Although it has been in existence for over three decades, the Internet remains a contested technology. Its governance and role in civic life, education, and entertainment are all still openly disputed and debated. The issues include censorship and network control, privacy and surveillance, the political impact of activist blogging, peer to peer file sharing, the effects of video games on children, and many others. Media conglomerates, governments and users all contribute to shaping the forms and functions of the Internet as the limits and potentialities of the technologies are tested and extended. What is most surprising about the Internet is the proliferation of controversies and conflicts in which the creativity of ordinary users plays a central role. The title, (Re)Inventing the Internet, refers to this extraordinary flowering of agency in a society that tends to reduce its members to passive spectators. This collection presents a series of critical case studies that examine specific sites of change and contestation. These cover a range of phenomena including computer gaming cultures, online education, surveillance, and the mutual shaping of digital technologies and civic life.

Textbook

A fresh look at a “robot-proof” education in the new age of generative AI. In 2017, Robot-Proof, the first edition, foresaw the advent of the AI economy and called for a new model of higher education designed to help human beings flourish alongside smart machines. That economy has arrived. Creative tasks that, seven years ago, seemed resistant to automation can now be performed with a simple prompt. As a result, we must now learn not only to be conversant with these technologies, but also to comprehend and deploy their outputs. In this revised and updated edition, Joseph Aoun rethinks the university’s mission for a world transformed by AI, advocating for the lifelong endeavor of a “robot-proof” education. Aoun puts forth a framework for a new curriculum, humanics, which integrates technological, data, and human literacies in an experiential setting, and he renews the call for universities to embrace lifelong learning through a social compact with government, employers, and learners themselves. Drawing on the latest developments and debates around generative AI, Robot-Proof is a blueprint for the university as a force for human reinvention in an era of technological change—an era in which we must constantly renegotiate the shifting boundaries between artificial intelligence and the capacities that remain uniquely human.

Do new technologies mean the end of the university as we know it? Or can they be shaped in a way that balances innovation and tradition? This volume explores these questions through a critical history of online education.

Since the 1990s, "online education" has emerged at the centre of debates over the future of higher education. Symbolising for proponents a transformation of universities to align them with informational economies, for critics online education signifies the commodification of knowledge, commercialisation of learning, and the deskilling of instruction. Critics posit these tendencies as online education's essence, and mount their critiques as a reaction against technology. This dissertation attempts to retain a critical position on educational reform while displacing critics' essentialist claims. Commodification, commercialisation and deskilling are not inalienable technical properties but contingent social values informing how online education takes shape. This means that if online education supports commodification, commercialisation and deskilling, this is the result of its development within social contexts in which such values "win out" over competing educational values. It also means that these competing values could stand as a basis for alternative realisations of online education. Drawing on constructivist technology studies, Foucauldian genealogy and Andrew Feenberg's critical theory of technology, this dissertation develops a framework for understanding the history of technology as a process of struggle between competing values. It demonstrates the validity of this conceptual and methodological turn through the analysis of historical and contemporary cases in online education - the development of computer assisted instruction for distance education in the 1970s; experiments in educational computer conferencing in the 1980s; and the translation of a programme of institutional reform into a logic guiding the articulation of online education in the 1990s. Each case demonstrates that the forms of educational computing are relative to the values and interests that inform the strategic development of pedagogical practice and technological development in online education. Interventions into these value frameworks can result in an alternative form of online education. In the conclusion, I outline three areas that reflect such a transformation - blended learning, open source online education, and institutional policy developments around network technologies.

This book is dedicated to good teachers everywhere. Human nature dictates that from time to time, even the best of teachers may make mistakes. When they are made aware of such aberrations, good teachers will recognize and repair them. They will, at a moments notice, set things right with their students. Bad teachers will refuse to acknowledge blunders and will engage in cover ups. Parents and caregivers need to be mindful that they may run into bad teachers anywhere, in any time period, who may be guilty of the same sins. Of necessity then, in defense of their children, parents and caregivers must be the watch dogs, the whistle blowers, and the prime movers for bringing about meaningful change. In her book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Amy Chua has set forth seven driving principals by which she governed her children. Her fifth rule is ... (5) if your child ever disagrees with a teacher or coach, you must always take the side of the teacher or coach; ..." [Chua A. (2011). New York, NY: PENGUIN BOOKS, P. 5.] My advice states the contrary, and I offer convincing, concrete examples as to why you should Never Trust a Teacher! Remember to FLIP the book over to find Twenty--Two Timeless Tips to Trump the System. Before being critical of teachers, parents must prepare their children to be ideal students when they arrive at school. In this supplement to the larger book, I offer fundamental guidelines for parents and caregivers as they begin their childrearing years and gradually ease their children into the world of public school, always remembering that Literacy and Love Go Hand in Hand.

