913 Matching Annotations
  1. Nov 2016
    1. we have to build organisations that are going to persist with that goal

      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?

    2. Because even poor quality learning that exploits people’s aspirations is better than nothing, right?

      MOOC MOOC MOOC MOOC MOO...

    3. The internet offers perhaps our first, best chance in history to distribute those social goods universally. (Worth mentioning here an earlier blog post I wrote about digital citizenship education). Let’s remember that was the promise. Not the freedom to order white goods in the small hours, or to spit bile below the line when any liberal (especially non-white, especially female) person feels empowered to speak.

      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?

    4. Let’s put computers into slums and poor schools and people will pull themselves out of poverty

      No doubt an extension of neoliberal ideologies.

    5. When the barrier to access is lowered to zero, other kinds of inequality determine who will benefit.

      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.

    6. to peep through my fingers

      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.

    7. But today I feel brave enough to peep through my fingers at something else we share, beyond our humanity: I’m going to wonder whether there is any role that educational technology might have played, or played differently, and what our responsibilities are now that the festival of democracy that the internet promised has descended into a circus of unreason.

      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.

    8. whose interest and support has been deeply touching.

      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!

    9. 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.

    10. I might be wrong in my thinking, but I’m not going to stop thinking and putting it out there because that too, is an act of resistance

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

    11. 30 November

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

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

      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

    1. But it remains a fact that the newspapers and magazines are the only instruments of mass communication which remain free from sustained and regular critical comment

      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.

    2. I am frightened by the imbalance, the constant striving to reach the largest possible audience for everything

      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.

    3. One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news.

      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.

    4. Nowhere is this better illustrated than by the fact that the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission publicly prods broadcasters to engage in their legal right to editorialize

      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.

    5. For surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities which must indeed be faced if we are to survive

      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.

    6. But I am seized with an abiding fear regarding what these two instruments are doing to our society, our culture and our heritage.

      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.

    7. I invite your attention to the television schedules of all networks between the hours of 8 and 11 p.m., Eastern Time. Here you will find only fleeting and spasmodic reference to the fact that this nation is in mortal danger.

      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.

    8. But it remains a fact that the newspapers and magazines are the only instruments of mass communication which remain free from sustained and regular critical comment.

      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.

    9. Many recipients of licenses have, in blunt language, just plain welshed on those promises.

      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.

    10. "We are young. We have not developed the traditions. nor acquired the experience of the older media."

      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,

    11. Each time they yield to a voice from Washington or any political pressure, each time they eliminate something that might offend some section of the community, they are creating their own body of precedent and tradition, and it will continue to pursue them.

      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.

    12. your voice, amplified to the degree where it reaches from one end of the country to the other, does not confer upon you greater wisdom than when your voice reached only from one end of the bar to the other.

      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.

    13. This just might do nobody any good. At the end of this discourse a few people may accuse this reporter of fouling his own comfortable nest, and your organization may be accused of having given hospitality to heretical and even dangerous thoughts. But I am persuaded that the elaborate structure of networks, advertising agencies and sponsors will not be shaken or altered. It is my desire, if not my duty, to try to talk to you journeymen with some candor about what is happening to radio and television in this generous and capacious land. I have no technical advice or counsel to offer those of you who labor in this vineyard the one that produces words and pictures.

      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.

    14. It is an ancient and sad fact that most people in network television, and radio, have an exaggerated regard for what appears in print. And there have been cases where executives have refused to make even private comment on a program for which they are responsible until they had read the reviews in print. This is hardly an exhibition of confidence in their own judgment.

      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.

    15. during the daily peak viewing periods, television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live

      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.

    16. I am frightened by the imbalance, the constant striving to reach the largest possible audience for everything

      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.

    17. Back to the time when singing commercials were not allowed on news reports, when there was no middle commercial in a 15-minute news report, when radio was rather proud, and alert, and fast.

      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.

    18. . And it would be very hard to prove the magnitude of the benefit accruing to the corporation which gave up one night of a variety or quiz show in order that the network might marshal its skills to do a thorough-going job on the present status of NATO, or plans for controlling nuclear tests.

      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.

    19. To a very considerable extent, the media of mass communications in a given country reflects the political, economic and social climate in which it grows and flourishes.

      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.

    20. Responsibility is not something that can be assigned or delegated.

      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.

    21. when the evidence on a controversial subject is fairly and calmly presented, the public recognizes it for what it is--an effort to illuminate rather than to agitate.

      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.

    22. One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news. Each of the three is a rather bizarre and, at times, demanding profession. And when you get all three under one roof, the dust never settles.

      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.

    23. I have no feud, either with my employers, any sponsors, or with the professional critics of radio and television. But I am seized with an abiding fear regarding what these two instruments are doing to our society, our culture and our heritage.

