Here is the article Jade was talking about today:
https://medium.com/matter/black-men-being-killed-is-the-new-girls-gone-wild-da5c150b70c4#.m65uli38x
Jade’s article
1 Reply
Intersectionality or Bust
Kimberle Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” in 1989. But before there was a word for it, women of color have juggled aspects of identity that remain steeped in oppression due to a misogynist, white supremacist society (and dare I say, world). While Betty Friedan wrote about “the problem with no name”, Black and Brown women were raising white children and cleaning the houses of whites. That book was not meant for them. The rallies and marches that followed were not meant for them. Crenshaw later dubbed the term “interlocking” oppressions to describe the nexus of racial, class and gendered oppressions; the same horrid trifecta that Black women have dealt with since slavery.
These were just some of my thoughts as I read the article “Hashtag Feminism…”. Loza thoroughly excavates the reasons for and against hashtag feminism in general as well as the viral hashtag “Solidarityisforwhitewomen” particularly. The power of the hashtag lies with the ability for users to share experiences and call out hypocritical practices in real time. My only critique of the hashtag is that it conflates ‘solidarity’ with ‘feminism’. Kendall is really saying that feminism as it currently operates mostly benefits white women. It was for this reason that Alice Walker created the term womanism; as it was another attempt to bring the margin to the center.
Speaking of the margins, people of color have never been appreciated for the work we produce. We are overwhelmed with labor for which we are not paid. And yet, the expectation remains that we will work for “exposure” or out of the goodness of our hearts. This holds especially true if one is a woman of color. Dr. Lee’s story in Scientific American underscores this. Would Ofeke have dared to call a man or a white woman an “urban whore”? Dr. Lee’s choice to publish the emails and video response allowed her to simultaneously shame Ofeke, but more importantly, give sound advice to those who may find themselves in similar situations. Our time and energy is limited. Our skills are important and the use of them is worth compensation. Since when has anyone been able to pay bills with “exposure” and the promise of future goodwill? Also, slavery is over. And Black women are entitled to anger when insulted, caricatures and racist stereotypes aside.
Questions:
What are your thoughts of and/or experiences with hashtag activism?
In what ways can we work together to create true solidarity for the purposes of authentic equity?
In what ways can this week’s readings serve us pedagogically?
Hashtag feminism
A theme running through the readings this week is how identities are forged, represented, negotiated, and contested through and with the digital technology we use. Despite the anonymity one might enjoy in certain spaces on the internet, as we know from reading Nakamura, Hayles and Haraway, our bodies matter. Technologies can be used to subvert power structures and inequality, though more often digital media is used to amplify and reproduce them.
Loza describes how the #FemFuture initiative and its defenders silenced the women of color who have used platforms such as Twitter to call attention to their exclusion and to the ways they experience patriarchy differently from the middle / upper middle class white women who have powerful positions as bloggers and pundits in online feminist movements. When Black scientist and writer DNLee wrote a blog post about her experience being demeaned for her gender and race in an email exchange, Scientific American removed her blog post — ostensibly to “verify” facts, but a Tweet from Sci Am’s editor said that the post was “not appropriate for this area.” That justification makes little sense, given, as Hess from Slate writes “Lee’s blog is specifically dedicated to diversity issues; the business of how science is made, disseminated, and funded is crucial to its very existence.”
Many are using the internet to unite, heal, and raise awareness (the women using #NotYourAsianSidekick and #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen, for example). But most of the examples in the readings demonstrate how digital media is used to entrench oppression.
Citing Nguyen, Loza writes: Feminists of the digital age must refuse the nostalgic discourse of authentic selves, of natural bodies, of fixed communities and instead attend to the “structures and relations that produce different kinds of subjects in position with different kinds of technologies” (Nguyen 2003, 302).
Haraway, in Cyborg Feminism (1991) asks a similar question: What kind of politics could embrace partial, contradictory, permanently unclosed constructions of personal and collective selves and still be faithful, effective, and ironically socialist-feminist?
