54 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2023
    1. In my book Technology’s Child: Digital Media’s Role in the Ages and Stages of Growing Up, I explore how the design of platforms and the way people engage with those designs helps to shape the cultures that emerge on different social media platforms. I propose three layers for understanding this process.
  2. Jan 2023
    1. When engaging in data literacy work in our classrooms, it’s helpful to keep two ideas at play at once: on the one hand, these algorithmic systems are nowhere near as “smart” as these platforms want to lead us to believe they are; and on the other hand, concerns about accuracy can distract us from the bigger picture, that these platforms are built on a logic of prediction that, one nudge at a time, may ultimately infringe upon users’ ability to make up their own mind.
  3. Feb 2022
    1. When I hear people in a variety of contexts talking about “building community” for students or colleagues (or, customers), I worry about that, too.  Is the motivation an additive one?  “Let’s give them more people to connect with and rely on?”  Or is it intended to be a kind of capture?

      What an enormous challenge for those of us in faculty development and other "community-building" businesses. Are we actually serving when we help people acculturate? We might be. We also might be trying to capture peoples' time and attention and loyalty.

  4. Sep 2021
    1. However, there’s no technological imperative that makes blogging more important than discussing books and our experiences in person with friends and colleagues.

      I'd like to unpack that idea of "technological imperative".

    2. Educators already learn and share in many ways and, on balance, may decide that blogging isn’t worth their time or energy given their range of options.

      This is a tricky needle to thread - how do we expand people's knowledge of their options, without appearing to mandate that they take certain options?

  5. Jul 2021
  6. Jun 2021
    1. Unless their self-assessments have power—either to shape future learning activities, or to change the gradebook—they will not be true self-assessments.

      I want to disagree with this and argue that we should be crafting lessons which allow students to understand the different forms of power which are in play in self-assessment and assessment by others. I appreciate, though, that grades may have too many advantages for that lesson to really take within the context of a course.

    2. No system of academic assessment is intrinsically good, only good for a purpose. That purpose must be established first.

      Love this quote - have used it in my classes

    1. failure for learning

      Not just in the classroom - in life. Failure is part of human life, relationships, and work, and it's important we help students understand and accept that as Sharpe states.

    2. The questions for the DP are part of the structured practice. The more open-ended scenario of the ECA provides the space for students to demonstrate competency concerning key learning objectives (identify, apply, and practice).

      I find this model helpful. It makes me think of how a rocket is launched. Every part works toward getting the main capsules into space, and that main capsule is given more freedom or has less structure as it gains more altitude.

      It was odd and a little frustrating that I had to open the non-Hypothesis article in order to see the example tables.

    3. It is difficult for students to learn if they are anxious about or fearful of assignments.

      I can speak to this from personal experience as a student and an instructor in a hybrid format.

    4. Inadvertently, faculty may also reinforce student fears about all forms of assessment by what we do and do not say concerning our assessments.

      Funnily enough, this is how I feel about DIGPins, more due to a personal feeling of being inadequate and overwhelmed than anything the facilitators of this experience are doing.

  7. Jun 2020
    1. weak ties can turn a mild grievance into something that feels like political action

      Interesting to connect this back to Network week... the strength of weak ties (and network bridges) as a risk.

  8. May 2020
    1. What is missing from most of the remote teaching contingency planning is a framework for helping the people inside institutions understand and make decisions about pedagogy from inside the pandemic’s evolving reality. Pedagogy is not an ancillary or optional part of conversations about remote teaching. Pedagogy is the category that describes how we teach. For that reason, whether we foreground it or not, pedagogy is a key part of how our learners understand and assess their experience at our institutions during this crisis.

      Important points - technology is not pedagogy; pedagogy is related to identity and mission.

  9. Jul 2019
    1. The internet is fundamentally participatory.

      I feel like the shift to content platforms challenges this in a significant way. We have lots of terms for different kinds of participation - visitor/resident, participant/lurker, etc. - but producer/consumer strikes me as potentially a change in kind, not in shading. Even when the consumer is allowed to add a comment, the value of their participation is substantially different (I would argue lesser) than if they were treated as a collaborator or community member.

