1. BRINGING THE WEB BACK:
the digital literacies we need (right now)
Bonnie Stewart
University of Windsor
DIGITAL LITERACY SYMPOSIUM 2019
Virginia Tech

2. who here uses “the web?”

4. how do we understand its shifting structures?

5. a digital
identity
story

6. me on the web, 2006

7. participatory communities

8. architecture of Web 2.0

10. 6 years, 2 months
13,530 non-spam comments / links from readers

11. https://www.flickr.com/photos/7304209@N02/16515490143
me on the web, 2012

13. monetization

14. algorithmic identities

15. me on the web, 2019

17. misinformation

18. Something is rotten in democracy when huge numbers of those
participating in its debates are unaccountable and
untraceable, when we cannot know who or even
what they are…the bots are everywhere now.
-Bridle (2018)
https://www.versobooks.com/books/2698-new-dark-age

19. sensationalism

20. Information organizations, from libraries to schools and
universities to governmental agencies, are increasingly being
displaced by a variety of web-based "tools" as if there are
no political, social, or economic
consequences of doing so.
- Noble (2018)
https://nyupress.org/9781479837243/algorithms-of-oppression/

21. surveillance
https://www.jamesmullarkey.com/2019/03/is-this-smart-device-safe-in-my-home-three-simple-checks/

22. extraction capitalism
https://www.ted.com/talks/zeynep_tufekci_we_re_building_a_dystopia_just_to_make_people_click_on_ads

23. The new Silicon Valley venture philanthropists are seeking
more overtly computational models of education reform…
to design new software systems and
technological fixes for insertion into the
institutions of education.
- Williamson (2017)
Williamson, B. (2017). Educating Silicon Valley: Corporate education reform and the reproduction of the techno-economic revolution. Review of
Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 39(3), 265–288. doi:10.1080/10714413.2017.1326274

25. we’ve handed over control of our
data, our identities, & our
shared public infrastructures,
including democracy.
we are outsourcing
knowledge-making & governance
to AI.

26. okay. so…run away?

29. we need to bring back the web.
Or bring into being a NEW web.
a pro-social, pro-societal web.

30. The
Luddites?
• NOT anti-technology
• Threatened by the effects of
encroaching industrial systems
• No vote to change the systems
affecting them
• Organized “friendly societies” for
protection
• Broke machines
• 14 executed in 1813
• When you don’t tell your story, it
becomes another story

31. we do NOT get to be Luddites.

32. (but we DO need a
subversive hope)

33. and we DO need to understand what
counts as enfranchisement in
the systems we are in.

34. a critical pedagogy approach
Nothing will change until WE change – until we
throw off our dependence and
act for ourselves.
- Horton (1997)
https://www.amazon.ca/Long-Haul-Autobiography-Myles-Horton/dp/0807737003

36. key digital literacies for building
a better web:
1. complexity
2. cooperation
3. contribution

37. COMPLEXITY

38. CYNEFIN
Snowden &
Boone (2007)
To know how
to address a
problem, you
need to know
what kind of
problem you
HAVE.
https://hbr.org/2007/11/a-leaders-framework-for-decision-making

39. OBVIOUS

40. OBVIOUS PROBLEMS
1. Only one answer needed
2. That answer always works
3. Does not require subject matter expertise
4. Solutions can be Googled

41. COMPLICATED

42. 1. Sometimes more than one solution is
possible
2. A solution is possible
3. Requires subject matter expertise
4. Usually a lot of work
COMPLICATED PROBLEMS

43. COMPLEX

44. COMPLEX PROBLEMS
1. Do not have a solution
2. Can only work on part of the problem
3. Iteration is key
4. You have to look for patterns

45. complicated or complex?
landing on the moon

46. complicated or complex?
climate change

47. complicated or complex?
raising kids

48. complicated or complex?
coding

49. complicated or complex?
“personalized learning” through predictive analytics

50. student success
complicated or complex?

51. complicated systems of thought
CANNOT solve complex problems
While machine intelligence
is rapidly outstripping human performance in
many disciplines, it is not the only way of thinking,
and it is in many fields catastrophically destructive.
- Bridle (2018)
https://www.versobooks.com/books/2698-new-dark-age

52. complicated or complex?
hijacked democracy

54. we need literacies
– & digital practices –
that foreground COMPLEXITY
http://andrewcerniglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Cynefin_Framework.pdf
STRATEGY:
probe
rense
respond
no single right answersystem in constant fluxpatterns emerge over time

55. COOPERATION
How might technoscience be appropriated and
reimagined for more liberatory ends? How, in short, can
we design our sociotechnical systems differently?
- Benjamin (2018)
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2018/03/29/what-i-think-ruha-benjamin

56. “If you want to travel fast, travel alone.
If you want to travel far,
travel together.”
- probably NOT actually a proverb

57. the web is a complex system of
collaboration & cooperation.
like scholarship.

58. Collaboration is a coordinated, synchronous activity
that is the result of an ongoing effort to construct and
maintain a shared idea of a problem.

59. Cooperation divides labor among participants,
so each unit is responsible for solving a
portion of the problem.

60. our problem? we’ve made ourselves
extras in our systems.

61. Any strategy other than mindful, thoughtful cooperation
is a form of disengagement: a retreat that cannot hold.
We cannot reject technology any more than we can
ultimately and utterly reject our neighbours in society &
the world; we are
all entangled.
- Bridle (2018)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13521837@N00/2577665727https://www.versobooks.com/books/2698-new-dark-age
we can’t fix the web without the
machines.

62. resistance as presence & participation
https://plus.google.com/+DaveGray/posts/CQRVeKEsUvFpid=5751686447270321954&oid=117373186752666867801

63. webs are fragile, but also strong.

64. CONTRIBUTION

65. how to build presence

67. a pro-
social
web

68. for work.

69. play.

70. https://www.sscqueens.org/projects/screening-surveillance/frames
art.

71. scholarship.

72. sharing of
resources &
recommendations.
#phdchat

73. sharing
support.

74. publishing.

75. research funding.

76. collaboration & cooperation

77. professional learning.

78. teaching.
The classroom, with all its
limitations, remains a
location of possibility. We
have the opportunity to
labor for freedom…even
as we collectively imagine
ways to move beyond
boundaries, to transgress.
This is education as the
practice of freedom.
– hooks, 1994
https://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Transgress-Education-Practice-
Translation/dp/0415908086

79. https://www.lc-global-us.com/our-change-and-innovation-consulting-approach/

80. we can do better. together.
we get to work towards better systems.

82. THANK YOU.
@bonstewart