Why EdTech is always right: students, data and machines in pre-emptive configurations

Pre-emption describes a system of automated knowledge creation and intervention that steers the present towards a desirable future, by building on knowledge derived from the past. Folding together temporalities makes it impossible to disprove pre-emption. It is increasingly featured within EdTech, i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of educational media : the journal of the Educational Television Association 2021-10, Vol.46 (4), p.420-434
Main Authors: Witzenberger, Kevin, Gulson, Kalervo N.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Automation
configuration
Configurations
Education technology
Educational Research
Educational Technology
Governance
Learning Analytics
pre-emption
Prediction
Students
Technology assessment
Technology Uses in Education
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Summary:Pre-emption describes a system of automated knowledge creation and intervention that steers the present towards a desirable future, by building on knowledge derived from the past. Folding together temporalities makes it impossible to disprove pre-emption. It is increasingly featured within EdTech, introducing new forms of automated governance into education. This paper examines how students and EdTech come together to make pre-emption possible, not as a single event but as a normalised governance instrument. For this, we introduce Lucy Suchman's idea of configuration to examine pre-emptive EdTech. The paper presents three openings into the configuration of students and pre-emptive EdTech. These include observations from an EdTech trade show; interviews with insiders of technology companies; and analysis of accepted papers to a learning analytics conference. We conclude the data used at the heart of pre-emptive EdTech seeks to exclude students and configures them as absent. Yet, its interventions have material consequences.
ISSN:1743-9884
1743-9892
DOI:10.1080/17439884.2021.1913181