Agreed... and our knowledge of the web and its affordances is leverage. Can those of us with progressive aspirations see the challenges our democracy is currently faced with as a test of our digital citizenship skills?

MOOC MOOC MOOC MOOC MOO...

This seems to suggest the Internet as an inherently good tool that is being misused. I see it as a neutral, flexible, and social tool that amplifies. Can we understand the Internet as a contested space now?

No doubt an extension of neoliberal ideologies.

This line strikes me. Access to what? Though this piece hasn't dealt with ed tech much yet, I'm curious about what access has been lowered to zero? I think that the promise of the Internet is, as always, depends on the perspective of the subjective user. If we think access to information or platforms is universal, we're not looking closely enough.

What a nice image, as so much of what we perceive is mediated through what we touch - including the digital, as we hold phones, compose blog posts, and converse via web annotation all as acts of perception.

This resonates with me. I needed a few days and interactions with friends and loved ones before I was ready to talk intelligibly about the election and its implications. For me, politics is secondary to articulating a stance I'm taking about anti-racism. I want to declare that I am anti-racist and I want to learn more about how to be effectively anti-racist.

And you're very welcome Helen, it's a pleasure to collaborate with authors, in unique ways, while building community through conversation about such important issues. We greatly appreciate your willingness to play along!

We're very thankful to Helen for agreeing to join us in reading and annotating her wonderful post during a Marginal Syllabus annotation flash mob on Wednesday, November 30th. Information about our Marginal Syllabus conversations can be found here.

Love the idea of speaking up even when we are uncertain of our "rightness" as an act of resistance

Look forward to being in this space (1st of December for me) with a few other marginal mob.

What about?

We need universal, publicly-funded education TECHNOLOGY that is less penetrated by market forces and values, less obsessed with measuring ‘outcomes’, less oppressive and more playful – for everyone.

hashtagorsomething

I agree sort of with this comment. Newspapers and magazines are different from radio because the writer of the magazine is more of informative vs a radio person who informs you about the situation then puts in their two cents.

This definitely applies to social media today. So many users are driven by their number of followers and nothing else. My younger cousin told me that in his school if a photo doesn't get 70 likes on Instagram within the first 20 minutes, it has to come down because that's embarrassing. This puts so much unnecessary pressure on something that should be used for fun, communication, and in some cases to share information.

I think that this statement could be applied to our Hunger Games reading. In the Hunger Games the propos were so greatly staged and produced. Like the statement says, they were a combination of advertising and (manipulated) news.

This is one of the main largest reasons this speech is so memorable. Murrow, not only addressed the issue, but he called out the person responsible live TV.

This passage is like it almost directly relates to the movie Hunger Games. The media was a strong influence on the people and only way for communication between the two sides. The rebels used the media to get their words across, so that they could help others to survive and give them faith of changes to come.

I think this passage is relate-able to digital media in a lot of ways because it affects our society very much. In the year 2016 everyone is using the internet and using several social media sites which for some is our local news. Many people are easily influenced by the things that are posted by others. We have a new culture where the media play a huge part in our lives today.

This couple of statements remind of how in the hunger game there was a schedule for every event. They were to be at their living room at a certain time, in order to listen and get the information.

I wouldn't say that they are mass communication. Nowadays, there are other factors of communication that are able to capture million of view. Internet which will be the main one but also application on individual phone or tablets. One factor for sure is that the newspaper can't be critiques enough to particular organization because some are own by them. Lets put the Washington Post who got bought from amazon in order to say only good things and comment on it. Not everyone knows.

This makes me think of how in the hunger games even though Snow was claiming that he was doing everything for the people he was really doing it for himself and his power.

Often people say things much like this when posting on the internet. They do things so differently and post more haphazardly on the internet using this,

The reverse of this is what's being done in Hunger Games. The only things that were shown were what the capitol approved and things that they wanted people to believe, while the ads with Katniss go against the set traditions of the capitol.

