{"id":239,"date":"2020-10-17T08:54:20","date_gmt":"2020-10-17T15:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/?p=239"},"modified":"2020-10-17T08:54:20","modified_gmt":"2020-10-17T15:54:20","slug":"opportunity-or-oppression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/opportunity-or-oppression\/","title":{"rendered":"Opportunity or Oppression?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Take My Hand – Photo by Photos Hobby<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A Frightfully Optimistic Future<\/h3>\n

This week I spent some time reading two articles making speculations about the future of technology’s impact on education.\u00a0 In both articles there was a mix of optimism and pessimism.\u00a0 I think the above photograph does a good job of expressing how the readings made me feel.\u00a0 The title of the photo is “Take My Hand”, suggesting the photographer saw the robot as a helpful tool, or even a leader.\u00a0 At the same time, the robot’s balled up fist calls into question the robot’s intentions and one can’t help but wonder what type of leader it would be.\u00a0 So, will educational technology turn out to be the provider of opportunity or oppression?<\/p>\n

Opportunity?<\/h3>\n

Macgilchrist et al. (2020) presented three possible futures with speculations ranging from dystopian to hopeful.\u00a0 In the third scenario, the most optimistic, the authors predicted the democratization of information and the eventual personal ownership of private data.\u00a0 They described a revolution of sorts which includes a shift in control over information from corporate entities to decentralization in the form of open source technologies and educational resources (p. 86).\u00a0 This is an exciting future, which has an opportunity to reduce inequality and open doors previously closed to many.\u00a0 Realistic, though?\u00a0 I’m not sure.<\/p>\n

Oppression?<\/h3>\n

Selwyn et al. (2020) presented a series of vignettes which expressed a considerably darker version of the future of educational technology.\u00a0 The story that really caught my attention was Vignette #5, describing an Orwellian educational environment in which students’ thoughts and emotions are constantly monitored and evaluated.\u00a0 While I think the idea that, in 10 years’ time, students will be lightly shocked in order to maintain their attention in class is a little far fetched, the idea that artificial intelligence could monitor students’ emotions and make judgements isn’t unrealistic (p. 100).\u00a0 How we use those tools in the future could be incredibly beneficial, or equally likely, could lead to an unfortunate fate at the wrong end of a menacing robotic fist.<\/p>\n

References<\/h3>\n

Macgilchrist, F., Allert, H., & Bruch, A. (2020). Students and society in the 2020s.\u00a0 Three future ‘histories’ of education and technology. Learning, Media and Technology, 45<\/em>(1), 75-89. DOI: 10.1080\/17439884.2019.1656235.<\/a><\/p>\n

Selwyn, N., Pangrazio, L., Nemorin, S., & Perrotta, C. (2020). What might the school of 2030 be like? An exercise in social science fiction. Learning, Media and Technology, 45<\/em>(1), 90-106. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/17439884.2020.1694944<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Frightfully Optimistic Future This week I spent some time reading two articles making speculations about the future of technology’s impact on education.\u00a0 In both articles there was a mix of optimism and pessimism.\u00a0 I think the above photograph does a good job of expressing how the readings made me feel.\u00a0 The title of the … Continue reading Opportunity or Oppression?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":184,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt523"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/184"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":241,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions\/241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}