Fenwick et al. contend that ‘[c]yberspaces are not therefore merely a new educational tool, but can spatially reconfigure the forms of knowing, sociality and subjectivity enacted through educational (en)counters’ (2011, p157). Distributed or aggregated educational spaces are not simply better or worse for learning. They qualitatively change the space in ways shaped by digital systems, through procedures that are irreducible to human intention or agency. The implications for education are that many social media and web services, as well as MOOC platforms such as Coursera, are being controlled, not by educators, but by large multinational for-profit companies. (Knox, J., 2014)
Nicely summarised Clare. Though for me it also opens up the question of what the *other* implications are, apart from the critical issue raised in Jeremy’s paper. Are there instances in which the digital ‘spatial reconfiguration’ of ways of knowing can work in other – more positive – ways?