A
challenge to synthesize the technologic utopia and dystopia waves for a digital
education
http://prezi.com/ukebxmekcxv3/e-learning-and-digital-utopian-or-dystopian-virtual-times/
Beatriz Fainholc.
Beatriz Fainholc.
One way to live with tech, and not, for the tech
-such is oriented to the technical market consumption- is to assume and to
teach how to do it. A technological appropriation. (Fainholc, 2012) This means, on one hand, to make it land on the
local cultures and social contexts, to analyze/criticize the technical
determinism/rationality, existing subjacent in the virtual interactive life,
the high quantity of money invested in the production and circulation of (a lot
of banal) information, and publicity for some artifacts, instead of other more
socially needed, or to discard a lot of equipments, when they are still useful.
On the other hand, to design learning
contexts with sociocultural, technologic -communicational and didactic
activities (in formal education, informal contexts mediated by ICT interaction),
in order to provoke the development of the higher functions of thinking
(analyze, compare, abstract, solve problems, synthesize, anticipate, etc.),
that in my mind, are still the ways to recreate, revise and produce deep
knowledge.
But they are not
simple tasks, because although we know that tech takes part as a force (Daniel,
2002) to change the society, and then the education, we don’t know the
consequences of the technologic (re)evolution, in the change of life, the
transformation of the human beings in the sense of the former humanist assumptions, which defines what it means to
be human.
Screens’ubiquity
is a silent (e) revolution (?) which is materialized virtually The cyborg
enables more and more inquiries through this epistemological hybridization.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
We are facing an existential crisis as a pendulum. We
can see and read "naturalized”
thoughts and acting proposals, in a lot of scientific and technological
literature/works, related basically by "invisible" pressures, to
include indiscriminated technological transferences to education, mainly today
for distance education projects and the e-learning proposals.
In these statements, we can observe the current
debates around the benefits of the digital technologies in many areas of our
life, by provoking a wide access and democratization of information/ knowledge
-which is true-, and in this way, we have the utopian comprehension of the
relationship between society and education.
But, at the same time, a lot of critics around the
technical perspective and its
determining understanding (Chandler,2013) of the world and the people -which
provokes dystopian effects-, subtly maintains
the authoritarian notions as normative patterns through its prevalent
pragmatic and social
determination of technology, mainly by ICT with their new ways of
communication.
So, we are facing a very complex phenomenon, intimately
linked to the unknown impacts at the digital culture, and an unpredictable educational
role in the virtual informational/knowledge society.
The educational task is so complex because it
penetrates and covers every corner of our life, which, on one hand, refers to
the technological issues, reinforces the dichotomy of utopian and dystopian
accounts; and on the other hand, does not recognize that in digital times, the
technology in its diverse ubiquitous social and cultural interaction, produces
new artificial realities, or mixed: human and virtual "persons". They
would be a kind of new subjectivities in/for unknown realities. At the end, this
should be informed to the pillars, also, of an unknown digital education.
The pros and cons and these dilemmatic utopian and
dystopian situations, underlined by the post-humanism/trans-humanism movements,
show us with their predictions about the future -I am afraid-, a little
resolution of these problems. This challenge us to invent, more than only
predict, about the future. This could be a rhizomatic virtual pedagogy to think
about alternative education,
meaning, values, for its designs, particularly of e-learning. It implies to
train human agency capacities, to build a new understanding .
So, we have to overcome the difficulty to understand
the complex relationship between technology and education. The first point is
to recognize that although all (technological) progress is changed, (Tran
humanism Declaration, 2006), not all change is progress, in order to be
cautious to deal with new tech devices, proposed by the market.
Another step is to reckon that the tech is not only
devices but ideology as well. It means to reformulate traditional social and
educational understandings.
Some people (could be designers, evaluators, etc. of
virtual programs) do not recognize that beyond tech communication comfort and
access to information by ICT, poverty, violence, inequity, wars, etc. will not
disappear, at least in the southern hemisphere of the world.
To empower protagonists for a sociological and technological
appropriation, and to be aware of the subjacent global values under the
umbrella of a determinist tech frame, it would be necessary. That means, a step
to think of how technology could be repurposed and recycled by educational
efforts, to form open minds, outside the normative technological rationality, removing
the false conscience about the junctures between linear epistemic frames and
dialectic historical moments, between knowledge and political-economic and
technological power.
This, reflects and transforms the social categories of
thoughts, in a fast global dissolution of frontiers, looking forward a valuable
revision of the cognitive and sociocultural processes configuration with
solidarity, to anticipate what means to be and act as an educated person in
cyborg realities.
Anticipating the
future
To
create eu-topy educational
environments by
reformulate
meaning, ethical negotiations,
transformed perceptions,
minds
and actions in a new respectful
post humanist harmony
To reveal some alternatives towards a new
understanding of the educational role in posthumanism uncertain times, and to design
formative scenarios where the devices and the ideas could have other meanings,
it means to adapt the different issues to diverse aims, flexible proposes,
multiple audiences, and so on. The pros and
cons and the enormous dilemmatic utopian and dystopian situations, such as the
post-humanism/trans-humanism statements, challenge us to invent, more than only
predict, about the future.
El pos-humanismo: la integración
seres vivientes - artefactos artificiales. (III). http://webquestorgar.blogspot.com.ar/2013/09/el-pos-humanismo-la-integracion-seres.html
But I am afraid, for only presenting multidimensional
approach, some little resolutions for that, taking into account these approach
and variables, that it could be
possible to think of different alternatives to overcome poverty, inequity,
violence, wars, hunger, and so on, which are the main social problems nowadays,
and to imagine the role of education.
The uncertainty is very high, and the paradoxes and contradictions
where we live day after day, show us that the problems are not technological,
but political and economic, of course, linked intimately to the tech decisions.
So, we have to research and question a lot, not only
about the real possibility of the integration of the social networking's
connectivity , and accessible / free on-line resources, but mainly about the
meaning of the education mediated by the re-appropriated technological
proposals, in a world where human beings are nowadays a mix of real and
artificial lives.
Notes:
1- This course points out, from the linguistic sector,
the use of different "adverbs" (as "intrinsically, "
inherently", "essentially"), which distort and hide diverse facets by a reductionist
vision, which, for me, include myths,
contradictions, bias, false consciences,
etc.
2- For instance, without any deep discussion
about many projections,
about the "Internet of
things", the multidirectional dialogue of unanimated cyborg objects
notifies a chaotic informational flux of
objects -like the repositories of learning objects, blogs, Twitter, etc.-, maybe with sensor communications, which show
a great artefactual expertise and fast technical competences, but do not take
care of ethics.
References:
1- Fainholc, B. (2012) Una tecnología educativa apropiada y crítica. Nuevos enfoques. ISBN 978-3-659-06227-8.
Edit. Académica Española. www.eaepublishing.com.
2-Daniel, J.(2002) Technology is the answer: what was the
question? Speech from higher education in the Middle East and North Africa. Paris,
Institute du monde arabe, 27-29 May
3-Chandler, D. (2013) Technological or media determinism
http://aber.ac.uk/mdia/documents/tecdet (tecdet.html
Bleecker, J.(2006) A manifiesto of networked objetcs -cohabiting with pigeons, arphids and
aibos in the internet of things. http://www.scrib.com/doc/14748019 (Why-thongs-Matter
4. Transhumanism
Declaration (2006) http://humanityplus.org/philosophy/transhumanist-decñaration.
