Reading Kathryne Hayles’ paper on ‘Unfinished Work: from Cyborg to Cognisphere’ a few interesting thoughts were precipitated.
Cognisphere is a term first coined by T. Whalen in 2000..
In Walen’s and Hayles’ definition of Cognisphere information transfer moves beyond the boundaries of Human to Machine (and vice versa) but instead embraces the information flow at a ’systems level’, the system being the entire planet, society at large and the as the medium the entire electromagnetic wave spectrum.
In this ‘holistic view’ the cognisphere becomes an extension of the currently experienced social and environmental spheres with the opportunity of lifting human consciousness to new heights, as expressed by Hayles (2006): ’the cognisphere gives a name and shape to the globally interconnected cognitive systems in which humans are increasingly embedded.’
Maybe this topic is worth further investigations, possibly as part of the Digital Essay project?
References:
Hayles, H.K. (2006) Unfinished Work: From Cyborg to Cognisphere. Theory, Culture, Society 23(7-8), 159-166
Whalen, T. (2000) ‘Data Navigation, Architecture of Knowledge’; paper presented at the Banff Summit on Living Architecture: Designing for Immersion and Interaction, Banff New Media Institute, 23 Sept.

After having done some of the readings I shall now make an attempt to present some thoughts on the above definitions:
Standard definition has it that the cyborg is an entity, a hybrid between human and machine, with the limitations of current technology putting it more on the human side than machine – but this may change. Given the penetration of technology in modern day society it may be assumed that in its broadest sense we’re all cyborgs, one way or the other.
Donna Haraway (2006) extends this view into the area of philosophy and politics, stating the cyborg to be ‘a condensed image of both imagination and material reality’. Furthermore she perceives cyborgs as ‘illegitimate offsprings of militarism and patriarchical capitalism’, a view which possibly ignores the potentially useful advances in medicine. .
The emergence of cyborgs for her are a reflection of the ‘techno-centric, male-dominated  and oppressive societies of the late 20^th century’, She portrays both a dystopian view of cyborg worlds as ‘the final imposition of a grid of control on the planet ….., the final appropriation of women’s bodies in a masculinistic orgy of war, and the utopian version of  a cyborg world where people would not be afraid of their kinship with animals and machines,, not afraid of permanently partial identities and contradictory statements.
Kathrine Hayles (2006) in her acticle tries to dissect the meaning of post-humanism. She describes posthuman as a ‘ historically specific and contingent term rather than a stable ontology’. She contrasts this with humanism, associated with the Enlightenment, of the human being with rationality and free will. In her view posthumanism is thus a transient form between our humanistic past and what she calles ‘Regime of Computation’.

References:
Haraway, D. (2000). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late 20th Century. in D Bell and A Kennedy, The Cybercultures Reader. Routledge.
Hayles, N.K. (2006). Unfinished Work: From Cyborg to Cognisphere. Theory Culture Society, 23 (7-8), 159-166.

Her article suggests that Cartesian mind/body dualism may be apparent and recognised in other ways, beyond the traditional cyborg concept. As an example Hayles details the detached perceptions anorexic individuals have towards their bodily features as an example of pre-cybernetic disembodiment – and I may add the same may be said about transsexual behaviour. Both of these human characteristics are indicative of the distinctness of the mind over its bodily manifestation.
Seen from a biological point of view this may implicate the human body as a (temporary) vehicle of the mind, in the same way as the body is a (transient) vehicle of genes. Just as genes use the body in order to be replicated and passed on (the Selfish Gene hypothesis) the human mind may be used by memes to be replicated by imitation and disseminated across a society.
Would this imply that the human body is nothing more than a stage for the two actors  to engage in a pas-de-deux? And would the two actors be equal or would one (the gene) influence and shape the other (the mind)?

