We now turn our attention to a rather different perspective on ‘being human’ in a digital age: the notion that ‘the human’ is a social category which is made, not a biological matter-of-fact with a set of characteristics that are universally apparent. Where the films and readings in week 3 emphasised that we need to keep a focus on what is valuable in human ways of being, the examples we will look at this week instead explore how ‘the human’ is a flexible category, one we can change and re-make in the interests of, for example, a fairer society, a better life, a richer culture, or perhaps merely personal gain. We are looking here at perspectives which work to re-define what constitutes ‘the human’ - for better or worse - and what that might mean for education. 

To summarise, where week 3 was concerned with approaches defined by humanism, week 4 will be focused on posthumanism and how this might help us think about education and technological change. 


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

• This week you will start creating your digital artefact. This is the final assignment for the course, and you will submit it for peer assessment during week 5. Read more about the Digital Artefact here.

• There are two 'office hours' Google Hangouts, which will be available to view live on our Coursera announcements page, our Google Plus page, and YouTube. They will also be available afterwards as a recording on our YouTube channel. To watch the office hours hangouts live, go to the announcements page in Coursera at the following times: 

Wednesday 26th November at 08:00 GMT  

Thursday 27th November at 16:00 GMT