Tag Archives: EdTech

text | wondering, The field of AI, thoughts of the wise old woman

<< Demons and Demos >>


The New Yorker and NSO in some glorious spy-novel context here

…and further, as a cherry on this cake, one might quickly conjure up Cambridge Analytica , or singularly, Facebook with its clandestine 50000+ or so datapoints per milked data-cow (aka what I also lovingly refer to as humans as datacyborgs) which the company’s systems are said to distill through data collection . Yes, arguably the singularity is already here.

Then, more recently, one can enjoy the application by a facial recognition service, Clearview AI, that uses its data mining to identify (or read: “spy on”) dead individuals; a service which might seem very commendable (even for individuals with no personal social media accounts, one simply has to appear in someone else’s visual material); and yet the tech has been applied for more.

The contextualization might aid one to have the narrative amount to:

“Alienation” and that, if one were to wish, could be extended with the idea of the “uncanny” hinted at with my datacyborg poetics. “Alienation” here is somewhat as meant as it is in the social sciences: the act of lifting the intended use of one’s data, outside of that intended use, by a third party. The questionable act of “alienation” is very much ignored or quietly accepted (since some confuse “public posting” with a “free for all”). 

What personally disturbs me is that the above manner of writing makes me feel like a neurotic conspiratorial excuse of a person… one might then self-censor a bit more, just to not upset the balance with any demonizing push-back (after all, what is one’s sound, educated and rational “demos” anyway?). This one might do while others, in the shadows of our silently-extracted data, throw any censorship, in support of the hidden self (of the other), out of the proverbial window.

This contextualised further; related to memory, one might also wish to consider the right to be forgotten besides the right to privacy. These above-mentioned actors among a dozen others, rip this autonomous decision-making out of our hands. If then one were to consider ethics mapped with the lack of autonomy one could be shiveringly delighted not to have to buy a ticket to a horror-spy movie since we can all enjoy such narratives for “free” and in “real” life. 

Thank you Dr. WSA for the trigger


Epilogue:

“Traditionally, technology development has typically revolved around the functionality, usability, efficiency and reliability of technologies. However, AI technology needs a broader discussion on its societal acceptability. It impacts on moral (and political) considerations. It shapes individuals, societies and their environments in a way that has ethical implications.”

https://ethics-of-ai.mooc.fi/chapter-1/4-a-framework-for-ai-ethics

…is ethics perhaps becoming / still as soothing bread for the demos in the games by the gazing all-seeing not-too-proverbial eye?

In extension to my above post (for those who enjoy interpretative poetics):

One might consider that the confusion of a “public posting” being equated with “free for all” (and hence falsely being perceived as forfeiting autonomy, integrity, and the likes), is somewhat analogous with abuses of any “public” commons.

Expanding this critically, and to some perhaps provokingly further, one might also see this confusion with thinking that someone else’s body is touch- or grope-for-all simply because it is “available”.

Now let’s be truly “meta” about it all: One might consider that the human body is digital now. (Ie my datacyborg as the uber-avatar. Moving this then into the extreme: if I were a datacyborg then someone else’s extraction beyond my public flaneuring here, in my chosen setting, could poetically be labeled as “datarape”)

As one might question the ethics of alienatingly ripping the biological cells from Henrietta Lacks beyond the extraction of her cancer into labs around the world, one might wonder about the ethics of data being ripped and alienated into labs for market experimentation and the infinite panopticon of data-prying someone’s (unwanted) data immortality

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks

text | wondering

Looking into underpinnings of learning and tech in and beyond technology-imbued learning environments


Over the past 150 years, give or take a year, the most impactful theories of learning have been defined into a few isms. According to UNESCO’s International Bureau of Education, these can be identified as:  behaviorism, cognitive psychology, constructivism, social learning theory, socio-constructivism, experiential learning, multiple intelligences, situated learning theory, community of practice, and 21st century learning 

Intuitively, one might sense various filtering attributes within the above paragraph. For instance “150 years”, “most impactful”, “theories”, “isms”. While these listed theories might find their roots in yet other pedagogical theories and practices, the constraining parameters might either function as biases and blinders, or rather, might be enriched or contextualized. 

