From Automation to Symmation: Ethnographic Perspectives on What Happens in Front of the Screen

Abstract

The work of automation in education is not automatic but needs to be ‘done’. Grounded in an ethnographic study which followed a Grade 9/10 class through their daily activities in a ‘regular’ high school for a year, this paper asks how automation is enacted by students and teachers, and what these practices imply for forms of knowledge and relationality. Inspired by feminist technoscience, and drawing on recent work on everyday automation, the paper suggests that the ‘auto-’ of automation in practice is very often more of a ‘sym-’, a ‘with’, in which students and machines co-produce something that looks like automation. Rather than ‘automation’, observing practices in classrooms shows practices of ‘symmation’. The paper elaborates on symmation scenes of realigning, revising and reworking relations. Automation is, in these scenes, deeply embedded in social relations, involving the processing of ability, difference and hierarchy. Rather than the industry hype of automation, these sets of socio-technical practices alert us to the messy, non-linear, contested, warm realities of education (and not just learning) in schools today. The paper identifies specific aspects of how these socio-technical realities impact knowledge and teacher-student relations.

Breaking the Magic of Automation and Augmentation in Swedish Classrooms

“…Methodologically, the theoretical framework rooted in relational epistemology advocates for an ethnographic approach, which means following actors with a focus on particular enactments: the mutual constitution of entangled socio-technical arrangements where bodies, voices, desks, algorithms, websites, sighs, chairs, apps, playfulness, weariness, languages, gazes, and much more produce and change everyone's world (Fenwick & Edwards, 2010;Wagener-Böck et al, 2023). A relational understanding involves different forms of researcher subjectivity, the incorporation of diverse methods for data generation and an analytical approach that permits the identification of patterns and configurations, allowing for unforeseen readings of and engagements with the data (cf.…”

“…Hence, something that may look like automation and/or augmentation due to the introduction of new technology might, instead of the 'auto' and 'augment,' be more of a 'sym,' a 'with,' in which students, teachers and machines co-produce actions (Wagener-Böck et al, 2023, p. 137). For this reason, inspired by Wagener-Böck et al (2023), we elaborate further on their ideas and suggest that both automation and augmentation in educational practice should be understood as a collaborative endeavour, a 'symmation.' In the analytical work in this paper we therefore adopt the term symmation when studying sociomaterial/technical enactments in classrooms.…”

“…The data encapsulated within the events was translated into English. Finally, the analysis of these events was conducted by employing symmation as an analytical concept (see also Wagener-Böck et al, 2023). Symmation was instrumental in examining the 'automation of teaching' and/or the 'augmentation of teachers,' as articulated within the events and supportive in distinguishing various facets of teachers' practices.…”

Will Artificial Intelligence Enable Open Universities to Regain their Past Glory in the 21st Century?

“…After all, education tends to be emotionally charged as an art and craft while AI is inherently rational as a science. Even the most seemingly "objective" work of administration (see Popenici, 2023) and the most trivial routine classroom activities such as roll call (see Selwyn, 2021) are of social and relational rather than purely procedural nature, hence not harmonizing with automation all the time (Wagener-Böck et al, 2023). Automation of education may lead to many harmful consequences.…”

Mapping and Tracing the Postdigital: Approaches and Parameters of Postdigital Research

“…This is a powerful perspective for understanding and dealing with complexity, because it challenges taken-for-granted conceptions of technologies, humans, and their combinations. It opens up productive postdigital analytical possibilities for complex situations, as evidenced in the work of Gourlay (2022a), Tyrrell andShalavin (2022), andWagener-Böck et al (2023). But is this the only ontology capable of seeing the postdigital and its refusal to separate digital, material, and social activity?…”