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Educational Regimes of Truth: Blockchain,
Badgechain, and the Ethics of the Repository Or, how ethics can help us
devise better digital architectures
James E. Willis, III, Ph.D.Indiana University - Bloomington
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Ethics: An Approach• Lack of objectivity; varying perspectives;
ambiguity. • We tend to fit in neat categories like “privacy”
and “legal” issues.• Ethical inquiry is inherently messy. Rightly so.• 3 messy functions:– Pastorally-driven dignity: Snappy acronyms don’t
cut it. – Techniques & Analysis: Implicit utilitarianism– Checks on power & productive criticism
• Interview w/ Ian O’Byrne: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbQGDIUwDpk
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The Logics of Blockchain
Compliments of Ian O’Byrne, “What is Blockchain?”
The structural, societal, economic, and political “baggage” of Bitcoin
• Distributed, de-centralized, replicated, and with lack of authority
• And, some unsavory outcomes…ala the black market
http://bitcoinist.net/2015-review-bitcoins-resilience-face-adversity/
http://www.cringely.com/2013/09/30/doubts-bitcoin/
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Application to Open Digital Badges and (Larger)
EducationComplements of Serge Ravet, “The Trustworthy BadgeChain”
Immediate Implications:
(Re)Envisaging trusted sources
Transparency of credentials
De-centralized, earner-controlled repository for all curricular/co-/extra-curricular activities
Governance issues for school registrars
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Key Ethical QuestionsRepository: Archival Power
Pastorally-driven dignity: Should educational records be publicly viewable for the far future, even when the learner consents?
Techniques & Analysis: Will increasing amounts of extra-educational data be inserted into blocks? Can emerging analyses (i.e. sentiment analysis) detect deficiencies in that data?
Checks on power & productive criticism: What recourse does an individual have when the repository is inaccurate? Who oversees changes to the Genesis block?
What are the limits of stored data?
Who protects that data?
How can we account for risk and unforeseen consequences?When do we become what the record says about us?
When do we relinquish control of our narrative?
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The Genesis Block
Complements of Justin O’Brien & David Harding, “View the Genesis Block”
ShutterStock.com
Are we carrying our biases unfairly into the future? Are we writing the future with the past?
Do emerging technologies like Blockchain allow us to radically re-envision education?
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What are we trying to do?
Permanence? An illusion?
http://www.fourbythreemagazine.com/issue/nihilism/12-fragments-on-nihilism
Verifiability? At what cost?
http://www.slashgear.com/trent-reznor-working-on-music-streaming-service-expected-to-launch-early-next-year-10260188/
https://www.pinterest.com/gbbyn/trent-reznor/
Truth?
http://quotes.humoropedia.com/simone-de-beauvoir-quotes/
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Regimes of Truth: Data and Authority
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/297378381622203341/
http://www.azquotes.com/quote/652819
An Either / Or Solution?
A repository controlled by the individual (like a digital SSN) OR (?)A repository available to, but not directly controlled by, the individual
The promise of Badgechain: verifiable, distributed, permanent, independently-controlled digital toolbox to display credentials
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Regimes of Truth: Data and Authority
Do we “tap into” the badgechain, like foam accesses an ocean, or do we surrender control to the data crumbs we leave behind?
http://www.relatably.com/q/shirley-manson-quotes
How do we design our technologies to enable dissent, challenge, and revolution, without stifling them?
http://www-evasion.imag.fr/~Fabrice.Neyret/images/fluids-nuages/waves/Jonathan/catalog.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TInfxe7c7yA
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Unbundling EducationComplements of Vala Afshar, “Disruption of Higher Education” Badgechain =
New Possibilities for Badges?
Internal and external verification processes?
Post-Backpack repository?
Is the over-compensation for online “fakes” a new narrative of truth?
Is our obsession with “verifiable truth” going to create new myths?
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A ChallengeThinking of Badgechain as a “non-narrative” (ex., Strawson, 2016).
We currently conceive of Badgechain as a surrogate memory-holder to capture some of our student, professional, and credentialed “self.”
Yet, we are defined more in the fragments, so why not our micro-credentials, too?
If we unbundle education, we essentially re-wire the logic of curricula to fit today’s needs. So-called subscription education will adopt Badgechain tech widely. Badgechain / Blockchain…like our data…cannot be neutral, detached, disinterested.
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An Idea(because ethics shouldn’t be shrill)
What’s really going on here is the search for how to exact some sort of control and authority in an environment that is, by definition, uncontrollable with distributed authority.
Core Process and Development Principles
Dignity
Techniques & Analysis
Checks on power & productive criticism
Make students / earners part of the collaborative and iterative processes
Genesis block in Bitcoin: Necessary for it to remain static
Genesis block in Badgechain: Trackable change = increased verifiability
Mutability ought be rethought as a virtue, not a liability