    2. helplessness

      During our 1st #DigPINS week on Digital Identity many expressed concerns around a lack of control in digital spaces. Perhaps something similar happening here?

  10. Apr 2019
    1. Collecting followers and likes authenticates and quantifies our existence without the need for deconstruction. We will not move any closer to the horizon of self if our sense of identity is based on validation through acknowledgement rather than engaging in dialogue and deconstruction.

      I'd love to explore this more. I think my reaction is that all "likes" are not equal (and therefore the search for them as goods in their own right is fruitless). But acknowledgement by other members (or potential members) of a genuine community is sustaining to dialogue. So the "right" likes and followers do help us make communal progress toward self, even as the "wrong" acknowledgements can frustrate it.

      (See next paragraph for a good caveat about identity work - or the lack thereof - in static homogenous groups.)

    2. As with justice and the law what becomes crucial within this conception of self and identity is the willingness to deconstruct or interpet. Damaging essentialization based on shoring-up (sure-ing up?) well worn binaries such as real/virtual, authentic/fake falls away as the ‘work’ of identity becomes interpretation, questioning and negotiation.

      Thinking of identity as contextual, interpretive, work-in-process, instead of as a static output, seems really positive and potentially integrative.

  11. Feb 2019
    1. Participants reflect on how they choose what gets said in thepublic and what stays in-group in the backchannel.

      This is a great distinction to make. I wish I would have been introduced to the digital realm with some understanding of what commentary is appropriate in different contexts.

    2. Public interactions are promoted by the facilitator oftenwith the facilitator engaging their own network to converse in community with the co-hort.

      I'm sure this can really stretch some of the participants. Various comfort levels with putting themselves out there.

    3. staff

      There are murmurings of letting the instructional designers from Pedago.me participate in a #digPINS session.

  12. Jan 2019
    1. We use Fresh Direct and Amazon because the time they save allows us to do more work.

      I am not a millennial but I can identify with coming up with time-saving strategies in order to do more work. It is crazy when you think about it.

    2. “adulting” do often come off as privileged astonishment at the realities of, well, life

      My friends and I have been using the expression "adulting" for years, and in my experience we usually use it tongue in cheek. Its typically used in recognition that we are privileged to be going through certain challenges for the first time.

      I remember telling my then girlfriend (now wife) "adulting is hard" in response to her asking how my first day of my first full-time job went after college went. I wasn't expressing that I didn't want to continue working, simply that I was tired after a long day.

      I realize that this might just be my social circle but I think expressions like this are often taken more seriously than they should.

    3. “But what’ll I tell my parents?”

      I see this sentiment so often both as someone who used to teach in a high school, and someone who works in higher ed now.

      During their undergrad students are encouraged to both "explore and figure things out" and "major in something that will get you a job" by different groups of people. They hear these two conflicting messages at the same time. For many students these two sentiments reflect two entirely different college experiences.

    4. They

      This kind of generalization always worries me. "They" as a whole or as a statistically identifiable majority? Or "they" as a memory, where intense experiences stand out with no regard to their probability?

    5. a tendency, developed over the last five years, that I’ve come to call “errand paralysis.”

      I'm solidly Gen X, but I certainly recognize this tendency in myself. What forces are at play which lead people to treat this as a generational trait? Who benefits?

    6. the stuff that wouldn’t make my job easier or my work better

      High priority = job and work.

  13. Oct 2018
    1. how do we help students navigate privacy issues in learning spaces augmented with social/digital media. There was a specific request for examples to walk students through this. Here is what I do.

      I'm a little unnerved by the semi-legal nature of the "Interactive Project Release Form" but I think it's a great model (whether really legally enforceable or just a class constitution-type document).

  14. Aug 2018
    1. in the forum, we talk about what we decide to talk about, but in the blog, each student can talk about whatever he or she individually wants to talk about.

      This is really worth thinking about. Which virtual spaces are "my space" and which are "our space?" How do they relate and affect group dialogue and individual learning?

      I wish I had a better sense how a multiauthor "class blog" fits into this framework.

