Why EdTech is always right: students, data and machines in pre-emptive configurations

Pre-emption describes a system of automated knowledge creation and intervention that steers the present towards a desirable future, by building on knowledge derived from the past. Folding together temporalities makes it impossible to disprove pre-emption. It is increasingly featured within EdTech, introducing new forms of automated governance into education. This paper examines how students and EdTech come together to make pre-emption possible, not as a single event but as a normalised governance instrument. For this, we introduce Lucy Suchman's idea of configuration to examine pre-emptive EdTech. The paper presents three openings into the configuration of students and pre-emptive EdTech. These include observations from an EdTech trade show; interviews with insiders of technology companies; and analysis of accepted papers to a learning analytics conference. We conclude the data used at the heart of pre-emptive EdTech seeks to exclude students and configures them as absent. Yet, its interventions have material consequences.

Automated summary

Pre-emption in EdTech refers to an automated system that guides the present towards a desired future by utilizing knowledge from the past. This paper explores how students and EdTech work together to make pre-emption a normalized governance instrument. Despite excluding students and configuring them as absent, pre-emptive EdTech interventions have significant material consequences.