{"id":522,"date":"2021-05-05T06:00:18","date_gmt":"2021-05-05T13:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci565\/?p=522"},"modified":"2021-05-04T14:58:57","modified_gmt":"2021-05-04T21:58:57","slug":"platforms-for-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci565\/platforms-for-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"Platforms for Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Unfortunately, the problems with educational technology run much deeper than too much hype followed by too little impact.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve recently learned of Roy Amara and his &#8216;law&#8217;.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"embedly-card\" data-card-controls=\"1\" data-card-align=\"center\" data-card-theme=\"light\">\n<h4><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oxfordreference.com\/view\/10.1093\/acref\/9780191826719.001.0001\/q-oro-ed4-00018679\">Roy Amara<\/a><\/h4>\n<p>PRINTED FROM OXFORD REFERENCE (www.oxfordreference.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2013. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single entry from a reference work in OR for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/cdn.embedly.com\/widgets\/platform.js\" charset=\"UTF-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I think it is fair to say that we tend to get pretty hyped about new technologies that promise to make our lives better, but actually don&#8217;t, while at the same time, we are somewhat blind to the negative effects of technology over longer periods of time. Feel free to push back against this idea in a post this week (or not, it&#8217;s up to you).<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m <code>not<\/code> arguing that all technology is bad and that we need to return to &#8216;simpler&#8217; times. I hope it is obvious to you that there are distinct advantages to using technology in education. There are many people who have a hard time learning and for them, technology can enable many activities that wouldn&#8217;t otherwise be possible. For example, if someone has difficulty processing written words, being able to have a screen-reader translate written words into spoken words can be extremely helpful. Or people who have difficulty writing or spelling can use a word processor to type and provide a spell-check. Or people who are learning a foreign language can use translators to help them understand complex ideas.<\/p>\n<p>What I will argue against, and I encourage you to disagree with me, is the idea that <code>technology is neutral<\/code>. The simple fact that so much technology is built by rich white males who live in California, and who only want to make money should be a clue that the underlying philosophy behind the code that powers technology is fundamentally skewed towards benefitting those same people.<\/p>\n<p>One example of this in education technology is the use of Turnitin (TII). You may have encountered this requirement in one of your courses. TII is a web service sold to schools (for tens of thousands of dollars) that they claim will help learners write better and will save faculty time in assessing learners&#8217; work. They may be right, but what are the other messages sent when faculty rely on a <code>black-box algorithm<\/code> to determine which student has copied from another source legitimately and which student hasn&#8217;t?<\/p>\n<h3>What Turnitin tells learners.<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Learners are not trustworthy.<\/li>\n<li>Learners must prove they are innocent before their work will be graded.<\/li>\n<li>Learners&#8217; work can be given away to for-profit companies for free.<\/li>\n<li>We can trust an invisible and inscrutable algorithm to accurately detect the difference between legitimate and illegitimate usage of other&#8217;s ideas.<\/li>\n<li>It is more important to write so that you get a low TII number than it is to think deeply and carefully and write clearly.<\/li>\n<li>The most important work that teaching faculty do, assessing student work and providing formative feedback, can be outsourced to the company with the lowest bid.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So on the surface, a service like TII seems like a benefit to both students and faculty, but if you look just a little closer, it is much less positive.<\/p>\n<p>It is interesting to note that TII itself says specifically that their software cannot ever detect plagiarism, but that is how many faculty use it, to detect plagiarism.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to read more about resisting TII, have a look at this article.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"embedly-card\" data-card-controls=\"1\" data-card-align=\"center\" data-card-theme=\"light\">\n<h4><a href=\"https:\/\/hybridpedagogy.org\/resisting-edtech\/\">A Guide for Resisting Edtech: the Case against Turnitin<\/a><\/h4>\n<p>Every day, we participate in a digital culture owned and operated by others &#8211; designers, engineers, technologists, CEOs &#8211; who have come to understand how easily they can harvest our intellectual property, data, and the minute details of our lives.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/cdn.embedly.com\/widgets\/platform.js\" charset=\"UTF-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Another edtech platform that has been a major concern is Proctorio and their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/recode\/2020\/5\/4\/21241062\/schools-cheating-proctorio-artificial-intelligence\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">test-taking surveillance software<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unfortunately, the problems with educational technology run much deeper than too much hype followed by too little impact. I&#8217;ve recently learned of Roy Amara and his &#8216;law&#8217;. Roy Amara PRINTED FROM OXFORD REFERENCE (www.oxfordreference.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2013&#8230;. <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci565\/platforms-for-learning\/\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology-in-learning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci565\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci565\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci565\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci565\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci565\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci565\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1212,"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci565\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions\/1212"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci565\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci565\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci565\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci565\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}