Category Archives: Uncategorized

Oct 30 2018
2 Comments
332wednesday12, Uncategorized

Digital Redlining and “Guerrilla Open Access”

I did a twitter essay on the Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy article by Chris Gilliard for reflection #2.

Here it is:

And here is the unofficial sequel:

SUMMARY & REFLECTION

In my twitter essay I tried to address some of the less comfortable implications of digital redlining, beyond the fact that it is a pretty blatant form of institutionalized racism/classism. I argue that it is the natural result of a political and economic system in which the state perceives one’s worth based on how much a person owns, and creates laws and allocates resources based on that perception – creating very real barriers for all the ‘have nots’. There is little that we can do to remedy the situation without directly challenging the economic and political systems that created it (which probably isn’t going to happen). I end up concluding that it is a mistake to assume that supposedly ‘woke’ institutions like ‘higher education’ don’t play a role in reinforcing class hierarchies along racial lines. It’s all very depressing and unfun. Pass.

The second part (the unofficial sequel) has the closest thing to a solution I can think of that we could be moving towards in the present – open access. It’s a funner thread with a lot of information on the economics of academic research that I only recently found out about. Also, the gifs are better. I’ve never personally experienced not being able to find stuff  on JSTOR while doing research (that I know of – very spooky – happy halloween). I imagine UWindsor has access to most of the archive, but who knows. I’ve had a lot more experience dealing with paywalls. Over the past few years I’ve quite often had to help friends in college who are unable to access a certain journal on JSTOR, or friends who graduated university and lost access to JSTOR. I usually just download the article and send it to them, which I assume is illegal/piracy, so that’s cool. Paywalls are wack. Academic publishing is a racket.

As far as teaching goes, this article connected some dots for me, providing an important critique of the supposed exclusively positive effect technology beyond just the concept of the digital divide. Basically, I need to apply a class analysis of the way educational institutions are funded (digital redlining) on top of the class analysis of digital technology in general (digital divide). What this will mean praxis-wise I’m not entirely sure. As far as I can tell digital redlining is not exactly a hot button issue in education, so trying to make the problem more visible and educating people about it would probably be a good start. I have no practical solutions here other than promoting ideas of digital equity – open access and net neutrality. Awareness and understanding of the problem helps, but ultimately it would be better if we could do something a little more concrete. A lot would have to change in order to actually address the problem of digital redlining in any meaningful way, and in this political climate, I don’t see that happening any time soon.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also, I just realized that I forgot to include the quote I used for my blog post title in my twitter essay. It’s more of a quote about the digital divide. It’s from Aaron Swartz’s “Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto” (which I link to at the end of the twitter essay but here it is a motherboard article on it/him, reading is fun), and I figured that his connection to open access and to JSTOR made it appropriate.. so, here it is:

**Whelp…. this is getting very long. See what I mean about not being focused. Anyways there was going to be a whole section in part 2 of my twitter essay on JSTOR, and Swartz, and his open access and net neutrality activism, and his prosecution for trying to download the entire JSTOR archive to post online for free like a gosh darn folk hero of the internet age, and his eventual tragic suicide… but I guess I’ll just link to this article right HERE instead. Bye.

REFLECTION ON THE MAKING OF THE TWITTER BIT THAT’S PROBABLY NOT NECESSARY BUT I THOUGHT IT WAS FOR SOME REASON, WHOOPS

I’m pretty happy over how much easier this was to make than my last reflection. But, it was difficult for me to keep it focused. I like twitter, and I don’t think increasing the amount of characters you can post on twitter is a good idea, but I feel like without carefully planning everything out having only 140 characters makes it more likely to veer off course because larger ideas and arguments are parsed into smaller (and sometimes unnatural) chunks. I actually ended up deleting the entire original thread and started over. I think it’s better now?

I’ll probably make a video again next time (depending on the topic).  But with more of my cat.

 

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Oct 30 2018
1 Comment
332wednesday12, Uncategorized

Technology Isn’t So Scary After All

For my second Multimedia reflection I decided to respond to Michele Jacobson’s Article, Teaching in a Participatory Digital World . In this article, the author gives an in depth analysis on how the evolution of technology is affecting the education system and how teachers play an important role in providing students with the tools they require to succeed in this new digital world.

