The use case for surveillance software on devices not owned by the school is somewhat unsettling. Can it be "switched off" when students aren't using the device for school purposes?

Is it really engagement when you disable distractions? How does this prepare students to deal with something they struggle with when they do have the ability to distract themselves with other sites?

The ad copy suggests a direct appeal to teachers and admin. I wonder what the procurement process is like for these technologies. Who gets to decide whether/how these technologies are purchased/used?

I'm wondering what student privacy actually means to students here. What would students consider their own privacy?

This is a really interesting section because it makes references to the Student Privacy Pledge, which has recently been described as "toothless" following the Illuminate data breach.

I hate ambiguous terms like this because people can just make it mean anything they want it to mean. What do they mean by "thrive"?

What does effective learning look like to a student surveillance company?

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word "deploy" means, "to place in battle formation or appropriate positions." I think GoGuardian's word choice reinforces a narrative that the surveillance technology is meant for policing students. It's cop shit.

I wonder if an internal research team's findings can be trusted. What other independent, external safeguards should be in place?

Hi! Welcome to the Civics of Technology #AnnotateEdTech conversation about school surveillance platforms. We’ll be engaging in close, critical reading of the claims made by ed-tech companies about their technology, how it works, and to what ends. The annotations we leave behind can also act as living resources for others to visit and build upon; to that end, you can use the affordances of social annotation, such as hyperlinking, to connect your observations with texts beyond each company’s website. You can also draw upon and contribute to a growing library of journalism, reports, peer-reviewed articles, opinion pieces, and other texts about school surveillance technologies.

If you decide to annotate, you might consider addressing some of the following questions: * What do you notice? What do you wonder? * What narratives does the company tell about education? About being a student? A teacher? An administrator? About teaching? About learning?

You can also use the Baldwin Test for educational technology to guide your annotations: 1. Be as specific as possible about what the technology in question is and how it works. 2. Identify any obstacles to our own understanding of a technology that result from failures of corporate or government transparency. 3. Name the corporations responsible for creating and spreading the technological product. 4. Attribute agency to the human actors building and using the technology, never to the technology itself. 5. Name the technology’s theory (or theories) of learning. 6. Describe the technology’s effects on pedagogy. 7. Highlight the technology’s impacts on the environment.

Thanks for joining us!

There's an interesting sense of urgency in this phrase. And following this, phrases that involve violence. Is the urgency more to compel people to buy?

I wonder how they determine if it's nuanced.

I'm deeply skeptical of sentimental analysis and the claims people make about it. How do others feel?

I wonder how often Securly's rhetoric uses scare tactics to motivate purchasing.

Hi! Welcome to the Civics of Technology #AnnotateEdTech conversation about school surveillance platforms. We’ll be engaging in close, critical reading of the claims made by ed-tech companies about their technology, how it works, and to what ends. The annotations we leave behind can also act as living resources for others to visit and build upon; to that end, you can use the affordances of social annotation, such as hyperlinking, to connect your observations with texts beyond each company’s website. You can also draw upon and contribute to a growing library of journalism, reports, peer-reviewed articles, opinion pieces, and other texts about school surveillance technologies.

If you decide to annotate, you might consider addressing some of the following questions: * What do you notice? What do you wonder? * What narratives does the company tell about education? About being a student? A teacher? An administrator? About teaching? About learning?

You can also use the Baldwin Test for educational technology to guide your annotations: 1. Be as specific as possible about what the technology in question is and how it works. 2. Identify any obstacles to our own understanding of a technology that result from failures of corporate or government transparency. 3. Name the corporations responsible for creating and spreading the technological product. 4. Attribute agency to the human actors building and using the technology, never to the technology itself. 5. Name the technology’s theory (or theories) of learning. 6. Describe the technology’s effects on pedagogy. 7. Highlight the technology’s impacts on the environment.

Thanks for joining us!

These technologies appear to be strengthening the school-to-prison pipeline. For more on how digital surveillance is weaponized against youth - particularly youth from nondominant groups - read this report by Jennifer Jones and Ana Nájera Mendoza: Policing Students Online: The Increasing Threat of School-Sanctioned Digital Surveillance

Hi! Welcome to the Civics of Technology #AnnotateEdTech conversation about school surveillance platforms. The annotations we leave behind can also act as living resources for others to visit and build upon; to that end, you can use the affordances of social annotation, such as hyperlinking, to connect your observations with texts beyond each company’s website. You can also draw upon and contribute to a growing library of journalism, reports, peer-reviewed articles, opinion pieces, and other texts about school surveillance technologies.

