Ignored Subjectivity in the Informational Panopticon: Restricted Classroom Interaction Under Technical Discipline

Abstract

Purpose

This article aims to provide a portrait of classroom interactions supported by information technology and discuss the complex impact of technical elements on teaching and the time–space distance of student subjectivity in a technology-dominated world.

Design/Approach/Methods

Based on Foucault's panopticism, this study examines a smart classroom in East Asia to observe classroom teaching and learning processes; conducts semi-structured interviews with teachers, students, parents, and other stakeholders; and analyzes the hidden mechanism of the smart classroom on interaction from the perspective of perceivers.

Findings

The smart classroom has the distinctive structural features of a Panopticon. Artificial intelligence, which coalesces cultural capital through technological authority, has a significant capital advantage over students, producing a false spectacle of efficient learning. Panoramic surveillance causes the “backstage” of students’ roles to be gradually consumed by the “front” and makes students exhibit “make-work” behavior. Refined information management mechanisms produce invisible digital walls that separate interactive groups, making it difficult for students to obtain sufficient information about the gestures and behaviors of their classmates to interact effectively.

Originality/Value

This study reveals the ignorance of human subjectivity in the orientation of instrumental rationality by understanding the expressions of witnesses.

Because the high efficiency of information technology can meet the realistic needs and desires of educators and students, its application is regarded as crucial for promoting educational development. An increasing number of technological tools have been introduced in classrooms to facilitate the modernization of instruction. Consequently, smart classrooms have become a new model, generated by the application of technical elements in traditional classrooms (Huang et al., 2019). With the emergence of an information and technology-centered society, there is growing interest in smart classrooms that can engage learners through the addition of technology. However, the introduction of this technology has many limitations in terms of obtaining the desired results (Jo et al., 2016). Stakeholders tend to hold a deterministic view of instruments as enhancers of learning and pedagogy (Luckin, 2010); however, digital technologies in education have rarely been examined in non-deterministic ways. Technology is ostensibly useful for people; however, in reality, they face the potential risk of being gradually controlled by technology (Zhang, 2016). Historically, unconscious control has been rooted in the assumption of causality between technology and education.

The ultimate goal of educational informatization is to promote students’ overall development. For example, the Education Informatization 2.0 Action Plan (Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, 2018) emphasizes the cultivation of students’ abilities in analysis and interactivity through informationized teaching (Wu & Wu, 2018). Singapore's current Educational Technology Plan calls for empowering students through self-directed learning (Ministry of Education of Singapore, 2020), while the European Union's Digital Education Action Plan (2021–2027) states that the use of innovative educational technologies can promote self-reflection on effective learning (European Commission, 2021). The introduction of advanced technologies provides facilitating tools for classroom interaction (Hawkins et al., 2013; Smith & Hardman, 2003), but the interplay between humans and technology requires further clarification. The determining power ascribed to the physical terminal and promises of personalization and automation have created a spectacle regarding “what works” in the smart classroom (Perrotta, 2021). To promote the positive integration of technology and education, researchers must draw vivid behavioral trajectories from teachers and students in smart classrooms to trace the multiple social effects of data-based systems on pedagogy.

Some scholars have used the Foucauldian perspective to examine the subtle ways in which power shapes socio–technical relations (Barry, 2001; Introna, 2016). This study aims to explore the mechanism of power operation and patterns of interaction in smart classrooms. Unlike most previous studies that have focused on technology, the researchers in this study understand smart classrooms from the perspective of the people who have experienced it. Qualitative data were generated through six months of fieldwork involving observations of the status of smart classroom operations and in-depth interviews with various stakeholders. Compared to traditional classrooms, smart classrooms have innovative panoramic structural characteristics. The interactive behaviors of teachers and students are related to a fundamental way of operating in terms of power and visibility in the classroom.

Literature review

New features of classroom interaction brought by information technology

A smart classroom is an intelligent and efficient learning environment supported by a new generation of information technology (Liu & Sun, 2019; Yang, Pan et al., 2018). By widely applying intelligent devices such as whiteboards, augmented reality equipment, and body sensors, smart classrooms extend the physical space to virtual networks, forming a smart learning environment. A smart learning environment can provide personalized learning services (e.g., targeted evaluation and real-time feedback) to save time in instructional management and significantly enhance teaching efficiency. The core symbol of teaching in a smart classroom is a dynamic process that realizes three-dimensional interaction using information tools (Zhu et al., 2016). The process generates not only the two traditional social roles of teachers and students but also a new type of media role. Therefore, a unique “Student, Teacher, and Media” (STM) triangle model is formed in the environment of the smart classroom, and the three roles are interlinked to form a multidimensional interactive network.

Media is factored in the new classroom interaction through the whole teaching process, realizing the overall educational and ecological operation of the education function from macro to micro design operation, seamlessly connecting teaching links (Koper, 2014; Li et al., 2015). Before teaching begins, teachers and students can use intelligent terminals to “pre-interact” with their media roles to facilitate lesson preparation and preview activities. During instruction, a smart classroom equipped with real-time perception and artificial intelligence technology can provide optimization suggestions to teachers based on captured real-time information, helping participants adjust their nonverbal behaviors in time and improving on-site interaction effects (Kim et al., 2018; White, 2018). After class, artificial intelligence can review and analyze the behavior of teachers and students by relying on big data to objectively reproduce the interaction situation and provide a basis for reflection and improvement of classroom interaction at a later stage. Technology reshapes classroom interactions throughout the teaching process and profoundly influences their development.

