Abstract

The Digital Student: Beyond the Boundaries of the Body Eva Alerby & Niclas Ekberg Research topic and aim In the Nordic countries, as in many other countries in the world, there has been a massive shift in (higher) education towards distance education and online teaching. This shift is characterised by an increasingly common use of pre-recorded lectures and audio and video conferencing lessons and seminars as well as learning management systems for teacher–student and student–student interaction. In the midst of this, some universities introduce and use telepresence robots. A telepresence robot provides a virtual presence – or a bodiless presence – to, for example, a remote student who cannot physically attend the class(room). But what does it actually mean to be present in the (class)room, and how are interpersonal relationships affected when the student’s presence is transformed and situated beyond the boundaries of the body? The overall aim of this paper is to explore students’ bodily presence in the (class)room using the materiality of digital telepresence robots. More specifically, the focus will be on the considerations on (i) ethics and integrity, (ii) recognition and re-presentations of the Self and (iii) the significance of the dimension of ‘being-there’ – as a human condition of life as well as a pre-condition for educational relations and encounters. Theoretical framework and research design We apply different perspectives to explore the bodily presence of the digital student – beyond the boundaries of the body. Our analysis is based on the philosophies of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Alfred Schutz and Martin Heidegger. Merleau-Ponty’s theory of the lived body supports the analysis of the bodily presence in the room, whereas the addition of experienced social reality, suggested by Schutz, supports a re-consideration of presence and the formation of roles in education. Heideggerian ideas and concepts provide entries for an ontological understanding of the relational and spatio-temporal aspects of ‘Being-one’s-Self’ and what ‘Being-there’-with as well as the ‘Being-there’-with-of-Others might mean to students in digitised education. Expected findings/conclusions We illuminate and theorise the spatio-temporal and relational dimensions of (future) digitised education in terms of bodily presence in the (class)room. By moving into the unknown and uncertain, we explore the transformation of corporality in the digitised (class)room. Relevance to Nordic educational research The challenging demographic and economic conditions for higher education in the northern part of the Nordic countries lead to an increasingly intensive use of distance bridging and telepresence technologies. These technologies, in turn, mean that the practices, conditions and values of education are in a continuous process of renegotiation. To understand the meaning of these ongoing processes is of utmost relevance to Nordic educational research.