      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.

    24. If Hollywood were to run out of Indians, the program schedules would be mangled beyond all recognition. Then perhaps, some young and courageous soul with a small budget might do a documentary telling what, in fact, we have done--and are still doing--to the Indians in this country

      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.

    25. your voice, amplified to the degree where it reaches from one end of the country to the other, does not confer upon you greater wisdom than when your voice reached only from one end of the bar to the other.

      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).

    26. But it remains a fact that the newspapers and magazines are the only instruments of mass communication which remain free from sustained and regular critical comment.

      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.

    27. One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news.

      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.

    28. they are building those traditions and creating those precedents every day. Each time they yield to a voice from Washington or any political pressure, each time they eliminate something that might offend some section of the community, they are creating their own body of precedent and tradition, and it will continue to pursue them. They are, in fact, not content to be half safe.

      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.

    29. I have decided to express my concern about what I believe to be happening to radio and television. These instruments have been good to me beyond my due. There exists in mind no reasonable grounds for any kind of personal complaint. I have no feud, either with my employers, any sponsors, or with the professional critics of radio and television. But I am seized with an abiding fear regarding what these two instruments are doing to our society, our culture and our heritage.

      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.

    30. This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise, it's nothing but wires and lights in a box.

      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.

    1. this project draws inspiration from, and seeks to encourage, what bell hooks calls “the possibility of radical perspective from which to see and create, to imagine alternatives, new worlds.”

      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.

    1. Once Clinton conceded the race to Trump, many Flint residents became uneasy.

      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.

    2. The New York businessman visited Flint in mid-September, touring the city’s inactive water treatment plant and vowing to fix the water problem “quickly and effectively.” Trump mentioned the city frequently in stump speeches, calling it in the past week a “troubled place” and blaming the contamination on unnamed “incompetent politicians.”

      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.

    1. The book was a phenomenal success, spending forty-eight weeks on the Times best-seller list, thirteen of them at No. 1. More than a million copies have been bought, generating several million dollars in royalties. The book expanded Trump’s renown far beyond New York City, making him an emblem of the successful tycoon. Edward Kosner, the former editor and publisher of New York, where Schwartz worked as a writer at the time, says, “Tony created Trump. He’s Dr. Frankenstein.”

      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.

  2. Oct 2016
    1. these students proved themselves able to tackle complicated texts by authors like Faulkner, Woolf, Morrison, and Ellison.

      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.

    2. capable of posing yourself rather than being posed in the expected ways implicit in a particular constraint within your teaching context.

      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.

    3. it’s essential to remember that although you and your students may not feel comfortable when you wobble, this discomfort is nat-ural because you are “going to your edge.

      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?).

    4. epeated P/W/F cycles are necessary for continual professional growth (see Figure I.3)

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

    5. While wob-ble may initially cause frustration, it also signals a commitment to increased discipline and deepened practice. Persisting through wobble produces a sat-isfying sense of being “in the flow,” of focusing oneself so intently on the activity of the moment that time seems to disappear.

      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.

    6. it is framed by a focus on educational equity

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

    7. the act of questioning their practice never disappeared

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

    8. To extend the metaphor to teaching: Like yoga practitioners, teachers who are committed to professional growth also take up stances (or poses) toward their practice, and reflect on areas in which they wobble with the intent of attaining flow—those provisional moments that mark progress in their teaching. In the sections that follow, we unpack the meaning of each of these terms one at a time, show how they work together by drawing on classroom examples, and then make suggestions for steps you can take to enact P/W/F cycles in your own teaching. Before we do that, though, we want to point out three essential features of the model.

      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.

    9. the act of questioning their practice never disappeared.

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

    10. cobbling together a collection of articles and chapters from various texts to help our students connect the dots between the “how” and the “why” was not only unsuccess-ful from their standpoint, but from ours as well.

      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?

    11. t still isn’t.

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

    12. who routinely complained that the latter set was irrelevant; they just wanted to get on with learning

      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.

    13. eaching seemed like an apolitical enterprise

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

    14. 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.

    15. Because we were (and are) equally committed to the “why” behind the “how” of pedagogical practices in the English Language Arts classroom, however, we also assigned a parallel set of texts that were primarily the-oretical in nature, like Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) and excerpts from bell hooks’s Teaching to Transgress (1994) and Allan Johnson’s Privilege, Power, and Difference (2001). Jo

      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.

  3. Sep 2016
    1. I have provided a clear break down of course expectations

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

    2. Playing it safe is not going to yield the opportunities that will make a difference. Off-script is when you don’t quite know where you are going, but you have the courage to commit to the journey knowing that it is the process itself that will hold the worth. Breaking outside of conventional form is where excitement lies.  Being an effective educator cannot remain a quest to be a master with a masterful product.  Rather, it is dynamic performance and a practice.

