Henry's E-learning and Digital Cultures Blog

A Digital Essay for e-Learning and Digital Culture

Introduction

The notion that cognition takes place exclusively within the head of the learner is increasingly being challenged by the concepts of ‘networked learning’ and ‘collective intelligence’.
In anticipating these developments Donna Haraway (1991) in her ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ has put forward the idea of the cyborg learner proposing that

‘we are all chimeras, theorised and fabricated hybrids of machine and organisms – in short we are cyborgs’.

The word cyborg was introduced 1960 as a portmanteau of the words ‘cybernetic organism’ (Clynes and Kline, 1960) referring to a machine-human hybrid destined to live in outer space. Later this definition has been extended to include humans whose life experience has been enhanced by transplanting a mechanical device into his/her body such as a pace maker or hip replacement.

However to Haraway being a cyborg means much more:

‘a way of thinking, a less embodied way of understanding our relation to technology’ (Haraway, 1991)

Within the context of learning she states that knowledge is constructed only partially within the ‘cyborg’s head’ but more importantly via a co-construction with other ‘entities’ such as humans, machines and even animals surrounding the learner (Haraway, 2003).

As to learning by scientific observations Haraway (1991) pronounces that:

‘…accounts of a real world do not depend on a logic of discovery but on a power-charged social relation of ‘conversation’. The world neither speaks itself nor disappears in front of a master decoder (i.e. the scientist). The codes of the world are not still waiting only to be read; instead … ‘the world encountered in knowledge projects is (itself) an active entity’.

This ‘observed dialogue’ aspect of scientific exploration is apparent in the subatomic world of hadrons and leptons where according to the ‘Observer Effect’ prior to an observation a particular event can exist in numerous possible states at once and it is only during the exact act of the ‘observation’ or measurement by the experimenter that the ‘real’ state is disclosed. In our macroscopic world this dialogue between the observer and the observed is more difficult to fathom but according  to Haraway just as real. As an example Haraway (1989) describes the process of scientific discovery in Biology equivalent to organisms ‘performing’ for the experimenter who then transforms this performance into a ’scientific truth’ in order to validate or falsify a particular hypothesis. Thus in her interpretation both the scientist and the organism are indeed actors in a story-telling practice (Haraway, 1989).

The role of the Cyborg in the Cognisphere

Katherine Hayles in ‘Unfinished Work – From Cyborg to Cognisphere’ (2006) reflects on post-human as being an ‘informational pattern that happens to be instantiated in a biological substrate’. The concept of  ’disembodiment of information’ is now broadly accepted as, at the dawn of the 21st century, ‘human awareness’ constitutes only a small fraction of the overall information flow in our society, with the vast majority occurring between high speed computer networks with little human intervention.

This state of affairs has originally been coined the Cognisphere by Thomas Walen (2000) and human cognition, embedded within this framework is likely to become subordinate as the next generation of computing machines and algorithms will be ever more sophisticated and able to perform tasks previously reserved to the human mind.
In fact the availability of superior intelligent machines may one day render human awareness a rate-limiting step within this global dataflow,  which will need to be enhanced by the application of artificial cognitive systems.

Augmented reality tools such as those found in high-end mobile devices and displaying location-based data streams or motion-sensing technology are early examples of such enhancement tools.

The expanding boundaries of this rapidly evolving cognisphere are not easily discernable as the technology is likely to be perceived by its cyborg users as natural extensions of their bodies and abilities, or as Kathrine Hayles (1999) describes it:

‘the body as the original prosthesis we all learn to manipulate, so that extending or replacing the body with other prostheses becomes a continuation of a process that began before we were born’.

This view interprets the human mind as an ‘ancient personal cognisphere’  in need of a make-over by a globalised information network so that it may feed more effectively into the collective intelligence. For a true cyborg becoming disconnected from such an environment  results in a perceived loss of identity and coping mechanism in everyday life, just as a human being with a faulty ear implant will feel disconnected from its surroundings

The shrinking human influence over the global information flow across computer networks is exemplified by the ubiquity of  intelligent surveillance cameras in many ‘cityscapes’, such as the City of London’s ‘Ring of Steel’. These devices autonomously and continuously relay recorded data to powerful servers which process and enhance the digital footage, identify car number plates or even individual human beings with the aid of sophisticated facial recognition algorithms, usually in the absence of any human intervention. Other examples include the tracking of citizens across the planet via their mobile phone triangulation footprints or the monitoring of the ‘digital legacy’ of Internet users and thus their online preferences and behaviours.
From an ethical perspective this machine-centred gathering of personal data on a vast scale is rarely challenged as inappropriate on the grounds that the  majority of the data is never seen or used by humans,  just as the majority of the thoughts of an person is never disclosed to fellow human beings. It is only at the point of a specific database query that human intervention occurs and the data will become ‘meaningful’ and useable within a particular context.

