This document summarizes key topics from an international MOOCs conference in 2015, including discussions around critical posthumanism, sociomaterialism, the role of artificial intelligence and automated tutoring systems in education, and critical pedagogy. It references debates about positioning students and teachers at the center of learning experiences rather than technological functionality, and defenses of "the human touch" in education alongside the potential for technology to prompt learning through exploration and thinking.

1. International MOOCs
conference 2015
Siân Bayne, University of Edinburgh

2. An example: critical posthumanism and sociomaterialsm
“questioning that the figure
of ‘Man’ naturally stands at
the centre of things; is
entirely distinct from
animals, machines, and other
nonhuman entities; is
absolutely known and
knowable to ‘himself’; is the
origin of meaning and
history; and shares with all
other human beings a
universal essence.”
(Badmington, 2004)
Humans and non-humans are engaged in a history that should render
their separation impossible.
(Latour 2003)

3. “One can predict that in a few more
years millions of school children will
have access to what Philip of
Macedon’s son Alexander enjoyed as
a royal prerogative: the personal
services of a tutor as well-informed
and responsive as Aristotle.”
(Suppes, 1966)
Learning design: teacher automation

5. intelligent tutoring systems
artificial intelligence in education
educational datamining
learning analytics
“the ideological shaping of
educational technology along
individualistic, neo-liberal and new
capitalist lines.”
(Selwyn 2014)

6. The critical pedagogy
approach re-focuses attention
away from the functionality of
e-learning environments back
to the core relations between
students and teachers and the
conditions in which they find
themselves.
(Clegg 2003)
Faculty response: “a two-fold
mobilization in defense of the
human touch.”
(Feenberg 2003)

8. Teacherbot
#edcmooc

11. “While I was trying to figure out what the hell
‘post-humanism’ means, the teacher bot led
me on a merry chase looking up quotes and
obscure academic references, which had the
interesting side effect of ‘ambush teaching’
me. I will happily admit, that I do not feel like I
have been to a class. I do not feel like I have
been taught, either. I do, however, think I have
learned something. I’ve certainly been
prompted to think. Isn’t this what every good
teacher/trainer strives for?”
Giddens 2013

12. @sbayne
sian.bayne@ed.ac.uk
The posthuman predicament encourages us to undertake a leap
forward into the complexities and paradoxes of our times.
(Braidotti 2013)