Episode #28: The Ethics of Ed Tech with @hypervisible

BreakDrink Podcast

The Ethics of Ed Tech with @hypervisible

In @BreakDrink episode no. 28, Laura welcomes guest co-host, Chris Gilliard (@hypervisible), join me to talk about the ethics of educational technology, data, and student labor. As the Spring semester is keeping Jeff busy, he suggested bringing back past friends of the pod to talk about different topics and issues. It just so happens that Chris published an instigating article on the topic of ethical considerations for our learning technology in the Chronicle of Higher Education in April [sorry it’s behind a paywall; message me and I would be happy to share].

How Ed Tech Is Exploiting Students

https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-Ed-Tech-Is-Exploiting/243020

To give you the just of this article, Chris discusses how student work is contributing to the business models of a number of technologies we use for learning in higher education. Companies are using data from our learners to “feed the machine” by tracking students, using their work, and more within a specific platform for the sake of a course, assignment, and grade. Our learners are not often given the choice about participation or the information they include/exclude within our digital learning environments. Chris thinks we need to bring the ed tech community together to have “the talk” about consent and rights for the digital platforms we use in education. I concur!

From requiring students to access their courses from a learning management system to an app we include to quiz for assessment -- how much autonomy, information, and choice do we, as educators, provide for our learners? We have allowed technologies monetize our information, data (a.k.a. “The new oil”), and work without considering the social justice concerns and considerations. This article was drafted to start a conversation for consideration for how we provide consent to participate on these digital platforms and applications for learning first. We hope you this interesting conversation and start to take into consideration what technologies you are using or are required to use within your own teaching and practice in higher ed. How do you define work? What is the labor or contributions your learners are required to complete for your courses, services, or other in higher ed?

Technology services & platforms discussed in this episode and Chronicle article:

-- Amazon Mechanical Turk https://www.mturk.com/

-- TurnItIn http://turnitin.com/

-- Using TurnItIn To Teach Students How to Not Plagiarize https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2018/04/10/how-use-turnitin-teach-students-not-plagiarize-opinion

-- IBM Watson https://www.ibm.com/watson/

-- Meet Jill Watson: Georgia Tech's first AI teaching assistant https://pe.gatech.edu/blog/meet-jill-watson-georgia-techs-first-ai-teaching-assistant

-- CatCards at University of Arizona https://catcard.arizona.edu/

-- Researcher Looks at 'Digital Traces' to Help Students https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/researcher-looks-digital-traces-help-students

-- Response to the post (after our podcast was recorded) https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/letters/ai-project-at-georgia-tech-does-not-exploit-students

-- University teachers are exploited, too https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/08/opinions/teachers-pay-adjuncts-southern-illinois-bodenheimer-opinion/index.html

Questions to ask as you are thinking more ethically about the technology we use in higher ed:

1. Who owns the data collected from the technology service or platform provider? And who do you share this data with (3rd party)? Can your students download and access their data collected within this platform or app?
2. How are you informing your learners about the technologies you are using? This might include privacy policies, data policies, and terms of services required to agree to for use of this platform.
3. How are you thinking about labor and data contributed by your learners, specifically with regards to informed consent for using a particular educational technology or platform? Transparency and openness for the how and why of use on a platform.

@BreakDrink Recommendations

- The Wizard of Oz (Movie or Musical) https://wizardofoztour.com/

- Avengers: Infinity War https://marvel.com/avengers

- Platform Capitalism by Nick Srnicek

- Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked by Adam Alter

- Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Umoja Noble https://nyupress.org/books/9781479837243/

- Automating Inequality by Virginia Eubanks https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250074317

- The Poverty of Privacy Rights by Khiara M. Bridges https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=25115

- Comics from Saladin Ahmed https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-04-10/author-saladin-ahmed-has-found-mainstream-success-us-while-being-unapologetically

- Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil https://weaponsofmathdestructionbook.com/

- Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey

- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson https://markmanson.net/not-giving-a-fuck

- Sylvan Esso (band) http://www.sylvanesso.com/ Listen here: https://soundcloud.com/sylvanesso

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