Provocation: The readings this week have shown us many non-examples of the quotes above. What does the above look like in practice? What examples that you’ve come across demonstrate how digital interactions can build effective coalitions across identity groups that go beyond the “add-and-stir” model of diversity (Bailey, 2011)? How can we recognize, embrace, and attend to the role of intersectionality in our teaching and scholarship with digital media?
Technology, Privacy, and the Future of Education @NYU Steinhardt
I was able to attend the second half of this event and I thought I might share some points made by the panels.
Natasha Singer, Reporter, The New York Times; Fellow, Data & Society
4K+(?) apps are in use in K-12 education. Three cases of apps she investigated:
- Reward/penalty system (ClassDojo)
- The reward / penalties can be arbitrary
- Attendance app which I forgot the name
- This app provides an interface to the teacher, who can swipe the names in the class roster to the left (absent) or to the right (tardy; the teacher can input how late the student was). The system will then send a text to the parent.
- The particular school which uses this app is using it alongside other measures to increase attendance such as mentorship, so it’s not like it’s out of the blue. Still, the question stands of what it means to take out of the equation direct communication to the student (as far as the app is concerned); also, the data points (app usage, attendance, graduation rate) do not show the students’ irritation
- The third app provides students with micro-scholarships—from 10+ USD to 1000+ USD—which can be obtained by various achievements such as getting an A (or B) in a course, doing some sports or other activities, taking AP courses, etc. If I understood correctly, the app does not actually give money away but rather serves as a calculator which translates a student’s achievement into how much money that achievement might be worth in terms of scholarship.
- One of the students who gave positive feedback said that the app is nice because it does not try to know anything about their parent’s information.
- What is the implication of encouraging students through such a direct promise of monetary reward?
Brett Frischmann, Professor, Cardozo Law School
- Is working on a book on what it means to be human in this technological change (w/ Sellinger)
- The story of mandatory Fitbit for undergraduate students
- Criticism ranged from the creepiness of surveillance to privacy issues like the lack of consent. Advocacy was also present, especially the one which noted that this is just an extension of what the school has always been doing (tracking students’ physical status)
- Looking at this issue as a matter of consent or opt-out (which the school technically did provide), or that the argument that this is not different from the records students were providing to the school for many years, show the limits of the current paradigm.
- Because it diverts the attention from important issues such as self-reflection, judgement and human involvement – all being dismissed in automatic collection (student’s active decision, autonomy, is not trivial) – students become passive objects in data collection.
- Surveillance creep works both ways: gradual increase of the surveilling activity, and also of the surveilled people being accustomed to it)
- It’s not just universities, elementary school programs are being funded
Mitchell Stevens, Associate Professor of Education and Director of Data Policy in the Office of the Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning, Stanford University
- The mid-20th century U.S. has built something which became the best higher education system in the world during 25 years or so. Although federal support was crucial in the establishment of research universities, these institutions were also given enough independence to effectively act as non-profit organizations, and assume agency from the “national interest”, although the latter was a big reasoning for providing federal support in the first place.
- However, recent years are seeing a renegotiation of this cold war era-based relationship towards increased influence of private capital, partly in the form of digital education. In short, business and higher ed are becoming increasingly intimate.
- This is in a way a continuation of what rich people like Ford, Carnegie and Mellon did in the past: achieving a huge success in their industry by using scientific management and applying the same method in education—something the Gates are doing, for instance.
- However, as the status of universities as non-profit has been in decline along with the federal system providing capital, the relationship between the government, educational institutions and businesses are changing; governance is yet to be determined.
Elana Zeide, Research Fellow, New York University; Affiliate, Data & Society
- Importance of local context in setting rules
- There has been rising attention towards student privacy
- Typical use of notion ‘privacy’ in lawmaking and parents organization, for example, focus more on the access/disclosure of data, than the usage of it. But the latter is becoming more and more important.
- Also, in the age of big data, conventional expressions such as limiting something to “educational purposes” do not mean the same thing anymore
- Ex) think face recognition- not being tagged is not the same level of privacy as before
Q&A, Comments
- The ubiquity of evaluation and data collection has a substantial impact in people’s behavior; students can become more conforming to the majority’s norm, without even noticing it. Knowing more may not be for the best.