Violation of students’ subjectivity in classroom interaction by information technology

It is undeniable that without anyone's “permission,” technology has entered the classrooms via the pockets of students and teachers (through their mobile devices), and has been integrated into the pedagogical process (Peters & Besley, 2015; Vadén & Suoranta, 2007). In the face of post-digital challenges, there is growing concern over the actual, concrete, social, and material influence of digital technology (Jandrić et al., 2018). Virtual digital technology introduces two-sided “real” consequences for education. With technological tools for teaching, people tend to rely on a sense of convenience and ignore the inhibited development of their own ability due to the substitution of tools. Thus, educators should not be satisfied with the sole application of technology. Additionally, they should be mindful that information technology still exhibits a strong instrumental nature in the field of education (Yang, Wu et al., 2018).

In the smart classroom, methods of accessing students’ personal data are unlimited. Once brain computer interface technology (BCI) is applied to the field of education, it will gain all information about the learning and entertainment of students (Zhu, 2020). The degree of data capture of individual data by new tangible sensing devices has gradually penetrated all aspects of life, and it has become increasingly difficult to protect students’ privacy. Artificial intelligence systems are able to collect a large amount of information generated by students, including individual privacy data (Tang, 2018). This arbitrary use is often disguised as “for students,” and is permitted by them. The Internet of Things (IoT) connected to smart classrooms can track users’ actions, habits, and preferences according to the data flow (Saini & Goel, 2019), and students have gradually become used to receiving “tailored” teaching services as the subjects’ dependence on technology deepens. Education evaluation relying on big data measures students’ value quantitatively, which will aggravate the utilitarianism and instrumentalization of education (Jin, 2019). The value of multiple subjects for students is curtailed, and the motivation and behavior of humans are controlled by a digital authority. Technology creates a body of data for students and implements regulation through data capture, data use, data tracking, data evaluation, and other means (Stein et al., 2002). The intervention of social web technologies creates a “virtual Panopticon,” potentially exposing students to the constant scrutiny of others (Waycott et al., 2017). However, this power operation process is impalpable. The superstructure instills a deep sense of self-discipline among organizational actors (Elmes et al., 2005), directly alluding to the metaphor of the Panopticon (Sewell, 1998). In the Panopticon, students may find it difficult to know themselves, and their subject rights may be secretly deprived (Liu, 2021).

Theoretical framework

The school—A typical Panopticon with the function of discipline

Criticism in the extant literature of the current situation of the smart classroom highlights that surveillance technology is “ignorant” of human values. When it is strongly involved in classroom activities, such ignorance does not mean that individuals’ behavior is untraceable; rather, it is reflected in the fact that technology directly ignores the complexity of individual feelings and emotions, and acts as an agent of individuals solely based on technological rationality. Monitoring technology, which is keen on achieving efficiency and control, constructs a standardized prison for each individual, restricting the expression of human subjectivity. There is no fundamental difference between a smart classroom dominated by technological rationality and a panoramic building under an observation tower. People who lose their shelter cannot be free, and the stripping of the “backstage” is designed to enforce discipline.

Thus, we based our argument on the concept of the Panopticon. Foucault argues that the school is a specific extension of the Panopticon, having a social disciplinary function (Foucault, 1995, p. 205). At the center of the Panopticon is a tower that observes the circumstances, surrounded by an annular building divided into cells by side walls. Individuals are placed in a grid of spaces difficult to interact with, but their behavioral representations can be monitored at all times by the supervisor in the tower through the windows in the cells (Foucault, 1995, p. 200). “As early as the medieval period in the West, the model colleges of the Jesuits, or the schools of Batencour or Demia, following the example set by Sturm, provided the general forms of educational discipline” (Foucault, 1995, p. 209). Students are fixed in their seats, but school administrators can enter the tower and observe their movements in the school, exposing all interactions that occur in the classroom to close scrutiny (Foucault, 1995, p. 200). School is an extension of the “national symbol” in the education system, and education should be in line with national development. Along with continuous progress in education and technology, the form and social functions of schooling have undergone significant transformations. The technological medium is a tool used to exercise power control and does not alter the fundamental nature of educational institutions. The modern schools, as basic-level social institutions permeated by power, remain typical institutions of discipline. School administrators, as leaders of the Panopticon, are subject to intense scrutiny by external stakeholders (Colman, 2022; Courtney, 2016; Perryman, 2006). To satisfy the obsession of the post-modern society with “efficiency” (Lyotard, 1984, p. 88), supervisors tend to use technological tools to enhance the effectiveness of teaching and management to perform an efficient spectacle that meets the expectations of the stakeholder. Simultaneously, the subjectivity of the students, who are “prisoners” of the annular building, is easily ignored.

