Digital pedagogies and biotechnical realities: Education and life after the COVID-19 pandemic

What would have taken years to change in the world we knew, took just a few months during a global pandemic. Millions of teachers, therapists, and other practitioners around the world whose work requires direct contact with people, dived into every synchronous and asynchronous platform they could find. They had to in order to continue their work with students or clients, to maintain connections, to empower people during the crisis, to ensure that nobody felt alone, to protect and strengthen life, and to resist a vicious invisible threat. All these practitioners struggled to ensure physical distancing did not result in social or emotional distancing, and managed to do so through web technologies and digital media. The social pattern of life, the very pattern that allowed coronavirus to threaten humanity, is the same pattern helped maintain life during lockdown by taking advantage of digital media

Using Drawings in Qualitative Interviews: An Introduction to the Practice

Drawings are employed by qualitative researchers in many creative ways, and in many different contexts, and a variety of different terms are used to describe similar techniques. I present here a concise description of two basic approaches to integrating participants’ produced drawings into verbal qualitative research interviews, along with characteristic cases of empirical research demonstrating how these approaches have been applied. I also provide a list of best practices and I discuss ethical issues. It is common for qualitative researchers to mix techniques in order to creatively address real-world research challenges. The proposed categorization, augmented by the list of best practices, can help researchers to effectively integrate drawings and verbal interviews into a multimodal research project

Ad hoc solutions to wicked problems: Pandemics and other challenges in context

Wicked problems are considered to be any social, cultural, or other challenges that are difficult to address and hard to devise an effective and sustainable solution for. The utopic wishful thinking humanity relied on for so many decades, that technology and science alone, like a new Deus ex machina, would ultimately save us from any problematic situation we would ever face, and from any possible catastrophe we would ever confront, proved to be unrealistic. In the complex techno-social reality we live in, symptomatic solutions are not enough to address wicked problems. We keep looking for simplistic solutions in an inherent complex world. Something different is needed. Newtonian science and technology can provide working and sustainable solutions, only if they are combined with a systems thinking approach providing a holistic view in context. When we are in an urgent need to take ad hoc measures, for example, to address a direct lethal threat like a new virus, it is critical to take advantage of the time gained through the treatment of the symptoms to devise more sustainable solutions. Otherwise, things can get even worst in the long run

Psychotherapy in the era of artificial intelligence: Therapist Panoptes

“What will happen when an artificial intelligence entity has access to all the information stored about me online, with the ability to process my information efficiently and flawlessly? Will such an entity not be, in fact, my ideal therapist?” Would there ever come a point at which you would put your trust in an omniscient, apperceptive, and ultra-intelligent robotic therapist? There is a horizon beyond which we can neither see nor even imagine; this is the technological singularity moment for psychotherapy. If human intelligence is capable of creating an artificial intelligence that surpasses its creators, then this intelligence would, in turn, be able to create an even superior next-generation intelligence. An inevitable positive feedback loop would lead to an exponential intelligence growth rate. In the present paper, we introduce the term Therapist Panoptes as a working hypothesis to investigate the implications for psychotherapy of an artificial therapeutic agent: one that is able to access all available data for a potential client and process these with an inconceivably superior intelligence. Although this opens a new perspective on the future of psychotherapy, the sensitive dependence of complex techno-social systems on their initial conditions renders any prediction impossible. Artificial intelligence and humans form a bio-techno-social system, and the evolution of the participating actors in this complex super-organism depends upon their individual action, as well as upon each actor being a coevolving part of a self-organized whole

Networked Grounded Theory

The present paper demonstrates a research method combining Grounded Theory and Network Analysis for the inductive generation of a theory solely based on the empirical data being analyzed. This method was developed during my PhD research on the utilization of a virtual community (case study in Wikipedia) in formal Education institutions (tertiary or secondary education). The focus of this paper is on demonstrating the research method developed during this study. Networked Grounded Theory constitutes a remodeling of Grounded Theory and the rationale for the inclusion of Network Analysis techniques into the process of theory generation is explained. The software used and the steps followed are presented in detail in order to help other researchers to utilize the method or adapt it to meet their own research pursuits

Rhizomatic Learning in Action: A Virtual Exposition for Demonstrating Learning Rhizomes

