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This equity statement reflects on personal and professional experiences of microaggressions. Ultimately, it reaffirms the need to create spaces for students to claim their own identities in face to face and online course environments. Respect for student identity claims fosters inclusion, which facilitates social motivation in learning communities.

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This equity statement reflects on personal and professional experiences of microaggressions. Ultimately, it reaffirms the need to create spaces for students to claim their own identities in face to face and online course environments. Respect for student identity claims fosters inclusion, which facilitates social motivation in learning communities.

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In an effort to better serve our students with WCOnline, I created how-to demos via Yuja, integrated into D2L, and posted to the Writing Center's website.

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I initiated a community-building social media platform for crafters on the RRCC campus via Instagram.

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Privacy: Active or Passive?

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Privacy is a legitimate concern in the digital arena. While working away on our individual devices, it's easy to feel like we are unseen in a remote, shadowed corner. In reality, we are each one of millions crammed into the playing field of a stadium, being observed by innumerable remote, shadowed third parties. Much of the concern about digital privacy centers around our perception of deception, or, as Manoush Zomorodi says in an interview about "the privacy paradox," the sense that those following our online trails are being "creepy" rather than being "crappy."

Photo credit: Maksim Pasko, Adobe Stock #198332806

Our perceptions of ideal privacy may be better represented by the photo below, a child blazing her trail through a maze. In this visualization, autonomy is key. This child perceives and thus believes that she has full control over her path rather than that the path has been set for her by external factors. She has full control over what she reveals and what she conceals as she sets and pursues her course.

Photo credit: Amanda Hardman

A key concept in a discussion about privacy, then, is voluntary sharing. We have more positive perceptions of data sharing when we voluntarily decide to share our information. Voluntary sharing, though, must be autonomous, and it must be an active election.

The problem with the privacy policies of many of our digital apps, then, is that clicking the "I agree" box in order to use the app's functionality feels more like passive resignation.

I remember that, years ago, I opted into an online market research survey service. The service would send me periodic opportunities to take part in surveys, sponsored by various for-profit companies. I had control over whether I elected to participate in a survey, and I was rewarded with monetary credits for each survey I completed. My perception of this data sharing experience was positive-I was voluntarily taking part in this exchange of information for personal benefit. I was also fully aware of the data I was choosing to share through the survey I completed.

This model has changed. Today's market research does feel a bit "creepy," primarily because we are not fully aware of the data we are sharing. We perceive that we are passively sharing our information. Companies disclose the fact that they do collect information through the now widely recognized genre of the "privacy policy," but there are still shadowy areas meant to keep users in the dark about what exactly these companies are concealing versus revealing.

This morning, I used my Panera mobile app to order a coffee. As I sat in the parking lot, I decided to look into some of the details of Panera's privacy policy. Panera collects information in order to conduct routine transactions on the app, including name, geolocation, and financial payment details. Additionally, Panera reveals in its policy that it collects information "from third parties in order to supplement our existing information about you," including "media and brand preferences, inferred interests, demographic information, purchase behavior, public online activities, and other information about you or your household."

At this point, it becomes clear that Panera is part of a backchannel network of exchange that taps into social media and general Internet usage. Panera reveals in its policy that this behind-the-scenes collaboration uses analytics for marketing purposes, with the goal of "enhanc[ing] our customers' and Service users' experiences in our bakery-cafes" as well as "the sales efforts of Panera."

So Panera receives information about user patterns of digital behaviors from third parties, and also participates in this exchange by providing discernments about our activity with Panera to other third-party partners. The existing web of information of exchange quickly feels out of control. If we have a perception of deception, we realize this too late. Our digital footprints are fossilized, even if we follow Panera's (or any other app's) opt-out procedures to prevent future tracking efforts. Reading through a privacy policy leads us to recognize that data gathering and sharing efforts are not only creepy, but also crappy. The damage is done.

Or is it?

The data-sharing game may have changed since the days of voluntarily responding to sponsored surveys, but we as users can still become active participants in data sharing and active creators of our online data sets.

Panera's mobile app and many other mobile app privacy policies do include "Opt-Out Choices." To participate in making active elections, follow the opt-out recommendations in these privacy policies. For instance, AppChoices allows users to opt out of certain data exchanges to limit ads. It is also possible to control geolocation data collection by adjusting settings on the mobile device.