In search of an expanded space for subjectivity: Analysis of interaction constraints in the Panopticon

The Panopticon is an architectural model that originated in prisons and was gradually abstracted to apply to multiple social scenarios. In the Panopticon, time and space are orchestrated to enable the micro-operation of power. Although its physical configuration could change with the evolution of technology, its essence is always to achieve efficient and normalized operation of the social machine through gaze and isolation. Space is an important tool in the implementation of power, even when it is created and organized by power. Prolonged surveillance and spatial compartmentalization in traditional classrooms locate and shape an individual's body and actions. With its functional goal, the Panopticon tends to meet society's demands and ignore individual emotions. The reinforcement of the instrumental value of education by modernism and the tendency towards standardization and normativity that has increased with the development of information technology have made students in the process of informatization of education extremely vulnerable to alienation as “instrumental human beings.” The subjects struggle to create a tolerable world within the confines of controlled space–time even though they are left with limited opportunities for resistance (Bushnell, 2003). Tension between the individual and the structure is inevitable, but the strength of the tension needs to be controlled within an acceptable range; otherwise, the Panopticon would be destabilized. It is important for educators to understand the characteristics and limitations of the Panopticon and understand the concrete manifestations of its influence on students’ subjectivity, and find space for student subjective action in the power structure of the Panopticon.

The traditional classroom, in which students are simply treated as objects of technological governance, is no longer able to adapt to the dynamics of information technology development and the pursuit of educational values. Education, as a social activity that nurtures people, should not only improve the cultural level of the population, but also focus on the individual development of each student. Although the smart classroom, as a variation of the traditional classroom, is likely to inherit panoramic implications, its physical form is very different from that of Bentham's Panopticon (Zhang & Chen, 2021). In this study, the researchers attempted to discover the informational devices that reflect the structural elements of the Panopticon in a smart classroom and understand how these new elements act on teachers’ teaching and students’ learning. Does the gaze of the supervisor still profoundly constrain the behavior of the prisoners? Are the walls within an annular building that prevent adequate interaction between individuals still in place? Is there ignorance regarding student subjectivity in smart classrooms? Is there room for students’ subjective actions within the power structure of smart classrooms? This study aims to answer these questions by presenting and analyzing empirical examples derived from real teaching scenarios.

Methodology and research design

The primary data used in this study are based on a case study of a key junior high school in a city in East Asia that has applied the smart service system in the classroom for more than five years and was awarded the title of “Smart Campus” at the municipal level in 2021. Smart campuses are key components of urban intelligence. The extensive use of information technology in schools can promote changes in teaching and learning styles; improve the information literacy of students, parents, and teachers; and narrow the digital divide in society at large. Furthermore, the smart campus facilitates the diffusion of new technologies in cities and contributes to the development of these cities into “smart cities.”

There are two similar classes in each grade equipped with a variety of smart services, including intelligent platforms, automatic monitoring systems, and virtual reality equipment. The seats in the classroom were arranged into groups and can be rotated. Students can obtain information from the visual equipment in the classroom. Each student used an iPad as a personal device to complete the learning tasks distributed by the intelligent platform. Parents can easily keep track of their children's performance at school on their mobile phones by downloading and using the Home–School Interactive Platform application (Figure 1). In addition, the school administrator hired three professional technical staff members to maintain the normal operation of the Smart Services System in classrooms of all three grades.

Figure 1.

Illustration of the smart classroom as the research case.

Two smart classes (Classes 1 and 2) in Grade 9 were selected for this study. There were 104 students (Table 1) and 10 teachers (Table 2) in similar classes, including two homeroom teachers (the Chinese teacher was the homeroom teacher for Class 1 and the math teacher was the homeroom teacher for Class 2). The teachers in the surveyed classes were all young and middle-aged educators who had developed proficient skills in utilizing media-assisted teaching either through attending pre-service or in-service training. Consequently, they possess good educational information literacy, which allows them to effectively integrate technology into their teaching and management practices. In other words, a smart classroom is equipped with intelligent terminals that can function fully by virtue of the educators’ competencies.

Table 1.

Basic information about the students in the sample classes.

Class	Total number of students	Number of boys	Number of girls
Class 1	51	26	25
Class 2	53	28	25

Table 2.

Basic information about the teachers in the sample classes.

Name (all pseudonyms)	Age	Gender	Subject	Degree	Educational technology background	Teaching duration
T1	34	Female	Chinese	Master	Attended pre-service and in-service training	9 years
T2	30	Male	Math	Master	Attended pre-service training	5 years
T3	36	Female	English	Bachelor	Attended pre-service and in-service training	13 years
T4	25	Female	Physics	Bachelor	Attended pre-service training	3 years
T5	30	Female	Chemistry	Master	Attended pre-service and in-service training	6 years
T6	32	Female	History	Master	Attended pre-service and in-service training	7 years
T7	33	Female	Morality and Law	Master	Attended pre-service and in-service training	7 years
T8	30	Male	PE	Master	Attended pre-service training	5 years

Note. Two teachers were substitutes, so they are not introduced in detail.

