Below are the results of a YouTube search for ‘algorithms in education’ – on the left I am signed in, on the right I am not.
The results are subtly different – when I am signed in, slightly more ‘advanced’ videos about algorithms (one from Harvard University) are displayed. Perhaps this is due to information Google holds on my age and education, or due to the fact I have watched and liked a number of longer university lectures and interviews on this course.
This speaks to the way algorithms are ‘ontogenetic, performative and contingent’ (Kitchin 2017: 21) – they are not static nor fixed, vary from user to user, from location to location and can often involve randomness.