The Twenty-first International Conference on Technology, Knowledge, and Society is brought together by a shared interest in the complex and subtle relationships between technology, knowledge and society. We seek to build an epistemic community where we can make linkages across disciplinary, geographic, and cultural boundaries. As a Research Network we are defined by our scope and concerns and motivated to build strategies for action framed by our shared themes and tensions.

A. Technology

In the long view of history, human progress is framed by technological epochs—the latest by digital computational technologies. These specific technologies have become signature change agents in all aspects of our domestic, working, and public lives. The objects of the transmission, capture, and display of digitized data weaved into our physical existence. Human designed algorithms are increasingly regulating the flow of information that comes to shape our opinions and actions.

There is always a utopian imaginary that runs parallel to technological epochs. A sense of a broader transformation of life in general that can be ushered in with a new “tool.” In the origin story of digital computational technologies, it was argued, that their very nature could expand the participatory possibilities for communicating actors, democratize knowledge and cultures, and allow individuals and communities to be generative agents of history.

In a comparative sense: how do we now evaluate the utopian origin story of this current epoch, as defined by digital computational technologies? If we look back to pre-digital contexts, in what ways have these technologies lived up to the original aspirations and readings of specific affordances? And as we move into a new epoch – a so-called fourth industrial revolution – defined by big-data, artificial intelligence, and the internet of things, what lessons can we learn to adapt and evolve from these current and prior epochs?

B. Knowledge

Cultural and epistemic production is part of our species characteristics. We are often told that we live in a knowledge society, as the marker for an epoch-defining post-industrial information age. But in a general sense, when has cultural and epistemic production not been integral to a human age? How have these elemental forces of social meaning-making not been also embodied in technological mediums that have structured human development?

At the same time, information has become an essential input in the digital computational economy. And there are material and immaterial realities to digital technologies that have changed our relationship to information production. In earlier times, information and communications technologies, centralized power, knowledge, and culture. They were built with heavy plant and physical infrastructure — the printing presses, the transmission stations, and the transport and distribution systems that only large corporations or the state could afford. They were dominated on a day-to-day basis by those with economic resources, political power, and elite cultural networks.

Within a utopian ideal, digital technologies were seen to allow for bottom-up structures of knowledge to emerge, building from the collaborative endeavors of knowledge-creating communities — in, for instance, workplaces, schools, and associations of common interest. In each case, they provided the means by which personal knowledge could be shared and transformed into common knowledge. From being receptors of knowledge, persons, organizations, and communities become makers and publishers of knowledge.

In a comparative sense: what are the underlying cultural and epistemic forces that shape the knowledge basis of technological ages? Do these cultural and epistemic forces serve as presuppositions, or as drivers of the "new" in and of themselves? And at a meta-level how do these forces become intertwined in pedagogies for educators, in content and delivery of knowledge practices for a digital computational age for formal and informal learning?
C. Society

Technologies always have, in some way, shaped the production of communities and societies. Under the historical umbrella of globalization, it is now almost taken as a given that technologies of interconnection— modes of transport, markets, and communication—increasingly challenge the central meaning-making functions and institutional authority of communities and societies. Digital information flows add complexity to this history, intensifying the interconnections of spaces of information, knowledge, and cultural production, in ways that generate new kinds of de-territorialized shared meanings, and allow for the creation of new types of affinities and relations of global social life.

In the utopian origin story, the very nature of digital technology offered new systems and logics of governance that could radically alter how we constituted communities and societies. Rather than being based on principles of centrality and uniformity, the digital could support a myriad of cultures, interests, and knowledge communities to flourish.

How do technological epochs shape the norms and values of societies? What are the ethical challenges, the notions of good citizenship, and ecological foundations that support these imaginaries of making communities and societies?