One crucial research method was the collation of field notes recorded by the researchers over six months in two smart classrooms based on their own experiences. The second part was an analysis of semi-structured interviews with teachers, students, parents, and other stakeholders in a smart classroom. Basic information on the teachers and students interviewed is presented in this section. In addition, some parents of the students were interviewed, and their relevant information was presented selectively in the interview transcripts. The teachers, students, and parents involved in this study provided their written consent, which included permission to present interview records and videotapes. The video material was privately processed by the authors. All coded data were anonymized and pseudonyms were used to identify the teachers. All materials were stored according to regulations. Ethical principles were strictly followed in accordance with national guidelines.

Extended front time: Ignoring individual motivation in interaction

Scheduling is crucial in implementing discipline. In a traditional classroom, time is serialized by timetables, term plans, grade divisions, and others. Students engage in learning and social interaction activities according to the set schedule, and gradually, their physical behavior and posture are programmed. A “well-trained” body should be efficient and exposed as a result of the individual being positioned in the temporal dimension. However, time in the smart class has changed because of technology intervention; thus, it is important to pay attention to diachronic experience of students.

Normalized interaction led by an efficient spectacle

Post-modern society, characterized by highly advanced information technology, is obsessed with “efficiency,” which is increasingly measured in terms of the ratio of “inputs to outputs” (Lyotard, 1984, p. 88). This gradually led to quantitative data becoming the primary basis for measuring the effectiveness of teaching activities. Users’ dependency on and “blind” trust in the algorithmic processing of their communication data can be considered a sign of disempowerment (Van Dijck, 2021). This section explores the concrete manifestations of efficiency in smart classrooms and the impact of efficiency-oriented power operations on teaching interactions.

I have no problem with the smart service system. After all, it facilitates our learning progress. Even if I had several suggestions or complaints, the system wouldn’t change because of one student.

—— A female student in Class 1, Grade 9

To meet the social expectations dominated by instrumental rationality, the intelligent service system of smart classrooms focuses on maintaining efficient management and saving unnecessary time through informational tools in the process of development and operation. As users of the system, students generate habitual perceptions through dedicated training and accreditation programs (Williamson et al., 2022). At present, it seems that most educators and educationalists are interested in considering the designers, developers, and vendors of these technologies at their word (Selwyn et al., 2023). An efficient spectacle can be realized through the construction of normalized teaching proceedings by pursuing excellent results and shaping an efficient time.

The technological subject relies on advanced technology to gather a large amount of cultural capital, and has absolute advantages compared to other individuals. This huge capital gap leads to an imbalance in human–computer interaction. Artificial intelligence conveys symbolic information containing digital authority at high speed along the single direction information pathway from “machine to human.” It guides students to focus on given suggestions and adjust their own behaviors accordingly to achieve the goal of “efficient instruction.” The emerging technological subject promotes the professionalization of power, and the media replaces teachers in speaking with students. Thus, it is difficult for individuals’ discourse to play an independent role in the absence of stakeholders’ power involvement or supervisors’ introspection consciousness.

I am convinced that the smart services system has produced a very targeted learning plan for myself, which I could not have considered as comprehensively on my own.

—— A male student in Class 2, Grade 9

Authoritative technological subjects and one-way data transmission channels restrict the flexibility of interaction. “Teachers and students are accustomed to staring at a technological subject's posture and act. However, the more they accept and admit that they are in the dominant image of demand, the less they understand their own existence and desires” (Debord, 1995, p. 13). Indeed, many social interaction processes described in the field of smart classrooms are infused with the assumptions of digitally based efficiency, precision, and accuracy. The administration and organization of individuals, classrooms, and campuses are driven by a logic of control that stems from confidence and certainty of everything “being on the system” (Selwyn et al., 2020). An intelligent service system models classroom interactions in a linear manner, considering the efficiency of students receiving information while ignoring the reverse process. A one-way interactive construction model is developed based on a single rational assumption. Beneath the surface of intelligent support, technological subjects simplify the instruction process during information transmission.

The direct cause of the human–machine unidirectional interaction phenomenon under the guidance of technology lies in ignoring students’ subjective initiative and oversimplifying the complicated teaching reality using a single rational assumption. In an interaction that reveres technical authority, students are convinced that passively accepting the instructions given by the technological subject can help them achieve their learning goals; thus, the external structure of unidirectional interaction is gradually internalized into students’ passive learning behavior patterns. As such, technology gradually steals words that belong to learners. As a tool to assist teaching, information technology is not only a product made by human beings, but also has a profound impact on interactive behavior. The unbalanced human–computer interaction mode gradually weakens the dominant position of students, and the human in the smart classroom is faced with the risk of becoming a subordinate of the technology. When an efficient spectacle is formed, the differential expression of the students’ subjective requirements is ignored.

Distorted interaction caused by Panopticon supervision

Bentham suggested installing blinds on the windows of the tower at the center of the Panopticon to enhance the invisibility of supervisors, leading to an unequal and unbalanced power mechanism formed inside the construction (Foucault, 1995, p. 201). Even if the supervisor in the tower was absent, the individuals inside the annular building would have no way of knowing it, and the entire disciplinary system could still operate smoothly (Foucault, 1995, p. 202). This section examines the impact of a supervisor's constant gaze on the students in smart classrooms. Moreover, if there was an annotated gaze, this section aimed to determine how students presented interactive behaviors in response to surveillance.

