Resisting the final word:challenging stale media and policy representations of students’ performative technological encounters in university education

This article explores powerful, constraining representations of encounters between digital technologies and the bodies of students and teachers, using corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). It discusses examples from a corpus of UK Higher Education (HE) policy documents, and considers how confronting such documents may strengthen arguments from educators against narrow representations of an automatically enhanced learning. Examples reveal that a promise of enhanced ‘student experience’ through information and communication technologies internalizes the ideological constructs of technology and policy makers, to reinforce a primary logic of exchange value. The identified dominant discursive patterns are closely linked to the Californian ideology. By exposing these texts, they provide a form of ‘linguistic resistance’ for educators to disrupt powerful processes that serve the interests of a neoliberal social imaginary. To mine this current crisis of education, the authors introduce productive links between a Networked Learning approach and a posthumanist perspective. The Networked Learning approach emphasises conscious choices between political alternatives, which in turn could help us reconsider ways we write about digital technologies in policy. Then, based on the works of Haraway, Hayles, and Wark, a posthumanist perspective places human digital learning encounters at the juncture of non-humans and politics. Connections between the Networked Learning approach and the posthumanist perspective are necessary in order to replace a discourse of (mis)representations with a more performative view towards the digital human body, which then becomes situated at the centre of teaching and learning. In practice, however, establishing these connections is much more complex than resorting to the typically straightforward common sense discourse encountered in the Critical Discourse Analysis, and this may yet limit practical applications of this research in policy making.

Inspiring young people to engage in engineering education:The Aston University Engineering Academy Birmingham

This paper initially reports concerns about the falling interest in engineering and mathematical disciplines and looks at some of the reasons for this. It then discusses the aims of the Engineering Diploma - a qualification for 14-19 year olds in the UK - and the pedagogical research that that has informed the design and development. The paper highlights the key learning theories that support the delivery of this qualification and provides an example of how this pedagogy has been applied effectively through the curriculum partnership that has been developed between a consortium of schools in the Birmingham local authority, Aston University and employers. It establishes the importance of aligning the curriculum and articulating clear engineering progression routes from the age of fourteen to enable young people to be inspired and motivated towards careers in engineering. The paper presents the view of parents, teachers and pupils involved with the Diploma, during the first year, and the way in which the partnership is informing future developments in the delivery of engineering curriculum within the region. The success of this regional partnership model has resulted in the Department of Children, Schools and Families agreeing to fund the development of the Aston University Engineering Academy Birmingham. This is a school for 14-19 year olds that will open in 2012 on the Aston Science Park adjacent to the University. The final part of the paper looks at the benefits to the young local engineers of this initiative. © 2009 Authors.