📓 Technology is never neutral

4 responses on “📓 Technology is never neutral”

1. 
   flickr photo shared by mrkrndvs under a Creative Commons ( BY-SA ) license
   So often the debate around digital technology and literacies seems to be framed around whether we should all learn how to code. As if simply learning a few lines would solve all the world’s ills. Although Douglas Rushkoff touches on this in his book, Program or be Programmed, his main focus is on what it actually means to program. For Rushkoff programming is closely linked to the art of writing, just as the creation of the alphabet focused on hearing and the printing press supported on a rise in reading. This programming as writing is not just about programming as an act of engineering, but as a liberal art. As Rushkoff explains,

   Even if we don’t all go out and learn to program—something any high school student can do with a decent paperback on the subject and a couple of weeks of effort—we must at least learn and contend with the essential biases of the technologies we will be living and working with from here on.

   This is an understanding of the operating system of the world we live in and the inherent biases that are built into the platforms and devices we use each and every day.
   Rushkoff’s discussion is broken down into ten modern day commandments:

   Time and the push to be ever present.
   Place and the disconnection with the local.
   Choice and the pressure to forever choose.
   Complexity and the ignorance of nuance.
   Scale and the demand of the global spread.
   Identity and the digital self.
   Social and contact as king.
   Facts and the demand to tell the truth.
   Openness and the importance of sharing.
   Purpose and the power of programming.

   Each bias is unpacked, providing examples and elaborations to support an ongoing dialogue.
   What makes Program or be Programmed the best introduction that I have read on coding and the impact of digital technologies is that provides a considered point of view. It balances between criticism and praise for the modern world, with a clear hope for tomorrow. Although we may not all build our own social media platform or a search engine to match Google, we have a responsibility to be aware how such programs and platforms are influencing us. For as Gary Stager says, “technology is not neutral.”
   For more information, listen to this interview on ABC Future Tense or check out the following clips:
   [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imV3pPIUy1k%5D
   [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXjRaoTPlPE%5D

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   REVIEW: Program or be Programmed by @Rushkoff by Aaron Davis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
   

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2. It is often argued that technology is about redefinition and substitution. However, Bill Ferriter makes the case that technology simply makes things more doable and…

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3. Martin Weller responds to a request to predict the future of higher ed by identifying four rules:

   Very little changes, while simultaneously everything changes.
   Change is rarely about the technology.
   Appreciate the historical amnesia in much of educational technology.
   Technology is not ethically or politically neutral.

   Alongside the work of Gary Stager and Audrey Watters, this is a useful provocation to think about the past, present and future of education and technology.

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4. The word of the month was Lego. I took my children to the Lego Discovery Centre, we went and saw Lego Movie 2 and we have been listening to the soundtrack on repeat.

   In my children’s music classes, the focus has been exploring nature for examples of loud and quiet, short and long sounds. It is funny how much you notice when you make it a conscious choice. Even funnier when the three year old starts calling out, “forte, that’s forte.”
   Work saw me seemingly join another team. I feel like I have a part in so many pieces of the puzzle. It is interesting and, as one colleague pointed out, I will know a lot at the end all this. The problem is that being spread so wide can be a bit frantic at times, especially when you are the intermediary between the different parties.
   Personally, I have been reading The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I avoided Taleb’s work for a while feeling that I needed to be in the right frame of mind to keep up. However, when my wife was recommended it as part of her studies and Chris Aldrich recommended his work, I decided to dive in. In regards to my focus on flânerie, the message I got from the book is that to inoculate against black swans and the fourth quadrant we need to embrace randomness, rather than turn everything into a convenient bell curve.
   Musically, I have been listening to a lot of clips on YouTube and podcasts, in particular I dived into the work of Mike Dawes, as well as returned to Paul Sheeky’s History of Electonic Music. Iched Black Panther. I have also been working through some of Ben Collins’ courses associated with Google Sheets.
   In regards to my writing, I wrote two posts in response to David Hopkins #OpenBlog19 series:

   Feedback or Finding Out? – A Reflection on Learning Observations and Walkthroughs
   Solutions over Answers – a Reflection on Lessons Learned