In addition to the opt-out strategies that privacy policies like Panera's do clue us into, we can be savvy about the information we choose to share on social media platforms, which often becomes third-party information that is exchanged with various companies like Panera. Abby Ohlheiser of The Washington Post posits that maintaining a social media account actually is "ensuring your active participation in letting the Internet learn more about you." However, Ohlheiser suggests that, if we do choose to participate through social media, we can actively control information shared by using strategies such as deleting outdated accounts like MySpace, deleting outdated content on existing social media accounts, and creating "alternative facts" such as false birthdays.

In this new digital marketing arena, it's important to recognize that we do have some autonomy over the data we share. Privacy policies are not necessarily user-friendly and can leave us feeling in the dark, but we cannot claim to be solely passive purveyors of our information. Reading privacy policies shines some light into those dark corners of backchannel information exchange. Clicking "I agree" is an active decision to jump into the game, and seeking out our opt-out rights is an active play on the field.

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Privacy is a legitimate concern in the digital arena. While working away on our individual devices, it's easy to feel like we are unseen in a remote, shadowed corner. In reality, we are each one of millions crammed into the playing field of a stadium, being observed by innumerable remote, shadowed third parties.

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Digital Persuasion: I Make My Own Choices--Don't I?

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Last summer, I took a weekend trip to Glenwood Springs with my family. We stayed at a small cabin in a campground and did some hiking, relaxing in the hot springs, and adventuring at a local theme park. Each evening, we spent some time playing card games on the front porch and then went to bed when the sun went down.

Except that, every night, I had already scheduled a block of time that my family knew nothing about. I had to sneak down to the shared bathrooms with my iPhone and spend five minutes connecting to Candy Crush and collecting my daily prizes, boosters I could use later in the game when I was back at home.

It's a shameful little secret, but it's also what Tristan Harris refers to as a tech company's unethical manipulation of my time. Apps are able to use persuasive strategies (such as Candy Crush rewards) to commit "blocks" of my schedule, which then fuels my "addiction, " or future use of the app. According to Harris, the solution is to embark on a "renaissance in online design." Harris's Center for Humane Technology advocates for humane design-technology that protects rather than exploits our vulnerabilities to be consumed by tech's siren call to our attention, political pressure to hold tech companies accountable, and a movement to increase self-awareness in digital citizens.

Photo credit : rawpixel, Pixabay

Harris asserts that "we need to acknowledge that we are persuadable." He perceives a gap in our own self-perception. But I don't think that this is the knowledge gap that most of us experience. We are consumers in our American society, and we recognize that we are assenting to persuasion on a regular basis-from casual conversations about where go to dinner to a barrage of advertisements we experience when we turn on the television or log into Facebook. We may not always work through our reactions to persuasion consciously because we've automated those processes, but if someone asks me, Why did you start logging into Candy Crush every day?, I will be able to answer, Well, they started giving me a reward every day, and I don't want to miss a reward. That is a decision I have made, and I can recognize that it is the game's way of persuading me to keep in contact.

Harris would point out that the game is pursuing its own self-interest, though, not mine. And that's the key point that he offers, I think-not that we are creatures susceptible to persuasion, but that "technology is not neutral." One way to look at this issue is that technology is not static but is a vehicle of change, and thus cannot be neutral. Other perspectives focus on the human element behind technology, such that technology is always tainted by the motivations of the hand behind the algorithm.

Those spending their time in digital environments may not understand the programming behind the recommendations for the next video they should watch or the next website they should visit, but every user is presented with a choice to make, and that is the gap that Harris seems to overlook. Yes, we spend too much time on social media, but that is our choice to engage, to assent to or reject persuasive strategies. Yes, I have spent too many days accessing Candy Crush for my next reward, but that was a deliberate choice, and I also didn't feel like less of a person on the days I chose not to access the app.

Addiction is a real problem, both in the digital environment and out in what we call the "real world." And Harris's call for human technology that seeks to protect rather than exploit our attention and time would be valuable. But let's talk about those opportunities within a conversation that honors the human capacity to make deliberate choices.

Now, I need to run off and grab my next Candy Crush reward-it releases at 5:00.

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Digital Persuasion: I Make My Own Choices-Don't I?

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Last summer, I took a weekend trip to Glenwood Springs with my family. We stayed at a small cabin in a campground and did some hiking, relaxing in the hot springs, and adventuring at a local theme park. Each evening, we spent some time playing card games on the front porch and then went to bed when the sun went down.

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A Connectivist and a Constructivist Walk into a Bar . . .