This volume contains the papers presented at the 2nd International Conference on Internet Technology and Educational Informatization (ITEI 2022), held during December 23th-25th, 2023 in Harbin, China. Today, the rapid development in Internet and education technology poses new challenges to scientists that requires innovative approach and methodology or eventually new educational theories. Internet technology is the prerequisite for educational informatization to be realized. The specific Conference topics include: Artificial Intelligence in Education; User Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction; Distance Education for Computers; Computer Application in Social and Behavioural Sciences; Pedagogy Enhancement with E-Learning; Accessibility to Disabled Users; etc. Also, the Conference is intended to give students and research groups the opportunity to learn more about Internet Technology and Educational Informatization as an important tool in their applications and development. There were about 150 participants from countries all over the world attended the conference and they attended the presentations by scholars representing both institutes and academia. The scientific program consisted of in total 5 talks as well as many oral and poster presentations. Five talks were invited keynote speakers given by Pun Chi Man (University of Macau, China), Yongjun Feng (Shaanxi Normal University, China), Philippe Fournier-Viger (Shenzhen University, China), Rafidah Md Noor (Universiti Malaya, Malaysia) and Khe Foom HEW (The University of Hong Kong, China). Titles included Privacy Protection in Video Live Streaming, Research of Education Metaverse and Metaverse Education——Take E-Course Explosion as the Center, Advances and Challenges for the Discovery of Interesting Patterns in Network and Educational Data, The Rise of Mobile and Internet Technology in Higher Education and Remote Learning, and Engaging Students in Online Learning Activities Using Chatbots.

How ed tech was born: Twentieth-century teaching machines--from Sidney Pressey's mechanized test-giver to B. F. Skinner's behaviorist bell-ringing box. Contrary to popular belief, ed tech did not begin with videos on the internet. The idea of technology that would allow students to "go at their own pace" did not originate in Silicon Valley. In Teaching Machines, education writer Audrey Watters offers a lively history of predigital educational technology, from Sidney Pressey's mechanized positive-reinforcement provider to B. F. Skinner's behaviorist bell-ringing box. Watters shows that these machines and the pedagogy that accompanied them sprang from ideas--bite-sized content, individualized instruction--that had legs and were later picked up by textbook publishers and early advocates for computerized learning. Watters pays particular attention to the role of the media--newspapers, magazines, television, and film--in shaping people's perceptions of teaching machines as well as the psychological theories underpinning them. She considers these machines in the context of education reform, the political reverberations of Sputnik, and the rise of the testing and textbook industries. She chronicles Skinner's attempts to bring his teaching machines to market, culminating in the famous behaviorist's efforts to launch Didak 101, the "pre-verbal" machine that taught spelling. (Alternate names proposed by Skinner include "Autodidak," "Instructomat," and "Autostructor.") Telling these somewhat cautionary tales, Watters challenges what she calls "the teleology of ed tech"--the idea that not only is computerized education inevitable, but technological progress is the sole driver of events.

THE NEW ADVANCED SOCIETY Included in this book are the fundamentals of Society 5.0, artificial intelligence, and the industrial Internet of Things, featuring their working principles and application in different sectors. A 360-degree view of the different dimensions of the digital revolution is presented in this book, including the various industries transforming industrial manufacturing, the security and challenges ahead, and the far-reaching implications for society and the economy. The main objective of this edited book is to cover the impact that the new advanced society has on several platforms such as smart manufacturing systems, where artificial intelligence can be integrated with existing systems to make them smart, new business models and strategies, where anything and everything is possible through the internet and cloud, smart food chain systems, where food products can be delivered to any corner of the world at any time and in any situation, smart transport systems in which robots and self-driven cars are taking the lead, advances in security systems to assure people of their privacy and safety, and smart healthcare systems, where biochips can be incorporated into the human body to predict deadly diseases at early stages. Finally, it can be understood that the social reformation of Society 5.0 will lead to a society where every person leads an active and healthy life. Audience The targeted audience for this book includes research scholars and industry engineers in artificial intelligence and information technology, engineering students, cybersecurity experts, government research agencies and policymakers, business leaders, and entrepreneurs. Sandeep Kumar Panda, PhD is an associate professor in the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence at IcfaiTech (Faculty of Science and Technology), ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education, Hyderabad. His research areas include artificial intelligence, IoT, blockchain technology, cloud computing, cryptography, computational intelligence, and software engineering. Ramesh Kumar Mohapatra, PhD is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, Odisha, India. His research interests include optical character recognition, document image analysis, video processing, secure computing, and machine learning. Subhrakanta Panda, PhD is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, BITS-PILANI, Hyderabad Campus, Jawahar Nagar, Hyderabad, India. His research interests include social network analysis, cloud computing, security testing, and blockchain. S. Balamurugan, PhD is the Director of Research and Development, Intelligent Research Consultancy Services (iRCS), Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India. He is also Director of the Albert Einstein Engineering and Research Labs (AEER Labs), as well as Vice-Chairman, Renewable Energy Society of India (RESI), India. He has published 45 books, 200+ international journals/ conferences, and 35 patents.