   Here are some links that have supported my learning this month …
   Learning and Teaching
   What Shakespeare Left Out
   Katherine Duckett reflects on Shakespeare’s legacy and discusses some of the elements that he left out. Her topics include successful rebellions, healthy relationships, mother’s and independent women. It is an interesting excercise to stop and consider what an author chooses not to cover in a particular text.
   The surprisingly radical politics of Dr Seuss
   Fiona MacDonald takes a look at the political side of Dr. Suess’ work. This includes commentary from another author/illustrator Art Spigelmen and discussion of Suess’ work on propaganda during World War II.
   Your curriculum defines your school. Own it. Shape it. Celebrate it.
   Tom Sherrington discusses the importance of curriculum when defining a school. To support this he provides ten questions to reflect upon. Although written for a secondary audience in Britain, this list is useful to consider. This reminds me of Ewan McIntosh’s post on defining a schools competitive position.
   “Real-World” Math Is Everywhere or It’s Nowhere
   Dan Meyer on differentiating between ‘real’ models versus ‘non-real’ models in Mathematics. The problem with this is that from a process point of view it is all real learning.
   Are we designing and building the right schools for future Australia? (We could be getting it so wrong)
   Adam Wood shares four insights from debates around building schools and learning spaces: avoid crisis mentality, design schools for living as well as learning, we only get what we pay for and we need a debate about school architecture. This is a useful provocation in regards to learning spaces.
   Technology
   History Disappeared When Myspace Lost 12 Years of Music, and It Will Happen Again
   Damon Krukowski reflects on the recent revelation that MySpace lost 12 years worth of music. He discusses the challenges associated with archiving in general. This reminds me of Celia Coffa’s keynote at Digicon15 Digital Stories and Future Memories.
   There are now four competing visions of the internet. How should they be governed?
   Kieron O’Hara outlines four visions for the internet from the perspective of e-commerce:

   Silicon Valley
   Beijing’s paternal internet
   Brussels’ bourgeois internet
   Washington DC’s commercial internet

   And a bonus one, Moscow mule model. It is interesting thinking about this after the EU’s recent decision to sign off the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive.
   Ten Lessons I Learned While Teaching Myself to Code
   In light on Clive Thompson’s new book, he reflects on the ten lessons associated with learning to code. Two points that stood out to me from Thompson’s was coding every day and doing so with purpose. I have been doing quite a bit with Google Sheets lately. I find myself needing to relearn things after leaving things for a few weeks. Repetition is important. I was also reminded of Richard Olsen’s post on why coding is the vanguard for modern learning.
   Learning the rules of predicting the future
   Martin Weller responds to a request to predict the future of higher ed by identifying four rules:

   Very little changes, while simultaneously everything changes.
   Change is rarely about the technology.
   Appreciate the historical amnesia in much of educational technology.
   Technology is not ethically or politically neutral.

   Alongside the work of Gary Stager, Audrey Watters and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, this is a useful provocation to think about the past, present and future of education and technology.
   How to quit Facebook without quitting Facebook
   Kaitlyn Tiffany interviews Jenny Odell about her book How to Do Nothing. Rather than leaving social media, Odell encourages us to be more aware. This is similar to what I was trying to capture in my post on being ‘informed’. Odell also discusses the idea of ‘social media’ as a public utility that does not depend upon cashing in on our attention. I just wonder if a state-based solution leads to what China has in place? Maybe the alternative is a decentralized solution? I am not sure.
   Teaching Digital Citizenship: 10 Internet Safety Tips For Students (With Cyber Safety Posters)
   Kathleen Morris outlines her four layered approach to teaching digital citizenship. This focuses on integrating the various skills within the curriculum, providing real world stories to reflect upon, building up student toolkits and developing lines of communication. Associated with this, she also provides ten tips for students.
   Reflection
   Reporting a massacre: Why the ABC didn’t share the shooter’s ‘manifesto’
   Craig McMurtrie unpacks the decision by the ABC to not publish extracts of the Christchurch shooter’s ‘manifesto’. Every move made seems to have be orchestrated to grab attention. As Robert Evans from Bellingcat explains, it is an example of Shit posting. Zeynep Tufekci backed this stance on Twitter. She also linked to a couple of posts she wrote in response to Sandy Hook Massacre and the Virginia shooter explaining the dangers of feeding copycat scenarios. This focus on media manipulation reminded me of dana boyd’s discussion of 4Chan’s association with fake news.
   Pattern and Forecast (Vol. 5)
   Josephine Rowe discusses Nevil Shute 1957 book On the Beach written about a nuclear holocaust in the northern hemisphere. The story documents people’s response of people in Melbourne on the coming nuclear cloud progressively moving south. Rowe compares this with the current milieu around the threat of global warming. With record heat waves in Central Australia and bushfires caused by lightning in Tasmania.
   Trolls are just the start of the problems facing female players
   Kate O’Halloran reports on the furore that has arisen around the publication Tayla Harris’ photograph, where Channel 7 pulled the image after being inundated by trolls, only to reinstate it after pressure. O’Halloran explains that such trolling is neither new nor is it restricted to AFLW. Instead, it highlights an underlying misogynistic culture within sport. This reminds me of Phil Cleary’s article in 2004 discussing this subculture.
   The Price of Gratitude
   Julian Stodd discusses the free act of gratitude. This is something so often overlooked. Stodd’s discussion of ‘cheap, but priceless’ reminds me of Steve Wheeler’s discussion of sharing knowledge and ideas.
   A Brief History of That Most Noble Tuber, the Potato
   Rebecca Earle digs into the history of potato. She starts in the Americas and follows the trail through to the Irish famine. Along with the chili, this is another staple brought from the new world.

   Read Write Respond #039
   So that is March for me, how about you? As always, happy to hear.

   Cover Image via Ms 8

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