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Responding to the shift to online education in the Spring of 2020, one of the @GCTLC’s Guiding Principles for this academic year is to critically consider the ethical issues posed by the technologies we use in our teaching. Thread 1/ https://vp.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2020/09/23/teaching-in-these-times-the-tlcs-guiding-principles-for-the-academic-year/
The #CheckOurEdTech project invites members of the CUNY community & beyond into reflection on the digital tools we use in our teaching. Our hope is to explore and develop more ethical approaches to integrating technology into our pedagogy. 2/
This work builds on the Ethical Approaches to Ed Tech workshop developed for the @GCTLC Teach@CUNY Institute hosted in the Summer of 2020 #tCUNY And shout out to the folks in the @ethicaledtech group for inspiring this work. 3/
https://tcuny2020.commons.gc.cuny.edu/ethical-approaches-to-ed-tech/
https://tcuny2020.commons.gc.cuny.edu/ethical-approaches-to-ed-tech/
During our year-long #CheckOurEdTech exploration,TLC staff ( @_atasi_das, Talisa, and I) will dive into questions of privacy, data, surveillance, access, inclusion, and control posed by our educational technologies. We will investigate of our platforms/tools to ask question incl:
What data is collected by the platform/tool? How is this data used?
[How] does the tool engage in surveillance of students?
What teaching methods does the platform/tool foster?
How does this tool construct and evaluate “learning”?
Is this platform/tool accessible to all users?
[How] does the tool engage in surveillance of students?
What teaching methods does the platform/tool foster?
How does this tool construct and evaluate “learning”?
Is this platform/tool accessible to all users?
Diving deeper, we will consider how our ed tech tools shape knowledge production, frame our role as educators, create or hinder systemic change, and require us to question the ontological (what is real) and epistemological (how we know) assumptions embedded in the tech we use.
These questions & themes will guide our exploration of learning management systems (e.g. Blackboard), content management software (e.g. WordPress), video conference software (e.g. Zoom), grading software (e.g. SafeAssign), remote proctoring tools (e.g. ProctorU), & more.
We will use the #CheckOurEdTech hashtag to share our ideas and reflections and develop a community engaged in thinking critically about issues at the intersection of tech ethics, teaching, pedagogy, and higher education.
For our reflections this semester, we have begun collecting articles, books, media, and other resources in a public zotero library: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1224958/gc_tlc/collections/L24EMPEC
As the project develops we hope to share our work more widely w/audiences beyond Twitter. Whenever possible we'll use open source tools, highlighting a focal question of our project: [how] do open source & proprietary tools differently shape possibilities for teaching & learning?
Later this Fall, we will facilitate a conversation of CUNY faculty around the ed tech challenges we encountered throughout the semester. Our reflections and conversations will frame our approach and outreach plans for teaching in the Spring.
We are aware of the challenges of shifting to online teaching. With the #CheckOurEdTech project we aim to build a better understanding of our tools by starting a critical conversation about #edtech to imagine new futures of teaching & learning with technology.
We welcome and encourage responses, feedback, questions, and suggestions for where this project might go. We’re excited to see what happens when we come together to #CheckOurEdTech
A few suggested readings listed below to help frame our #CheckOurEdTech work and get started...
“The internet is increasingly a privately-owned public space.” @slamteacher @Jessifer https://hybridpedagogy.org/resisting-edtech/
“The internet is increasingly a privately-owned public space.” @slamteacher @Jessifer https://hybridpedagogy.org/resisting-edtech/
“[I]t's worth pausing and thinking about what we imagine school should look like, what we expect school to be like, and what school is like —not just emergency pandemic Zoom-school, but the institution with all its histories & politics & practices &...variations.” @audreywatters
“If colleges actually bought all the tools sold here, just about every move made by students and professors in physical and virtual campuses would be tracked and analyzed in the name of efficiency” @jryoung https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-10-18-how-tech-companies-are-selling-colleges-on-mass-data-collection
“We need to understand the potential ways that algorithmic test proctoring can discriminate against students based on their bodies and behaviors, why higher education is willing to endanger students in the first place, and what we can do about it.” @SheaSwauger
Do Not Let #CUNY Violate Student Privacy- “CUNY colleges must create solutions to test-taking that does not violate students' right to privacy, especially in their own homes.” @USSCUNY https://www.change.org/p/chancellor-f%C3%A9lix-v-matos-rodr%C3%ADguez-do-not-let-cuny-violate-student-privacy?utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=custom_url&recruited_by_id=58da3a4d-d286-4064-8732-d7e5666d7f52
“But the implications may cross from mere discomfort into actual damage for students of color and other minorities on campus by limiting their learning potential without their consent." @becky_koenig
"People think the harms are far off...The harms are right now” @hypervisible
"People think the harms are far off...The harms are right now” @hypervisible
“Privacy issues run deep during this period of expanded remote learning, but they might run even deeper as new protocols and technologies accompany the return to campuses, whenever that may be.” @AlexanderKafka https://www.chronicle.com/article/will-the-pandemic-usher-in-an-era-of-mass-surveillance-in-higher-education/