I decided to attempt a twitter essay for my response after participating in our class discussion on twitter last week. I decided this because of how the combination of that twitter discussion and reading this article has really changed my view on participatory learning and this new digital education that is increasingly popular. At the beginning of this class I was not comfortable with the thought of sharing my social networking platforms with my peers, and I was terrified of the thought of using these social platforms in a professional way. This was mainly because I wasn’t quite sure how to go about it, however we are now two months into this class ad I have made a tremendous amount of progress when it comes to stepping out of my comfort zone, and attempting things in the digital world that I would have never imagined I’d be capable of. This twitter essay really forced me to step outside of my comfort zone and try something new.

Enjoy.

 

Oct 29 2018
2 Comments
332wednesday12, Uncategorized

You must be at least this tall, wearing a lavender sweater, and have yellow eyes to read this post about Digital Redlining

Well now, after doing our little twitter discussion last week I just could keep myself away from the little cyan birdie, so I’ve decided to compose a twitter essay to express my thoughts on Digital Redlining. The article in question, Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy, is  written by  Chris Gilliard and Hugh Culik and discusses a concept called Digital Redlining, which essentially blocks users from accessing certain information based on predetermined rules and regulation. If a student were to research a certain topic that these rules and regulations deem ‘inappropriate’ the user will not be given access to the site, or in the instance of scholarly Journal databases, will not be shown all the results. Herein lies the issue, if a student is paying a institution for access to all of these sites they are doing so with the impression that they will have infinite access to whatever they need. To them, a lack of results means the information they are looking for does not exist. The authors mention three instances in which students attempt to research topics they find interesting, only to find virtually no information on the topic, dissuading them from pursuing said topic any further. The information was there, they just didn’t have access to it. In post secondary education, self-discovery, self- inquiry and self driven education is extremely important in helping someone learn and taking away or denying that innate curiosity that we all have is very dangerous indeed.

As I said earlier, the little cyan birdie and I became close friends over the course of the past week and I saw it fitting to express my thoughts through a twitter essay. The original plan was to make a stop motion film to honor my all time favorite movie Nightmare Before Christmas (tis the season afterall), but gravity decided to break my camera instead, so the stop motion will have to wait. One thing that inspired me to tackle this article in particular was something that occurred last week during our twitter conversation. I made a tweet which mentioned the video game ‘Runescape’ and found myself assaulted with ads for the game. Whether it was twitter accounts associated with the game or ads for the game on the side, they were there and they were in full force. It was convenient then that the article in question discussed not only what we have access too, but what our information is used for. It was…difficult to keep my thoughts limited to 280-characters per tweet, and even at 17 tweets in total I still found myself limited by the medium. The learning curve here was trying to figure out how to really condense my thoughts  without losing the meaning of the article. That said, I found incorporating images and gifs to be a fun little side activity which in my opinion really elevated the twitter essay as a whole, as they add a sense of emotion and feeling to each individual tweet, something which you cannot emulate in any academic paper. Take a look at my twitter essay below and tell me what you think!

The Article: https://www.commonsense.org/education/privacy/blog/digital-redlining-access-privacy

 

Oct 29 2018
10 Comments
332wednesday12, Uncategorized

A Fresh Education That’s Totally Fair (Say What!?)

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: I’m coming for your gig.

For my reflection of the Chris Gilliard and Hugh Culik article Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy, I attempted to make a rap. I decided to take the key points of the article on access issues of digital redlining and rewrite the lyrics to The Fresh Prince of Bel Air-theme song. To be honest, I regretted this decision when it came down to filming part of the process (I’ll explain more about that later). I have since realized two things: 1) I have no chance at a future career in rap and 2) this process is much more lengthy than I anticipated.

The experience of reading the article and opening my eyes to such a prevalent issue was pretty incredible. I had no idea that such a policy existed once upon a time and that it would carry such weight in the digital world years later. I have never really taken a moment to question the online resources that I may or may not have had access to in my education. I do recall having certain applications blocked in high school when using the school Wi-Fi such as Snapchat and YouTube, but I never really thought it blocked my limit to learning. In my undergraduate degree, I found that often there was a lack of resources available online. I cannot even recall the number of times I had to go to the library to pull out extremely old books to get the information needed for French literature assignments, but I’m not really sure that it was a question of access issues.