Returning to Hayles’ and her depiction of humans as a ‘we as autonomous agents operating together to make a self’. As an example Hayles mentions her ‘sleep and food agents’ determining her behaviour; going even further to suggest that in thinking this way one is beginning to transform into a ‘posthuman collectivity’.
This disaggregated view of the human mind is co-incidentally extended by the experimental work of prosthetic cybernetic researchers such as Kevin Warwick who attempts to link his own somatic and cranial neural network using peripheral electronic devices in the shape of integrated circuits with the outside world to allow him to interact, control and manipulate computers or even objects physically. In his more recent research he also attempts to manipulate people with his mind and to broaden his range of senses to include the perception of ultrasound.

This is likely to be cutting edge cyborg research but will it lead to post-humanism?

I have to admit I am rather intrigued after having read Katherine Hayles treatise on ‘Towards embodied Virtuality’ second time round.

The essay presents not only a history of the perception of the Cybernetic Evolution but also illuminates the many facets of this topic from a number of different perspectives.

When reading it one cannot resist putting the article away several times and reflecting on the deeper connotations it raises.

The first point I would like to address is the statement of information as a (disembodied) entity flowing between carbon-based organic and silicon-based inorganic components.
Within this particular context information is defined more broadly then given by Wiener later on who states that information is information and not matter or energy.
I would rather define it as ‘instructional code’.
Within this context nature as evolved several layers of code:

The code of the (i) physical sciences in the shape of the quantum gravitational field, (ii) the  code of the atomic chemical world made up of the strong, weak and electromagnetic field forces, the code for biological including human life via the genetic (triplet) code and (iv) finally the binary code of the electronic age.
Each one of these stages has its own embodiment event in the form of (i) space-time and hydrogen, (ii) a multitude of molecules, (iii) cellular life including humans and finally in (iv) cyborgs and androids.
Given this assumption we could see humans already as embodied information and any electronic addition will only move this aspect onto a higher level, with the additional information just being packaged in a different format.

I will need to think this a bit more through and put it in context with other aspects of K. Hayles’ paper.

The last few days have seen a flurry of activity from my side – but sadly not on the MSc discussion board or WordPress blog but in the area of job hunting or recruitment.
Yesterday I have been serving on an interviewing panel (all day) for the recruitment of a learning technologist for another institution, tomorrow it is my turn to be interviewed for an Associate Lectureship at the Open University.
Although I hope that this course and module has put me in good stead to give it a good bash there is still ample to do to fine tune my case to fit into the OU online teaching and learning model.
I am not sure to what extent the use of technology has pervaded distance learnng at the OU although having listened to Martin Bean’s (the new OU Vice Chancellor’s) talk at ALT-C I would like to believe that this is now very much the case. Having said this nothing beats good old online pedagogy, with the use of technology playing second fiddle – we’ll see.
Below is a video of Martin’s inspirational talk at ALT-C.
http://alt-c.blip.tv/file/2612978/

This has been a week of two halves:
(i) in the early days there was the struggle with finding the right community, and the uncertainty of and frustrations with the subject matter, and
(ii) towards the end of the week the anticipation of seeing what the fellow students have produced, thus sharing in their experiences.
This has been group work of a different kind, where one works in the dark, on one’s own terms, for quite some time and as isolated as you can get in an online environment; all communication comes nearly to a standstill - it’s only at the end that the veil of uncertainty is lifted in the sharing process.  In my experience one has to be an advanced online learner to cope with and manage this approach effectively and it may not necessarily be suitable for a novice online learner.
Nevertheless it is an interesting formative feedback concept the tutors have come up with and I can see and appreciate its effectiveness in learning.
In most traditional formative assessments only the learner and the tutor are involved, on a one-to-one basis, without the power of peer learning being tapped into.
For this week 7 has been an interesting learning experience.

