“Firs, it is always worthwhile to insist that people explain the words they have chosen to describe what they are doing, so that their purposes may be evaluated. Second, many people who use the word “science” do so in the hope that its prestige will attach to their work. Americans are peculiarly afflicted with science-adoration, which is why we must endure such abominations as the oxymorons Christian Science, Creation Science, Scientology, Policy Science, Decision Science, and Administrative Science, as well as Behavioral and Social Science. And third, when the study of human conduct is classified as science, there is a tendency to limit the kinds of inquiries that may be made: counters and “empiricists”- that is, pseudo-scientists- are apt to deprive others of the right to proceed in alternative ways, for example, by denying them tenure. The result is, of course, that they impoverish all of us and make it difficult for people with ideas to be heard.”

Neil Postman (1988) in Concentious Objections

“Dialogue like nirvana, like happiness, like love, like learning cannot be achieved by the direct desire to have a dialogue, to have nirvana, to have happiness, to have love, to have learning. In this sense, a dialogue, nirvana, happiness, and learning (and teaching) are not goal-directed activities. They cannot be designed… However, on the other hand, certain actions can increase possibility for engaging in dialogue, experiencing nirvana, love, learning and teaching. Similarly, some circumstances make dialogue, nirvana, love, learning, teaching more difficult, although never impossible. Thus, activity and design be used for promoting these phenomena as their by-products.”

Eugene Matusov (2009) in Journey into Dialogic Pedagogy

This conference provides a forum for the discussion of how to critically study social media and their relevance for critique, democracy, politics and philosophy in 21st century information society.

We are living in times of global capitalist crisis. In this situation, we are witnessing a return of critique in the form of a surging interest in critical theories (such as the critical political economy of Karl Marx, critical theory, etc) and revolutions, rebellions, and political movements against neoliberalism that are reactions to the commodification and instrumentalization of everything. On the one hand there are overdrawn claims that social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, mobile Internet, etc) have caused rebellions and uproars in countries like Tunisia and Egypt, which brings up the question to which extent these are claims are ideological or not. On the other hand, the question arises what actual role social media play in contemporary capitalism, power structures, crisis, rebellions, uproar, revolutions, the strengthening of the commons, and the potential creation of participatory democracy. The commodification of everything has resulted also in a commodification of the communication commons, including Internet communication that is today largely commercial in character. The question is how to make sense of a world in crisis, how a different future can look like, and how we can create Internet commons and a commons-based participatory democracy…

[via ICTs and Society Conference Website]

The deadline for the submission of abstract is February 29, 2012.

[Sebastian Fiedler]

This interdisciplinary conference aims to focus on the exchange of relevant trends and research results as well as the presentation of practical experiences gained while developing and testing elements of interactive collaborative learning. Therefore pilot projects, applications and products will also be welcome…

ICL conference Website

Deadline for submissions is April 23, 2012.

[Sebastian Fiedler]

EERA, European Educational Research Association and the University of Cadiz, Spain, invite Educational Researchers to participate in and to submit proposals for the European Conference on Educational Research 2012.
The conference theme “The Need for Educational Research to Champion Freedom, Education and Development for All” will provide a focus for the keynote addresses and for other invited events. It may also be taken as a reference within the conference sessions organised by the EERA networks. However, proposals for contributions are welcome from all fields of educational research.

Participants are invited to hand in up to two abstracts for papers, posters, workshops, round tables and symposia. All proposals must be handed in electronically via the online submission form. PhD students and emerging researchers are especially invited to participate in the Emerging Researchers’ Conference by submitting proposals to the Emerging Researchers’ Group…

[via email]

The deadline for submissions is 01 February 2012. Review results are expected by 01 April 2012.

[Sebastian Fiedler]

INTED2012 will be an International Forum for those who wish to present their projects and innovations, having also the opportunity to discuss the main aspects and the latest results in the field of Education and Research.

The general aim of the conference is to promote international collaboration in Education and Research in all educational fields and disciplines. The attendance of more than 700 delegates from 70 different countries is expected…

[INTED 2012 conference website]

The deadline for submitting abstracts is November 24th, 2011.

[Sebastian Fiedler]

With the commoditization of instruction, teachers are drawn into a production process designed for the efficient creation of instructional commodities, and hence become subject to all the pressures that have befallen production workers in other industries undergoing rapid technological transformation from above. In this context faculty have much more in common with the historic plight of other skilled workers than they care to acknowlege. Like these others, their activity is being restructured, via the technology, in order to reduce their autonomy, independence, and control over their work and to place workplace knowledge and control as much as possible into the hands of the administration. As in other in other industries, the technology is being deployed by management primarily to discipline, de-skill, and displace labor.

David F. Noble (1998) in Digital Diploma Mills: The Automation of Higher Education.

The conditions for convivial work are structural arrangements that make possible the just distribution of unprecedented power. A postindustrial society must and can be so constructed that no one person’s ability to express him- or herself in work will require as a condition the enforced labor or the enforced learning or the enforced consumption of another.

Ivan Illich (1975) in Tools for conviviality

This paper reviews and critiques how the notion of PLEs has been conceptualised and discussed in literature so far. It interprets the variability of its interpretations and conceptualisations as the expression of a fundamental contradiction between patterns of activity and digital instrumentation in formal education on one hand, and individual experimentation and experience within the digital realm on the other. It is suggested to place this contradiction in the larger socio-historic context of an ongoing media transformation. Thus, the paper argues against the prevalent tendency to base the conceptualisation of PLEs almost exclusively on Web 2.0 technologies that are currently available or emerging, while underlying patterns of control and responsibility often remain untouched. Instead, it proposes to scrutinise these patterns and to focus educational efforts on supporting adult learners to model their learning activities and potential (personal learning) environments while exploring the digital realm.

Reference: Fiedler, S. H. D., & Väljataga, T. (2011). Personal learning environments: Concept or technology? International Journal of Virtual and Personal Learning Environments, 2(4), 1-11.

[Sebastian Fiedler]

“But science itself has been industrialized and commodified. It is increasingly organized into large research centers with intricate division of labor. Research operates with costly complex primary instruments, but secondary instruments (models and theories) seem to fall into a myriad of
disconnected micro-theories. The objects of science appear in the form of separate ‘problems’ or ‘tasks’ given from outside. Above all, science is tendentially reduced to its immediate products or results possessing exchange value in the ‘science market’ and being essentially known or fixed in advance (as ‘customer’s orders’ or promises from the researchers).”

Yrjö Engeström (1987) in Learning by Expanding