right for each of us might be different.

I couldn’t agree more on the aesthetics and I’ve made some comments in my blog about that being a peculiarly human trait.
Did you manage to automate the tweets in your lifestream to look the way they do or have you had to do some manual interventions?

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Comment on More human than human by cthomson

Hi Helen
You raise some interesting questions. Empathy as an assumed universal human trait is something that I have been questioning just about every day for the last year. With global events and increasing levels of trolling on social media empathy can appear to be on the decrease. How many humans would pass the Voight-Kampff test in 2017? The Women’s March events worldwide did restore some of my faith (ignoring the male-centric reactions of course) at least.

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Comment on Lifestream, Liked on YouTube: If we create female robots as perfect women, how will this affect us? by Renee Furner

Thanks for sharing your insight, Linzi. Your experience highlights the complexity of influences on body-image anxiety. You’ve encouraged me to do a little more research, in an attempt to pinpoint what it is about social media that has such an influence. Richard Perloff (2014) suggests that reasons social media has such an impact include:

-the 24/7 availability of social media allows ‘for exponentially more opportunities for social comparison and dysfunctional surveillance of pictures of disliked body parts than were ever available with the conventional mass media’ (p. 366)

-based on social comparison theory, ‘upward social comparisons with attractive peers can actually lead to more negative self-attractiveness ratings than comparisons with attractive advertising models, who are perceived as less similar and therefore a less diagnostic comparison group (Cash et al. 1983)’ (p. 369)

It’s probably also significant that appearance is critical within the many of the commonly held values of “today’s youth” (in inverted commas because (a) my data is old – 2007 and (b) I’m not sure such a generalisation is fair): in 2007 the top-ranked values were fame, achievement (defined as ‘being very successful’), popularity, image and financial success (Uhls & Greenfield, 2011).

It’s worth noting that in attempting to identify the cause of the changes in tween values Uhls and Greenfield identify that changes in communitarian values correlate with the ‘explosion of communication technologies’, increased Internet access and the advent of social networking sites such as YouTube, MySpace and Facebook.

So – you asked if will we have ‘perfect’ women or will the perfection just be lived out digitally. Good question. I suspect both.

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First Love Replaced By Fake Love?

I am wondering how we have incorporated technology into our lives.  Discussing this with my students in our current unit about World War 1, we looked at the propaganda machine that drove public opinion toward favoring the Allied war effort as a holy quest to end the terror of the German warmongers.  For some reason, I immediately thought of this episode of The Twilight Zone.  Here, we have a man, convicted of a crime and exiled as punishment to a planet far from home.  IN an act of compassion, one of the supply ship crew members, which visited every few months or so, left a package for this man which contained the perfect companion, in the form of a woman.  She did everything for him and despite his initial rejection of her, stayed with him and served him.   Of course you can guess the outcome of the story, he eventually became reliant on her companionship, fell in love with her and so on.

One day, the supply ship returned with news his sentence had been commuted and they were to take him home.  Of course, she could not go, primarily because her mere presence was against the rules and if she left with him they all would be found out and a mess would ensue.  As a last resort, after the man’s interminable begging not to leave her, one of the crew shot her in the face, deactivating her and of course, showing her for what she really was:  a machine.

The moral of the story centered on how this man became reliant on this perfect woman who was programmed to meet his every need, to the point of being bereft of any sense of self-reliance.  And now you may ask, if you haven’t already, why I have gone through all of this?  The point is, how reliant have we become on machines to do our work for us?  When we misplace our cell phone, we turn the world upside down trying to find it.  When our computer crashes, our lives crash along with it.  When the net is down, the Earth ceases to spin on its axis.  I suppose I am asking how far can we go, should we go, in making machines so life-like and so “real” that we begin to replace warm-blooded human contact with them?  And at what expense?

Comment on Lifestream, Liked on YouTube: If we create female robots as perfect women, how will this affect us? by lmclagan

Renee , I work with dancers of all ages and I teach in a variety of educational settings. However, I particularly work with teenage girls in High School and most young girls that I come across have insecurities about their physical appearance. Through conversation I am overwhelmed at how many wish they looked like they did on social media. Through numerous apps, and online make up tutorial the girls have created a perfect image of themselves for the world to see. Looking through their online activity the girls seem confident, enthusiastic and proud of their identity. The comparison to women online is unfortunately causing the next generation to not only have insecurities but they are depressed that they do not look like their online avatar. I am left perplexed that pupils are suffering from depression and readily willing to undergo surgery to alter their physical appearance; like they do through their smartphone apps. If surgery and augmentation is starting earlier, will we have women in the future looking perfect, or will their be implications and the perfection will only be through technology?