- The tools may seem neutral, but in practice they incorporate power relations. Also, many tools now equal businesses
- Formative assessment, summative assessment, credentialing used to be separate things. Now not only is the separation blurred, but also the evaluation is managed by third party for-profits
- Are there studies on the effect of such classroom technologies on brain development?
- The “science” of teaching. Pedagogy itself becoming an engineering of the classroom— Need to define what success is in education
- Automation bias, or the tendency to act as the machine tells people to
- Education as citizen-making (which according to Stevens is what the U.S. had systemized during the 20C) vs worker-raising
- The right to be off (disconnected)
Relevant Events At Hunter that Might Fulfill Lab Requirements
Please join us this for this Thursday’s Lunchtime Seminar, “Digital humanities and pedagogy.”
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Wikipedia and Teaching: Collaborative Assignment
This semester’s collaborative Wikipedia assignment will focus on using Wikipedia in the classroom. We’ll be building on your experiences editing Wikipedia last semester and at the editathons this semester (and any other Wikipedia experiences you have).
The Wiki Education Foundation has created a set of online training modules for instructors who are interested in using Wikipedia with their students. We’ll use these modules as the basis for our assignment this semester.
You will work collaboratively in three teams. We will sort out these groups in class.
To begin, everyone should work their way through the Orientation for New Instructors. There are 3 additional modules, each a case study of a possible Wikipedia assignment:
1. Designing a Writing and Research Assignment
2. Designing a Translation Assignment
3. Designing a Media Contribution Assignment
Each team will choose one case study and use it to collaboratively create an assignment to be used as a final (substantial) project in an undergraduate class in one of your disciplines (or a multidisciplinary assignment, if you’d like).
Your completed assignment should include:
– Assignment type and topic, and the (hypothetical) course the assignment will be used in
– Student learning outcomes and goals for this assignment
– What students will do on the assignment
– What students will submit for the assignment
– How you’ll assess students’ work on the assignment
We’ll also include a week for online peer review of the assignment — everyone will take a look at each group’s assignment when it’s a complete draft, to offer constructive feedback.
In your final version that you submit to me, include a brief writeup to discuss these questions:
– What will your students need in order to complete this assignment? Training? Time? Space? How will you ensure that they get it?
– What will you need in order to support your students in their work on this assignment? How will you get it?
– Can you think of any challenges you might encounter as your students work on this assignment? What could you do to mitigate them?
– How do you think your students might benefit from working on this assignment (other than getting a grade)?
While we won’t be publishing this on Wikipedia, I’d like you to do your work on this assignment in Wikipedia to more closely align with what your hypothetical students will do. Please choose one of your group members’ sandbox pages to be the drafting space for your assignment, and use your (and my) talk pages for conversation about this assignment and to ask questions.
Revised: feel free to use any technology you’d like to communicate with your group.
Check-in points:
- March 7th: Complete the Orientation for New Instructors. Draft your work plan.
- March 14th: Begin initial contributions to the assignment (using whatever technology you’d like).
- March 28th: Finish complete draft of assignment, and post on our course group forum. Begin peer review — please comment on your colleagues’ assignment drafts on the course group forum. Note that everyone should comment on each group’s draft.
- April 4th: Peer review phase ends. Begin final work on assignment and writeup.
- April 11th: Final assignment and writeup due — post these on the course site.
Digital Pedagogy and the “Netiquette” of Active Learning
It seems that this week’s readings focus on digital pedagogy but even more so on tips for real-world pedagogical practices in the classroom and online.
For instance, I was quite pleased to read the recommendations in “Two Roads Diverged in a Wood” by Joseph Ugoretz. In the classroom, time is limited and digressions can be viewed as distractions. In fact, sometimes students use them for that very reason if they find themselves in class unprepared. However, while I do not teach online courses (yet), I have used discussion boards on WordPress. The great thing about online sites is that it also acts as a record of the thread; one can return to the ideas discussed in a way that is not quite possible in an active classroom discussion.