Sometimes, I log into the classroom video surveillance system from a computer in my office to know what is/was happening in the class.

—— T1, the homeroom teacher of Class 1, Grade 9

Smart classrooms are highly automated and excellent in this area. An intelligent system can operate normally within the framework of a predefined program and maintain high management efficiency within the teaching order. The development of information technology has updated Bentham's proposal: In the space of the smart classroom, even if traditional supervisors, such as school administrators or teachers, are absent, artificial intelligence can apply machine learning and deep algorithms to intelligently recommend learning resources, adjust the terminal environment, and achieve control of the class (Wu et al., 2019). The supervisor is gradually transformed from a biological person to a “bionic supervisor” with an abstracted social role. In this study, power was no longer fixed on a specific individual to the point of rendering the physical presence of watchers redundant (Brivot & Gendron, 2011). Progressive technology creates objective conditions for the separation of the supervisor's role from their body.

“It is at once too much and too little that the prisoner should be constantly observed by an inspector” (Foucault, 1995, p. 201). People are constantly exposed to panoramic environments, even though they cannot identify the specific circumstances of their supervisors. The panoramic interaction data collected by the terminal device are helpful in restoring the trajectory of the time and space of teachers’ and students’ activities in the classroom and tracing the path of teaching effectiveness. However, this leads to problems of limited expression of teaching subjects’ behaviors and suppression of interaction enthusiasm.

I know that there are security cameras in the classroom, which will always remind me not to quarrel and fight noisily, even during recess in the classroom.

—— A male student in Class 1, Grade 9

The classroom is peculiar for students, for it is not only the main “stage” where they play the role of students but also the area that will alternately become the “front” and “backstage” in different dimensions of time and meaning (Goffman, 1956, p. 77). Nevertheless, due to the continuous presence of the “bionic supervisor,” the “backstage” of the student role is gradually consumed by the “front.” Immersed in the prolonged monitoring time created by the digital panoramic field, individuals are prone to “backstage difficulties” and “make-work” behavior, suggesting that performers act in a relatively informal, familiar, and relaxed way while backstage, and are on their guard when performing in the “front” (Goffman, 1956, p. 80). Without the essential rest in the “backstage,” students are under intense pressure to express their behavior and have severely compressed space for autonomous action. Accordingly, the tension between the individual and disciplinary mechanisms increases.

Discipline is one of my main concerns when conducting outdoor classes. Occasionally, there is a conflict between students during free time, which does not happen in the classroom.

—— T8, the PE teacher of the two classes

When students are placed on a “stage” for a long time, they will habitually show “otherness” to avoid the negative consequences of their non-expected behavioral expressions being detected by the “bionic supervisor.” To avoid these negative consequences, students habitually present a distorted state, intentionally conceal some of their expected interactive behavioral expressions, or passively perform behaviors that follow their ideal role expectations. While effective in maintaining discipline, orderliness is attributed to individuals being forced to perform. When students return to what little is left of the “backstage,” their regressive behaviors will intensify, and their negative emotions will be the potential disruptions to the order.

Students need to play social roles according to externally constructed behavioral patterns and role requirements. However, their individual positive motivation is crucial in playing their roles successfully. The authenticity of classroom interaction is truly demonstrated by students’ real expression as the key participants of instruction. Classroom interaction, involving the participation of multiple subjects, is episodic and complex. The pervasive supervision implemented by “bionic supervisors” in the smart classroom reduces teaching to simple normative activities and destroys the authenticity of interaction.

The effective spectacle for classroom interaction in the informational Panopticon is characterized by a normalized form and distorted substance. The overemphasis on social expectations in schools has led to the ignorance of individual paths of interactive action. For students, rigid performances following discipline replace thoughtful devices based on specific situations and the gestures of others. In the classroom, this excessive instrumental rationality leads to patterned behaviorism. Students only need to respond to a stimulation according to the instructions given by artificial intelligence. Ignoring the free expression of subjectivity becomes the disciplined means to achieve efficiency.

Partitioned digital space: Ignoring collective engagement in interaction

The discipline depends on the calculation of time and the arrangement of space. The character of a disciplined space comes from the allocation of space, of which the classroom is a prime example. Rows in classrooms and corridors between classrooms divide the spaces into zones. Individuals move through the day or even throughout their educational career in separate spaces. Information technology has created a digital space for smart classrooms, the new characteristics of which need to be further explored.

Inadequate interaction due to strict management

The Panopticon executes group control by dividing the visible characteristics of the members inside the annular building, which is an important means of achieving a refined operation of power. The tower observes the annular building, and students have omens for the “bionic supervisor.” “They are similar to multiple cages or small theatres, in which each actor is alone, perfectly individualized, and constantly visible” (Foucault, 1995, p. 200). In this section, the authors want to understand whether “walls” still exist in the smart classroom. If so, what are the new formations? How do these compartments affect classroom interaction?

Each of us has a personal account. When I log into my account, I can check my learning record, grades, and other personal information, which cannot be seen by others except teachers.