    1. the internet may not be the most effective means of bringing work to an audience, particularly if you don’t already have some sort of access to an audience that will allow your work to be discovered

      Traditional scholarly publishing has a huge benefit of momentum - everyone is already there.

    2. How public do you want to be? and How do you want to be public?

      Seems like a good pair of guiding questions.

  15. Jul 2018
    1. We’re asking faculty to play “Icky Thump” when they haven’t mastered “Love Me Do.” We’re asking them to knit complex cables when they haven’t even combined knits and purls. We’re asking them to bomb down a black diamond run when they haven’t figured out how to stay upright on the green run.

      This is a grand, grand, grand piece of writing. Perhaps somewhere there's an open educator - rocker - knitter - skier who's not thrown by any of these terms, but for the rest of us at least one of these examples should be disorienting.

    1. “Have you heard of these things called oxidation-reduction reactions? Fascinating how they work!” My friend’s enthusiasm and passion intrigued me.

      I haven't taken an anatomy course since high school, or any sort of animal anatomy course, but when my dog tore both of her ACL's, I became REALLY well versed on doggie knees (both because I love my dog and if I'm paying thousands of dollars for new ones... I want to know what I'm getting). So from personal experience, this is a really interesting way to get students to learn and retain information.

      I really like the idea of allowing students to choose their interests for a project, and I tried it in my Public Econ class this past spring. The students overall enjoyed it, but I did get a few comments that said they wanted more direction about the project topics (kind of resisting the idea of self-direction). I also got quite a few comments that the students said they were surprised at how INVESTED they became in the project.

      Anyone else ever attempt to give an open ended project like this? Suggestions, modifications?

    2. Adrienne Rich’s plea for women students to claim their own education

      I went to this link and I LOVE how she is encouraging students to be enegaged and really "claim" their education and their spot in the classroom... male or female can really benefit from this I believe. I'm going to use this as part of my intro class in an attempt to inform students about what they should be trying to get from our class.

    3. “But…there are basic foundational ideas and terms that need to be understood first, without those basics and scaffolding the concepts, students will be lost.

      I have some dear family who are homeschooling their children. Other family members are anxious about this very point. But the joy and enthusiasm these children experience as they learn biology in the meadow, or history as they talk to veterans while volunteering, is priceless. And enviable.

    4. real and significant learning, and continues beyond the course itself. 

      So essential but so often overlooked

    5. figures out both what they are trying to learn and how they learn b

      And why?

    6. foundational

      The issue for me here is that sequencing of Content does not help promote a scientific mindset because if we want to build people who BECOME scientists, they need to know how to construct knowledge and discover and experiment in non-linear ways too

    7. DigPINS collaborative annotation Summer 2018

    8. What a fascinating article! It is reassuring to learn from Karen Cangialosi about the way instructors in the sciences are continuously engaging with active learning strategies from open pedagogy.

      As an open pedagogy instructor in the Humanities myself, I appreciate hat we share similar pedagogical approaches in our classrooms!

      Thank you, Karen! I look forward to meeting you in our sync meeting with the SNC DigPINS group next week!

    9. The more nebulous I was about my expectations

      I love that the expectations were collaboratively created with the students - take a moment to check out this link

    10. —Miranda Dean, undergraduate student, In ‘What an Open Pedagogy Course Taught Me About Myself

      This post is soooooo good. Take a moment to read this when you get a chance. Student voice in this post is really amazing.

    11. participation is an individual choice

      Focus on ownership and agency of the learner

  16. Nov 2017
    1. helping them “name the practice

      One thing that interests me is the extent to which our agency depends on others' recognition. In this context, our ability to name oppressive practices depends (obviously in complex ways) on the ways in which others respond to the names that we provide. YPAR's approach seems doubly useful, then. Not only do teachers aim to provide students with the tools they need to name their own experiences and concerns; they also commit to taking a certain perspective on their students, one that recognizes the names that students arrive at as authoritative, and so constitutive of a developing public language. That second step is crucial.

    2. This kind of organizing may not be about the government, but it is about governance, and it involves trial by fire in experiencing what happens when you have power and authority.

      Yes, it certainly does -- with avowedly mixed results. #gamergate, anyone?

