Auto-Modernity after Postmodernism: Autonomy and Automation in Culture, Technology, and Education

Part of the Volume on Digital Young, Innovation, and the UnexpectedThis chapter argues that in order to understand the implications of how digital youth are now using new media and technologies in unexpected and innovative ways, we have to rethink many of the cultural oppositions that have shaped the Western tradition since the start of the modern era. To be precise, we can no longer base our analysis of culture, identity, and technology on the traditional conflicts between the public and the private, the subject and the object, and the human and the machine. Moreover, the modern divide pitting the isolated individual against the impersonal realm of technological mechanization no longer seems to apply to the multiple ways young people are using new media and technologies. In fact, this chapter argues that we have moved into a new cultural period of automodernity, and a key to this cultural epoch is the combination of technological automation and human autonomy

Brooking no excuses: university staff and students are encouraged to develop their engagement

Brooking no excuses: university staff and students are encouraged to develop their engagement This paper will explore the internal and external factors that have prompted the University of East Anglia's decision to give Public Engagement into a more central role within the Universities Corporate Plan. It will illustrate how the SEARCH Action Learning Programme facilitated the design, implementation and delivery of new Staff and Student Development Programmes that aim to provide the confidence, skills and mentorship that will encourage staff to develop their engagement activities. We will use a SWOT analysis to discuss the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the Public Engagement Practitioner. As part of this, we will explore how many of the issues we face as Science communicators with the public are similar to issues encountered by Communicators within the Arts and Humanities disciplines. Finally we will outline and detail our future plans, opportunities and vision that will enable us to move this agenda forward

Prenatal screening, ethics and Down's Syndrome: a Literature review

This article reviews the literature on prenatal screening for Down's syndrome. To be evidence based, medicine and nursing have to take account of research evidence and also of how this evidence is processed through the influence of prevailing social and moral attitudes. This review of the extensive literature examines how appropriate widely-held understandings of Down's syndrome are, and asks whether or not practitioners and prospective parents have access to the full range of moral arguments and social evidence on the matter. Highly valued ideals of justice, personal autonomy, parental choice, women's control over their reproduction and of avoiding harm can all tend towards negative rather than neutral approaches to Down's syndrome. This article considers how ethics and prenatal screening policies and practice that take greater account of social evidence of disability could use moral arguments that inform rather than determine the choices of people who use prenatal services

Understanding best practices in control engineering education using the concept of TPACK

This study aimed to design an integrated pedagogical approach to advance introductory Process Control Engineering Education through the application of the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework, and evaluating its impact on student learning. The research is initially being undertaken at Nottingham Trent University, UK but we will next adapt it to a case study in Libya. This paper aims to strengthen the teaching of introductory Process Control by using appropriate approach es in universities to improve the learning outcomes for students. From this work a new schematic for teaching Process Control ha s be en developed and, moreover, a thoughtful best practice in introducing Process Control in engineering education can be developed

Educational development units: the challenge of quality enhancement in a changing environment

Reviews the role of the Educational Development Unit and suggests that such units should focus primarily on building a learning environment appropriate to its host university, rather than paying a disproportionate amounts of attention to externally imposed targets. A unit should not of course ignore those targets, rather it should endeavour to manage them in a way that meets the work patterns of its own institution

Repurposing literacy: the uses of Richard Hoggart for creative education

After 50 years, what are the implications of Uses of Literacy for educational modernisation, in the light of subsequent changes from 'read only' literacy to 'read-write' uses of multimedia? This chapter argues that a broad extension of popular literacy via consumer-created digital content offers not only emancipationist potential in line with Hoggart's own project, but also economic benefits via the dynamics of creative innovation. Multimedia 'popular entertainments' pose a challenge to formal education, but not in the way that Hoggart feared. Instead of producing 'tamed helots,' commercial culture may be outpacing formal schooling in promoting creative digital literacy via entrepreneurial and distributed learning. It may indeed be that those in need of a creative make-over are not teenagers but teachers

Enhancement and Civic Virtue

Opponents of biomedical enhancement frequently adopt what Allen Buchanan has called the “Personal Goods Assumption.” On this assumption, the benefits of biomedical enhancement will accrue primarily to those individuals who undergo enhancements, not to wider society. Buchanan has argued that biomedical enhancements might in fact have substantial social benefits by increasing productivity. We outline another way in which enhancements might benefit wider society: by augmenting civic virtue and thus improving the functioning of our political communities. We thus directly confront critics of biomedical enhancement who argue that it will lead to a loss of social cohesion and a breakdown in political lif

Розв’язування задач як основа математичної підготовки майбутніх інженерів

The results of the study of the problem of solving mathematical tasks in the preparation of future engineers are revealed. The urgency and importance of the topic is substantiated by the need of Ukrainian enterprises in qualified specialists of engineering specialties and the need of the society to ensure high quality of education. An approach to task solving in higher mathematics is theoretically developed. The peculiarities of its practical implementa-tion are clarified. Guidelines and steps for solving problems are explained. Rules for verifying resolved tasks are produced. The errors that future engi-neers make when solving tasks are classified. The necessity of making changes to the higher mathematics syllabus at the National Technical University "Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute" and the introduction of laboratory works using Mathcad, Mathlab, Scilab etc. are substantiated.Статтю присвячено найголовнішому аспекту математичної підготовки майбутніх інженерів – розв’язуванню задач. Теоретично розроблено підхід до розв’язування задач з вищої математики. Розкрито особливості його практичної реалізації. Виявлено методичні рекомендації та етапи розв’язування задач. Висвітлено правила перевірки розв’язаних задач. Класифіковано помилки, яких припускаються майбутні інженери під час розв’язання задач. Досліджено структуру практичного заняття для ефективного вирішення поставленої проблеми. Рекомендовано схему самоаналізу викладачем проведеного заняття. Підтверджено високий результат розв’язання математичних задач на студактивних заняттях

Posthumanist Education

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