—— A female student in Class 1, Grade 9

The key to realizing positive interactions is for participants to acquire relevant information and posture from others through effective channels and actively adjust their own behaviors accordingly. Although technology frees students from traditional, temporal, and spatial constraints of teaching, it places them in a new type of information compartment. Under a strict information classification and management model, it is difficult for interactive behavioral data obtained by an intelligent terminal to flow freely in a smart class, and students cannot access the unauthorized digitized information of others.

“Each individual, in his place, is securely confined to a cell from which he is seen from the front by the supervisor, but the side walls prevent him from coming into contact with his companions” (Foucault, 1995, p. 200). Opportunities for cooperation and communication among individuals were excluded. Although technology has created a “digitized body” for each student in the smart classroom (Brey & Soraker, 2009, pp. 1341–1408), the “digitized body” is fixed to the location—the authentication center will manage and control access rights of members centrally to ensure the uniqueness of their electronic identities. The information flow among students is automatically differentiated, organized, and archived to achieve fine-grained control of the “digitized body.” From explicit physical walls to invisible digital partitions, the technological tools chosen for the panoramic spectacle are all means of control to maintain the isolation of the “solitary crowd.”

The automatic marking of homework is very useful. I can promptly identify what I have done wrong. By following the hints, I can correct them, and I won’t have to communicate with my teacher or classmates about them.

—— A female student in Class 2, Grade 9

The automatic error-correction system embedded in the intelligent platform enabled students to quickly obtain standard answers and their own error analyses after uploading their assignments. Interactions between teachers and students triggered by error correction, which often exists in traditional classrooms, lose their original motivation. Under the statute of limited data access, symbolic information provided by intelligent platforms, mainly individual-targeted data, becomes the basis for students to regulate their posture and behavior. The emergence of personalized data technologies has contributed to intertwined factors that intensify the tension between enhancing learners’ control over their studies and diminishing their autonomy as active agents in the process of learning analytics (Tsai et al., 2020). The “digitized body” of related others is blurred, and partial information is presented. Although the presentation of partial information helps students focus on their own characteristics to avoid being distracted by the complicated flow of information, this focus is a passive action of the subject in the digital compartment and not a reflection of the subject's ability to use information comprehensively. Students in compartmentalized digital spaces face the problem of lack of information at their disposal. Smart classrooms provide instrumental support for individual learning in segregated areas and the necessity for interactions between individuals is significantly weakened.

By creating artificial compartmentalization, Panopticon can effectively avoid negative group effects caused by the complexity of internal members, which is a concrete means of penetrating power into basic units to achieve grid-based discipline. Collective interaction behaviors within a group have a two-way functional orientation. The Panopticon avoids the risk of collective behavior by forcibly separating the physical space. However, this triggered a rupture in the interactions between subjects. It is difficult to exercise students’ informational interactive abilities and form benign and positive interaction contexts. The information necessary for supporting cooperative and competitive behaviors among individuals is ignored because of the horizontal concealment of data on learned behaviors.

Entrapped interaction triggered by selected information

The openness of the Panopticon is designed to create an ideal artificial spectacle that will meet the monitoring requirements of stakeholders and maintain its own long-term operation. “In fact, any panoptic institution, even if as rigorously closed as a penitentiary, may without difficulty be subjected to such irregular and constant inspections” (Foucault, 1995, p. 207). The Panopticon is embedded in the larger social system as a microsystem, such as the internal gears of an engine, contributing to the normal operation of the overall society while maintaining the stability of its own internal system with the support and guarantee mechanisms of the larger social system. In this section, the researcher attempts to understand the openness of smart classrooms and the ways in which external stakeholders interact with teaching subjects.

Now I can regularly receive information on my mobile phone about my child's performance at school, such as homework completion, exam results, and disciplinary records.

—— Mother of a male student in Class 2, Grade 9 (40 years old, Bachelor's degree, a civil servant)

Technology strengthens the connection between classrooms and the external society through modern information transmission, which enhances the openness of instructional activities and allows families and communities to participate in teaching with the help of technological media. The intelligent service system is responsible for the data transfer of students’ attendance, performance, and test scores to parents’ terminals, allowing them to know about their children's performance without having to visit the school physically. However, parental involvement in smart classrooms is limited in most cases. They interact indirectly in the virtual space and time based on the data-based information presented in the smart classroom as representational symbols. Although parents have significantly more access to information related to teaching and learning in smart classrooms than in traditional classrooms, in the context defined by instrumental rationality, the information they passively obtain at the terminal still consists of data fragments filtered by the intelligent system under dominant technology. The information flow to be stretched in the classroom was cut mechanically. It is difficult for external stakeholders to proactively select and access behavioral data on internal members and understand the complex causes behind the presented results. Instant communication tools have expanded the discipline from inside to outside school.

The media materials presented in class are usually prepared by the teacher in advance. Sometimes, my teacher also encourages us to prepare some media content related to the subject of the class, which will be presented for three to five minutes.