    3. have the potential to become the seeds

      I can see this if we recognize that what is being learned here is basically skills for getting along with and maybe occasionally pursuing goals with groups of people who already share a common interest. That's a really important skill-set for life, but it's at least a couple steps removed from the kind of civic engagement that can redress systemic injustices or strengthen community life outside of these very niche spaces.

    4. the opportuni-ties for learning about civic engagement are no longer tethered to traditional spaces like classrooms

      I'm not sure I accept the proposition that opportunities for youth to learn about civic engagement ever WERE tethered solely to classrooms. (I'm not sure which other spaces these authors consider "traditional" here.)

    5. its ability to sustain civic solidar-ity is perhaps most visible as a result of recent and ongoing movements such as #BlackLivesMatter

      I understand the value of mobilization and awareness, but I also understand the critiques of "clicktivism" or "slactivism." I think the better, less judgmental term is "hashtag activism," as used by Bonilla and Rosa 2015, #Ferguson: Digital protest, hashtag ethnogrpahy, and the racial politics of social media in the United States (not sure if this link is behind a paywall or not). But then again, a former student of mine who this time last year was a viral photo and BLM activist is now a Charlotte City Council Member, having received the second-highest number of votes for an at-large seat this past Tuesday. How do we understand the continuum between hashtag and 'real' activism?

    6. By looking at how individuals might collaborate when socializing in virtual worlds like World of Warcraft or Second Life (Boellstorff, 2008, Chen 2011; Nardi, 2010) or

      I've taught both the Boellstorff and Nardi ethnographies in my digital anthropology class (http://digital.anthro-seminars.net/), and I'm very conscious of the ephemerality of cyberspace (itself a term that is less commonly used nowadays). This semester, while we didn't read the whole books, they read articles by Boellstorff - I had to explain what Second Life was, show them the trailer of Life 2.0, and it still seemed to the students like a far-off, historical way of living, as exotic as the Amish.

    7. World of Warcraft or Second Life (Boellstorff, 2008, Chen 2011; Nardi, 2010) or

      My first reaction at this point was to wonder how collaboration in these virtual worlds might exacerbate the growth of oppressive ideologies, thinking mainly of the reactionary cult of masculinity involved in GamerGate. But maybe we should put some pressure on any apparent disanalogy between the racism, sexism, etc. that organize many virtual spaces, and the kind of high-minded respect that some people might expect in more traditional civic spaces. Oppressive ideology pervades our discourse in both of these spaces, so perhaps we shouldn't shy away from seeing virtual spaces as sites of civic engagement on these grounds alone. I'm going to have to hunt down Boellstorff, Chen, and Nardi to see if they address these kinds of issues.

    8. what kinds of civic learning opportunities they may already be experiencing

      I wonder how to ask this question, without asking in this way.

    9. While scholars who take a deficit approach to inequalities in civic engagement often acknowledge the intersection of various social structures that act on members of marginalized groups to suppress participation, they nonetheless locate the failure of engagement in those communities themselves

      Tommie Shelby has a new book out on the ways in which we respond to the geography of inequality, critiquing in particular what he calls "the medical model." This model acknowledges that those who are least well off are the victims of past injustices, but assumes (for a variety of reasons) that the effect of that past injustice leaves its victims ill-positioned to speak on their own behalf. The deficit approach seems to fit squarely within this model, and it might be productive to read this piece in conversation with Shelby's book. http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674970502

  17. Jun 2016
    1. In other words, scholars will gain a form of currency by becoming perceived as “human” (the extent to which ‘humanness’ must be honest self-expression or could be fabricated is an interesting question here) rather than cloaked by the deliberately de-humanised unemotive academic voice.

      This should be shouted from the top of all the academic towers ;)

  18. Dec 2015
    1. Stewart, B. E. (2015). Scholarship in abundance: Influence, engagement, and attention in scholarly networks. Charlottetown, P.E.I.: University of Prince Edward Island. Retrieved from http://www.islandscholar.ca/download_ds/ir:15431/OBJ/ir_15431.pdf

      Will likely be returning here often over the next while.