The belief that underprivileged communities are still facing access to a fair and equitable education makes me quite angry honestly. The fact that there is not more awareness being spread about this issue is shocking. Before I read this article, I really had no idea that digital redlining was a thing. The whole article gave me new information on the history of redlining and how it still impacts our society to this day. Even though many do not see post-secondary access issues as viable, it completely is. I am interested to see how this message will be spread in the future.

What I have learned about this issue truly only comes from this assignment. I created each verse to reflect on a main message of the article. I wrote the lyrics from the perspective of someone who is aware of access issues in a participatory world and who comes from a group that is discriminated against. The first large verse focuses on the history of redlining policy in Detroit, and the second half of that large verse focuses on the limits that digital redlining places on this student’s education. The final large verse then moves into what needs to be done in order to have fair education. Essentially, the rap takes us through a story that goes from having a completely unfair education to having great changes made where digital redlining is no longer an issue that exists (which I sincerely hope happens sometime soon).

When filming and editing my rap, I realized that my resources to do so were pretty limited. I ended up having my mom film me on my iPhone which was just embarrassing and awkward even though my mom is my biggest fan. I just knew the quality was not going to be where I wanted it. I’m not thrilled with the outcome of the video itself, but I sincerely tried my hardest with what I had. Unfortunately, it seems that the University of Windsor lacks applications for editing videos and any tools for students needing to film. This is something I probably would not have noticed had I not just thoroughly read and reflected on the Gilliard/Culik article. Although I love our university, I do question the amount of resources we have access to. Which fields have more resources than others? Why does the French department have to put books on course reserve while chemistry students have access to everything online? Are certain departments prioritized over others? My research is just beginning on this topic.

I have come to realization that one common message was brought forth in this article: equality and fairness has not yet been achieved in education. Those with a greater social capital are privileged in ways that we often do not often see.

While watching my video, I hope you focus on the words that I am saying because I believe it summarizes and adds clarity to the issues that the article brought forth. I am most proud of the lyrics I came up with for this reflection. I hope that opening up this conversation will allow us to further understand how we can change to ensure fair access to online resources across schools.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzmsMsXwuas

Digital redlining: #UWinDig is here to expose you.

*mic drop*

– Amy

Oct 28 2018
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Digital Redlining your Life – China’s Digital Dictatorship

Digital redlining your life – A commentary on China’s digital dictatorship pilot program

 

Prior to reviewing this text, I was somewhat oblivious to the concept of monitoring a population for automated self-motivation…

In this video, I summarize my comments on the contents of “Leave No Dark Corner” piece prepared by Matthew Carney (see link at the bottom of this page).  Using the application titled “Stop Motion”, I created an audio assisted mind map of the pros and cons of behaviour tracking software with a punishment/rewards economy attached.  The video was uploaded to YouTube so that it could be linked here (below).

A few key points that I touch on include: The parts of the text that offered new ideas

  1. How privacy is seemingly forbidden when this type of system is implemented.
  2. How large populations of people are self-motivated to act within the law, and to do good (here, I ask the question “how could I make this work in my classroom and offer perhaps an auto-token economy of some sort).
  3. A system like this has been shown to kill free speech (e.g., a journalist was punished for his checks on possible government corruption).
  4. Those that behave according to rule are afforded privileges (such as improved credit score, access to high society, and fast-track acceptance to university). These privileges are passed on to their children.  I wonder, do the punishments get automatically shifted to the children of offenders, too?
  5. Punishments can be extreme (such as ex-communication from social media, being banned from travelling, and a lowered credit score).
  6. However, there is a theoretical decrease in crime rate that should ensue as constant surveillance coupled with facial recognition software improves. I wonder if a method of constant supervision in the classroom could be employed to allow students to self-mediate without potential punishments that are a bit toned down.
  7. How artificial intelligence evaluates individuals based on criteria that is set by the government.  You are judged based on such things as who you interact with, what you buy, and what you post online.  All things affecting your “social score”.  I wonder, how long until the advertising algorithms follow suit with this type of technology (fortunately for China, capitalism is still somewhat frowned upon).
  8. Finally, in this piece they emphasize how the good of the community is more important than the good of the individual.  This, to me, makes sense to a certain degree for general population.  However, in the classroom, I prefer to offer more of an individual approach to teaching (each student is important in their own way).

