Ed-Tech’s Monsters

Audrey Watters @audreywatters

! September 2014 - #altc

“Riding Giants”

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01101100 01101001 01110100 01110100 01101100 01100101 !

— Walt Whitman

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01110100 00100000 01001011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01001100 01110101 01100100 01100100 00100001

!— Lord Byron

"According to Pellew's Life of Lord Sidmouth (1847) Ned Lud was a person of weak intellect who lived in a Leicestershire village about 1779, and who in a fit of insane rage rushed into a ‘s t o c k i n g e r ' s ’ h o u s e , a n d destroyed two frames so completely that the saying ‘Lud must have been here’ came to be used throughout the hosiery districts when a stocking-frame had undergone extraordinary d a m a g e . T h e s t o r y l a c k s confirmation. It appears that in 1811–13 the nickname ‘Captain L u d d ’ o r ‘ K i n g L u d ’ w a s c o m m o n l y g i v e n t o t h e ringleaders of the Luddites.”

Is it okay to be a Luddite?

— Thomas Pynchon

“…to deny the machine” !

—Thomas Pynchon

“…our sin is not that we created technologies but that we failed to love and care for

them.” !

—Bruno Latour

“Comparable results have been obtained with pigeons, rats, dogs, monkeys, human children… and psychotic subjects. In spite of great phylogenetic differences, all these organisms show amazingly similar properties of the learning process. It should be emphasized that this

has been achieved by analyzing the effects of reinforcement and by designing techniques that

manipulate reinforcement with considerable precision. Only in this way can the behavior of the individual be

brought under such precise control.” !

— B. F. Skinner

The Rise and Fall of “Luddite”

Where are ed-tech’s monsters?

"Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility

for it…” — Hannah Arendt