The social construction of educational technology through the use of proprietary software

Major strands of science and technology studies (STS) in recent decades have been the 'social shaping of technology' (SST) and 'social construction of technology' (SCOT) movements, whose adherents maintain that technological systems are determined just as much by social forces as by technological ones. Taking this 'co-construction' notion as a starting point, and putting a focus on the user, I look at some examples of the use of proprietary software in which the learner, instead of being constrained by a rather deterministic pedagogy of educational technology, can exploit the functionality of the software in ways far removed from the original design. For example, spreadsheets can be used to incorporate modelling assumptions directly to simulate digital signal transmission, or the workings of the binomial function. Audio editing software can be used to teach about the technology of music by allowing the student to explore waveform characteristics. The manipulation of images, if combined with a teaching of the principles behind data compression, can engender a deep understanding of the processes involved. And translation software can be used for language learning in a way very different from what was envisaged by the designers. Educational technology has tended to suffer from an emphasis on, and excessive claims for, technological innovation and novelty. Film, radio, television, programmed learning, interactive video discs, CD-ROMs, a 'computer in every classroom', 'one laptop per child', the web, computer-mediated communication, smartboards; and now mashups, Second Life, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter – all have all been seen as radical new technologies that would revolutionize learning. Here I make the case for the social construction of educational technology by users and teachers, based on exploiting to far better effect the possibilities of mature, often proprietary, software not originally designed for pedagogical purposes. The approach outlined here not only helps students gain experience with the sort of software they are likely to encounter in their professional life, but also fosters and sustains a healthy spirit of enquiry that too often is lacking in much educational software. Although the examples presented have been situated in the context of the individual learner, similar principles can be applied to a whole range of networked educational technologies

The anglocentric tendency in the history of information engineering

This paper examines the anglocentric nature of much writing on the history of technology, taking as an example important research results from the first half of the last century published in German and Russian in the field of information engineering. By ‘information engineering’ is meant such disciplines as electronics, telecommunications, control engineering and signal processing. The seminal German and Russian results discussed here, untranslated at the time into English, remained largely unknown in the English-speaking world

The Celtic Languages in the Age of Globalisation: Problems and Possibilities [In Russian]

The article discusses the current state of Celtic languages ​​in the UK and Republic of Ireland, as affected by recent developments in globalization and devolution. After a brief history, the current position of the lanuages Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic is discussed. The importance of the influence of the media is considered, paricularly developments in ICT

Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kotelnikov: Pioneer of the sampling theorem, cryptography, optimal detection, planetary mapping

In 1933 the young Russian communications engineer Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kotelnikov published a paper in which he formulated for the first time in an engineering context the sampling theorem for lowpass and bandpass signals. He also considered the bandwidth requirements of discrete signal transmission for telegraphy and images. Kotelnikov subsequently worked on scrambling, cryptography, optimal detection, and planetary radar (including the radar-assisted cartography of Venus). He was awarded numerous Soviet and international prizes and played a major role in Soviet academic and professional life in the field of radio engineering. Yet his achievements are still comparatively little known outside Russia

Networked Living: a new approach to teaching introductory ICT

The course T175 Networked Living is a 300 hour, multiple media, distance learning course offered by the UK Open University. The first presentation of the course, in 2005, attracted over 1600 students. T175 introduces students to general concepts of information and communication technology in a range of contexts, including: communication and identity; entertainment and information; and health, transport and government. It is an introductory (level 1) course for a variety of bachelors’ degrees, including the BSc programmes in: Information and Communication Technology; IT and Computing; and Technology; as well as the BEng engineering programme. The course was designed with a focus on retention of students and preparing them for further study. Student workload and pacing was carefully planned and there is a significant study skills component. The course uses a range of media, including: text, audio, computer animation and other software, and a website. Active learning is encouraged by means of activities, online quizzes, animations, spreadsheets and a learning journal. Continuous assessment is carried out via a mix of multiple-choice assignments (to test factual and numerical skills) and written assignments (which include elementary research into new topics). The course culminates with a written end-of-course assessment. This includes a major reflective component, as well as more traditional questions designed to test knowledge and understanding

Control in the Cold War: the genesis and early years of the International Federation of Automatic Control