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Comment on Going manual by cthomson

Hi Eli, I think our thoughts are overlapping and your post ‘Open – I feel vulnerable‘ resonates! As another multi-blogger it has me now thinking that even though we reflect openly in other spaces that we may be overly controlling them thus slightly defeating the purpose? If this is the case then I entirely agree with your question here – perhaps being pushed out of our comfort zones will change our assumptions and behaviours. I came across this tweet today which might nudge us on: https://twitter.com/KeeganSLW/status/823635493921419264

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Comment on Going manual by Eli

Hey Clare,
this is something I am struggling with too. I think I am conditioned through my job that when I add anything to the web it has to meet certain standards of aesthetics and accessibility, the lifestream approach doesn’t really live up to this so I can’t help myself, I want to go back and edit, tweak and visualise everything.

I like to think that the concept of showing a stream of real life rather than presented life we see on facebook and Instagram is somehow more real and grittier. I think I understand it as a concept, as a kick back, doesn’t mean I enjoy it in this sense 🙂

I too have had a bit of a nightmare with IFTTT and wasted hours trying to get it to do something I could have done manually in half an hour so I feel your pain.

Maybe if we force ourselves to engage, we may be pleasantly surprised to see changes in our assumptions and maybe even our own behaviours by the end of the course?
Eli

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Comment on Had a pinteresting morning by msleeman

is there a term for when (e.g.) YouTube suggests one film to you after another, and gradually the trail gets grimier and grimier? Clearly my question assumes a certain user’s point of view, but I hope my description makes sense. If there’s not a term for it, can anyone invent one?

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Comment on Had a pinteresting morning by msleeman

cpsaros, you’re on the money with the getting sucked into content dynamic. The Pinterest emails are still flowing. Yesterday I got one from ‘them’inventing me to ‘explore this week’s trending searches’. The offer of “girls bedroom ideas, wedding hair and other search trends” was one I found easy to resist. I think their algorithm will have to try harder with me than that. I’ve started keeping the emails from them, to see how that unfolds.

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Comment on Looking round the other EDC blogs by msleeman

Good to be the testing-bed for many (welcome, those of you using me as a test for this or that IFTTT recipe – I hope this comes through to you loud and clear). Daniel, thank you for this comment. It’s interesting for my reflections if I am top of the list for everyone on the course. The scaffolding inevitably favours some with greater visibility than others, and no list is ever going to be flat, whether it’s this or a list of search-engine results. Now that I know it’s not just some personalised line-up for me alone, I’d better work hard now in trying to keep you all enjoying your visits 😉

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Pinned to Digital Education on Pinterest

Description: Good digital citizens can think critically about how they present themselves and treat others online. The Global Digital Citizenship Foundation provides insights into how educators can help students along each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. The guide provides strategies for helping students remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create using technology. #bloomstaxonomy #studentcriticalthinking #research
By Philip Downey
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Week 1 Summary: Transforming Integration or Is It the Other Way Around?

Moving through the readings for Block 1, I was struck by a comment made in one of the first articles I read.  This comment made me re-think how I have viewed my presence in the digital world and what influence I wish to have on not only my personal space but on the spaces of my students.  Yes, I realize I am hearkening yet again to the space-presence theme, but I feel this theme is a foundation platform of what my digital legacy should look like.

In The Historiography of Culture, Jonathan Sterne (2006) describes advertisers that have presented “digital technologies” as “. . . commodities to be integrated into everyday life rather than as epochal forces that will transform it.”  This simple statement forced me to look at how I use digital technologies in my classroom especially, and whether I use such technologies to transform my classroom or just integrate them into what we (myself and my students) already.  My answer to this question is both.  I fully understand classroom application is not the focus of this article however, I try and see if anything I read has some value in terms of how I present information to my students and how they can best receive and comprehend that information.

As I teach in an inner-city school, the range of technology devices and uses among my students runs from non-existent to all-reliant.  Some students, not many but enough, really have nothing more than a simple cellphone that allows them limited internet access at best.  It is very difficult for them to use it for anything beyond texting.  Other students seem to have the latest devices that can do anything and everything on the net from texting to phot applications and beyond.  We try and equalize everyone by providing classroom use of Chromebooks or laptops.  Even then, there is sometimes a distinct difference between students who are mind-numbingly adept at technology and students who do not have such skills because of the lack of access.

