Some ideas and two cases
This blogpost was very much an exercise while in dialogue with the other two colleagues on our journey to “quilt” the common carpet of a book about the need of deconstructing the myth of “free” Educational Technologies. The book is under preparation with Cristóbal Suárez and Pablo Rivera-Vargas. Our story started earlier, and our thousand hours of conversation saw the first product in the article: EdTech myths: towards a critical digital educational agenda.
Free Edtech is a myth. Let’s take that assumption for granted, and it’s not me to debunk the idea, but relevant literature on the problems of platformisation and datafication. I will particularly refer to the studies by Komljenovic & Williamson, 2022; Williamson et al. 2023, but colleagues are also exploring the problem in the Spanish and Iberoamerican contexts. See, for example: Parcerisa et al., 2022; or Jacovkis et al., 2022; Saura, 2023.
Resonating with Tel Amiel in a chapter that I had the opportunity to read in advance (it should be published in October 2023), “Resisting the ever-growing techno-corporate mammoth in education and extractive surveillance demands: (1) having a critical consciousness, (2) learning to engage collectively, and importantly, (3) identifying possible alternatives and strategies to deploy when working as an educator” (Amiel & Rozário Diniz, forthcoming).
I proposed elsewhere the idea of “educational data activism“. Nonetheless, I keep on reflecting on: the practical side (how, when, and with whom) and the more philosophical side: which are the basis that enables us to think about alternative technological ecosystems, or also, alternative technological governance and imaginaries?
I resound in the already well-known motto of ecopolitical activisms at the World Social Forum: “Another world is possible”.
Gratis: the longstanding debate in Edtech
The Open Source collective has a longstanding tradition regarding what “gratis” is, as software supplied without need for payment, and libre, which brings to the forefront the idea of something that can be used with no restrictions, in liberty. Thousands of volunteers collaborate to produce open source code for projects; the gratuitousness is hence taken beyond the individual possibility of making use of a common good. The example of UBUNTU, a Debian-based Linux distribution that supports both free and paid software, demonstrates this point very well. The Open Source collective decided to name this product in this way, adopting a Zulu and Xhosa African locution that answers the Western rationality of ownership. It literally means “of the human being” and theorises a bond of ethical exchange that unites all of humanity. Desmond Tutu (2011, p. 22) says:
(Ubuntu) is the essence of being human. It speaks of how my humanity is caught up and bound inextricably with yours. It says, not as Descartes said “I think therefore I am” but rather, “I am because I belong”. I need other human beings in order to be human (…) Ubuntu speaks of spiritual attributes such as generosity, hospitality, compassion, caring, sharing. You could be affluent in material possessions but still be without Ubuntu.
Basically, the Open Source philosophy calls for code to be open source so that from the humanity that contributes, it goes back to the humanity that needs it, in a bond of creativity, solidarity, and activism, as values that oppose commodification and profit. This is made clear in the Ubuntu project’s introductory page: (https://ubuntu.com/community/ethos/mission)
“In an era where the frontiers of innovation are public, and not private, the platforms for consuming that innovation should enable everyone to participate. That is the vision for Ubuntu and Canonical, which motivates us to enable a wide diversity of open-source communities to collaborate under the Ubuntu umbrella”.
This same source also emphasises the lengthy history of openness in computer science: a collaborative force that has been strong since the 1950s. This early community was responsible for the creation of several of the earliest operating systems, software, and the Internet itself in 1969. Open source was first coined in 1998 as a result of the free software movement.
Thousands of computer scientists are involved in this educational movement, as in other spheres of human activity. It includes developers who embrace these principles by forming projects and activist groups in which free software appears as a fundamental element. Indeed, the discussion about gratuitousness extended to the citizen’s rights to access publicly funded science or education. As a result, the open source movement was considered inspirational for open science and education (Peter & Deimann, 2013). In this case, the idea of public funding was intertwined with the Latin principle that the res publica is a collective patrimony, or ager publicus, according to the concept outlined early on by Cicero (I, 25–39, in Nenci, 2008). A gratis service or good that is public has an actual cost for all the people, but there is also an underlying idea of redistribution of power, which in time recalls the basis of democracy. Therefore, while this movement struggles to achieve openness and freedom in digital technology development and usage, it also highlights where the cost of such goods can be placed: in collective collaboration and intelligence. Gratuitousness is an emergent property of such a system of collaboration. We can perhaps liaise with Floridi’s focus on the need to develop new paradigms for the ethics of information and hence of digital technology: the problem is not what we can consider res publica, but it is about caring for the relations that make us social—our ratio publica.(Floridi, 2023, p.xiv)
Tellingly, the Open Source movement has been the driving force behind offering active opposition and searching for alternative responses to Big Tech software, which aggressively entered the global market and was adopted also in the public system. Several collectives adhering to the principles of open and libre software are currently struggling to offer alternatives in a context where most educators feel powerless or, perhaps, driven by a feeling that they have no control over the digital infrastructures that exist today (Raffaghelli, 2022). After several decades of activism for an alternative software culture, the discussions of these groups appear as “niche” struggles that move into marginal zones with respect to the massive use of office automation packages such as Microsoft Office or Apple since 1995 and, a decade later, social networking platforms such as Facebook.