—— A male student in Class 1, Grade 9

Due to the limitations of curriculum objectives, the presentation of social scenes in classroom teaching is mostly aimed at supporting limited curriculum content, and the degree of intervention is often limited to the framework of a teacher's established teaching design. Furthermore, students experience only partial scenes related to teaching content, and interactions across time and space are inevitably superficial and poorly generated. However, the Panopticon is not completely open to the public, and the intervention of new technologies has not eliminated the “walls.” The openness of the smart classroom is still limited by digital disciplines and technical authority, and a large amount of information flow beneficial to home–school–society interaction is confined to the interior of the classroom. However, the peripheral information compartment of the smart classroom still exists. Stakeholders are satisfied with the richness of the received symbolic representations while ignoring that their own gaze has been pulled by value rationality.

The informational Panopticon assumes the certainty of a relatively closed world designed to maintain the stability and orderliness of the microsocial system. The world is a “sightless” one that ignores or elides the complexities of the world in which children live. When multiple individuals in society swap meaningful symbols based on internal rehearsal, their minds and behaviors become intertwined, forming a complex social interaction network. Individuals in the interaction network are nodes that support the existence of the network and are restrained by the surrounding nodes. Information partitioning cuts off the connections between nodes, ignoring positive reciprocity and enhancing negative compulsions.

Discussion

When information technology is deeply embedded in a classroom, the smart classroom becomes a new variant of the Panopticon (Figure 2). The “technical core” of a smart classroom is an intelligent service system with significant panoramic structural features. Embodied terminals are scattered in the smart classroom space, where the original annular building vanishes, by playing the function of sensing the interactive behaviors of teachers and students. Data on teaching and learning collected by the terminals are uploaded along the information path and finally gathered in the intelligent platform and cloud, building a “technological tower.” Artificial intelligence becomes the “bionic supervisor” and monitors classroom interaction by virtue of aggregated data in the “technological tower.” The “bionic supervisor” follows instrumental rationality to construct ideal behavior patterns for students and discipline them. An invisible data barrier is formed because of the meticulous control of student data, and virtual walls hinder the information flow between individuals. As a microscopic system, the Panopticon maintains limited openness to external societies. External inspectors cannot directly determine the situation of internal members outside the wall. The relevant data generated by students in the informational Panopticon are clipped by the “bionic supervisor” and selectively presented to stakeholders.

Figure 2.

Structural characteristics of the smart classroom as an informational Panopticon.

In the context of the close integration of education and technology, while education enjoys a technological dividend to realize the efficiency of external support factors, new problems in classroom interaction have emerged under digital regulation, namely, the absence of individual subjectivity and the rupture of group relationships. Specifically, although the use of information technology has contributed to classroom reform while improving teaching efficiency and management accuracy, ignoring subjective factors affecting student development remains a crucial factor limiting the achievement of instructional goals. The educational support function of technology is significantly expanded, as it is the most prominent feature of the smart classroom. A positive linear correlation was observed between technology application and student development. The informational Panopticon forms knowledge of certainty. As an ideographic symbol, it influences students’ habits unconsciously as “habitual media” (Chun, 2016) and organizes who they are as people living in a world where things are already known, classified, and distributed. Thus, students in the informational Panopticon have difficulty defining situations creatively and generating self-awareness.

In educational practice, terminals and artificial intelligence systems update and strengthen the panoramic characteristics of the classroom. However, they are artificially insulated from scrutiny because of their functional value. Technological determinism leads to the notion that a technological solution exists for every problem or challenge students may face. The solution seeks to replace explanation with correlation to act preemptively, without the need for human judgment or comprehension (Andrejevic, 2020, p. 95). When we delegate power to machines, the actors’ intentions are ignored. The Panopticon is designed to monitor and divide members and is a disciplined institution in pursuit of silence and obedience. As a new variant of the Panopticon, the smart classroom demonstrates the essential characteristics of maintaining stability. Therefore, the informational Panopticon inevitably limits classroom interaction, which is fraught with uncertainty and can threaten the established order.

Conclusions and implications

This study examines the disciplinary role and influence of surveillance technology on students by monitoring smart classroom interactions. It argues that the construction and legitimization process of ignoring human subjectivity in smart classrooms requires further exploration. We cannot be satisfied with the understanding of the disciplinary system, because the discipline model is the final presentation of the value-transmission process defined by a specific classroom. The degree of correspondence between the value of individual pursuit and defined value determines students’ subjective feelings and coping strategies when facing discipline in the Panopticon. Therefore, students with different amounts of social capital demonstrate different degrees of freedom of expression in their individual behaviors when facing technical disciplines. This difference has gradually shaped the practical problem of an unfair educational process. To resolve the adverse consequences of the limited subjectivity caused by technological ignorance, the process of technological ignorance must be traced.

Once the process through which human beings are educated blindly follows and relies excessively on educational technology, all aspects of the educational process are strictly framed and restricted by technology and students are no longer considered “the object of education,” but rather alienated into “the product of technology.” Educational technologies can achieve accurate results by combining sophisticated designs with stringent controls. However, these seemingly ideal results are hidden but are ultimately a triumph of technology. In reality, people fall into the exquisite “technology network,” becoming the “spoilers of technology” as a result of education. The real consequence is that people in education fall into the beautiful “web of technology” and become “trophies” of technology. The smart classroom integrates statistical data and normalizes individuals. In this process, the personal qualities of some individuals in the group are categorized as general qualities in the statistics so that the so-called “average,” although it may originate from the group, does not mean that it can reflect the real situation of all individual students, and the “universal” statistics conceal the true situation of students. The “generalization” statistic masks the “variability” of individual student development and excludes students who lack motivation and experience learning difficulties. Whenever technology dominates the classroom, students’ initiative in developing their skills in the classroom becomes weakened, their emotional needs are neglected, and communication channels are narrowed, resulting in students becoming “objects” and educational technology restricting their individual development as a result.