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

    3. the space for emergence

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

    4. They organized themselves into five small groups around five central concerns: Race and Identity; Race and Popular Culture (especially the role of humor); Race in the Classroom; Race in the International Context; and Race and the Politics of Language.

      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.

    5. A refined and nuanced sense of self was an unforeseen outcome, and I couldn’t be more pleased that this outcome emerged. Perhaps the most telling comment was when one student wrote, “This is the most important work I have done for any class in my entire education.”

    6. vulnerability is the seed of true learning.

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

    7. In final self assessments for the class, students wrote extensively about how surprised they were at how much they learned from their own classmates. They wrote eloquently about their increased sense of empathy. They also marvelled at how they were able to gain new digital confidence, as their instinct for self directed learning (i.e. just google it!) became a newfound form of self-reliance. My students also wrote about how much they thought about this class outside of class. They wrote about how they realized they were talking with many other people in their lives about the issues we grappled with in class.

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

    8. need to connect to a world outside in ways that matter.

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

    9. the issues we grappled with in class

      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.

    10. What emerged was the inherent knowledge within our own ranks,

      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?

    11. students

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

    12. They wanted to reach out to others more explicitly.

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

    13. curate and aggregate

      And annotate?

    14. A prescribed series of academic readings and writings on theories of race seemed to fall short of that urgency.

      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.

    15. Students were stressed, struck by the notion that they would have to step up and claim their own forms of learning.

      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?

    16. I let the students decide for themselves what they wanted to learn

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

    17. How has it been written and rewritten in our society?

      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.

    18. step up and claim their own forms of learning.

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

    19. How has it been written and rewritten in our society?

      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.

    20. I must mention that I have successfully taught this “Writing Race & Ethnicity” class in the past.

      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.

    21. I took a deep breath as I listened, watched, reassured, and guided my students. I often tried to step out of the way, and it was not easy. Eventually, they formulated an inspired vision of authentic learning. And, with time, perseverance, and collaboration, they realized that vision, despite the fact that there was no path marked for them to get there.

      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.

    22. context of the real world rather than a familiar academic exercise

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

    23. determine their course materials, select their readings, and design their own class projects

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

    24. Why does race matter?

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

    25. But, despite this successful track record, this time around, I stepped back, and really thought about the point of this class.

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

    26. my fantastic group of graduate and undergraduate students for this course

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

    27. no prescribed syllabus for the course.

      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?

    28. 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!

    29. they were in charge of their own learning outcomes.
    30. I learned that they needed time “to steep in it” as they found their way to their own goals.

      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"?

    31. I have learned that if you give freedom and trust to students, they will find their own way to the learning that matters the most.

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

    1. we would challenge developers to ask themselves

      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.

    2. 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

    3. it isn't recognized as a problem at community colleges

      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?

  4. Aug 2016
    1. Does it restrict or promote openness and access?

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

    2. Armed with the history of redlining, and understanding its digital resurrection, we glimpse the use of technologies to reinforce the boundaries of race, class, ethnicity, and gender.

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

    3. curiosity looks a lot like transgression.

      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.

    4. configure education as job training and service to corporate needs.

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

    5. Does it restrict or promote openness and access?

      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.

    6. 30 acceptable use policies at such institutions.

      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.

    7. the limits of her world are being shaped by the limits imposed on the information she can access.

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

    8. The comfortable elision in "edtech" is dangerous; it needs to be undone by emphasizing the contexts, origins, aims, and ideologies of technologies.

      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.

    9. digitally redlined, walled off from information based on the IT policies of her institution.

      Should education as an institution wall off anyone from information?

    10. any of us can ask about the policies and technologies that filter our access and track our interactions

      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.

    11. The instructor has predetermined processes and goals

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

    12. Twenty years ago, before the "black boxes" became invisible and silent, buzzers alerted us when someone pushed against a boundary. We try to reassure ourselves that today, the road to information has become clearer, unencumbered by bells, whistles, or buzzers.

      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?

    13. "black boxes"

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

    14. 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.

    15. revenge porn

      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.

    16. reinforce restrictive pedagogies.

      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."

    17. Because she's a community college student, it's likely that she is hemmed in by many invisible boundaries. When she uses journal storage (through JSTOR), she is probably using one of its smaller versions that offer far fewer journals.

      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.

    1. It was this marginality that I was naming as a central location for the production of a counter-hegemonic discourse that is not just found in words but in habits of being and the way one lives. As such, I was not speaking of a marginality one wishes to lose – to give up or surrender as part of moving into the center – but rather of a site one stays in, clings to even, because it nourishes one’s capacity to resist

      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.