Let us briefly look at two such examples.
Alternative worlds: “gratis” as a community cost
The first comes from the community “Clementina: Software, Hardware y Cultura Libre en Educación” in Argentina, named after the first computer used in that country for scientific purposes https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clementina_(computer) . The group, which currently has 631 central members with thousands of participants and students benefitting from its activity, continuously discusses free applications, shares resources, and organises courses and webinars for teacher self-training (see their website, https://clementina.org.ar/). Its more advanced members actively participate on GitHub by developing parts of the solutions discussed in the group. All the work is voluntary, i.e., not funded, and aims at the political commitment of its members in relation to Open Source software policies in Argentine education. In this sense, the work of the group is strongly linked to the adoption of the Huayra system. https://huayra.educar.gob.ar/ “the first free operating system developed by the National State that includes a selection of software ideal for classroom work“. Its philosophy can be found in the manual “The Living Spellbook of Huayra Linux” and starts from a fundamental question: “What does national sovereignty have to do with software?” (p. 5). This opening paragraph relates the concept of sovereignty as an act of defending the self-determination of a people, of their own public and national education as an instrument, and of a technology that responds politically to this objective. On page 6, before moving on to chapters linked to the installation of Huayra, the mechanisms of the platform economy are explained, from data capture to programmed obsolescence. These aspects go beyond simplicity of use and apparent “income” in an economy based on “digital competition”: they force the user to consume a certain product, which, in its free presentation, imposes the high symbolic price of “resorting to a single programme” that “should be bought” (p. 8).
Although the group has a strong presence and acceptance linked to political practises, interviews with Argentine teachers from different parts of the country found that many prefer the “dual-boot with Windows” because otherwise “we will exclude our students from a global economy, although don’t think that this does not cause me much doubt” (FR., secondary school teacher in the Province of Buenos Aires, public school, interviewed in 2022). In another interview with a server manager at a public university in the Province of Entre Ríos, it emerged that “I would tell you that it is impossible, after the demand for the use of technologies that we have had, to continue maintaining our servers. I attended a course with Amazon in Capital, Argentina’s capital city, and what they provide as a service is impossible to match; it is excellent and solves all our headaches, from storage and servers to applications that facilitate the speed, security, and compatibility of the software we use” (JP, technician, interviewed in 2022).
It is clearly evident what Williamson et al. (2022, p. 232) indicate, i.e., how the development of platforms and especially Amazon has implications like increasing private-sector power to define the future of education and its public values, a realignment of education to match the purported demands of the digital economy, algorithmic control of pedagogic and curricular processes, and the delegation of political authority in education to automated decision-making. In that sense, cloud infrastructures, and APIs shape the affordances that later address the degrees of freedom of technical staff and teachers. Williamson et al. (2022) call this a new governance, the basis of which may be considered free, but its ultimate purpose is not: in fact, cloud computing services have a high cost that usually has to be borne by the state through specific contracts. So training is initially oriented free of charge (e.g. through Summit 2022, OSAM, 2022); but then costs appear linked to the “job opportunities” offered by Amazon through other providers (e.g. courses offered by UNICHRONE, https://unichrone.com/ar/aws-solutions-architect-associate-training/buenos-aires ).