Today people put literally everything on social media. Even though everyone will see it does not mean that it is of any importance. Any information that is way too much sharing if told to a room full of people, is just as useless if not more when put out for everyone to see.

I love the intro that Murrow uses. He knows that his speech might fall on deaf ears and may indeed be unhelpful, but he will not be daunted in his beliefs and his choice to express his opinion and thoughts on what he feels is not only an important event for him, but for his country. however in today's modern digital news infrastructure, his concerns are somewhat of a moot point now. in order for any web based news source to function online, they need revenue to function and to remain online. The easiest way is to advertise. While this is the easiest way to gain revenue, the payoff is much smaller. The only way for sites like these are able to still function are if they continue to give space to ads. The biggest downside is that with so much space taken over by ads, the real news at the center of the site is harder to see beneath the haze.

I feel that this comment could be applied to the social media situation at the moment. With the extreme dichotomy of political positions that this nation is currently facing, making a canyon from a crack, people tend to not voice their opinions publicly out of fear for scrutiny. As the result, a different candidate than anticipated won the nomination, because there was a silent majority that was too afraid to say anything to the outspoken other side. We are now left with chaos, and the hollow feeling that we no longer know our identity as a nation. In order for people to watch television programs, they must appeal to the majority. Likewise, in order for people to continue being your friend on social media, you must not voice an opposing opinion to theirs.

Here is an example of Murrow's perspective on media and film. He discusses how the programs we seek are escapist in nature and, while occasionally addressing some of the current issues we are facing in society, quickly usher us in the opposite direction with a fantasy driven story line. The media is showing us what we want to see, and in some cases what they want to see, as opposed to what we really need to hear. Just like how the capital had tried to smooth everything over quickly to suffocate the fires of revolution that were starting to burn in the hearts of all of Panem's citizens, we can see today that the media dwells largely on the content they want people to discuss and mainly present the views they want. If not that, then they are distracting you with unrealistic programs that distract you from the real issues, so then the viewer is never the wiser and doesn't even give it a second thought. Our perceptions of the world, as much as we don't want to admit it, are extensively influenced by mass media.

This reminded me of the scene in the Mockingjay when Katniss had to take a new avenue of reaching people through the propaganda that they were broadcasting. I felt like in the beginning of the movie the ads from Katniss and Peeta were only watched by a select through and throughout the movie it grew and grew as they strived to reach more and more people.

This caught my attention because I strongly dislike commercials. The other night I was watching the news and they mentioned a story. 40 minutes passes, along with 6 commercials, and the story still had not been shared. If you log onto twitter you can read news stories in seconds and they are at your convenience. I can see why people are not that interested in news broadcast and radio broadcast due to commercials. Although they provide extra funds, decreasing commercials could draw more or a new audience back to radio and tv media.

This reminds me so much of the Hunger games in the idea that people watching this real life dangerous life ending event could influence lives in such a great way for no other reason than there amusement. A distopian procedure that year by year our society gets dangerously close to.

This is very true and I think that there is a lesson here to be learned about the state of our current country, the stuff that we post on online media reveals a certain truth about the people of this nation and where they intend to direct us as a whole.

Unfortunately, in the movie we watched, Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1, we witnessed Katniss Everdeen being assigned responsibility for this entire movement, she was given a choice, but the pressure was on her, especially with public perception. It is not always true that responsibility cannot be assigned or delegated, because occasionally, there may be a witness or victim that so many people rally behind, that they begin a movement. Such as the Stanford rape victim, although unnamed, she has ignited a movement across the country for reforms within the criminal justice system, and she's indirectly responsible. Her letter sparked emotions in people and that sparked action with their unnamed leader being her. She does not necessarily have to be actively involved, but she set this major news story in motion by being courageous enough to share her story.