The Twenty-first International Conference on Technology, Knowledge, and Society features research addressing the following annual themes and special focus:

* Learning from Artificial Intelligence: Pedagogical Futures and Transformative Possibilities

THEME 1: CONSIDERING DIGITAL PEDAGOGIES

Sub-theme 1-1: Adoption and Integration of AI Intro Pedagogy

Development of AI-assisted e-learning environments
Utilization of AI for differentiated and adaptive instruction
Integration of virtual assistants, intelligent tutoring, or simulations for enhancing learners’ achievement and motivation
Harnessing the potential of ChatGPT and generative AI applications for productive academic purposes
Leveraging AI for efficient and effective teaching and learning

Sub-theme 1-2: Emerging Innovative and Transformative e-learning Pedagogies

Impacts on the advancement of e-learning and mobile-assisted learning approaches
AIoT (artificial intelligence of things) and advances in human-technology interfaces
AI, robotics, and machine learning programming designs and applications
Instruction on programming languages for AI applications (e.g., Python)
Creating immersive and inclusive experiences for digital landscapes (metaverse)

THEME 2: NEW DIGITAL INSTITUTIONS AND SPACES

Sub-theme 2-1: Critical Stances Towards AI in the Classroom

Ethical and transparent use of AI by teachers and students
Addressing the impact of clones, deepfakes, and humanization of AI
Mitigating the risks of artificial general intelligence (AGI)
Confronting bias and unreliability in AI-generated results
Development and implementation of AI detection and its consequences

Sub-theme 2-2: Teacher Training in the Era of e-learning

Issues of professional development and planning for technology-enabled pedagogies
Pre-service and in-service teacher perspectives and beliefs about AI and e-learning
Maintaining a caring pedagogy, community of practice, and teacher presence
The role of teachers’ technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge (TPACK)
Enhancing teacher training through experiential learning models

THEME 3: TECHNOLOGIES OF MEDIATION

Sub-theme 3-1: Impacts of e-learning on Teacher and Student Psychology

The impacts on technostress, including overload, insecurity, and uncertainty
The addictive, isolating, and stigmatizing effects of digital use
The potential therapeutic value of AI in providing counseling, companionship, and coping strategies
Satisfaction and thwarting of psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness)
Effects on exhaustion and burnout among teachers and students

Sub-theme 3-2: Impact of AI on Applied Linguistic Applications

AI applications for comparative and historical linguistics and language preservation
The present and future role of AI in translation and transcription
Applications for corpus analysis, computational linguistics, and qualitative data analysis
AI innovations for language teaching and learning and student engagement
Implications for language analysis (e.g., semantics, syntax, and pragmatics)

THEME 4: DESIGNING SOCIAL TRANSFORMATIONS

Sub-theme 4-1: A Social and Humanistic Perspective Towards AI

The role of humans in the development and training of AI
Promoting human experiences, emotions, and aesthetics
Conceptualizing AI in the context of diversity, equity, and inclusion
The potential of AI in narrowing digital divides and combating inequalities
A human-centered approach to the ethical development and application of AI

Sub-theme 4-2: Fostering Interdisciplinary and Communities of Practice

The universality of technology and implications for interdisciplinary teaching and learning
A multiple stakeholder approach for harnessing the advantages of e-learning
Assessing innovative applications among the sciences, social sciences, and humanities
Sustainability in student and teacher training, employability, and diversification
AI-enabled internationalization, globalization, and cross-cultural collaboration

Sub-theme 4-3: Digital Humanities and the Changing Role of Literature

AI-assisted literature teaching and learning
Assessment and evaluation of AI-assisted content in the study of literature
AI-generated content literacy (AI literacy)
Innovative uses of AI in literature
Big Data, computational intelligence, and literary studies


Theme 1: Histories of Technology
How do societies produce, become determined, and are seen as technologies themselves?

Living Tensions:

Long Histories – undersigning continuity and change
Humans and Machines – interfaces, mediation, and usability
Public or Private – considering social infrastructure
Ethics, Human Values and Technology – inputs or outputs
Open or Closed Systems – framing social architectures

Theme 2: Knowledge Makers
What are the epistemological foundations that shape technological epochs?

Living Tensions

Digital Meanings – multimodal communications and multiliteracies
Artificial Intelligence, Intelligent Systems, Intelligent Agents – the human and the machine
Data and Metadata – boundaries, functions and ownership of knowledge
Ubiquitous Learning – nurturing personal and common knowledge
-Digital Divides – access, participation, capacity development

Theme 3: Social Realities
What is the role of technologies in community formation, maintenance, and change?

Living Tensions

Diversity and Meanings: cultural sustainability and sustainable heritage development
Reconfiguring the economic equation: contesting “financial years” and “instant gratification”
The Global Village – a place inclusion or privilege
Framing Consensus – who do we include in our social considerations
The Virtual and the Real – the speculative capacity of social imaginaries
Sustainable Technology – media archeology as ecological roadmaps
Privacy and Security – navigating legal and regulatory landscapes