DL 295

Techno-Cures Are a Dead End

Published: June 26, 2021 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome to Digitally Literate, issue 295. Your go-to source for insightful content on education, technology, and the digital landscape.

🔖 Key Takeaways

Big Tech Antitrust Advances: U.S. Judiciary Committee votes to advance five bills addressing dominance of Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook
Techno-Solutionism Critique: Presenting complaints and resulting cures are each symptoms of larger societal forces—follow them to diagnose the system
Cancel Amazon Prime: If you want to do something about Big Tech's growing power, start by canceling your Prime membership
Social Responsibility Reduces Bullying: Schools encouraging students to care for classmates' feelings can lower bullying incidents
Internet Energy Use Overstated: New analysis suggests dire warnings about data centers' environmental damage are exaggerated

Welcome back. I hope you're taking time for self-care.

This week I posted the following:

Digital Literacy: Developing Critical Thinking - I presented at the 2021 Wisconsin Literacy Research Symposium. Here are my materials, notes, and reflections.
Pre-Service Educators Developing a Digital Identity - Finally published! This article discusses preservice education students implementing digital identities through self-constructed websites.
Consume. Curate. Create. - A continuum of three stages moving learners from consumers to producers of digital content.
Dispositions of Computational Thinking Instrument - We're developing an instrument to identify and define learner dispositions impacting computational thinking education.

📺 Watch

Why Teaching in America Is Uniquely Tough

Teachers in America have a uniquely tough job. But it doesn't have to be that way.

From hours worked to pay rates, countries like Finland, Japan, and South Korea make teaching a more respected and sustainable profession. The comparison reveals what's possible when societies actually value educators.

📚 Read

Big Tech Antitrust Legislation Advances

Europe has been harder on giant tech companies than the U.S.—but perhaps that's changing.

The U.S. Judiciary Committee voted this week to advance five bills addressing the dominance of Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook.

Democrats and Republicans don't agree on much these days, but many seem to agree on this.

Cancel Amazon Prime

This week was Prime Day, Amazon's global shopping event. Prime is Amazon's $119-a-year membership service with free one-day shipping, streaming media, Whole Foods discounts, and other perks.

Ellen Cushing suggests that if you want to do something about Big Tech and its growing power, you should cancel your Amazon Prime account.

The most direct consumer action is to stop being a consumer.

No Cure: Techno-Solutionism's Dead End

Hannah Zeavin on cures and our desire for techno-cures that will fix all that ails us:

"Inescapably, then, techno-cures are a dead end. The presenting complaint and the resulting cure are each a symptom of larger societal forces at work; if we can identify who is understood to be in need of a cure, who is worthy of it, and who receives it, we can follow each one to diagnose the system in which they occur."

Technology can't cure problems that are fundamentally social and political.

Research from Jonathan B. Santo and Josafa da Cunha suggests schools that encourage students to care for classmates' feelings and peacefully resolve conflicts can lower incidents of bullying.

The skills are teachable. The effects are measurable.

The Internet Eats Up Less Energy Than You Might Think

A new analysis by Jonathan Koomey and Eric Masanet suggests some dire warnings of environmental damage from technology are overstated.

Giant tech companies and their power-hungry, football-field-size data centers are not the environmental villains they're sometimes portrayed to be on social media.

🔨 Do

Build Your Own Lightboard

I've played with a Lightboard like this in the past—it's awesome for creating instructional videos where you write on transparent surface while facing the camera.

If you'd like to make your own, here's how. A weekend project that opens up new possibilities for teaching.

🤔 Consider

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.

Seneca

Seneca's observation about time connects to this issue's threads—the techno-cures that distract from real solutions, the subscription services that claim to save time while demanding attention, and the teaching profession that wastes human potential through lack of support. The question isn't how much time we have, but how we use it.

Bonus: Apple's emoji keyboard is reinforcing Western stereotypes. Hmmm...

Previous: DL 294 • Next: DL 296 • Archive: 📧 Newsletter

🌱 Connected Concepts:

Media Literacy — Big Tech antitrust, techno-solutionism critique
Pedagogy — Teaching profession comparison, social responsibility education, digital identity
Digital Wellbeing — Cancel Prime, internet energy use, lightboard creation
Civic Engagement — Bipartisan antitrust action, consumer resistance
Philosophy — Seneca on time, technology as symptom