There are a lot of fake news sites on the Internet. Most of them were created by ultra-conservatives or ultra-liberals. There was a particular story that spread during the Republican primary this past year that likened Ted Cruz to the Zodiac killer and linked his father, Raul, to JFK's killer. These two stories were picked up by other fake news sites, and eventually spread to legitimate news sites, which brought the news to a wider array of readers and although they were making fun of the notions these two stories presented, there were those conspiracy theorists who ran with it. The timing of this was right before a pivotal state's voting day and Cruz blamed the fake stories and the mention of them by his opponent, Donald Trump, for his loss of that state. The Internet has a tendency to skew stories into a haphazard presentation and once caught up into arguments with "trolls", people start to get agitated and react differently towards whatever candidate that "troll" may support, even if the candidate themselves are sane and qualified for the job.

I think that this can really apply to the internet. We have so much going around on it and in all these different categories that they seem incompatible and plain confusing. Things like Facebook where you have all of these categories can become tiresome and confusing because there's more than one type on there. We see horrifying news articles, personal struggles of the stars, and advertising; and at times we can only care about one of those things without becoming a jumble of confusing emotions. The dust never settles.

This reminds me of the AlterNet reading that we did a few weeks ago. Both of the writers are trying to make people a bit more aware of the effect of media on our society, culture, and heritage. Media has grown leaps and bounds for the past so many decades and is so common nowadays that it's had a profound effect on all of us.

This makes me think about The Hunger Games and how the Capitol sees the districts through the lens of the Games and television. They are horrified when they are exposed to the reality.

He points out that while the internet is an incredible and powerful medium to transfer information, it is not always necessarily effective. When ideas are spread across the globe, it is very easy for them to lose context and even their tone (think about how easy it is to misread a text message because we can't see the sender's expression or their tone of voice, indicators of any underlying meaning).

I don't think this applies to newspapers or magazines or even the Internet now-a-days. This is because there are so many tabloid like newspapers and magazines that anyone's thought can easily be published in any form of media. Although the newspaper and the magazine are less susceptible to critical comment, it still exists and is growing strong everyday.

This quote perfectly reflects the role the media has in propaganda. The media can choose what they wish to cover and how they wish to cover it. For example, if a radio station would like to support a certain candidate, they can openly tarnish the reputation of another candidate. This is allowing the media a role in terms of activist propaganda. Openly showing their support and talking about it during free time. Now I know this is legally not allowed, but it was possible and still is possible in supporting other ideas.

I feel like activist media goes in a way with this quote because activist media shows you what they want you to know and believe. People eliminate things that offend them, in return creating their own body of tradition. People are going to believe what ever they want to and create their own traditions or beliefs. Activist media chooses what to believe and what they want people to believe, creating their own tradition.

Television and radio have altered our country in a positive and negative way. When people hang out it is usually in front of the tv or when were in the car we usually have the radio in the background. If we cook dinner we have the television on in the background. There is always some kind of noise in the background of us.

This sums up so much about the internet for me. So many great potentials -- even (especially?) on social media. And yet, Netflix encompasses 1/3 of web traffic, and Facebook spreads fake news more readily than real news. We need the internet to inspire and illuminate, not just innoculate and misinform.

Yes and to look more closely at the real world, to make note of fake news and false claims, to use annotation as a fact-checking and myth-busting tool.

One of my favorite books is John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany. The narrator tells the story of Owen, his tiny childhood friend who speaks in a raspy but booming voice, but he does so in retrospect, while living in Canada as an expatriot. The plotline of the childhood friend is interspersed with real newspaper headlines about the Reagan administration. The narrator's response to each of the headlines about Reagan pretty well captions what has been going through my head since Tuesday.

Nervous and anxious about my country's election of a racist, I wish I could find solace in statements he's made that I agree with.

The Art of the Deal will be an important text for the next four years because it is an origin story for the myth of President Trump as a capitalist hero. It almost begs for a mash-up of The Art of the Deal interspersed with texts about Nazi blitzkrieg warfare.

