Tag: Comments for Myles’s EDC blog

Comment on EDC Week 8 (!) A weeks review of alogarithms.. https://t.co/ovTscw6OJO #mscedc by jlamb

Lifestream

Hello Myles, thanks for this review of your study of algorithms over the last week. And good to see you experimenting with another medium to convey your ideas, this time using Thinglink.

By coincidence, I’m writing this reply while in the background my son is watching his preferred dinosaur cartoon on Netflix. Even though we make use of the option for different profiles for each member of the household, I’m still amused by the some of the films that are recommended for me: the algorithm is sophisticated but not flawless. Unless of course someone else is using my profile to watch comedy-actions films…

Whilst accepting that it might be irritating for you, I was nevertheless amused by your mention that Futurelearn is now spamming you on account of your work around the micro-ethnography. An unintended consequence of the microethnography (combined with other influences) beyond the intention or control of those who designed the EDC course. It would be really interesting to see whether the subject of the advertised courses picked up on other of your online activity?

Within my own research something I’m interested in is how the experience of the marker might be affected by the algorithm. I’ve been thinking for instance how the experience of watching the same video assignment – and perhaps their interpretation – will alter depending on whether the student uploads their work to YouTube, Vimeo or MediaHopper? To apply this to my experience of your own artefact here, when I first looked at your Thinglink assignment my eye was temporarily drawn to the related images beneath: Chelsea Football Club (perhaps because earlier today I glanced at the sports news on the BBC website using this computer?); a crest for the city of Downey in California (because earlier this evening I had a Twitter exchange with Philip Downey from our EDC class?); suffragists and women pioneers (possibly because I had recently followed up your post about Ada Lovelace?). This would seem to be a really nice link into week 9 where we’re looking in particular at how algorithmic culture and learning analytics affect education: in this instance, my experience of viewing your work has been shaped by influences beyond what you intended as the author, and beyond my immediate control as the author. Fascinating stuff.

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Comments from mthies

Lifestream

One of the really nice things about being a tutor on the EDC is being introduced to unfamiliar content and genres from popular culture. I’ve never been any sort of gamer (post-48K Spectrum) so it’s interesting to learn more about ‘serious gaming’. When I watched your video earlier in the week I was drawn into the YouTube comments and it was interesting to see the reverence and emotion that posters attached to the game and its music.

On top of this, the ambiguous nature of the protagonist – human or cyborg? – made we wander whether some of the ideas around cybercultures are commonly used or explored within games? If so, bearing in mind the popularity of gaming, I wonder whether in future iterations of EDC we might look towards games as a way of exploring the different conceptualisation of cyberculture, in the same way we have used film and to a lesser extent music this time around?

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Comments from mthies

Lifestream

Hello Myles, thanks for your weekly review.

‘However the results have been outstanding and Im overawed by the talent that surrounds me.’

Likewise. I’ve only glanced at the work – Jeremy and I will be commenting on them later in the week – however there’s some fantastic work in there (including your own). Having only glimpsed the work, I’m struck by how many of artefacts include content other than images as a seemingly vital meaning-making component, and in particular sound. I suppose this neatly picks up on the conversation we’ve had before where Sterne (2006) encourages us to look beyond the visual in our conceptualisation of cyberculture.

‘But this leads me to a question: How much of an influence does the culture of the participants on a programme such as ours play a part in creating successful collaborative learning experiences?’

I really like this. Your point acts as a very useful reminder that for all that we might get excited about the possibilities of digital technology around education, we need to see them as a part of wider social and cultural system, as Hand (2008) argues. And going from there to think about Bayne’s (2014) paper problematising framings around technology-enhanced learning, it reminds us the digital is more complex than tools or spaces to deliver teaching and learning outcomes, not least as the technologies are entangled with human interest – the community you mention.

As you suggest, this is a really nice bridge into week 4.

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Comments from mthies

Lifestream

I especially like the comments in the final minute about the speed with which ideas are processed, and the risk of not centring / settling on, and pursuing, one idea down its rabbit hole to see where it leads. I wonder if tech creates, or enhances(!) this possibility.

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Comments from mthies

Lifestream

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Comments from mthies

Lifestream

Aw, this was a very nice post. Taking a few minutes and actual effort
to produce a great article but what can I say I procrastinate a whole lot and don’t
manage to get anything done.

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Comments from mthies

Lifestream

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searching on Google for something else, Regardless I am here now and would just like to say many thanks for a fantastic post and a all
round enjoyable blog (I also love the theme/design), I don’t have time to go through it all at the moment but I have book-marked it and
also added your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read
much more, Please do keep up the great job.

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Comments from mthies

Lifestream

The march towards the replacement of cheap menial labour gathers pace. Millions of unskilled works would probably watch this with both wonder and a growing sense of trepidation. However, seen another way, witnessing these robots in action should be a signal to anybody that life long learning and development is the only way to stave off eventual replacement by a machine. As educators we should also not be too complacent as the capability by AI’s to teach perhaps only basic skills may be upon us sooner than we think.

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Comments from mthies

Lifestream

While there may be some benefits to our online security that come from this type of technology, overall, it is yet another example of enhanced analytics tracking, recording and profiling even more portions of our lives. To my mind, the question of the ethical repercussions of such action will be going on for some time and is not the real issue. The major problem I have is the laissez faire attitude of consumers and future users of digital services who wont mind a jot that this goes on. In fact many will actively encourage it and rejoice in its ability. Im probably at risk of being cast as a Luddite but the risk of this data being used for manipulation and subtle, unconscious coercion is not beyond doubt and mostly I dont trust human greed and the need for power to stay away from abusing it.

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Comments from mthies

Lifestream

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 mthies

Lifestream

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

Lifestream

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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Comments from mthies

Lifestream

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

Lifestream

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 mthies

Lifestream

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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Comments from mthies

Lifestream

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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