Tribal methods of knowledge transfer, for instance, are not mentioned in this list; a list that feels, ever-so slightly, Eurocentric. If one were to imagine a child learning in a “remote” tribe (or various less remote yet self-sustaining communities) where such theories have not penetrated the colorful diverse foliage of community learning, is the child then learning via a less defined or less impactful theory? Strecthing beyond the intended meaning: would learning then be less impactful? 

Even within flavors of the New or Old World, there too methods of learning that could be distilled from those described in classical settings, are hidden or perhaps not sufficiently made explicit: Plato (in The Republic) as well as Socrates and their respective methodologies.

Yet another example, stretching both the space and time of impactful theories: the thousands of years of highly elite and selective learning methods in China are neither there, besides its present-day methodological implementation of Labor Education, as one of the five pillars of educational and learning theory and practices in the country. 

Then comparison or cross-pollinatable attributes of, for instance, Labor Education with scientifically corroborated methodologies, such as those found with Montessorian methods and theory (or perhaps even links with character-building as hinted at in Plato) are, understandably, neither obvious in such list of the influential few. 

The potential of cross-pollination of methodology or theory that explores potentials in-between the impactful theories, is subdued by the mere mentioning of these as segregated in or by their impact.  Sure, some might need highly creative or perhaps construing effort to be (partially) combined. 

Arguably too imaginative: one could consider that if “the media is the message,” that the technological structures and architectural frameworks could be implied to be a “theory of learning” as well. That is, if a medium (which is implicitly a technology) can define the message, then the structure (again, the technology) influences that what is being learned. One could imagine that structures hence could be designed as such to define a process of learning. Though, do they and are they consciously designed as such, or is the influence on learning often a collateral effect or damage? One might herein consider the field of AI, and Machine Learning and how it is mapped into Edtech. 

As Professor Luckin suggested in the Financial Times article of 14 August 2021, “English schools turn to AI to help students catch up after Covid”,  AI systems should be challenged by teachers. It is perhaps not too farfetched to assume such challenging might occur through ideological lenses, and secondarily, through pedagogical lenses, or hence through theories of learning, heralded by said teachers. 

If, however, the learning theories that are being conjured up are excluding those learning methods that are not recognized as sanctioned theories (conjectured by the idea of being insufficiently “impactful”), then it might again be not too far-fetched to assume that such challenge might be biased and exclusive of those who follow various other methods (or implicit theories, or not yet theorized practices).  Here hints of equity or equality or at least some degree of (minor) consideration might be felt.

Is it of high probability that those “others” who do not follow “most impactful” methods, might count into the millions of learners? i.e. China alone accounts for about 200 million students per annum; most of whom are not only influenced by these most impactful theories alone. Who out there, is learning outside of these “most impactful” learning theories? 

I can’t help but intuit this group of humans might not be negligibly small. I can intuit,  if I were to question the theories that underpinned the majority of our learning, that I would find it educational to see those diversities to be offered at least some footnote in a text that is promoted by a pan-national institution, such as Unesco. 

Imagine looking into EdTech applications (and their ML-underpinnings) through such lenses of both impactful and other learning (and assessment) theories and practices. Let us just imagine…

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Sources:

UNESCO. International Bureau of Education. “Most influential theories of learning”. Last retrieved on Monday, November 22, 2021 fromhttp://www.ibe.unesco.org/en/geqaf/annexes/technical-notes/most-influential-theories-learning

Financial Times (14 August, 2021). “English schools turn to AI to help students catch up after Covid”. Retrieved on Monday, November 22, 2021 fromhttps://www.ft.com/content/006ebaf6-a76c-4257-a343-f1db1f7b39e7

Ogilvy, J. (1971). “Socratic Method, Platonic Method, and Authority.” Wiley Online Library. Retrieved on Monday, November 22, 2021 fromhttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1741-5446.1971.tb00488.x