The other extremely important case in terms of revealing the non-free logics of platform education is based on the action of the XNET collective in Barcelona. This group, whose activation began during the second month of the pandemic, denounced the massive entry of Google Classroom as a “free” private platform in public educational centres (https://xnet-x.net/es/no-autorizar-google-suite-escuelas/ ). At that time, XNET invited people not to sign the “naïf” petition to authorise such a platform as a medium. The action of this collective, based on a non-governmental association, developed through the activation of a local network of digital activism, which involved small software production companies and the municipality of Barcelona as a funding body. This action was supported by an intense activity of study and networking with universities and the European Commission, to give birth to what was called the “Digitalització Democratica (Democratic Digitalisation)” or DD project. It sought to promote a debate on the democratic use of technologies, which according to the “Declaration for a Democratic Digital Education” (Bayo et al., 2022) with digitalization as a transition based on human rights and cooperation, by design and by default; one that respects democratic sovereignty, in the sense of a digitalisation in which even the smallest actor in the democratic architecture, i.e., every citizen, can disintermediately control the use and destination of the content created and the data generated (European Parliament and Levi, 2022, p. 1).
These have been the sources of inspiration for a joint and coordinated work of digital transformation politically oriented to live technology as a means of democratic expression, on a basis already active and present in the relationship between public and associative entities in Barcelona. In this sense, digital competence and digitalisation are not experienced as neutral and individual events of skill acquisition whose first level of entry is “free”. This gratuitousness is deconstructed technically and politically, thinking of technology as a tool for community development. In fact, the proposal of “Democratic Digitalisation” (DD, https://xnet-x.net/ca/demostracio-eina-digitalitzacio-democratica-educacio/ ) is based on a digital transformation that is equipped with tools that are:
Integrable and interoperable: free, pre-existing, and consolidated software tools (such as Moodle, Nextcloud, WordPress, Big Blue Button, Etherpad, OnlyOffice, and Keycloak). Schools can actually decide what digital infrastructure they want to use and change it if they want to.
Auditable, legal, and open: “public money, public code” as a fundamental principle Not only should the code be public, but the data and content provided by the user should also be used in a transparent way.
Respectful of digital sovereignty: personal data, content, communications, and all digitised information of students, teachers, families, the entire educational community, and the school are stored on servers that they decide and monitor.
Promoters of diversified forms of literacy, that is to say, more than competition, a political-identitarian positioning with respect to technology that is aware not only of the uses and functions of technology but also of its business models, of the way it works with what we leave in the digital space, that is to say, our data. And most especially, to see in that approach the possibility of challenging, not individually but at the community level, technologies that have abusive or intrusive approaches.
This proposal assumes the cost and makes it clear, with families and with the municipality of Barcelona, as well as with a network of local SMEs, to maintain this sovereignty. It is clear that technology has a cost, and that free is a simple and false gimmick that diminishes the capacity for democratic practise in this community. Here again, the question is about the capacity to sustain this collective effort. The group appears cohesive, but its driving force lies in the activism of two central components. Without active funding and political support from the municipality of Barcelona, the project would be impossible. In this sense, local groups can contest policies that are predominant at the national level (i.e., mass adoption of BigTech platforms).
In their recent study, Komljenovic & Williamson (2023,p.203) point out that ” education overall is seen as an attractive investment opportunity since it is far less capitalised in comparison to other sectors, such as healthcare“. However, these authors also point out that “In the investor’s gaze, the value of the business is not seen as its market price now, but its prospective earning power (ibidem, 205).
The two examples mentioned above indicate the presence of collectives that have understood these logics and that, from a political agency perspective (Kuhn & Raffaghelli, 2023), rather than a technological perspective, configure solutions based on their own installed capacity and competences, understanding the cost that this implies. They deconstruct Big Tech’s gratuitousness, understanding that the real price of it is the loss of technological sovereignty, that is to say, the loss of the user in favour of the investor’s gain in power.
One could ask whether this is just a David versus Goliath struggle.
By me
Whenever the answer is yes, these small initiatives cannot cope with the strength of big tech companies, and we might be asking the wrong question. This question and the hopelessness it implies with the answer just bring to the fore our passive acceptance of hegemonic power and its instruments, particularly captology (or the ability to persuade us that this is the only possible way as a user). However, in a context where the word ethics often appears linked to AI developments and the platform providing data to feed algorithmic solutions, a counter-hegemonic exercise of questioning one’s own sovereignty and agency brings a real ethical perspective.
Therefore, even if these initiatives were born and died on the same day, they would represent a search by minority collectives for different solutions. At this point, accepting gratuitousness is unethical, for it is a renunciation of a democratic exercise: being a minority searching for alternatives and unveiling the power under the mask of gratuitousness is the real ethical option.
Along my writing exercise, I answered to one question I posed to myself.
