Hack Education

This keynote was delivered at the Designs on eLearning conference. The theme of the conference was anxiety and security, two things rarely confronted by those who stand at the podium and profess ed-tech-ness. I used this opportunity to call for a re-con-figuring ed-tech, via the figure of the pigeon....

The fallout from ITT's closure continues. And the Department of Education is on it. Slowly. Via email. Facebook remains pretty awful, which is something to keep in mind as journalists uncritically hype its move into ed-tech. This week we learned that Oculus Rift founder Palmer Luckey funds alt-right trolls with his billions....

I'd intended to write a history of pedagogical agents and educational chatbots. Instead I wrote about Clippy, Microsoft's much-hated user agent that purported to teach people how to use Office. (Yes, Clippy is a pedagogical agent.) "Do pedagogical agents work?" -- the question underscores the labor of teaching and caring we seem so eager to replace with machines....

This keynote was delivered at the Designs on eLearning conference. The theme of the conference was anxiety and security, two things rarely confronted by those who stand at the podium and profess ed-tech-ness. I used this opportunity to call for a re-con-figuring ed-tech, via the figure of the pigeon....

An introduction to the blockchain and its potential applications in education. This research project looks at the history of the blockchain, its underlying technology, and its main adopters and investors. It looks at who is promoting and investing in the blockchain (and asks why). It also asks questions about privacy, complexity, interoperability, and trust....

I spent much of 2015 on the road, traveling and speaking extensively about education technology's histories, ideologies, and mythologies. This is a sequel of sorts to my 2014 book The Monsters of Education Technology, this one a collection of eleven of those talks on topics ranging from the algorithmic future of education to the Californian Ideology....

What is up with all the pigeons? The bird appears across all the various Hack Education projects as it exemplifies how education technology has viewed learning and learners. In part, it's a reference to the work of Edward Thorndike and B. F. Skinner and their development of multiple choice tests, teaching machines, and behavioral (educational) psychology....