And I'm betting that through this experience, even if they didn't pass a test, they learned a great deal just from studying and talking about and writing about challenging and thought-provoking texts! Not just in their language ability, but in the sense of widening their understanding of their social context, themselves, other people, etc.

This is an interesting (if saddening) example--saddening because of the reminder that too many assessments are like the hypothetical MC exam. However, though I'm seeing the deliberative posing here, I'm not seeing the wobble. I took these two examples to be of the P/W/F cycle, but I mostly see the P.

Upon re-reading, it seems the W is in one's being faced with a mandate that doesn't sit well with one's principles or considered practices, so is the wobble in the uncertainty of how to react?

I think I've been thinking of wobble differently, like when you're doing teaching and learning practices that have worked in the past and things have changed so now they aren't working so well in a particular case, or when you decide to try something new and it doesn't work as you had hoped.

This is really powerful to me, not only because of the idea that in order to push beyond the status quo of your practice, to work towards doing things better you should expect that things are going to feel uncertain, but also because of the idea that both instructor and students need to learn to be comfortable with this.

BUT the problem is that in some ways it might be harder for students to get used to this idea, or to deal with wobbles, because so much rides on them understanding what is going on in the class so they can do well. As much as we teachers risk in wobbling, students may risk more when they experience it (or at least feel more anxious because they perceive their grades to be so important?).

And that such continued, cyclical professional growth is the development of expertise.

I like the yoga metaphor, but this also makes me think of the appeal of games and the flow that can be achieved by immersion in them. The key in both I think is facing challenges that are not insurmountable, then overcoming these challenges.

I also like the connection here to mindfullness. Being in the flow is being mindful - which is an important counter to being reflexive. Both, I think, are necessary and important in education and learning.

Such an important framing, and I appreciate that this comes immediately to the fore.

Questioning persists! As it should! There is no Truth, and thus no way to ever know it all.

This reminds me of the analogies Dr Yemi Stembridge makes about teaching and yoga. I think there is also something to say about how veteran yogis might make flow look easy and that newcomers need to know the habits of mind and practice in order to develop.

I think public questioning of practice - whether in teaching, perhaps in research - is one possible affordance of open and collaborative web annotation.

From a design perspective, I really like this comment. Just providing resources isn't enough to "connect the dots" for all learners.

This introduction really brings me back to my fixation on Personal Epistemology. I have to wonder if the epistemology of the learners would make a huge difference here - are learners more able to make those connections from provided materials with a more sophisticated epistemology?

Also, are we stressing the importance of the WHY for the how?

And now we've joined the conversation, too ;)

I would love to hear more about this and what the authors think this means for the future of teacher preparation. I've heard Antero mention this in presentation as well. As someone who works with new teachers who have the desire to teach across cultures but often struggle with the cultural differences that play out, I wonder if this kind of prep instruction might help teachers avoid the trap of labelling students.

All teaching is political and, in many circumstances, so too learning.

This text was featured in a Marginal Syllabus annotation flash mob on Wednesday, October 26th. Thanks to Cindy and Antero for encouraging us to read and remark upon the introduction to their book Pose, Wobble, Flow: A Culturally Proactive Approach to Literacy Instruction.

These texts provide a vital critical lens through which we must read the "practical" texts listed above. We can no longer accept purported "best practices" as such. We have to think about the marginalized communities we serve and we have to interrogate the historical failure of "best practices" to close equity gaps.

The best of which, arguably, is pictured below. I pulled this screenshot from the grading information in the mini-mooc work.

Mia's powerful voice at the end leads me to wonder how her voice helped promote these agentive student moves.

I wonder what emerged for Mia in her own practice? Was there more questioning? Did she play a project manager's role at all?

I'm interested in the teacher moves here because I'm curious about where Mia's attention was and how that empowered students to drive the work.

So many good lines in this piece that could be posterized on a classroom wall!

This sounds like the instructor's payoff for the patient waiting game she had to play at the project's outset.

I think we all inherently want this as human beings which provides the question, why isn't teaching & learning always grounded on this need?

