Tweet! Cyberpunks are cool

The problem with changing topics over the course of the, well, course, is that you forget things. I went back to look over my blog and some of the readings and now I’m remembering some of the really interesting stuff I’d forgotten, like cyberpunks.Oh no, now I’m rethinking assignment topics, I don’t have time…..

Tweet! connecting

It’s always a great feeling when we connect with our classmates. I’ve never met Philip, he lives miles away across the pond and I probably will never meet him, but there are moments when I feel close to him, that we have more similarities than dissimilarities and it’s a nice feeling.

Thank you technology for helping this happen.

Tweet! Nuff said

Time is a very precious commodity for me, everything takes me longer to process, to read and to write, so assignments are particularly scary because of the set time factors.

Tweet! For Colin it was just coffee

This conversation was one of those smiley moments where we connect with each other over the spread of the planet and recognise our joined human traits 🙂

We were jus chatting about comforts, but it also reminded me of a comment Colin had made way back in the fist block where he needed another cup of coffee to get through the Donna Haraway paper. I wonder, did any of us find that easy?

Linked from Pocket: Elon Musk launches Neuralink, a venture to merge the human brain with AI

 

 

 

 

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is backing a brain-computer interface venture called Neuralink, according to The Wall Street Journal.

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First thought on reading this is how sci-fi and how well this matched to some of the film clips we watched in our together tube sessions. However as the article highlights, we are already implanting devices in the brain, the most successful being a device that can stop tremors in Parkinson’s sufferers. Perhaps because this is not more widespread, it still seems like science fiction, but Musk’s area of interest goes that little further and it’s about writing and saving information to and from the brain. It’s all about cognition, about improving ourselves through a technology link.

In reading this article and reminding myself of the current extent of research in this field, it’s taking me back (in thought) to the beginning of our EDC journey, to the first few weeks where I battled to understand the concept of cyborg, not as in the sci-fi movie sense but from some of our readings like Miller(2011) and Hayles (1999) where I grappled with the concept of cyborg being much closer to home,  where Miller (2011) explains cyborg as “the growing number of ways that technological apparatuses have been used to fix and alter the human body”, which still sounds “out there”  but is actually talking about such mundane things as eyeglasses and prosthetic limbs, body modification and gym membership.

Hayles (1999) however is probably much more relevant to the intention of Musk in this article, in her paper she talked about her amazement that any scientist could genuinely consider the idea that the human consciousness could be separated fro the body. Even in reading this article and hearing that this is indeed the subject of research in 2017, I still find myself agreeing with Hayles on this one and thinking, come on get real!

 

References

Hayles, N. Katherine (1999) Towards embodied virtuality from Hayles, N. Katherine,  How we became posthuman: virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature, and informatics pp.1-25, 293-297, Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press.

Miller, V. (2011) Chapter 9: The Body and Information Technology, in Understanding Digital Culture. London: Sage.

Linked from Pocket: The music video that changes each time you click play

The algorithm automatically pulls in short clips from video-sharing sites like YouTube when you hit play on Shaking Chains’ Midnight Oil. The short bits of footage are shown back to back with the band’s track playing over the top.

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After all our talk of algorithms and education, I found this a really nice “smiler” so thought I’d share. A music group using an algorithm to change the experience for viewers watching their music video. A nice change from algorithms pulling information out, instead, algorithms creating art?

A read for later – comparing learning analytics with fitness tech

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Tags: #mscedc
March 24, 2017 at 07:57PM
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Further findings show that 80% of FE students would be happy to have their learning data collected if it improved their grades, and more than half would be happy to have their learning data collected if it stopped them from dropping out.

This block started with my concerns for students receiving “bad news” via learning analytics and how they might react. I was concerned about how stats may be delivered to students and the potential impact of this information.  I saw this reaction on a small scale this week when the tweetorial analytics were released where some of my classmates described shock, annoyance and even anger when seeing a top ten league table that they weren’t in. This, however, was a minor exercise which didn’t feed into any final assignment grades or directly affect the possible pass or fail of the course.

It was during this period that I came across this article about the work being done between 50 education institutions to create an app for learning analytics which could be an aid to both students and teachers. The subheader grabbed my attention as it quoted that 80% of student wanted learning analytics to be carried out and wanted to have this information available to them, this seemed to go against my initial concerns, however on closer inspection, the student seem to want the analytics in all the positive ways, if it improved their grades, if it prevented them fro dropping out. However, there is no thought in that sub header to the students who wouldn’t be receiving good news via the analytics app, so I am afraid I am still on the lower rungs of the cautious ladder when it comes to analytics and information we provide to students and its purpose.

 

Tweet! Sometimes marketing is about too much bling

It’s always interesting how some TEL initiatives are pitched, sometimes we get it right, sometimes we get it wrong.

Lecture capture is one of those oops moments.  It’s not new, it’s not something we are suddenly going to be doing, but because it’s just a part of teaching which has worked away quietly in the background for those who have chosen to use it, it feels like such a big deal now because so many parts of the institution staff have never been involved with or aware of the work that has been going on. The marketing pitch that has been used to “sell” things hasn’t helped, making it out to be so much more than it is.  The big deal is more about the technical aspect of how we will make this available for those who chose to use it on such a large scale, how we will teach our students to make the best use of this as a learning tool and how as educators we will make the best use of it.

If all we do is record lectures and make them available, we are wasting a valuable opportunity to create new learning opportunities and work on new methods.

If we want to control how a technology is being used (pushed on us), we have to take ownership of it, we have to test it, tweak it, find areas where it is a benefit and show areas where it doesn’t work as hoped.