Digital Detox 2020 Archive
Detoxify Your Relationship to Technology
some of the biggest issues in technology, and especially educational technology, today. We’ll learn about issues of equity, ethics, access, and we’ll talk about data privacy and how students and faculty are targeted.
with other members of the TRU community who are wrestling with the same ideas and looking to establish a healthier relationship to technology. We’ll build a community of practice to keep this conversation going all year.
your tech-use practices with new information in mind. We’ll empower you to make better choices about how you interact with technology in your life and work, and give you questions to ask in your post-detox life.
What to Expect When You’re Detoxing
For the month of January, we’ll remind you twice a week when there are new posts to read on the Digital Detox site. We’ll also send you information about face-to-face discussion meet-ups during Digital Detox month, and we’ll connect you to related resources and future sessions.
The Final Farewell
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…
Blog Round Up!
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,…
Digital Detox #8: Moving Forward with an Ethic of Care
We’re at the end, my Digital Detox friends. (Well, almost: we have two round-up posts coming on Monday, and if you’re on the TRU campus I hope we’ll see you at the closing face-to-face session on February 7th — you can register by clicking here.) If you’ve read all eight of my missives — thank…
Digital Detox #7: Radical Openness
Sunshine is the best disinfectant. Sure, it’s an aphorism, but it’s a good’un. I mean, it’s not always true. Don’t clean your kitchen with sunlight; soap is, in fact, also an excellent disinfectant. Probably better if you’ve just handled raw chicken. But when we talk about sunshine as a disinfectant, we’re talking about a belief…
Digital Detox #6: Radical Resistance
So. What if we just say no? In today’s post, I want to talk to you a little more directly about what resistance looks like in the context of our digital detox. Indeed, I want to talk to you about what radical resistance looks like in the context of our digital detox. The common factor…
Digital Detox #5: Questions to Ask Before Giving Up
I’m borrowing the title from a marvellous poem — linked again in context down below — by Kaitlyn Boulding. It’s wonderful to share with students at difficult moments in the semester. To peel back the lid of the sardine can, what we’ve been engaging in this month, so far as we have been talking primarily…
Digital Detox #4: A Case Study of Suck
A subtitle of sorts: Contract Cheating and Equity, Data, and Algorithms. Today we’re going to talk a little bit about contract cheating and a lot about what contract cheating tells us about the problems endemic to our relationship to technology. I’ve chosen this as a focus not only because it is a massive growth-area of…
Digital Detox #3: Algorithms and Exclusion
Today’s topic is a particularly heavy one, because I’m going to ask you to wrestle with the idea of what social exclusion looks like in the context of technology, and how many modes of exclusion are baked in to the technology we use, especially through the mechanism of algorithms. You probably have some idea of…
Digital Detox #2: Ethics and Data Privacy
Okay, it’s time to roll up our sleeves for the big guns: ethics and data. It’s probably not a surprising piece of information for me to share with you that much of what you engage with online — from Google to Facebook and back again — is mining your data, using analytics to tailor advertising…
Digital Detox #1: EdTech and Equity Issues
In the first instalment of the Digital Detox, we discuss equity, and how the inequities inherent in both technology and education are our responsibility to dismantle.
Preview Post: Why Detox?
Wherein we set up the parameters of the detox, discuss metaphors, and promise to unsettle but not panic.