Technological illiteracy is closely linked to the infiltration of social power and the pursuit of individual interests. Without technological tools, the transmission of specific values becomes more difficult and ultimately inconsequential. Thus, a smart classroom enhances the operability of the subject discipline process through the continuous integration of updated technical means. With the ongoing development of big data and artificial intelligence, supervisors behind cameras are no longer headmasters or teachers, but prefabricated algorithmic mechanisms. This supra-subjective gaze is not susceptible to the fluctuating emotions of any particular individual, but is based on stable, multi-subjective, and purposeful labor. Within the Panopticon, the digital gaze enabled by intelligent terminals becomes a mechanism for shaping ignorance. Although IT is inanimate, it gradually assumes a sovereign identity as it enters the classroom and becomes the subject of surveillance during teaching and learning activities. The subject of surveillance ostensibly becomes artificial intelligence. However, in essence, it is a community of interests that has completed its virtualization and attempts to transmit a utilitarian value orientation focused on efficiency. A bionic supervisor is constructed based on educators’ expected behaviors and preconceptions, making it difficult to match students’ diverse subjective claims. The lack of empathy between educators and learners leads to the ignorance of technical subjects. Technological tools designed to control and regulate are essentially variations in the behavior of educators who focus on utilitarian pedagogical goals and choose to deliberately ignore the multidimensional development of their students.

Thus, the legitimacy of the regulation imposed by external sources is questioned. Technical ignorance in smart classrooms seeks to legitimize actions by transforming the control mode from tough external coercion to conscious self-regulation. The demand for social control has shifted from incarcerating dangerous individuals to preventing offenses (Rose, 2000). While smart classrooms cannot entirely eliminate the presence of “infidels,” they can minimize their impact on orderliness. The information management system serves as a filter that sieves out “impurities,” ensuring that students and parents receive information only of equal value. In a situation where homogenous information prevails, students unconsciously internalize the utilitarian values promoted for the sake of their academic progress. Even when technological subjects ignore their individual needs, students acquire this ignorance because they believe that it will help them achieve better academic results without distractions. Rather than achieving a process of decentralizing classroom power, the use of technology in teaching and learning reinforces the power of supervisors to dispose of student information and control instructional activities. The intellectual elite behind technology circumvents stakeholder scrutiny and accountability for its deliberate ignorance by creating a vaporized but authoritative technological subject in smart classrooms. The restriction of classroom interaction and ignorance of students’ subjectivity in the information Panopticon is not a new issue brought about by information technology, but a manifestation of the desire for power of the group controlling information technology resources.

Students can also “recognize the self” as a result of the operation of technology of power, in which they can perceive the “obscured self,”take care of it with self-governance, and discover the subjective and dominant role of the “self” within the “technology” by utilizing these technologies. Students’ active mastery and use of quantitative data facilitates their participation in the social process of “personalization” and serves as a means of constructing new identities and shaping their subjectivity in their daily teaching and learning. By engaging in proactive daily practice, individuals can understand course content and pedagogical practices independently. Although the structure of surveillance in smart classrooms has dramatically changed, technology isolates students in different digital spaces. Slaughtering liquid surveillance data creates a fragmented public space, and students gradually become technologically disciplined objects. Although technology is egalitarian, shared, and public, it empowers students to scrutinize technology and classroom processes in a decentralized, individualized, and pluralistic manner. While the surveillance of individuals by technology and the reverse surveillance of technology by individuals are in an asymmetrical structure in the age of big data, they create tension: The subject of surveillance is no longer a centralized body, but rather dispersed among a myriad of technologically empowered individuals, such as students and teachers, embodying the game of playing with each other (Anwar, 2015). This also provides a basis for communication and consensus among students, and between teachers and students. In these ways, students can escape the stifling box of “ignorance” and find a path to self-actualization.

Highly intelligent technology has an undeniable impact on evaluating and predicting students’ academic achievement, despite the fact that it implies disciplinary power dominance and neglect of students’ individual characteristics. Students can also reacquaint themselves with their own agency through rebellion and resistance to discipline in a smart classroom, as this creates space for the expansion and extension of their subjectivity. Measuring and reconstructing harmonious human–computer relationships in a smart classroom is a liberating way for students to dissolve the power of regimented knowledge and for humans to break through technological ignorance. By reconceptualizing classroom microprocesses, students in the information society are guided to improve their grades and academic performance individually, emphasizing the individual as a key criterion for interpreting and applying information and data in an interactive, practical, and concrete manner. This can also be a perspective through which to analyze the changes in the tension structure of the teacher–student relationship in the context of the evolution of advancing technologies (Alvesson et al., 2022) as well as to shed light on the future direction of classroom interaction patterns.