The second week of our EDC 15 course has ended and we further delved into cyberculture and how it relates to education.

A very interesting video I found this week was “This Will Revolutionize Education” by Veritasium, a popular educational channel on YouTube. It explores reasons for why despite the hype surrounding Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) the revolution in education simply has not happened yet. Thinking about Sian Bayne’s article on the problematic nature of the term TEL I proposed a term I find more appropriate – Digitally Facilitated Education.

The theme of transhumanism and cyborgs continued to follow me this week. If things turn out to be as they are envisioned in Dr Michio Kaku’s interview humans will be able to telepathically communicate with each other on the brainnet – the successor to the internet. I cannot even begin to fathom the drastic implications such technologies might have for human education.

Continuing to explore last week’s theme of biohacking I found incredibly fascinating documentaries about the current state of biohacking, both within the DIY movement as well as in the corporate world. If we are all cyborgs now, as the article suggests, what is the distinction between cyborgs and humans? Perhaps cyborgs are simply the next step in human evolution and drawing a line would be an arbitrary act, the same way as someone cannot pinpoint exactly when the early hominids became humans.

The future is definitely exciting, however, as demonstrated this week by Microsoft’s HoloLens technology. Augmenting reality with holograms will allow us to learn and teach in much more immersive ways. Their promotional video shows someone getting instructions on where to tighten a new trap under a sink by seeing a virtual pair of arrows projected onto the real trap. I am curious about the many innovative use cases for education that will surely be developed for this technology.

The first week of the EDC15 course is coming to an end.

After setting up the lifestream and connecting it to twitter via IFTTT I started reading the course’s core literature, Vincent Miller’s chapter on The Body and Information Technology – an eye opening introduction into the field of cyborgs and posthumanism.

While delving into the material a relevant article about how industry leaders and scientists are warning of the potential dangers of artificial intelligence started to catch my attention. While this topic has in the past been firmly in the hands of science fiction authors, it is actually a quite serious matter worthy of serious discussion.

By accident I stumbled upon a truly awe inspiring  video that fits right into this week’s topic – neuroscientist David Eagleman’s talk on the Future of Being Human – if his theroetical predictions hold up in practice, the future of human cyborgs might be closer than we imagine.

In fact, in some ways it is already here. This biohacker has implanted a magnet in his finger, allowing him to feel electromagnetic fields – effectively upgrading himself with an additional sense. While I do not see a practical use for such an upgrade it’s really cool regardless.

Lastly, the week’s second core reading, a critical examination of the term Technology Enhanced Learning by Sian Bayne,  caused me to wonder whether “Digital Education”, or simpler yet, “Education” might be a more appropriate term for our field of study.