Reading Sian Bayne’s paper Teacherbot: interventions in automated teaching, I was initially drawn to the following Usher and Edwards (Usher and Edwards 1994) reference:

“the task of education has therefore been understood as one of ‘bringing out’, of helping to realise this potential, so that subjects become fully autonomous and capable of exercising their individual and intentional agency”.

This reminded me of the hilarious exchange of ideas between Jean Brodie and Miss Mackay discussing the purpose of education in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

I wonder what Jean Brodie would have thought of automated teaching? Or indeed of the ‘learner centredness’ of so much discussion around digital education?  Not much, I suspect. I think she too would have appreciated Sian highlighting the irony of spending so much time and money investing in AIED, when perhaps a better use of that time and money could be spent training and hiring more, and better, teachers.

The following passage also struck a note with me:

“Clegg et al. (2003) construct a critique of digital technology in education from a perspective which aligns well with Feenberg’s, arguing that essentialist and instrumentalist (Hamilton an Friesen 2013) constructions of both technology and globalisation in government and institutional policy seem to constrain teachers to the choice between positively embracing digital education, or ‘standing aside and watching its inevitable unfolding’ (my emphasis).

I see this a lot during the course of my work as a learning technologist and I was pleased to see Sian’s paper as an attempt to move beyond this. To see double.

Finally (as it’s late, and I need to go to bed) I was glad to be led to a MOOC student’s blog post on experiencing the #EDCMOOC.

“While I was trying to figure out what the hell “post-humanism” means, the teacher bot led me on a merry chase looking up quotes and obscure academic references, which had the interesting side effect of “ambush teaching” me. I will happily admit, that I do not feel like I have been to a class. I do not feel like I have been taught, either. I do, however, think I have learned something. I’ve certainly been prompted to think. Isn’t this what every good teacher/trainer strives for?”

Which is a neat summary of how I’m feeling just now.

Leading out, putting in and seeing double / Reflections From A Digital Education Student by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0