Post-panoptic pedagogies: the changing nature of school surveillance in the digital age

The aim of this paper is to explore critically the everyday conditions of surveillance in the contemporary secondary school context. Using a classical ethnographic approach, it seeks to unpack the range of surveillance practices and processes that are at work within schools as institutional settings, and how these are encountered and experienced by students, teachers, administrators, and other members of a school community. The main concern is with the hypothesized evolution of panoptic to post-panoptic surveillance and whether or not surveillance in schools emulates such developments, specifically with regards to the levelling of power hierarchies as a result of the incorporation of both vertical and horizontal modes of surveillance. To offer concrete examples of this shift in models of surveillance, this paper examine three manifestations of surveillance in schools: CCTV, mobile phones, and elearning and content management platforms as modes of dataveillance, a particularized form of surveillance that has come to characterize modern surveillance functions. The primary question that drives this research is what evidence is there for these functions/modes of surveillance, and how are digital technologies implicit in their operation

The frustrations of digital fabrication: an auto/ethnographic exploration of ‘3D Making’ in school

Following initial educational enthusiasms for ‘Making’ technologies and the ‘Maker Movement’, increasing numbers of students are now using digital fabrication programs and equipment in school. Given the current lack of empirical research exploring the realities of Making as a school activity, this paper presents an in-depth auto/ethnographic account of 3D printing—currently, one of the most popular Maker technologies in schools. Investigating the case of an 8 week Year 9 design project, this paper seeks to broaden understandings of how 3D printing technologies and practices are shaping “what counts” as learning within contemporary school settings. In particular, this research focuses on the experiences of Making within a school context; what is learned through these experiences; and how the process of Making in school feels. This paper highlights three key issues that have been marginalised to date in discussions of Making in schools: (1) lack of pragmatic engagement, (2) affective labour of failing; and (3) mediated alienatio

Affective capture in digital school spaces and the modulation of student subjectivities

Educational environments are increasingly using online technologies that aim to identify and manage students through affect. These forms of monitoring can be understood as a method of approaching students through the lens of positive psychology. Clearly, the relationship between schools, technology, and affect is not straightforward or benign. Yet, despite recent attention to the educational benefits of social and emotional intelligence, most educational discussions pay little critical attention to affect in terms of external interests regulating the behaviours and dispositions of students. This paper examines how student subjectivities are managed by the modulation of affect through online platforms in/for school. It is separated into three broad sections that capture the themes emerging as central to the relations between student populations and techniques of affectivity: sensation, intensity, and value. The paper concludes with a consideration of the implications that arise from how online technologies are used to mediate student subjectivities in secondary school

Exploring neuromarketing and its reliance on remote sensing: social and ethical concerns

This article evaluates the consequences of neuromarketers’ reliance on direct and indirect forms of remote sensing. These remote sensing strategies, tactics, and resources include various sophisticated techniques for evaluating neuronal and behavioral responses to commercial messages with the aid of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology. The information generated with the aid of fMRI, in combination with inferences drawn from the massive data analyses enabled by machine learning techniques, is expected to contribute to the power and influence of marketoriented segmentation and targeting. After characterizing the current state of and future trends in applied neuromarketing research, we discuss how reliance on descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive communications strategies enabled by remote sensing will affect the life chances and well-being of segments of the global population. We conclude with a discussion of the moral and ethical implications of these developments, primarily in the context of public policy deliberations related to privacy and surveillance that we associate with remote sensing

Going online on behalf of others: an investigation of ‘proxy’ internet consumers

A range of Australians find themselves acting as ‘proxy internet users’ – i.e. using online services and applications on behalf of other adults who otherwise make limited use of the internet. Researchers at Monash University and Federation University have looked at the way proxy use works, finding that despite proxy internet users commonly involving themselves in important and/or ‘risky’ online activities – e.g. banking, personal finances and purchasing goods, few have considered the possible implications of their help to both themselves, or the person they are assisting. The paper below highlights a number of issues that merit attention from communications stakeholders and provides a set of recommendations to help ensure proxy internet use can be a positive experience for all. Also check out the Proxy User Tip Sheet which runs consumers through some of the things to think about if you are using the internet on another's behalf

Going online on behalf of others: An investigation of ‘proxy’ internet consumers

A range of Australians find themselves acting as ‘proxy internet users’ – i.e. using online services and applications on behalf of other adults who otherwise make limited use of the internet. It is rare for those adults being supported by proxies to be absolute non-users of the internet. Apart from extreme cases of physical/intellectual incapacity, most people covered by our research were making some use of the internet, if only through smartphones and Apps. Proxy internet assistance often takes place within families – notably elderly parents being helped by their adult sons and daughters. Other proxy users include people acting in a professional capacity – for example carers, social workers and other public-facing professionals who assist clients with specific online tasks..

The 'obvious' stuff: exploring the mundane realities of students' digital technology use in school

This paper explores the ways in which students perceive digital technology as being helpful and/or useful to their schooling. Drawing upon survey data from students (n=1174) across three Australian high schools, the paper highlights seventeen distinct digital ‘benefits’ in domains such as information seeking, writing and composition, accessing prescribed work, scheduling and managing study tasks. While these data confirm the centrality of such technologies to students’ experiences of school, they also suggest that digital technology is not substantially changing or ‘transforming’ the nature of schools and schooling per se. Instead, students were most likely to associate digital technologies with managing the logistics of individual study and engaging with school work in distinctly teacher-led linear and passive ways. As such, it is concluded that educationalists need to temper enthusiasms for what might be achieved through digital technologies, and instead develop better understandings of the realities of students’ instrumentally-driven uses of digital technology

Biosocial spaces and neurocomputational governance: brain-based and brain-targeted technologies in education

Recently, technologies based on neuroscientific insights into brain function and structure have been promoted for application in education. The novel practices and environments produced by these technologies require new forms of ‘biosocial’ analysis to unpack their implications for education, learning and governance. The article provides an original analysis of current ‘brain-based’ R&D by the edu-business Pearson to apply artificial intelligence in education, and by the computing company IBM to develop cognitive systems for learning. These emerging forms of neurocomputation are examined as technologies designed to function according to neuroscientific understandings of the brain, and to impress themselves on the cerebral lives of learners by being embedded in educational spaces. To examine the technological and neurobiological means by which a learner is made up through technologically-mediated educational environments, we advance the idea of ‘brain/code/space’ as a conceptual framework. This describes environments that possess brain-like functions of learning and cognition performed by computational processes. The brain/code/spaces of education proposed by Pearson and IBM are intended to optimize human cognition as a technique of human capital development in order to enhance the performance of education systems to secure comparative advantage in a globalizing policy space, exemplifying new forms of neurocomputational governance and capital

Engaging with ethics in Internet of things: imaginaries in the social milieu of technology developers

Discussions about ethics of Big Data often focus on the ethics of data processing: collecting, storing, handling, analysing and sharing data. Data-based systems, however, do not come from nowhere. They are designed and brought into being within social spaces – or social milieu. This paper connects philosophical considerations of individual and collective capacity to enact practical reason to the influence of social spaces. Building a deeper engagement with the social imaginaries of technology development through analysis of two years of fieldwork with start-ups working on Internet of Things, this paper suggests that different action positions can emerge, with consequences for how data is understood and valued. The Disengaged, Pragmatist and Idealist ethical action positions identified in the paper reveal the ways individuals and groups negotiate possibilities for ethical action, through justifications, explanations and structuring of system features

Toward a digital sociology of school

The proliferation of digital technologies into schools clearly merits renewed and sustained sociological attention. This chapter outlines some of the key ways in which digital sociology can help us make better sense of contemporary school