Enclouding education
Ben Williamson,
Code Acts in Education,
Jul 22, 2022
This article looks at the deployment of the cloud to support education (a practice that is well-entrenched, I would observe) and identifies five areas that require analysis: "corporate cloud enclosure of public education, enhanced extraction of economic and data 'rent' from the education sector by cloud operators, expanding infrastructural power over the edtech ecosystem, extension of capacities of automation and anticipation in education practice, policy and governance." The overarching concern being expressed is that the cloud is mostly a provate commercial space, and so the use of the cloud by education entrenches the corporate position as an education provider. There are risks, to be sure, but I'm not thinking anything like a non-corporate cloud deployment is in the works right now. Nor does it make any sense to not take advantage of what the cloud can offer. So, yeah, "taking up an advocacy position against cloud infrastructures or platforms" doesn't make sense. What does make sense (as always) are regulatory environments, taxation policies and service provision agreements that serve the public interest.
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