HIGHLIGHT #2 | 123
LOCATING THE BABEL FISH
of the course cohort answered one particular question wrongly,
and asks how this type of analysis of data in a real time learning
environment can be used to good effect to personalise learning.
Furthermore, how will a future learning scenario based on real time
auto assessment and personalised learning environments change
our existing educational environment? And how will the agency of
the teacher change when the delivery (or translation) of knowledge
can be continually assessed by online digital artefacts? Will the
teacher become an analyst, an interpreter of data to direct learning,
or engineer (or maker) creating digital artefacts for subject specific
learning, plugging into an ever increasing cloud of knowledge; ‘The
Cognisophere’ described by Hayles (2006, p.161) as giving “a name
and shape to the globally interconnected cognitive systems in which
humans are increasingly embedded”.
Babel Fish or Schmagelfish?
This investigation has located a plethora of epic themes, the
Ubiquitous Teacher, The Cognisphere, The Posthuman Debate,
Learning Design, Teacher as Engineer, Cognitive Environments, to
mention a few. These themes, I would suggest, have foundations
firmly in science fact, but what will be lost and what will be gained,
and what will be possible and what will be impossible in a post
modern, post industrial manifestation of education?
What will be lost and gained, possible or not possible within
education through digital networks I would argue is located within
the dichotomy that lies between the analogue and the digital. The
human condition is (currently) located in the analogue domain,
and any digital experience is translated by design. As Lakovic
(2010, p.128) points out; “a definition formation originates in
human experience and imagining: a concept exists in the world –
humans experience the concept – humans create concept images
in their minds – humans create concept definitions – humans
operate with concepts”. In this context learning and computing
are diametrically opposed, so extending the need for translation
of the digital domain in all contexts through semiotic frameworks
towards analogue understanding. I would argue that the dichotomy
that exists between the analogue and the digital is at the heart of
any tensions that may exist within the continuing reformation of
education through digital networks. To define analogue and binary;
analogue is ‘a measurable physical quantity’ (what you see is what
you get), and digital is ‘a conversion of analogue understanding into
binary or vice versa’, binary being defined as a representation of
information by the use of two symbols 0 and 1. As stated by Hayles
(2004, p.75), the operating system installed on a computer is an