ERIC Number: EJ1188171
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1743-9884
EISSN: N/A
Platform Learning and On-Demand Labor: Sociotechnical Projections on the Future of Education and Work
Learning, Media and Technology, v43 n3 p326-338 2018
Platform learning harnesses the operating capabilities and logics of digital platforms such as Uber and Amazon to imagine synergies between on-demand labor and on-demand learning, transforming living into learning, and learning into labor. This paper seeks to make three original contributions to critical analysis of platform learning. First, as an analytical foundation, it brings together two distinct strands of scholarship on the evolving relationship between learning and late capitalism, and the digitalization of education policy and governance, synthesizing them in relation to questions concerning labor and work in the emergent on-demand economy. Second, it draws on these ideas to engage the learning and work projections of two strategic forecasting organizations, Institute for the Future and Knowledge Works, as case studies of platform learning. Third, the last section of the paper builds on the sociotechnical projections of these organizations as the basis for a critique of the political economy of platform learning, highlighting four areas requiring further inquiry: (1) value extraction; (2) exploitation of labor; (3) efficacy and inequality; (4) imagination.
Descriptors: Education Work Relationship, Electronic Learning, Social Systems, Educational Policy, Futures (of Society), Prediction
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A