Black boxing and enhancement
Bayne’s article ‘What’s the matter with technologically enhanced teaching?’ makes some really interesting points about black boxing and ‘enhancement’ and how we can counter these. Black boxing is a term we have also seen in the other article for this week, by Hamilton and Friesen, but Bayne’s article takes their argument further.
Technology as the ‘black box’, according to Hamilton & Friesen, is a common way of thinking about technology around us. It is the idea that technology is so far removed from us, that it becomes near magical in nature. Since the technology comes to us ready-made, we cannot criticise or influence it, we either use it or leave it. (p 9) Bayne uses ‘black- boxing’ to criticise ‘Technology’ within the term ‘TEL’ in her article; vague expression like ‘ICT’ or ‘online facility’ (p9) makes it harder to look at the specifics of the technology used and why this is the technology that was chosen.
When we use ‘enhancement’ with regards to technology, it usually means enhancement of the human itself or the human product, like education. In transhumanism, the term is literally used as human enhancement, whether this is a bionic body part or the downloading of a brain or consciousness into a computer to live forever. Although some of the transhumanism ideas sound like science fiction others have already been realised and it is here that the quote by Hauskeller (provided by Bayne) is most poignant: ‘The context determines whether a change is, overall, an enhancement or not.’ (p 14) Just because we can change something, does that mean we should? And if the ‘enhancement’ or technology is black boxed, meaning we can’t fully criticise it, how can we be sure it is in fact an enhancement?
How then do we safeguard against enhancement? By bringing the technology out of the box and into the light, so to speak. Hamilton & Friesen argue that a technical object cannot spring into being “without a set of functions indifferent to particular applications” (p 9), there is a process that has taken place although this might seem magical to those without the relevant expertise.
Bayne argues using critical post humanism to accomplish the same end; “a critical post humanist position would be committed to a detailed account of the social and political ecologies and networks through which the technological innovation is performed” (p 15).
If we look at technology using these methods of involving the context of the development, we can criticise technology and make sure any changes are in fact enhancements.
Sian Bayne (2015) What’s the matter with ‘technology-enhanced learning’? Learning, Media and Technology, 40:1, 5-20, DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2014.915851
Hamilton, Edward C., and Norm Friesen in their article from 2013: “Online Education: A Science and Technology Studies Perspective.” Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology 39
Yes, technologies can generate a magical wonderment but also be so transparent that we fail to realise (or forget) that there is technology involved. In either way, there’s an erasure of the social practices that technologies articulate and shape. To what extent should technologies be drawn into teaching practices always specifically to enhance or can and should technologies be seen as offering *different* way? of teaching? As we go further into the course, it would be good to include some of your own views on the literature and concepts – do these make sense to you, do they add value or insight into your work practices, do the arguments resonate with you, what might be being missed by the authors, etc…..