In this paper, we developed a virtual exposition as a model to visualize and demonstrate the dynamic and non-linear affordances of a learning rhizome. Virtual expositions are non-linear multimodal web installations that facilitate the creation of interconnections through which the research as practice and the practice as research are highlighted and communicated more effectively. Through a specific virtual exposition platform, we created a visual and performative representation of a rhizomatic learning course, allowing visitors to experience the complexity, multiplicity, unpredictability, and multivoicedness of such an approach in an isomorphic way. A complex learning rhizome is a performative confluence of human and non-human actors that engages people, resources, processes, and contextual parameters. As such, it is impossible to be represented in any representational format. The virtual exposition developed here attempts to offer a fair approximative model of rhizomatic learning which is far better than text-only linear representations. This paper offers a new view to rhizomatic learning as an applied practice that can enhance teaching and catalyze learning through complex synergies and dynamics. The originality of this paper lies in its attempt to bridge linear with non-linear academic research formats in order to offer a multimodal and performative model of rhizomatic learning. Theoretical and practical implications for learning and teaching are discussed

"Me and my students' smartphones in the classroom": A case study using arts-based methods

Ένας νέος κλάδος των ποιοτικών προσεγγίσεων στην έρευνα που αναπτύσσεται δυναμικά τα τελευταία χρόνια είναι αυτός της έρευνας με μεθόδους βασισμένες στην τέχνη σχεδόν σε όλες τις μορφές της: μουσική, θέατρο, εικαστικά, λογοτεχνία. Στην παρούσα εργασία γίνεται μία επισκόπηση των βασικών χαρακτηριστικών των μεθόδων έρευνας βασισμένων στη τέχνη, με έμφαση στη σημασία τους για την εκπαιδευτική έρευνα, στην ελευθερία έκφρασης που προσφέρει στους συμμετέχοντες αλλά και στο ρόλο του ερευνητή στην ερμηνεία των στοιχείων που συλλέγει. Στη συνέχεια, παρουσιάζουμε μία μελέτη περίπτωσης έρευνας βασισμένης στην τέχνη, όπου τα ερευνητικά ερωτήματα αφορούν τις αντιδράσεις των εκπαιδευτικών στη χρήση του κινητού τηλεφώνου από τους μαθητές μέσα στην τάξη. Ποια είναι τα συναισθήματα που αναδύονται στον εκπαιδευτικό, ποιες οι σκέψεις του για αυτό το φαινόμενο που πλέον παρατηρείται όλο και περισσότερο κατά τη διάρκεια του μαθήματος στην τάξη; Στη συγκεκριμένη μελέτη περίπτωσης, οι εκπαιδευτικοί, κυρίως της δευτεροβάθμιας εκπαίδευσης, καλούνται να απεικονίσουν σκέψεις, συναισθήματα και εικόνες που απαντούν σε αυτά ερωτήματα, ζωγραφίζοντας με μαρκαδόρους σε ένα χαρτί. Τα αποτελέσματα δίνουν αρκετά στοιχεία για τη συναισθηματική αντίδραση των εκπαιδευτικών και τον τρόπο πρόσληψης του φαινομένου.There is a new area flourishing within qualitative research based on methods using all forms of art: music, theatre, visual arts, and literature. In this paper we present an overview of the basic features of arts-based research; emphasizing on their meaning on education research, on the freedom of expression given to the participants in the research, and on the method the researcher applies to evaluate the collected data. We then present an arts-based research case study where the research questions relate to teachers’ reactions to the use of smartphones by students in the classroom. In this case study, teachers, especially those working on secondary education, are invited to portray their thoughts, emotions, and images that respond to these questions by painting them on a paper using markers. The findings show that the majority of the teachers are negative about the children using their smartphone in the classroom, along with evidence for teachers’ emotional response and how to confront the phenomenon

A Systems Thinking Approach to Reflective Practice in Blogs: Implications on Social-Emotional Learning and Resilience Building

In the present paper, we propose a model for reflective practice in blogs based on Systems Thinking aiming to promote social-emotional learning, and we discuss its theoretical underpinnings. Reflective blogging can be an invaluable tool for peer learning and professional development, particularly in appreciative environments where people feel safe to share their experiences. The proposed model introduces Systems Thinking as an effective way to facilitate group reflective practice for social-emotional learning and resilience building in a blended learning environment. Participants practice how to acknowledge different perspectives and how to integrate them into a coherent group narrative, the collective story of their community. Systems thinking entails a shift of focus from the parts to the relationships between and treats any group of participants as a living network, a learning rhizome in the becoming. In this view, collective intelligence rises as an emergent system property. We provide the case of a recent implementation of the proposed model to reflect and elaborate further on practical aspects of the approach, such as how to cultivate reflective writing among the participants, how to synthesize a group meta-narrative, how to evaluate individual contributions, and how to nurture a learning organization. The aim is to present a concise and authentic account of this approach so as to enable other educators and practitioners to get inspiration, make necessary adaptations, and utilize it in their own practice