I had a professor once refer to this as self-evidence assessment, that the evidence of learning is so powerful, given that it changes dispositions, forms of interaction, and that it has resonance across settings - and that this, more than a final test of project - was evidence of deep learning.

I feel like a jerk asking this question, but how did you grade these students/projects? Is their a self-, student-centered version of this kind of pedagogy on the assessment side?

So in what learning contexts does this work/work best/not work. Are some environments prohibitive of this type of radical pedagogy?

What a powerful example of student agency that transcends the concerns of self and course, and pushes for public engagement and dialogue.

And annotate?

This leads me to believe that contemporary events demanded at least an update of that syllabus. I wonder if the energy of conversations like #blacklivesmatter, #educolor and the like suggested the dramatic shift in instructional approach that involved listening, importantly.

A great example of preparation for the real world! How can students face situations that are reality and not confined to 4 walls and textbooks?

Seriously? This happens? I love this approach, how can we support and inspire more of this?

This is a historically rich topic and also a topic that can lead to inquiry into current events and contemporary tools. It suggests a few pathways at least, so I'm curious to know what emerged when Mia left behind a syllabus in favor of something potentially messier and arguably more promising.

Love this. And it is scary. But really it's why we have school in the first place, though it's become something different.

I really like this play on the idea of written - it helps to expand the notion of text - within the context of a university course - to consider the various social, historical, and cultural narratives that record and revise what matters.

In my experience, this type of creative risk-taking requires the experience of more traditional attempts. Like the musical improvisation, it's useful to practice scales and know "the standards" before playing with a community - of musicians, of students - in new and unexpected ways.

These lines remind me that the moves teachers make toward student-centered learning usually require some faith, patience and at least a small amount of nail biting on the part of the teacher.

Relevancy! I believe this is the key to genuine learning and engagement.

Fantastic example of personalization! What supports needed to be in place for students to make this structure effective?

Because the answer depends so much who's answering, this radical student-centered pedagogy is all the more urgent.

Gotta say this is a pretty noble thing to do. #greatteacher

What a nice course feature, I wish there were more opportunities for undergrad and grad students to learn with and from one another.

So as much as I love this, a question: doesn't building in syllabus building into a course take up learning time or is the point that that's learning? (Maybe I answered my own questions.) But at least practically, doesn't this take up a lot of time?

On Wednesday, September 28th this blog was featured as the second "annotation flash mob" text associated with the Marginal Syllabus project. Thanks to all those who joined and contributed to the conversation, especially Mia Zamora!

I love this so much. Reminds me of Cathy Davidson's work on the "student-centered classroom."

This reminds me of Dave Cormier's "learning subjectives" from Rhizo 15.

A major issue for K-12: with mandates, pacing plans, standards etc, how do we carve out this essential space for "steeping"?

If I were choose a "golden line" from this piece to share, this would be the line.

We talk about digital literacy for our students, but I think as faculty, we are also suffering from a lack of D.L. which makes us unable to ask the right critical questions about EdTech. Two examples: my uni recently purchased a new system that will help us manage data for accreditation processes. The dean was very excited that the system came with a free ePortfolio tool. How great to save money by getting it free with something we had to buy anyway! But of course, this ePortfolio tool is totally wrapped into and serving the accreditation process, which is really different than the kind of learner-controlled ePortfolios we were talking about initiating. Most fac and staff on the tech committee didn't know anything about the ethics of big data or how data is used by/for/against students, so we were really vulnerable to being sold a product by an EdTech company who knew exactly what we didn't really understand. Another example: our Student Success™ coaches are a bought-and-paid-for predictive analytics algorithm. Say what you will about that, most of our faculty don't even KNOW this. They think it's "personalized advising." It's hard to talk about the pros and cons of the collection of this data or the use of these predictive models with colleagues when the EdTech companies obscure their methods in the language of student-centered pedagogies. So much to love in this article, and I know I am just taking a tiny nugget here and going in a different direction, but just thinking about how to begin to talk about these issues with my colleagues, and realizing the digital literacy issue is a really significant hurdle.