Just the same, I’ve noticed that digressions in class discussions can definitely be used as tools that allow students to think through material by forming their own relationship with it. It can be quite a challenge to bring a class back from particularly juicy digressions but in the end, it is worth letting the students explore their own ideas and make their own connections. This way, they truly take ownership of the material. Pelz speaks to this in his article regarding student-led discussions. This can also create mental threads that are maintained in the classroom throughout the semester. So, if I have a particularly interesting topic, I may start with the writing exercises in order to allow extra time for possible digressions. Sometimes a topic leads us to unexpected but awesome digressions. In this case, I make a deal with the students that will allow us to follow the thread, but only if we make a schedule (usually a combination of homework and/or extra writing the next class session) to assure that we stay on track.
Lastly, Dr. Smale’s and Dr. Regalado’s article, “Commuter Students Using Technology”, speaks to the very real circumstances surrounding the lack of tech devices for CUNY students. I really like the author’s idea to create e-reader/tablet loan programs across the CUNY campuses, as well as strengthening wi-fi networks. As a CUNY alumna, I remember the joy of realizing I could upload PDF’s to my Kindle. The subway became my portable office. For this reason, I used a responsive WordPress theme for my first semester of ENG 111 and uploaded all the readings on the site. This made it so easy for the students to read the articles, no matter where they were, as most of them had smartphones.
Questions:
How do you handle digressions in your classrooms?
Have you altered some of your teaching methods to accommodate a lack of access to technology?
How do you incorporate student-led discussions into your lesson plans?
Do you believe a hippocratic oath for ed. tech is necessary? If no, why not? If so, what would you include in it?
Teaching, Learning, Technology & You
This week we read a range of texts focusing on the issues facing education within a digital context. From the qualitative multi-year study conducted by our very own Prof. Smale, we read about the circumstances that many CUNY students face when confronted with coursework. While indeed many students these days are extremely tech-savvy, in some situations, the availability of technology may not meet the growing need. Further, many students are capable of navigating online resources and doing research using mobile devices such as smartphones, e-readers, or tablets. Instructors can learn to maximize the utility and availability of these resources by guiding students through searches to find valid resources to contribute to their research and classroom-based activities and discussions. One such initiative to improve the accessibility of resources is the OpenLab at City Tech as described by Rosen and Smale.
In terms of online pedagogy, the presentation of instructional materials is an important consideration because it creates a platform for learning. Based on his own experience, Pelz describes three principles based on experience with online learning. The first principle states that “students should do (most of) the work.” Describing different types of online tasks, such as virtual ice-breakers and discussions of online resources, Pelz convincingly shows how online forums can be used to continue a conversation between students about course material and learning outside the confines of the classroom. Principle 2 emphasizes the importance of interactivity in learning and provides examples for creating collaborative writing activities online. Much like GoogleDocs or Social Paper, the advantages of both writing within a quiet space that free of distractions as much as possible combined with the benefits of receiving feedback from peers and instructors can be set-up online. The third and final principle stress the need for presence in online education. Presence, according to Pelz, in an online environment comes in three distinct forms: affective, interactive, and cohesive. Just as disappointing as it is finding a blog that hasn’t been updated in years, seeing that a course site is out of date is probably similarly upsetting to a student who attempts to use it as a means to access resources and communicate with others in the course.
While not evident in Pelz’s piece, Ugoretz brings light to a different aspect of online discussion forums in particular, highlighting the creative potential that forums have for generating digressions. Whereas in a classroom setting, the digressions can consume a large amount of class time and may not always be to the benefit of each student, digressions in an online forum can invite all students to participate in the conversation allowing it to err in any direction that the participants see fit. For those who are not interested in the digression, they may contribute to another conversation or create their own. Ugoretz provides some recommendations for setting up productive digressions – for one, by establishing very clear goals for the discussion forum.
If anything, access to technology and information has created a meta-space for learning that extends beyond the classroom and as educators and students, we should try to maximize this potential.