1956 was a turning point for the emerging discipline of automatic control. The approach known as classical control had emerged from WW2 as a result of collaboration between electronics, communications and mechanical engineers, predominantly in the USA and UK, but to a lesser extent in Germany. Developments in this area in the USSR were less significant, but an important novel approach to non-linear dynamics had been researched there in a control context since the 1930s. At least eight conferences were held in Europe in 1956, including an international one in Paris in June. In retrospect, however, the seminal event was the conference in Heidelberg in September organized jointly by the two German engineering societies VDE / VDI. This drew wide international participation, including delegates from Eastern Europe and Japan; but perhaps most importantly it marked the inception of IFAC, the International Federation of Automatic Control. Prompted by the growing internationalization of control engineering, and the Cold War climate of the mid 1950s, a number of delegates to the Heidelberg conference expressed interest in establishing a new, international, association. The driving force for this initiative came from G. Ruppel (Germany), R. Oldenburger (USA) and V. Broïda (France). A meeting of 25 interested participants was held and a resolution adopted to found “an international federation of automatic control [… with] the following objectives: 1. To facilitate the interchange of information in automatic control and to promote progress in this field. 2. To organize international congresses in this field.” A provisional committee was set up which met at the offices of the VDI/VDE specialist control group in Düsseldorf in April 1957, and IFAC came into being at a meeting in Paris in September that year. The first president was the American Harold Chestnut and the Vice-Presidents were the Russian A. M. Letov and the Frenchman V. Broïda. It was also agreed that Letov would be the second president and that the first IFAC Congress would be held in Moscow in 1960 – a remarkable international collaboration given the political climate of the time. IFAC’s constitution provided for one National Member Organization (NMO) per nation state. Countries such as the USA and the UK with more than one technical society with interests in the field established new overarching NMOs such as the American and UK Automatic Control Councils. The only sticking point was Germany, whose divided status made this politically impossible, and not until 1971 were both East and West Germany allowed to be represented by separate NMOs. German interests, however, were supported from start as a result of the establishment of the IFAC secretariat initially in Düsseldorf. The 1960 IFAC Moscow Congress was a huge affair, and an important event in the development of automatic control. A number of seminal papers in the new area of modern control were presented, perhaps the most famous being Kalman’s paper on his radical approach to linear filtering and prediction. It was also an opportunity for a meeting between East and West, even though Soviet suspicion limited informal contact between Russians and international delegates. This paper will examine the early development of IFAC and the contribution it made to international collaboration in the field of automatic control during the Cold War

The Information Turn in Modelling People and Society: early German Work

The concept of ‘information’ is now so all-pervasive that few turn their attention to the origin and (initially slow) evolution of the concept as a basic element in science, technology, computing and even, these days, the social sciences and humanities. Indeed, anyone who considers the development of the notion of information is likely to be restricted to a few great names such as Claude Shannon and Norbert Wiener, or the famous series of Macy Conferences on cybernetics, systems thinking, and related topics. Yet there is a fascinating, and rarely told, pre-history. This paper considers early attempts by German scholars at viewing individuals and societies from what, in retrospect, can be considered an information point of view. Specific areas examined by such scholars are the dilation of the pupil of the eye, a general ‘proto-cybernetic’ approach to the human body, and feedback in organisms and the state

From Andronow to Zypkin: an outline of the history of non-linear dynamics in the USSR

By employing the conventional German, rather than English or international transliterations – particularly of the name written ‘Tsypkin’ in English –I artfully suggest that this talk is an ‘A to Z’ of Russian non-linear dynamics. However, the period under consideration is not delineated by these two names. Rather, I begin with the Poincaré-Lyapunov heritage – but then concentrate on the way that this thinking was transformed through Russian mathematicians, scientists and engineers such as Mandelshtam, Andronov, Lure and others, over a large part of the twentieth century. (Tsypkin, in fact, receives only a minor mention, as his major achievements were in other areas.) As a historian of automatic control, I draw primarily on applications of non-linear theory in feedback systems

Interpreting the information age: can we avoid anglocentrism?

Much of what has been written – or exhibited in British and American museums – about the information age has concentrated on achievements by UK or US engineers, inventors, industrialists or theoreticians. We only have to think about Bletchley Park, Colossus, the MIT Radiation Lab, the Manchester ‘Baby’, ENIAC, EDVAC, LEO, Claude Shannon, Norbert Wiener, and so on, to appreciate what a powerful story this is. One or two outsiders do feature in the conventional account, such as the German computer pioneer Konrad Zuse, who built functioning electromechanical computers from the late 1930s onwards. Yet the first half of the twentieth century saw many other important contributors from outside the anglophone area. For example: the German Karl Küpfmüller was a major theoretician of electronics systems theory and closed-loop control in the 1920s and afterwards; the Russian Vladimir Kotelnikov published the first engineering account of the sampling theorem in 1933 and went on to make major advances in cryptography; and another German, Hermann Schmidt, developed cybernetics ideas in Germany independently of Wiener from 1939 onwards. This paper looks at some of the most significant German and Russian contributors from the fields of electronics, communications and cybernetics in the dawn of the information age, and raises some important questions about whether we are too parochial in dealing with the history of technology

Compression, convergence and conviviality: the contribution of new technologies to developments in radio from the 1980s

This paper examines the rôle of new information technologies in the development of radio over the last four decades. The move to digital techniques saw the application of increasingly sophisticated compression algorithms, such as in the MPEG suite of standards, and the convergence of military and civilian technologies such as in the context of GSM. Digital techniques have also seen the convergence of audio and video in radio broadcasting: most radio networks now have websites, Facebook and Twitter feeds, and still photographs and moving video resources of various types are widely used to support radio programmes. In addition to commercial social networking sites, many radio broadcasters also include audience participation via specialised on-line forums or other forms of electronic communication between producers and consumers. It is not too fanciful to speak of a new conviviality within radio audiences – a conviviality that has existed in various forms since the early days of broadcasting, but which has recently undergone a categorical change in the active participation of listeners. Following a brief, but hopefully accessible, explanation of some compression techniques, the paper will examine the interaction between technological developments and social behaviour in their recent historical contexts