One response to the apparent threat to ‘the human’ posed by contemporary theory and technological change is to try to focus on what it is that is most valuable and most essential about ‘being human’, and to use that idea as a way of re-grounding our practice, our ethics, our politics and our world-view. In this week we will look at various examples which take this broad stance. 

So here in week 3, we are looking at examples of approaches which respond to the apparent threat to ‘the human’ posed by technology by re-asserting the importance of what is (arguably) irreplaceably valuable in human ways of being and learning. Remember that here we are considering the view that human nature and human ways of being are in some sense under threat by technology, and that this has the potential to undermine the basis of our commitment to humanist ideas which underlie many educational philosophies and approaches to practice, such as equality, freedom and autonomy. There are other views on this, of course, and we will be covering some of them next week. 

In addition to the content, look out for the following activities during week 3: 

• Our competition is running! Find out more about how to take part.

• There's a Google Hangout, which will be available to view live on our Coursera announcements page, our Google Plus page, and YouTube. It will also be available afterwards as a recording on our YouTube channel. To watch the hangout live, go to the announcements page in Coursera at the following time: 

Friday 21st November at 17:00 GMT