Buber, educational technology, and the expansion of dialogic space

Buber’s distinction between the ‘I-It’ mode and the ‘I-Thou’ mode is seminal for dialogic education. While Buber introduces the idea of dialogic space, an idea which has proved useful for the analysis of dialogic education with technology, his account fails to engage adequately with the role of technology. This paper offers an introduction to the significance of the I-It/I-Thou duality of technology in relation to opening dialogic space. This is followed by a short schematic history of educational technology which reveals the role technology plays, not only in opening dialogic space, but also in expanding dialogic space. The expansion of dialogic space is an expansion of what it means to be ‘us’ as dialogic engagement facilitates the incorporation, into our shared sense of identity, of aspects of reality that are initially experienced as alien or ‘other’. Augmenting Buber with an alternative understanding of dialogic space enables us to see how dialogue mediated by technology, as well as dialogue with monologised fragments of technology (robots), can, through education, lead to an expansion of what it means to be human

Sound transmission in the chest under surface excitation: an experimental and computational study with diagnostic applications

Chest physical examination often includes performing chest percussion, which involves introducing sound stimulus to the chest wall and detecting an audible change. This approach relies on observations that underlying acoustic transmission, coupling, and resonance patterns can be altered by chest structure changes due to pathologies. More accurate detection and quantification of these acoustic alterations may provide further useful diagnostic information. To elucidate the physical processes involved, a realistic computer model of sound transmission in the chest is helpful. In the present study, a computational model was developed and validated by comparing its predictions with results from animal and human experiments which involved applying acoustic excitation to the anterior chest while detecting skin vibrations at the posterior chest. To investigate the effect of pathology on sound transmission, the computational model was used to simulate the effects of pneumothorax on sounds introduced at the anterior chest and detected at the posterior. Model predictions and experimental results showed similar trends. The model also predicted wave patterns inside the chest, which may be used to assess results of elastography measurements. Future animal and human tests may expand the predictive power of the model to include acoustic behavior for a wider range of pulmonary conditions