The idea of “free” software has been pretty predatory. We all enaged with apps and social media as famelic consumers, with no reflection of what was lying behind. There is no “freedom” in the free models we embraced. Everything comes at the cost of human effort. Therefore, untangle the idea of free edtech offering the alternatives as possible worlds of practice, brings to the fore that there is no free software, but we can build gratis as ratio publica. And there is a cost, indeed, but I guess it is a political cost.
References
Amiel, T. and Rozário Diniz, J. (forthcoming) Advancing ‘openness’ as a strategy against platformisation in education. In Czerniewicz, L. and Cronin, C. “Open Education for Good. Teaching and Learning Futures”. OpenBook Publishers.
Cicerone, M.T. (2008), De Re Publica (La Repubblica: Introduction, Translation, and Notes from Latin to Italian by Francesca Nenci), BUR.
Bayo, C., Monterde, A., Rodríguez, A., Persson, J., Couldry, N., Ávila, R., Serra, A., Cabello, F., Raffaghelli, J. Posada, F., Klas, I., Steeves, V., Vico, F., Raffery, P., Arsgames, Saura, G., Cuillo R. (2022) Declaration for a democratic and open digital education. Proposals for improving digital competence frameworks and programmes. Online access: https://curso.digitalizacion-democratica.xnet-x.net/declaration-democratic-digital-education/
Floridi, L. (2023) The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. Principles, Challenges and Opportunities. Oxford University Press.
Huayra Linux Team (open date) The Huayra Linux Spells Live Book”. Open access online: https://github.com/HuayraLinux/libro-vivo-hechizos/releases/download/rev2/Libro-de-hechizos-de-Huayra.pdf
European Parliament & Levi, S. (2022). Proposal for a sovereign and democratic digitalisation of Europe: Reflection paper. Publications Office of the European Union. https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2861/671958
Jacovkis, J., Rivera-Vargas, P., Parcerisa, L., & Calderón-Garrido, D. (2022). Resistir, alinear o adherir. Los centros educativos y las familias ante las BigTech y sus plataformas educativas digitales. Edutec. Revista Electrónica De Tecnología Educativa, (82), 104-118. https://doi.org/10.21556/edutec.2022.82.2615
Komljenovic, J., & Williamson, B. (2023) Capitalising the future of higher education: investors in Education Technology and the Case of Emerge Education. In Komljenovic, J., & Williamson, B. (2023) Research Handbook on the Transformation of Higher Education (pp. 207–221) Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800378216.00021
Kuhn, C., Raffaghelli, J.E. (2023). ‘Something Important is Going on With Data’: Educators’ Search for Political Agency to Act as Professionals in Complex Datafied Contexts. In: Hayes, S., Jopling, M., Connor, S., Johnson, M. (eds) Human Data Interaction, Disadvantage and Skills in the Community. Postdigital Science and Education . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31875-7_4
OSAM. (2022, May 25). AWS Summit 2022: Amazon’s Cloud Computing Division Expands to More Regions Around the World. Osam.Io. https://www.osam.io/post/aws-summit-2022-amazon-s-cloud-computing-division-expands-to-more-regions-around-the-world?lang=en
Parcerisa, L., Jacovkis, J. ., Rivera-Vargas, P., & Herrera-Urízar, G. (2022). Corporaciones tecnológicas, plataformas digitales y privacidad: comparando los discursos sobre la entrada de las BigTech en la educación pública. Revista Española De Educación Comparada, (42), 221–239. https://doi.org/10.5944/reec.42.2023.34417
Peter, S., & Deimann, M. (2013). On the role of openness in education: A historical reconstruction Open Praxis, 5(1), 7–14. https://doi.org/10.5944/openpraxis.5.1.23
Raffaghelli, J. (2014). A Scholarship of Open Teaching and Learning: A New Basis for Quality in Higher Education Formazione & Insegnamento, 12(1), 211-244. Retrieved from https://ojs.pensamultimedia.it/index.php/siref/article/view/380
Tutu,D. (2011), ‘Ubuntu: On the Nature of Human Community’, in God is Not a Christian. Random House.
Saura, G. (2023). Editorial: Nuevas formas, nuevos actores y nuevas dinámicas de la privatización digital en educación. Profesorado, Revista De Currículum Y Formación Del Profesorado, 27(1), 1–10. Recuperado a partir de https://revistaseug.ugr.es/index.php/profesorado/article/view/27809
Williamson, B., Gulson, K., Perrotta, C., & Witzenberger, K. (2022). Amazon and the New Global Connective Architectures of Education Governance Harvard Educational Review, 92(2), 231-256. https://doi.org/10.17763/1943-5045-92.2.231
En el jardín net 