 

 

 

https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-18/china-social-credit-a-model-citizen-in-a-digital-dictatorship/10200278?pfmredir=sm

Oct 28 2018
2 Comments
322monday21, Uncategorized

Should Cell Phones Stay?

After reading the article, Tackling tech: How some Ontario teachers are attempting to limit students’ cell phone use by Nadine Yousif. Even though it was a short article, I felt as if it expressed many important ideas and examples; therefore, I chose to do a visual representation of a brainstorm sketch/mind map on Canva to display the key ideas I took away from the article. The article explores the impact of cell phone use in classrooms and how teachers fight a battle every single day to keep their students from being distracted from their personal devices. There were two devices that were being used by two teachers at the same school in Kitchener, Ontario. The first was the Yondr pouch, the cell phone is placed in the pouch and can only be unlocked by the teacher. This is a good idea to keep the control in your classroom; however, students may feel hostile about giving their property to be locked up by a teacher. Whereas the Resistor Case is a pouch that uses Velcro to keep it closed. The students are able to open the pouches to retrieve their cell phones; however, an obnoxiously loud Velcro noise will alert the whole class that you are retrieving your cell phone. This idea is excellent, because the students are being made to think twice of their actions and are accountable for looking at their cell phone or not but it can also be disruptive.

I had a lot of thoughts of my own experience in school and also my experiences in the classroom after reading this article. I remember hiding my cell phone in my pencil case during certain classes to send text messages and if you were to ask me what I learned in those classes, I would have a hard time telling you. It does make you distracted and keeps you from being present and engaged with your teacher and your classmates. However, it is a difficult issue to regulate, I don’t believe that a school wide band would be optimal because faculty would then have to police the use of cell phones instead of incorporating them and technology into their lessons. Furthermore, students would want to use them more because it has been taken away from them. I believe that we have to grow with the technology around us and try to incorporate those devices in our classroom. Certainly, there can be a time to have them stored away, when there are presentations or a test, but it does not have to be all the time. Students will then see that there is a positive relation between education and technology that is accessible to them and they can learn how to use their devices for educational purposes! These devices aren’t going away anytime soon and they might even evolve into more advanced items that become necessities to the way we live. The problem may be that we are continuously fighting this battle instead of changing the way we look at this issue. We should be looking at how it can be incorporated. I know that I wouldn’t want my students on their phones the whole time that I am speaking and that may be my own anxiety of not being able to control my classroom. After reading this article, and seeing that the phones were locked away, it has made me realize it is the anxiety of the teachers that are afraid of interacting with technology or losing the control they want to have in their room. I have that fear as well, when in reality I know that I should be innovative and think of ways to create a positive link with these devices and my lessons.

I have never used Canva before, but many of my classmates have and enjoyed it. Therefore, I wanted to try to familiarize myself with the resource. I find that brainstorming and writing key ideas after reading something helps organize the main ideas and facilitates the next steps in an assignment. I wanted to create a visual representation of a brainstorm/mind map because you could ask your students to do this on Canva after an assigned reading and before they begin a response, essay, or journal entry. I enjoyed Canva because it did give you some templates but you could also design it to make it your own by changing the colours and sizes of icons, moving them around the page to the way you want. I like that there was a lot to choose from as well, if every student created one, they would all look different and reflect that students style and knowledge.

Tackling Tech (1)

Oct 27 2018
1 Comment
332wednesday12, Uncategorized

Advancing With Digital Technology in the Classroom

After reading “Teaching in a Participatory Digital World” by Michele Jacobsen and watching a YouTube video about Henry Jenkins (see video below) I have reflected upon a few things that I noticed have changed in classrooms today.

Digital technology has recently been studied and viewed as a positive learning tool for students in the the classroom. Using digital technology can allow for a greater social interaction among students within a class. It can also allow for social interaction and learning with others outside of the classroom. The use of digital technology in the classroom can further be seen as useful since outside of school almost all learning will occur in complex social environments. I have created a Twitter essay to give further insight on my thoughts about digital technologies place in the classroom. I even talk about what I have noticed since being out on my first teaching placement. Below is a link to my Twitter essay.

https://twitter.com/OakeyCraig?lang=en

 

Oct 03 2018
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GHOSTS!!!! where are they???