After having completed my digital ethnographic project I had to give myself a break from the studies for one day but I then found myself getting very excited about finding out what my fellow students have come up with and how they would identify online communities.
What I found was so intriguing that I felt immediately the urge to make comments on most of those I’ve read.
Most fellow students appear to have already been members of online communities for some time and were thus more familiar with this concept and its workings than I was/am?
I was pleasantly surprised by the diversity of choice although funnily enough the Irish theme did seem to show through more strongly. This diversity was also reflected in the way these communities appear to function, from the potentially confrontational, eerie (Sleeping cats), esoteric (Davidsfarm), commune-type (Bankeyfields Estate) to the embodied RP type (Virtual Dublin).
I personally not having experienced online communities before found their studies very interesting, not the least as it clearly demonstrates both the desire /necessity of people to communicate online but also the effectiveness of this environment for social dialogue.
Obviously the depth of bonding differed but its effectiveness is beyond doubt, and I have to admit that that Rheingold’s statements on virtual communities ‘as a bit like a neightbourhood pub of coffeeshop’ (cited in Bell) are probably not too far of the mark, despite the fact that it did not show so clearly in my particular community – but then this was driven by professional skills and not leisure.
In my view it would be an interesting extension of this study to find out whether there is a (positive) correlation between being an effective online ’social networker’ and one in RL ? Or in other words is participation on both platforms just a generic skill or are the two mutually exclusive?

Well – it’s done and it can be viewed here – apologies for the delay.

What a gestation and what a difficult birth – Caesarian or what?

It has been a roller-coaster and mainly downhill…  This was mainly Terra Incognita to me and as such this has been a difficult and arduous journey. For reasons stated in previous postings I find the subject area very difficult to adapt to and to digest and this took time.
The ensuing time constraints explain my rather unambitious approach to (i) picking the topic and (ii) choosing the medium.

On the positive side though it forced me to do something which I have not done before namely look at an online community more formally, critially and scrutinise more deeply how it works and what people do online and this has been very useful. Doing this on a platform which I intend to use more frequently in my profession is an added bonus.

So overall great relief and a little bit of pride to have done it, not an all-singing-all-dancing piece of work but nevertheless an achievement in itself.

As part of my student and staff training program in the use of learning technology I have decided to undertake a micro-study on participants in ‘how staff and students actually learn‘, with the questions losely centred around Howard Gardner’s learning modalities as they may apply in teaching and learning in our institution.

Five identical  questions were put forward to (i) all student freshers during their VLE induction,  (ii) all staff via an online questionnaire and (iii) mainly younger staff attending a f2f training workshop, using an electronic voting system. The two staff questionnaires contained an extra question about their age profile from which the mean age of the cohort was calculated (colours blue and red below, student mean age was 20).

The five questions put forward were all along the theme: How do you learn best? ,providing five answer choices as indicated in the graph below (on the x-axis, y-axis is given in %); preference for maths served as ‘negative control’.

There are several interesting though not necessarily unexpected trends apparent:

• There is a relative and steep decline in the preference for ”learning by reading as the average age decreases
• Learning by oral presentations (classical instructivism) is largely consistent between the different age groups but at a surprisingly low level
• There is a clear shift from ‘learning by reading’ to ‘visual learning’ from the 45 year age group to both the 35 and 20 year average age group
• There is a further shift from ‘visual learning’ to ‘multimedia-based learning’ (movie/animation) from the 35 year to the 20 year age group.

This study is very much in line with expectation from the Digital Native/Digital Immigrant/Digital Luddite debate endorsing the notion of a gulf between modes of teaching  of the older generation of academic staff and the learning modes of their  students. Younger teaching staff can bridge this divide to some extend but still fall short of catering fully for the students’ expectations.
It endorses the important role the use of new media can play in supporting learning but requires teaching staff to improve their media competency and students to enhance their media literacy.

We are now largely through the Digital Ethnography project – and I should have created some sort artefact/study on an online community of my choice - but I’m struggling.
I’m struggling with the entire part possibly because it is so remote from my everyday experiences. I have a limited personal experience of social online networks and communities (see previous posting) and I also struggle making sense of the Hines and Bell articles.
For me they are highly theoretical and overly verbous such that I’m unable to make use of them in my project.
I’m also not a social anthropologist and I’m not even a social scientist – my research methodology is experimental based on hypotheses.
So I will keep on struggling and I will put something together but it will probably be not very original nor innovative – and for that I want to apologise in advance.