If you decide to annotate, you might consider addressing some of the following questions: * What do you notice? What do you wonder? * What narratives does the report tell about education? About being a student? A teacher? An administrator? About teaching? About learning?

Thanks for joining us!

The recent episode of the podcast In Machines We Trust titled "Can AI keep guns out of schools?" raises a lot of problems with this software.

I find this whole quote fascinating as it's spinning a lot of narratives at once about the company's so-called unique, cutting-edge technology and the emphasis on immediacy. How are context/nuance and immediacy at odds?

Oh, I thought you were going to say by making every effort to ensure assault weapons were banned. Silly me!

Hi! Welcome to the Civics of Technology #AnnotateEdTech conversation about school surveillance platforms. We’ll be engaging in close, critical reading of the claims made by ed-tech companies about their technology, how it works, and to what ends. The annotations we leave behind can also act as living resources for others to visit and build upon; to that end, you can use the affordances of social annotation, such as hyperlinking, to connect your observations with texts beyond each company’s website. You can also draw upon and contribute to a growing library of journalism, reports, peer-reviewed articles, opinion pieces, and other texts about school surveillance technologies.

If you decide to annotate, you might consider addressing some of the following questions: * What do you notice? What do you wonder? * What narratives does the company tell about education? About being a student? A teacher? An administrator? About teaching? About learning?

You can also use the Baldwin Test for educational technology to guide your annotations: 1. Be as specific as possible about what the technology in question is and how it works. 2. Identify any obstacles to our own understanding of a technology that result from failures of corporate or government transparency. 3. Name the corporations responsible for creating and spreading the technological product. 4. Attribute agency to the human actors building and using the technology, never to the technology itself. 5. Name the technology’s theory (or theories) of learning. 6. Describe the technology’s effects on pedagogy. 7. Highlight the technology’s impacts on the environment.

Thanks for joining us!

I notice youth were not part of the conversation.

Yes, exactly my point in the previous annotation.

Raising the Baldwin Test for ed-tech and the concern about tech's impacts on the environment, I wonder about the amount of natural resources required to maintain and produced by this enormous surveillance system.

Hi! Welcome to the Civics of Technology #AnnotateEdTech conversation about school surveillance platforms. We’ll be engaging in close, critical reading of the claims made by ed-tech companies about their technology, how it works, and to what ends. The annotations we leave behind can also act as living resources for others to visit and build upon; to that end, you can use the affordances of social annotation, such as hyperlinking, to connect your observations with texts beyond each company’s website. You can also draw upon and contribute to a growing library of journalism, reports, peer-reviewed articles, opinion pieces, and other texts about school surveillance technologies.

If you decide to annotate, you might consider addressing some of the following questions: * What do you notice? What do you wonder? * What narratives does the company tell about education? About being a student? A teacher? An administrator? About teaching? About learning?

You can also use the Baldwin Test for educational technology to guide your annotations: 1. Be as specific as possible about what the technology in question is and how it works. 2. Identify any obstacles to our own understanding of a technology that result from failures of corporate or government transparency. 3. Name the corporations responsible for creating and spreading the technological product. 4. Attribute agency to the human actors building and using the technology, never to the technology itself. 5. Name the technology’s theory (or theories) of learning. 6. Describe the technology’s effects on pedagogy. 7. Highlight the technology’s impacts on the environment.

Thanks for joining us!

Hi! Welcome to the Civics of Technology #AnnotateEdTech conversation about school surveillance platforms. We’ll be engaging in close, critical reading of the claims made by ed-tech companies about their technology, how it works, and to what ends. The annotations we leave behind can also act as living resources for others to visit and build upon; to that end, you can use the affordances of social annotation, such as hyperlinking, to connect your observations with texts beyond each company’s website. You can also draw upon and contribute to a growing library of journalism, reports, peer-reviewed articles, opinion pieces, and other texts about school surveillance technologies.

If you decide to annotate, you might consider addressing some of the following questions: * What do you notice? What do you wonder? * What narratives does the company tell about education? About being a student? A teacher? An administrator? About teaching? About learning?

You can also use the Baldwin Test for educational technology to guide your annotations: 1. Be as specific as possible about what the technology in question is and how it works. 2. Identify any obstacles to our own understanding of a technology that result from failures of corporate or government transparency. 3. Name the corporations responsible for creating and spreading the technological product. 4. Attribute agency to the human actors building and using the technology, never to the technology itself. 5. Name the technology’s theory (or theories) of learning. 6. Describe the technology’s effects on pedagogy. 7. Highlight the technology’s impacts on the environment.

Thanks for joining us!