My friends, what a time to be working in education. When I sat down in November to plan this year’s Digital Detox, I really struggled. Reading back through the essays of the last few years, it is easy to believe that nothing has really changed or improved since the start of the pandemic, and that…
What would it mean to build back better in the wake of Covid-19? When I think about the scope of the problem, all that there is to manage and to repair, I confess that I shrink from it. It feels exhausting. And yet, it also seems urgent, like something that would be irresponsible to step…
It’s bitterly cold this week in Kamloops. I went out for a walk today before sitting down to write this, and it is taking me forever to warm up again, even though I’m now sitting in the sunshine in my cheery home office. The walls are a soft blue and the space is decorated with…
Today, I want to spend some time looking at a tool that has become just about ubiquitous in education: the Microsoft Office365, and particularly Microsoft Teams. For most of us working in post-secondary, the Office suite has traditionally been wallpaper: it’s just there, used in our offices and offered to our students, but not part…
If there’s one trend that Covid-19 brought on like a freight train — other than the crushing existential dread — it’s e-proctoring. Reader, I hate it. There are loads of good pieces online about why e-proctoring is troubling, but I want to focus on what I think e-proctoring says about the state of education now,…
It’s common discourse in teaching and learning circles to hear the comment that we can’t let technology drive our pedagogy. But is it true? If I walk into a classroom and the chairs are fixed rather than movable, it changes how I approach the lesson plan; if there’s no whiteboard or no surface to write…
Welcome to the 2021 TRU Digital Detox. Last year, I used the Digital Detox at least in part to introduce myself to the TRU campus and showcase my priorities in my new role as Coordinator, Educational Technologies. My big thing was hope. Hope! Yes, venture capitalism and surveillance tech and corporate edtech are things that…
Last year, following the example of the very cool team at Middlebury College, we launched the 2020 TRU Digital Detox. In a series of eight essays (and three face-to-face sessions!), we discussed pressing issues in educational technologies. We focused on ethics, algorithms, and data privacy, and we explored the idea of applying an ethics of…
Well, we’ve done it, my friends. This month, you’ve read along with me through eight substantive essays on equity and access, ethics and data privacy, algorithms, contract cheating, critical digital pedagogies, possibilities for resistance, open education, and (my favourite) care ethics. Scrivener (my nerdy word processor of choice) tells me that if you’ve read the…
A quick post to collect some of the takes on the #TRUDigitalDetox floating around the blog-o-sphere over the last month. So, the boss kicked off the blog chatter with his commitment to follow the Detox (he has to; I work here). D’arcy Norman responded in kind. Anne-Marie Scott also introduced the idea on her blog,…