Motivation: React to one or more of the following
In line with the empirical tradition, no significant statistical difference merely indicates that you have failed to demonstrate of an effect of one variable in relation to another. That is to say, that you have not proven a relationship does or does not exist. One can neither really prove nor disprove anything. Occasionally, errors can occur where an effect is not detected and this outcome, known as a Type II error can stem from multiple issues, including faulty experimental design or simply not having sufficient power as a result of a small sample size. With that said, do you believe that there is sufficient reason to call into the question the studies in No Significant Difference?
How is the need for the Bill of Rights and Principles for Learning in the Digital Age (BRPLDR) self-evident? Who is primarily responsible for ensuring that they are adhered to?
What were your reactions to the BRPLDR? If you were to amend the bill, what principle would you include or change?
The article by Pelz attempts to establish very concise principles of online learning. Do you think that they are comprehensive enough to lay the foundation for a good online discussion?
Digressions in an online setting can beneficial for students, according to Ugoretz, but need to be set-up by the instructor in such a way the objectives of the discussion are clear. In what other ways can an instructor enhance the productivity of a digression by setting it up?
React to your own experience in online education.
Class Notes from Past ITP Students’ Visit
I took some notes during our visit from past ITP students Pamela Thielman and Christina Shane-Simpson on 2/22, and thought it might be useful to share them:
Pamela:
– Think broadly about who you might collaborate with, both inside ITP and at the GC more broadly (and even beyond)
– She was looking for a project that incorporated giving back to her community of Theatre scholars, wasn’t teaching at the time so felt like she wanted to do something less explicitly pedagogical
– Be careful what you wish for! She’s administering the theatre images site now
– Useful learning through the project, e.g. now knows not to clean data by hand
– Also engaged her in a larger conversation about digital projects and sustainability of them, working with the GC Library currently
– Omeka is what Pamela used for her project, ask her if you have questions
Christina:
– Really wanted to have a project that could be used for her own scholarship as well as the IS course
– Implemented a summer transition program for students on the autism spectrum at CSI
– Part of this was social and advocacy skills for the students, but tech skills were huge as well
– Learned when they interviewed on intake that there was a big range of student skill levels
– Weren’t really using social media so shrunk that, kept the emailing your professor module
– Then ran the program again this past summer and had a totally different cohort, had to make a bunch of changes both times
– Also tried to incorporate some of those tech skills into other modules if necessary
– She’s written up the project as an article, but she’s also benefited from the theory from ITP courses too
– She’s also implemented a Wikipedia assignment, used it with a class of 100, too big! But would’ve been fine with smaller class, also more challenging with early career students than later
General discussion:
– Don’t forget about the evaluation of whatever you build/do for the IS. Sometimes the evaluation is does it work when you plug it in?
– Check mydigitalfootprint.org for an example of a digital dissertation from Greg Donovan, former GC student
Pamela also sent these resources for working with Omeka:
Omeka.org is the source for basic info on the platform and Omeka.net hosts the free sites. Both have links to examples of interest.
http://omeka.org/
http://www.omeka.net/
Here are two of Kimon Keramidas’ class sites (he is the GC/ITP alum who oversaw my capstone). He uses Omeka as a base and then some intermediate level coding to create themes that allow for more interactivity and flexibility. These are Omeka.org sites, so anyone wanting to get this fancy will need server space.
http://www.bgccraftartdesign.org/
http://physical-electrical-digital.nyufasedtech.com/
Independent Study Details and Past Projects
Hi everyone, I’m glad to see such a robust discussion of Getting Real, which we’ll continue in class tomorrow. We’ll also host three past ITP students who will share their Independent Study projects with you, and we’ll have the opportunity to ask them about how they conceived and implemented their projects.
I also wanted to share the ITP Independent Study Projects blog here on the Commons: https://itpis.commons.gc.cuny.edu/. This is a great place to browse through past projects, and also to get a bit more detail about the Independent Study. We’ll talk more about this in class throughout the semester, too.
