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A Critical Approach

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bio-socio-tech

framework

A Critical Approach to Cognitive Technologies 

In the first section, we looked at what cognitive technologies can do (or might be able to do in the future) and their potential application to education. In many cases, technologies and pharmaceuticals are presented as an instrument to attain a specific outcome. However, this instrumentalist view of technology ignores their entanglement with the environment, whether biological, social, political, economic, human or non-human. Cognitive technologies are not neutral instruments affecting just the brain, but they are the product of the society in which we live (our understanding of the brain, our choice of educational system, the search for profit, etc.). And in turn, these technologies affect their environment, whether students' brains, power relations in society, or the role of the teacher in education.  

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 'We claim that the limitations of essentialism and instrumentalism are also the limitations of online education research. This situation hampers understanding of the educational value of new technologies and blinds scholars to potentially fruitful directions for research and analysis. ' (Hamilton and Friesen, 2013)

 

For a more nuanced understanding of cognitive technologies, we need to take a broader approach. For this, I suggest we use Williamson’s (2019) posthumanist framework in which he considers the entanglement of three types of code: biological, computer and social. 

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Ben Williamson's Bio-socio-technical Assemblage 

Williamson’s assemblage is based on the fact that the brain is permeable to its social, material and technical surroundings. Do read the original paper as it describes the rich context in which this analysis has developed, from biosocial studies to posthumanism, and how it is now used in post-digital studies. Here is a short description of the three codes. 

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"Biological codes consist of bodily materials, such as genetic codes and the chemicals, cells, neurons, synapses, nervous systems and neural networks that constitute the organ of the brain. These neurobiological codes are not entirely ‘natural’ categories, but themselves the codified knowledge of specific expert disciplinary practices, classifications and categories generated by scientists. Thus, whilst biological codes consist of embodied material, they are readable and intelligible only via scientific lenses and disciplinary vocabularies. Computer codes include digitally coded software, computer hardware, networked systems and algorithms. Again, the codes that enact these technologies, written in specific programming languages, are the product of technical specialists working in dedicated settings, with project plans, business objectives and research questions to address. Finally, social codes, or codes of conduct, consist of the governing norms, rules, regulations and power relations that pervade environments and structure human action, cognition and affects. These social codes of conduct are the product of experts and authorities that seek to guide, manage or govern human conduct for certain ends. They include but are not confined to official government policies in a context where governance has increasingly dispersed to a range of international organisations, think tanks, commercial companies and philanthropic institutions, particularly those offering or promoting technologies that can modify, shape or influence conduct in ways informed by scientific expertise. These social codes are also animated by imaginary neurofutures of the kinds of societies that could or ought to be attained through neurotechnology application across a range of domains. Indeed, as studies of both neuroscience and software insist, imagined futures infuse both scientific inquiry and technical innovation." (williamson, 2019, pp. 10-11)

Bio socio tech entanglements (3).jpg
Healthy Break

You might want to take a break to let the brain process what you have been learning.  

 

 

Activity (about 30'):

 

Read about bio-socio-technical assemblages in Ben Williamson's 'Brain Data: Scanning, Scraping and Sculpting the Plastic Learning Brain’. For our purpose, you just need to focus on the introduction and the third section 'Bio-socio-technical Assemblages'.

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As you read, you may want to think about: 

How are educational neurotechnologies intertwined in 'a postdigital bio-socio-technical hybridity'?

For the next part, you should be able to define and apply the concepts of 

  • neurobiological codes

  • computer codes

  • social codes

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You can use the graph below as a model to take notes. We will be using the same format in our case studies. 

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References:

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Hamilton, Edward, and Norm Friesen. 2013. ‘Online Education: A Science and Technology Studies Perspective / Éducation En Ligne: Perspective Des Études En Science et Technologie’. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology / La Revue Canadienne de l’apprentissage et de La Technologie 39 (2). https://doi.org/10.21432/T2001C.

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Williamson, Ben. 2019. ‘Brain Data: Scanning, Scraping and Sculpting the Plastic Learning Brain Through Neurotechnology. Postdigital Science and Education 1 (1): 65–86. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-018-0008-5

Learn More

Hamilton and Friesen paper.jpg

This article contests the instrumentalist and essentialist approaches to education, offering a broader and more nuanced view. Hamilton and Friesen take a richer perspective, looking at the philosophical, historical and sociological influences. They consider technology to be embedded in society, determined by values and history. 

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The full article is available here

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