Following the first Marginal Syllabus flash mob on Wednesday, August 31st (reflection here), a few folks participated in this Google Hangout: https://youtu.be/DRW-b3RlOnM

This question is asked purely out of ignorance in that I don't know if this is true at all or not: could it be that many people don't recognize it's happening, even at the faculty level? I admit to not having known this was a problem at any postsecondary institution, but maybe that's b/c I work at an "R1" institution. I didn't know it was happening at CC's, or elsewhere. Indeed, it might even be happening at my campus and I don't even know.

But perhaps the question is: for those who DO know about it, why is it not seen as a problem? Then the answers given here apply. But I wonder how many faculty and students are aware?

This should be the driving question of all EdTech and IT departments of educational institutions!

Technologies have the power to resurrect many age old issues that have never truly been dealt with.

It may always look this way, isn't that what freedom of thought has traditionally been labeled? New ideas and innovation seem to be a threat in many cases.

I sense this is beginning to change however, shouldn't it somewhat include job training or at least skill training for jobs?

In my experience with most LMSs, there is an implicit pedagogy that does restrict openness and co-production and sharing of knowledge and information. In this respect, digital redlining is packaged as efficiency, classroom management, etc.

Hey do you know how many of those places have a faculty union? I wonder if that makes a diff in minimizing the amount of filtering.

How much are we all limited by this access? How do we provide daily opportunities for students to surpass these limits?

I agree. Learning with and from the #digped community has been very influential in helping me to think about the various ideologies of technologies, and how our pedagogy and design can work against restrictive structures.

Should education as an institution wall off anyone from information?

Get busy! Ask your librarians. There are ways to overcome some of those barriers to information access even if you can't move your administrators to change policies right away.

This article implies that all community college instructors are sheep who only care about workforce training. That has been my experience.

There is such an important distinction here; what was public--and shaming--was at least apparent. Now it is implicit, and with that people aren't even aware its occurring. We may think our world is expanded and complete without being aware of how narrow we are allowed to see (feeling very Truman Show?)

Do we as educators make that boundary more clear? Do we embrace the invisible boundaries and teach our students to push back at everything, seeking out those invisible barriers and rail against them?

BTW, if you are interested in privacy, and haven't read Frank Pasqaule's Black Box Society, you should!

A special thanks to Chris Gilliard (hypervisible) for joining the first Marginal Syllabus flash mob and talking with us about these important educational equity issues.

I am a community college librarian. I just checked and there are 784 items on revenge porn available via the library. I'm not on campus right now - but I will be sure to check what happens with a Google search next time I'm at work.

Yes: last AY, all administrative control was removed from our laptops. Faculty cannot download any software without justifying it to IT first. Cannot, e.g. download Gephi or Twine, and programminghistorian.org simply says "site unavailable."

This is so very true where I work (CC), though in our system, our students and faculty can often see what they are not allowed to access: full text not available. But entire important databases are not available to our students and they don't know it, along with the missing larger JSTOR et al.

Prior to this work, in addressing what we might place under the 21st-century banner of "diversity and inclusion", hooks wrote in Feminist Theory: from Margin to Center (1984):

Much feminist theory emerges from privileged women who live at the center, whose perspectives on reality rarely include knowledge and awareness of the lives of women and men who live on the margin. As a consequence, feminist theory lacks wholeness, lacks the broad analysis that could encompass a variety of human experiences. Although feminist theorists are aware of the need to develop ideas and analysis that encompass a larger number of experiences that serve to unify rather than to polarize, such theory is complex and slow in formation. At its most visionary, it will emerge from individuals who have knowledge of both margin and center (p. xvii)

If you live at the center, recognize that and be generous with invitations to engage with new, radical alternatives in the company of those who are simultaneously expected to assimilate into and understand the center while being socially relegated to the margins.