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to information and relevant educational issues. The risks that teachers and students associate with their information environment, the pitfalls encountered and the strategies proposed can be examined. Between aversion, avoidance, recommendations or resolution, a “relationship to risk” – a specific educational approach – is constructed in the informational and professional sphere. A “notion” of risk, which goes beyond the risks themselves, has become an approach associated with and accompanying digital practices in education. The need for understanding is associated with vigilance and the project of teaching informational risks. Research on digital risks in an educational and professional context is as much about the risk paradigm as it is about the informational uses associated with how they are perceived.
The notion of risk
The risk model brings to the fore the perception of an event that may occur, in “a future that may happen” (Beck 1986), which is not fully within our control. This event is sensed (and is not yet happening or real) as a danger that we must anticipate by picturing it and taking precautionary measures. This becomes a reverse causation of our action. Paradoxically, we tend to ask ourselves: how can we avoid the risks (even though it is the awareness of the risk which can ward off danger)? The perception of risk(s) then becomes a situation whereby the activity is associated with its uncertainties. Risk is distinct from danger, whose probability it relates to; it is distinct from the sole threat insofar as it is nourished by the perceptions that we have of it. Thus, for Ulrich Beck, at the heart of a civilization of risk, “risk has become the measure of our action”1. He describes the evolution of human and political action, linked to “scientific–technical–economic modernization”, as a response to the disorders resulting from its development (industry, environment, economy, etc.). Risk does not designate danger; it constitutes the answer in line with an analysis or a preventive action. It becomes a model for the development of human conduct, a reason for action. For Beck, risk is integrated into a positive culture. With reference to “emancipatory catastrophe”, he calls for new regulations of the human mind by making it the principle of an anticipatory consciousness and of an action that supposes taking risks. “Risk”, for Beck, is not only the danger but also its perception and a critical modality that calls for a positive culture of change and a reflexive steering of action. Digital risks, associated with the socio-technical modernity described by Beck, are new challenges that require the construction of “new regulations for action”: for Beck, this is a “disruptive innovation”. Major cultural transformations are taking place, such as that of digital activity, along with its uncertainties and possibilities.
Digital risks and the context of education
What do we mean by “digital risks”? The expression brings into play both the informational character of human activities, its technological and social space, and the human factors driving the activity. They concern the informationalization of human activities and the relationship to the information regime. At different scales, micro (that of the digital subject), meso (that of the learning devices) and macro (that of the generalized register of interactions), it puts a strain on informational ecology. Digital risks now belong to both the generalized digital transposition and the activity itself that unfolds in the uses, their “sociodynamics” (according to A. Moles’ expression), where there are close links between social issues and knowledge.
The recognized and stated risks overlap with a multidimensional set of different registers encountered in an informational ecology: “the technical risk (computer security); the social (equality, safety) and political risk (security, indoctrination); the cognitive and psychological risk (educability); the ethical and legal risk (respect for rights, digital identity, e-reputation, but also online harassment related to this practice); the risk related to health (static activity, caution with regard to radio waves, lack of sleep due to blue light), etc.”2. The informational risk is more often associated with informational effects in the sphere of knowledge, economy, political information, data use or an ecology of attention3. The plurality of the stated risks is to be compared with the global modality of risk in our modes of thinking and acting in a digital context. Each of the risks identified is part of a context of use; it refers to a specific link between perception and activity. For example, the informational scenarios stage the construction of knowledge and integrate the perception of the different risks mentioned by the contributions to the work into the uses. But, through these contexts, risk posture, its perception, the conduct of the activity, from prevention to risk-taking, make it, beyond the simple attribution to the digital of the risks incurred, a reflexive and responsible occurrence of each person’s activity.
The educational context, between mediations and practices, creates a particular tension. In the relationship between teaching and learning, education encounters the risks brought about both by technological and social transformation and by human activities that have moved or developed in the digital world. How can we escape a paradoxical and antagonistic culture, between the need for digital technology to teach and learn on the one hand, and on the other, an overvaluation of the risks that would problematize its use? How can we build a “learner” autonomy? How can we compensate for the ethical fragility of digital technology, which seems to escape older paths of knowledge? How do teachers (and students, in their “profession”) reconcile their personal and professional practices (Capelle op. cit.)? How can the desire to teach turn into the risk of teaching (Cordier 2017)?4 These questions, and others, lead us to a dialogue between practice and research in this book.
Risk perception
How do we represent risks in our minds? The “existence” of risk can be split up into the real danger perceived and the representation we have of it. Between real and perceived risks, real and imaginary, for all the actors – in this case, teachers and students – the risk incurred (factual aspect) is as important as the perception of the digital “cause” linked to it. The postures engaged find their reason: avoidance, risk literacy, the staging of activities that ensure awareness (fact-checking), reflexive practices, etc. All of the actions undertaken, the literacy of the risk and the awareness of the “cause” of the risk, have to be taken into account. All of the actions undertaken, and the articulation of risk, are based on a perception that contributes to its reality. Representations thus play a strategic role in prevention and in the capacity of individuals to conceive and define risk. The meaning given, what “we think we are doing” (in the sense of Bruner5), brings together the inner and outer facets of the situation. The perception of risk does not necessarily conform to its reality; but it is the reality of the action it supports. The representations (individual and shared subjectivation) interfere with the uses as much as those which construct them. The represented mode belongs to the work; it becomes a critical point. Articulated with reality, integrated with a reflexive thought, the perception of the risk becomes a lever for our practices.
Those who act in a digital environment operate on different beliefs and hypotheses. They concern the conditions of use and the perception of possible perils. The contributions in the book focus on the perceptions and postures involved in professional and/or learning activities, on the perceptions of the actors involved in learning and teaching activities. It is described by teenagers as “a big scary nebula” (Cordier op. cit.). For some, the risks can be considered as negative or potentially dangerous effects of informational mediations: for others, the digital environment offers a resilience to risk. The attribution of the amplification or reasoned treatment of risks to digital technology calls the meaning of education into question. But are we speaking the same language? A report published in 2008 by Christine Dioni6 entitled “The student’s job and the teacher’s job in the digital age” emphasized the issues of discrepancy between the perceptions of students and those of teachers, as well as between the perceptions and reality of practices. The student’s mirror is the “school’s” perceptions of digital technology, which do not necessarily correspond to those of their peers. The expression of teenagers’ experience becomes a driving force for the necessary reflexivity for practices. The teachers themselves keep personal practices and professional practices at a distance7.