1. DIGITAL PEDAGOGY IN AN
AGE OF ALGORITHMS:
BONNIE STEWART | University of Windsor
THATCampX 2019
what do we DO about data?

2. bringing #Antigonish2 back home J

3. a story
about
systems.

4. we need to talk about the web.

6. architecture of Web 2.0
PARTICIPATORY COMMUNITIES

7. 2006 – 2012
13,530 non-spam comments / links from readers

8. BUT.

9. MONETIZATION

10. algorithmic systems

11. MISINFORMATION

12. SENSATIONALISM

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

14. POLARIZATION &
RADICALIZATION

15. 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/

17. PARTICIPATION PUSHED OUT OF THE PICTURE

18. 2016:

21. 2017
2018

22. but.
I could not
leverage the
systems I was IN
to make
#Antigonish2
take off at a
systems level.

23. https://fourmoves.blog/2019/02/22/just-bankrupt-it/

24. MY FOCUS:
digital pedagogy & digital scholarship

25. AWESOME!

26. the platforms &
systems we use
in digital pedagogy
are increasingly less
PARTICIPATORY
& more technocratic
L
Stanford dSchool Liberatory Design Cards
https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources/liberatory-design-cards

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

29. 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

30. • Next-gen security &
risk management
• AI conversation interface
• Smart campus
• Predictive analytics
• Nudge tech
• Digital credentialling tech
• Hybrid integration
platforms
• Career software
• Cross-life cycle CRM
• Wireless presentation technologies
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/10-technologies-that-will-impact-higher-education-the-most-this-year/
TOP TEN

31. DATA & AI SYSTEMS =
THE NEW COMPANY STORE
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caples-company-store-wv1.jpg

33. who do these
data systems
serve?

34. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark/412-1.4887497/bad-algorithms-are-making-racist-decisions-1.4887504

36. 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

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

40. OKAY. SO…RUN AWAY?

43. WE NEED TO BRING BACK THE WEB.
Or rather, rebuild the participatory web.
A pro-social, pro-societal web.

44. • NOT anti-technology
• Threatened by the effects of
encroaching industrial systems
• No vote to change their
systems
• Organized “friendly societies”
• Broke machines
• 14 executed in 1813
• When YOU don’t tell your
story, it becomes another story
THE LUDDITES?

45. WE DO NOT GET TO BE
LUDDITES.

46. but we need a
subversive hope.

47. And we need to understand and USE
the participatory, collective structures
of the system we are IN.

48. A CRITICAL DIGITAL PEDAGOGY
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

49. The
stakes
are high.

50. 3 KEYS TO CRITICAL DIGITAL PEDAGOGY &
BUILDING A BETTER WEB:
1. complexity
2. cooperation
3. contribution

51. COMPLEXITY

52. 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

53. OBVIOUS

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

55. COMPLICATED

56. 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

57. COMPLEX

58. 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

59. COMPLICATED OR COMPLEX?
landing on the moon

60. COMPLICATED OR COMPLEX?
climate change

61. COMPLICATED OR COMPLEX? CHAOTIC?
raising kids

62. COMPLICATED OR COMPLEX?
coding

63. COMPLICATED OR COMPLEX?
“personalized learning” through predictive analytics

64. student success
COMPLICATED OR COMPLEX?

65. 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

67. COMPLICATED OR COMPLEX?
hijacked democracy

69. WE NEED PEDAGOGIES –
& PRACTICES – THAT FOREGROUND COMPLEXITY
http://andrewcerniglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Cynefin_Framework.pdf
STRATEGY:
probe
rense
respond
• no single right answer• system in constant flux• patterns emerge over
time

70. 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

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

72. THE WEB IS A COMPLEX SYSTEM OF
COLLABORATION & COOPERATION.
LIKE SCHOLARSHIP.

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

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

75. OUR PROBLEM? WE’VE MADE OURSELVES
EXTRAS IN OUR SYSTEMS.

76. WE CANNOT FIX THE WEB WITHOUT
THE MACHINES.
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

77. The main trouble with cyborgs,
of course, is that they are the
illegitimate offspring of
militarism and patriarchal
capitalism, not to mention state
socialism. But illegitimate
offspring are often exceedingly
unfaithful to their origins.
- Haraway (1991)
So my cyborg myth is
about transgressed
boundaries, potent fusions,
and dangerous possibilities
which progressive people
might explore as one part
of needed political work…
The cyborg incarnation is
outside salvation history.
HYBRID
https://www.sfu.ca/~decaste/OISE/page2/files/HarawayCyborg.pdf

78. RESISTANCE AS PRESENCE & PARTICIPATION
https://plus.google.com/+DaveGray/posts/CQRVeKEsUvFpid=5751686447270321954&oid=117373186752666867801

79. WEBS ARE FRAGILE, BUT ALSO STRONG.

81. To the blind, all
things are sudden.
- Leighton, quoted in
McLuhan (1965)
from the Marshall McLuhan DEWLine Card Deck (1969)

82. CONTRIBUTION

83. Where are the places you work?
Where are the places you leave traces that
allow you to connect with new people?

86. A PRO-
SOCIAL
WEB

87. FOR WORK.

88. PLAY.

89. https://www.sscqueens.org/projects/screening-surveillance/frames
ART.

90. SCHOLARSHIP.

91. SHARING OF
RESOURCES &
RECOMMENDATIONS.
#phdchat

92. SHARING
SUPPORT.

93. PUBLISHING.
openly

94. RESEARCH FUNDING.

95. PROFESSIONAL LEARNING.

96. COLLABORATION & COOPERATION.

97. 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
http://uwindsor.icampus21.com/wordpress/uwindig/2018/10/03/
pushing-the-pendulum-back/

98. SO. NEXT STEPS FOR #ANTIGONISH2?
• educators’ data literacies research
• #ProsocialWeb (at #OER19 this week)
• ??

99. WE CAN DO BETTER. TOGETHER.
WE GET TO WORK TOWARDS BETTER SYSTEMS.

100. THANK YOU.