TLDR 176

What Happens Next?

Published: 2018-12-01 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome to Issue 176. What happens next?

This week I was at LRA 2018. It was an...interesting...conference this year. As I write this, I'm sitting in an airport in Phoenix as I slowly make my way back home. I'll have more to think and write about later...but for now I'll just share the slide decks from some of my talks:

More to come on all of these fronts.

🔖 Key Takeaways

Internet Rebuilding Wishlist: Hodgson argues internet is fundamentally broken requiring complete restart with hate speech filters corporate accountability working reporting systems distributed web tools stronger privacy and rural access.
Facebook Moral Question: Whether staying on Facebook constitutes moral failure when platform demonstrably harms democracy privacy and wellbeing becomes increasingly difficult to dismiss.
Open Pedagogy Values: Supporting open educational practices requires understanding what open pedagogy means and articulating values shaping it beyond technology adoption to philosophical commitment.
Student Evaluation Paradox: Faculty overwhelmingly report student engagement worsening but evaluations may reflect teaching methods unchanged while students' contexts and needs evolved dramatically.
Podcasts Multimodal Learning: Audio learning through podcasts helps students develop reading comprehension critical thinking and engagement by providing alternative entry point to complex ideas.

📺 Watch

New Advances in Tech in Higher Ed

Some insight on new advances in technology in higher education. The video explores emerging tools and approaches reshaping teaching and learning in colleges and universities.

📚 Read

If I Could Reboot the Internet

Kevin Hodgson with another great post indicating how "broken" the Internet is...and positing that we might need to just start over to get it right. If so, here's his wishlist:

Stronger filters for hate speech and trolls and bots and more - Current moderation insufficient
More accountability for corporations setting up shop on the Web and its various connected places - Platform power requires regulation
A reporting system that actually works, and not just via algorithms and keywords, either - Human judgment matters
More tools in the hands of users to create on the Internet, like building smaller networks within the larger ones (the notion behind the Distributed Web) - Decentralization as democracy
Stronger privacy controls and fewer Facebooks - User sovereignty over corporate extraction
Less advertising through creepy data collection - Business models that don't require surveillance
Better access for all (including rural users often left out) - Internet as public utility

Hodgson's wishlist reveals the internet we have is not the internet we need. The question becomes whether incremental reform can achieve these goals or whether fundamental architecture requires reimagining.

Do You Have a Moral Duty to Leave Facebook?

We've talked quite a bit in TL;DR about possibly leaving Facebook and the reasons I have not...at this point.

Have you left Facebook?

Is it ultimately a moral issue whether or not you leave Facebook?

This piece argues that continuing to use Facebook—knowing what we know about Cambridge Analytica, election manipulation, privacy violations, mental health impacts, and algorithmic amplification of extremism—becomes increasingly difficult to defend as purely personal choice. When your participation strengthens a platform demonstrably harming democracy and wellbeing, does staying become moral failure? The counterargument suggests individual departure doesn't address structural problems requiring regulation, but the moral weight of complicity grows heavier.

The Values of Open Pedagogy

Nancy Bunge on the role of open, digital pedagogy in our classrooms. To support open educational practices, we must understand the meaning of open pedagogy and articulate the values that shape it.

Open pedagogy isn't merely about using open educational resources (OER) or Creative Commons licenses. It's philosophical commitment to:

Student agency in creating knowledge not just consuming it
Transparency in learning goals assessment criteria and instructional decisions
Collaboration as norm not exception
Work that contributes to public good beyond institutional walls
Iteration and revision as learning rather than failure

These values fundamentally challenge traditional education's emphasis on proprietary knowledge, hierarchical authority, individualistic competition, and disposable assignments.

Students Evaluating Teachers Doesn't Just Hurt Teachers. It Hurts Students.

In a recent survey of 1,000 faculty members commissioned by The Chronicle, almost two-thirds of respondents said they thought students today were harder to teach than those in the past, and they overwhelmingly said that student engagement had gotten worse.

In recent professional development and conference presentations I've been hearing this refrain that students are disconnected, out of touch, and don't focus. They think that "kids are totally different these days." I'm not sure that is true.

What if student "disengagement" reflects not student deficiency but mismatch between teaching methods designed for different era and students whose contexts have fundamentally changed? Student evaluations may capture this disconnect but attribute blame incorrectly. When faculty say students are "harder to teach," perhaps students are signaling that pedagogy needs evolution not that students need remediation.

How Listening to Podcasts Helps Students Read and Learn

An audio interview (podcast) with Michael Godsey who created lesson plans for teaching with podcasts and started hearing from teachers around the country about how podcasts were getting students excited about learning again.

Podcasts provide:

Alternative entry point to complex ideas through conversational narrative
Multimodal engagement combining listening comprehension with note-taking discussion writing
Authentic literacy practice analyzing real-world discourse not textbook simplifications
Cultural relevance connecting academic content to student interests through contemporary formats
Accessibility for students with reading difficulties or English language learners

Audio literacy isn't lesser cousin to print literacy but complementary capacity increasingly essential in multimedia world.

🔨 Do

As the World Becomes More Digital, We Must Become More Human

George Couros with a short post on how technology can actually be used to build face-to-face relationships, not limit them.

As the world becomes more "digital," it is crucial we become more "human." This is imperative.

Technology's value lies not in efficiency or automation but in how it enables human connection, creativity, and compassion. The question isn't "Should we use technology?" but "Does this technology use make us more human or less?"

🤔 Consider

"Everything is a learning process: any time you fall over, it's just teaching you to stand up the next time." — Joel Edgerton

Edgerton's perspective reframes failure as essential learning component. Broken internet teaches us what rebuilt internet should value. Facebook's moral failures teach us what ethical platforms require. Student evaluation disconnects teach us what engagement-centered pedagogy needs. Student "disengagement" teaches us what pedagogical evolution demands. Falling over with current educational technology approaches teaches us how to stand up with genuinely humanizing practices. What happens next depends on whether we learn from falls or just keep falling the same way.

Previous: TLDR 175 • Next: TLDR 177 • Archive: 📧 Newsletter

🌱 Connected Concepts:

Broken Internet Rebuilding — Kevin Hodgson argues internet fundamentally broken requiring complete restart with hate speech filters corporate accountability distributed web privacy controls and rural access in Web Architecture.
Facebook Moral Duty — Question whether staying on Facebook constitutes moral failure when platform demonstrably harms democracy privacy and wellbeing becomes increasingly difficult to dismiss in Digital Ethics.
Open Pedagogy Values — Nancy Bunge argues open pedagogy requires philosophical commitment to student agency transparency collaboration public contribution and iteration beyond technology adoption in Educational Philosophy.
Podcasts Learning Tool — Michael Godsey demonstrates audio literacy through podcasts provides alternative entry point multimodal engagement and cultural relevance helping students read and learn in Multimodal Literacy.
Digital Humanity Imperative — George Couros argues as world becomes more digital we must become more human using technology to enable connection creativity and compassion in Educational Technology.

Part of the 📧 Newsletter archive documenting digital literacy and technology.