I chose the article “Digital ghosts in our classroom” by Ashley Hinck”.

In this article, the author discussed the difficulties teachers are facing in their digital learning classes.

Students think that digital classes are fun, easy and helpful because they are trapped in the idea that digital learning is just follow directions to get to the final product with the minimum failure.Ashley blames this on the traditional learning where students are locked in their boxes and teachers are pouring information to fill these boxes. this system is limiting our students’ creativity and openness.

Teachers are trying now to move students from the ‘drag and drop’ ,templates and platdorms to more open platforms like ‘Raspberry pi’ and ‘scratch’ but the frustration of the unknown results is holding the students back.

The ghosts of worksheets and templates are still hovering over the students and their learning.

I chose a sketchnote for my assignment and I enjoyed making it     (it wasn’t easy). I had the control over choosing font, colors, pictures….for coming assignment, I will try to use a different source.

As a student, I learned the same traditional way so I understand their frustration but I totally agree with Ashley.

As a teacher, I will encourage my students to use more open platforms, be creative and enjoy the results.

Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom

Oct 02 2018
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REMOVE THE DIGITAL STIGMA!

The article by Ashley Hinck Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom summarizes the stigma that students have regarding digital technology. The author makes compelling points regarding students thinking that digital technology is simple and “drag and drop” and “HTML”. The authors mention of HTML is really interesting to me as growing up almost everybody around my age owned a MySpace page. On MySpace students knowingly or unknowingly used basic HTML to format their page! I assume that this led to students conception of thinking digital technology is all “HTML” due to their prior learning experiences.

The author suggests that digital technology should not be taught like a worksheet and digital technology does not have to be “linear” even though that is how it was previously taught. From my semi-recent high school experience I can attest that digital technology was definitely taught in a linear fashion. Students were given a literal worksheet and was told to follow specific instructions in order to make your name flash (using HTML code). Students thought that this class was lame and boring. I believe it is important as future educators to adjust our learning techniques and content to allow students opportunities to be creative. I think that the current way digital technology is being taught does not allow “failure” which as a result does not allow creativity. I created a short video as my Multimedia Reflection explaining the authors article and my thoughts on it. I thoroughly enjoyed this assignment and I believe that this assignment is an exact example what the author is trying to teach us about digital technology education! I hope you enjoy and feel free to discuss below.

This is my first time ever creating something of this nature, and I felt like stepping out of my “comfort” zone for this assignment creating a YouTube video.

 

Article: http://hybridpedagogy.org/digital-ghosts-modern-classroom/

Oct 01 2018
4 Comments
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Where Does a Ghost go on Vacation? The Modern Classroom

Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom- Ashley Hinck

Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Youtube, etc. were the apps I immediately thought of when I heard the term “digital media” until I read Ashley Hinck’s article “Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom.” Ashley describes these templates and many others as short cuts that fail to facilitate our learning as young students. We aren’t set up to be creators or explorers of our own learning pertaining to the digital world because as students we are only exposed to these types of “drag-and-drop” shortcuts. The programs “Raspberry Pi” and “HTML coding” were completely foreign to me, it’s not that as students we are lazy and choose not to explore these programs but because our previous educators have always had the same style of teaching- multiple choice tests, step-by-step instructions, right or wrong answers- completely limiting our imagination and creativity. I am guilty of sticking to what I am familiar with especially when it comes to technology, which was evident when I chose to not use any of the computer programs, and instead, stuck to paper and coloured pencils to carry out this assignment. I am also guilty of feeling the frustration when I can’t figure out the correct answer or when there isn’t a specific way to figure out the correct answer because it’s a rare occurrence that I find myself in situations where this actually happens.

As future educators we need to encourage students to explore situations that make them uncomfortable. We need to teach the importance of trial and error through unstructured assignments and other ways to test their knowledge. It’s insulting to student’s intelligence to provide them with step-by-step instructions like reading skills is what they’re getting tested on. Digital making is unlike any other subject areas in the aspect of exploring endless possibilities and not always having a certain way to perform tasks. I believe the overall and underlying problem in students limited intellectual abilities stems from how the school’s shape our thinking. After reading this article, I intend to alter my teaching philosophy to create an environment for students that promotes open-endedness, discomfort in less familiar areas, and facilitate learning through exploration and creativity.

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