Cyborg ontology and pedagogy

Cyborgs thrive on networks, both information networks and social networks, or as A. Balsamo (1993) puts it:

‘cyborgs represent the identity of organisms embedded in a cybernetic information system’.

Being a Cyborg learner is all about being part of networks, being connected but also being ‘decentralised’ and making use of all the information channels on which information can travel.

Voithofer (1999) states that ‘cyborgification’ of students and teachers is already underway, driven by network technologies and online communities:

‘Cyborg learning represents a form of learning that situates the learner in a mediated (digital) learning environment in which the students’ attention is divided between computers, the teacher and each other’.

In such environments cyborgs appear as human-technology symbionts – entities whose identities are spread across biological brains and non-biological circuitry. This symbiosis is emphasised by the observation that any withdrawal of the external technology component will result in a loss of cognitive competence, a  ‘digital amnesia’.
S. Petrina (2007) suggests that cyborgenic learning is based on the observation that ‘as cyborgs we program and are programmed in a learning process’.

The ease with which information can be searched, processed, presented and shared in a variety of digital formats is indicative of the way forward. However at present any decontextualised information tends to be ambiguous and potentially misleading and will thus need to be converted into semantically meaningful information for cognitive digestion, an issue being addressed by the ‘Semantic Web’ project (see project WolframAlpha). Such tools are perceived as quintessential for the promotion of multi-institutional education with the need for courses and degrees to be described semantially (Ohler, 2008).

The disembodied view of information sits well within the posthuman philosophical position outlined earlier whilst at the same time the distributed cognitive system will challenge the hierarchical organization of information and content as represented in current mass education practices undertaken in bounded classrooms.

Cyborg learning and the rise of connectivism

The cyborg can be seen as a metaphor for what teachers and learners should aspire towards to explore the new possibilities for pedagogical enquiry, in particular within the field of open and distance learning. However cyborg learners’ desire for technologies often leads to a confusion of their learning of technology with general learning because for them technology tends to camouflage itself as the primary object of learning (R. Voithofer, 1999).
Cyborg students define themselves through networks as learning takes place in a sharing community which sits at the heart of the learning process, held together and defined by technological literacy.

Whilst in this context the authority of information is likely to be secondary its value will increase via the process of ‘community aggregation’ brought about by the diversity of its membership.
On the other hand cyborg tutors have to confront pressures to not only adopt technologies but also to make the right choice as to what technology and tool to use. Cyborgs may have the tendency to cluster around their preferred choices of technologies, always concerned about deploying the most up-to-date and improved version of the tool.
This anxiety is particularly apparent in the era of Web2.0 where new applications, applets and widgets are emerging almost daily each one claiming to provide a superior online learning experience.

The emerging supremacy of the learning network is expressed in a new learning theory called Connectivism, defined as ‘the use of a network with nodes and connections as a central metaphor for learning’ (Siemens, 2005).

Connectivism emphasizes the primacy of connections and suggests that understanding learning is about understanding how, why and what types of connections form at various levels, neural, cognitive and social – or in the words of  Angus  et al. (2001):

‘Being ourselves is a huge collaborative effort… ‘we’re talking about connections, relations, power relations and responsibilities …’.

Its strength comes from its decentralisation and dispersion, its social and technological diversity, and its scalability. At its heart lies the principle of self-organisation where connections form naturally through a process of voluntary association. It asks for a pedagogy that provides

• opportunities for the development of ’successful’ networks, identified as being diverse, autonomous and open
• a new ‘learning ecology’ which will replace the classroom with a digital environment that fosters and supports the formation of communities and networks
• teaching practices that encourages the formation of such networks.A

All of these elements will form the backbone of cyborgic learning in the 21st century and a glimpse of this future can be experienced by visiting the Mega-Connectivism course held entirely online in summer 2008 (see also Elluminate Web-conference (Java6 download required)) .

The brain as a biomolecular cyborg

The mammalian brain consists of a complex network of interconnected neurons linked via dynamic synaptic connections. Recent experimental advances using in vivo imaging of individual nerve cells (dendrites) has made it possible to visualise the acquisition of simple learning tasks in the mouse brain. As the ‘brain’ learns a task such as a new motoric move the apical dendrites of a certain type of neuron begin almost immediately (within an hour) to form so called postsynaptic dendritic spines. These newly created branches of the nerve cell are initially unstable but become subject to a competition with existing spines as how to avoid the subsequent molecular turnover; only those spines that will last longer periods will confer long-term memory. Less important synaptic connections will disappear leaving the stabilized neuronal connections to provide the foundation of durable long-term motor memory.