It is within this context I find both the transformation and integration concepts at odds with each other, yet willing to assimilate themselves within the context of academic achievement.  One the one hand, I am transforming the lives (hopefully) of students by exposing them to advanced technology and providing them opportunities to use that in ways they have never tried before.  It is a trial and error journey that has been both frustrating and atmospherically jubilant as students explore their personal digital space and discover how they may further express themselves within it.  For other students, technology is the simple integration of digital platforms they use already; now they are learning how each platform can be coupled with other platforms that allows further expansion of their own digital footprints.  The photos above are representative of the range of technologies used in my own classroom.  The achievement and engagement difference between the traditionally passive “sit-at-your-desk-and-listen-to-my-banter” method as opposed to student-driven and student-centered learning where every student is actively engaged in the learning process is massive.

In all of this presence in space is enhanced, in one fashion or another, as students (myself included) reach beyond the borders of the paradigms we have set for ourselves about the spaces we occupy.

Sterne, J (2006) The historiography of cyberculture, chapter 1 of Critical cyberculture studies. New York University Press. pp.17-28. (ebook)

My Blog Visuals

I just wanted to provide a short description of the visual elements of my blog space.  As you can see, the header is a group of boats anchored in an area; it could be a marina, a harbor or some other space.  There is little color and there seems to be a mist that obscures the view of those looking in from the outside.  There is also little, or no, interaction between any object or person in the picture.  It is, simply, a picture of space, occupied by static, unresponsive “things, that provide no meaning or context.

The background picture is of an art piece located in the Chihuly Glass Museum in Seattle, Washington.  Again, we see a nautical theme; a boat and a variety of colored glass spheres both in and out of the boat.  The spheres, as I depict them in this blog presentation, represent the ideas and concepts of the world in which we live.  The placement of the spheres shows how, when provided color, size and placement, ideas and thoughts can interact and enhance the the space.

The boat and spheres require the onlooker to mentally participate in the art.  We are further compelled to inject our emotions into it, choosing which spheres (or ideas) we wish to focus on more, and which to reject as less important.  Which spheres are more or less beautiful and which provide us with greater or lesser comfort?  The art can be seen as a representation of digital thought, causing our brains and emotions to bond and produce new ideas and attitudes about our presence in the world.

One is just occupied space.  The other is space occupied by presence.  Which one will each of us choose to be?

#mscedc

Reminders

As I am going through the readings for Block 1, I have been taken back to the “good ol’ days” of IDEL.  Actually, it wasn’t THAT long ago.  But the reminders I am struck with are the concepts of space and presence.

While I have been working through the various apps and platforms we will be using in EDC, I am struck by the different spaces I occupy.  I am a user of Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, and Moodle, just to name a few.  I have my own private blog and Twitter accounts that will not be part of this class as I am using my more public spaces for that.  I also occupy space in a variety of Google apps such as Google Drive and Google+.  I imagine those spaces and my online presence will be stretched even further as this course progresses.

I am also reminded that in each of these spaces I am required, sometime through simple default, to maintain a presence.  Part of my personality, values, and even biases, are projected in one form or another, to one degree or another, in each of those space.  This creates what others perceive as my online presence.  And, rightly or wrongly, I am judged by others for that presence; not necessarily WHAT platforms I use, but HOW those platforms are used to establish myself in the online community.

As I then look externally from the point of view of the world, it is not the amount of space I use that draws others users to me.  It is rather the same quality of use that causes others to step outside of their own space, so to speak, and spend time in mine.  in short, it is the quality of my presence (as determined by someone else) that is a factor in how much time they spend with me, in my space.

So, that being said, and I am well aware not very academically, is what I begin my journey with in this space, this blog, this lifestream.

#mscedc

Just Getting Started . . .

I have been going through the Course Outline and attempting to follow all of the instructions on setting up the IFTTT program.  I think I have it down now, but only time will tell if I am correct.

This is going to be a fairly intense course for me; I don’t know if anyone else feels that way for themselves.  I do know, and have to come to learn more and more in this program, that my academic writing skills need quite a bit of improvement.  Although I have years of experience working in the court system, writing those kinds of reports and letters is quite different than academic presentations.  I hope my time in IDEL and CDDE have helped me improve; I feel I at least have a better understanding of how to organize my writing in a more academic form.

In any case, I am looking forward to the EDC course.  I simply need to relax.

#mscedc