It is conceivable that a similar cognitive process may aid in refining the connectiveness in the cyborg learning pocess.  Like in the mammalian brain some cyborgenic network connections will be rated more relevant and beneficial to the learner than others and are thus more likely to be retained whilst others will be surplus to requirements and be allowed to ‘wither away’ – or as pointed out by Kunzru (2001):

‘We’re living in a world of connections – and it matters which ones get made and unmade’.

Determining which connections will matter may be derived from the extent of the overall dataflow within the cognisphere, captured, processed and evaluated by machine learning, all driven by a semantically shaped qualitative and quantitative selection process analogous to but much more sophisticated than the Google Pagerank algorithm (Brin and Page, 1998) used in rating the popularity of Web-pages.

Conclusion

The concept of connectedness and the formation of intelligent networks appears to be a reiterative theme in biological evolution on planet Earth. It has occurred repeatedly and in incrementally more complex steps over millenia, as in the controlled aggregation of single cells to multicellular organisms, in the intercellular molecular communication process as part of embryogenesis and organ formation, in the formation of memory in complex brains via newly formed connections between neurons, in the different levels of hierarchichal organisation and communications between tribes, societies, nations and supra-national organisations, and now in the formation of silicon-based communities and cyborg networks as the next higher level of biologial functionality and complexity.

As M. Dertouzous (2001) observes:

… the ‘ancient human’ in each of us wants to connect, share ideas, maintain relationships and understand the world around us … regardless of technological advancement.

References

Angus, T., Cook, I. and Evans, J. (2001) A Manifesto for Cyborg Pedagogy? International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 10 (2) 195-201); also on WWW at http://eric.exeter.ac.uk/exeter/bitstream/10036/21512/1/irgee0100195.pdf (last accessed 12/12/2009)

Balsamo, A (1996) Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women. Durham and London: Duke University Press

Brin, S and Page, L. (1998) The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine (last accessed 15/12/2009) http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html (last accessed 15/12/2009)

Clynes, M.E. and Kline, N.S. (1960) Cyborgs and Space, in Astronautics, no. 26/27,  pp. 74–75.

Dertouzos,M (2001) The Unfinished Revlution: Human-Centred Computers and What They Can do for Us (New York: Harper-Collins)

Haraway, D. (1989) Primate visions: Gender, race, and nature in the world of modern science. New York, NY: Routledge, Chapman & Hall

Haraway, D. (1991) A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century,” in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; Routledge, 1991), pp.149-181; also on WWW at http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html (last accessed 12/12/2009)

Haraway, D. (2003) The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People and Significant Otherness. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.

Hayles, N.K. (1999) How we became posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: University Chicago Press

Hayles, N.K. (2006) Unfinished Work – From Cyborg to Cognisphere’ Theory, Culture & Society 23 (7—8), 159-1660

Kunzru, H. (1997) You are Cyborg;  Wired 5.02; on WWW at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffharaway_pr.html (last accessed 12/12/2009)

Ohler, J. (2008) The Semantic Web in Education. Educause Quarterly 31, 4, 7-9; On the WWW at http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EQM0840.pdf (last accessed 19/12/2009)

Petrina, S. (2007) Advanced Teaching Methods for the Technology Classroom. Int. J. Technol. Des Educ 17: 109-111; on WWW at http://www.springerlink.com/content/b3647655vw964663/fulltext.pdf (last accessed 12/12/09)

Siemens, G. (2005) Connectivism  A learning Theory for the Digital Age. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, Vol. 2 No. 1; on WWW at http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Jan_05/article01.htm (last accessed 17/12/09)

Voithofer, R.G. (1999) Addressing the Cyborg in educational new media design. Presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) National Conference, Montreal, Canada

Whalen, T. (2000) Data Navigation, Architecture of Knowledge; paper presented at the Banff Summit on Living Architectures: Designing for Immersion and Interaction, Banff New media Institute, 23 Sept.

Xu, T., Yu, X., Perlik, A.J., Tobin, W.F., Zweig, J.A., Tennant, K., Jones, T. and Zuo, Y. (2009). Rapid formation and selective stabilization of synapses for enduring motor memories. Nature 462, 915-919.

Yang, G., Pan, F. and Gan. W.B. (2009). Stably maintained dendritic spines are associated with lifelong memories. Nature 462, 920-924