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My high school history teacher, Mr. Ford, was fond of telling us that there are two kinds of smart people: those who know the answer and those who know where to find the answer. Reading George Siemens' published defenses of connectivism could lead one to the conclusion that these two sorts of people are incompatible. The one who "knows the answer" has been deluded into a false sense of security in reality, but the one who knows where to find the answer is tapped into the ever-changing landscape of knowledge management. The first, the constructivist, cannot know beyond a subjective reality. The latter, the connectivist, is better positioned to recognize the patterns within a network of learners and experts, an external reality documented online.

If they were sitting at the same bar, would they be able to have a drink together?

I posit that connectivism helps us better grasp how learners today are taking part in learning activities in a variety of digital networks. Yet, in line with Kolb's model of experiential learning, the where of the digitally networked environment doesn't completely address the question of how we learn-that is, we cognitively process new knowledge by reflecting on concrete experiences. Constructivism asserts that realities are built through individual meaning-making activities, even if those activities are initially experienced through digital environments. This is an epistemological position-what we think we know is shaped by our ideological frameworks.

We cannot escape this fundamental construction of knowledge in a digital environment. While connectivism rightly points out that our digital networks expose us to patterns of understanding within diverse opinions, those patterns are all informed by ideologically-informed meaning-making reflections.

Perhaps connectivists and constructivists should spend more time at the same bar, then. They need each other.

Check out my thoughts on this topic in the following vlog.

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A Connectivist and a Constructivist Walk Into a Bar . . .

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My high school history teacher, Mr. Ford, was fond of telling us that there are two kinds of smart people: those who know the answer and those who know where to find the answer. Reading George Siemens' published defenses of connectivism could lead one to the conclusion that these two sorts of people are incompatible.

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ENG 121 Spark Video Multimodal Project and Artist's Statement

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ENG 121 Spark Video Multimodal Project and Artist's Statement

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Project 3 Spark Video and Artist's Statement

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CCR-ENG Patterns of Development Presentation Assignment

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CCR-ENG Patterns of Development Presentation Assignment

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This assignment is part of the CCR 094 course grade and allows independent research, collaboration, critical thinking to apply to examples, and ultimately application to a research-informed academic essay outline plan.

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Patterns of Development Presentation Assignment

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This presentation demonstrates a commitment to integrate technology meaningfully into

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This video was captured with the Screencast-o-Matic software and is produced for the student perspective, also allowing a glimpse into use of D2L in a course build.

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Online Testimonials Video: Example of Media Producing/Project Management

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Online Testimonials Video: Example of Media Producing/Project Management

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I envisioned a series of short video testimonials to benefit new online/hybrid students in our D2L Student Orientation redesign. Utilizing the skills of our department's videographer, I scheduled interviewees, devised standard questions and conducted the interviews, and acted as producer to make design and production decisions for the videographer to implement.

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Add Content in LMS Instructional Demo via Camtasia

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Add Content in LMS Instructional Demo via Camtasia

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I have used several video media tools as an instructor, but currently prefer Camtasia for screen capture and Adobe Spark for topical messages.

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Orientation Overview Infographic via Piktochart

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Orientation Overview Infographic via Piktochart

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Know Where You're Going: D2L Orientation

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I create images where possible with Adobe Spark, a free and well-supported platform that allows me to begin with templates. I also create images from snipping tools and marked-up PPT slides. Graphic creation tools depends on the purpose of the visual product.

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Best Practices for Facilitating Online Courses

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Best Practices for Facilitating Online Courses

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This is a succinct outline of best practices for facilitating online courses that I share with faculty members during a mentoring relationship.

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Online Facilitation Task Tracker Example

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Online Facilitation Task Tracker Example

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When working to mentor an online faculty member, the need for an example task list became clear. This simple tool responded directly to a faculty member's apparent need.

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The instructor I was working with was ready to consider using a very simple rubric in a fire science strategies course. I designed a simple rubric to review and then built the rubric into the LMS.

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Course Development Institute Hybrid Workshop Syllabus

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Course Development Institute Hybrid Workshop Syllabus

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The student orientation redesign began with a plan for alignment between course/module objectives and learning materials, activities, assessments, and technologies.

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Original Arrangement, "What Child Is This?"

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Original Arrangement, "What Child Is This?"

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Original Song, "Forevermore & All Along"

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Original Song, "Forevermore & All Along"

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This is a service-learning project that I guided a LIT 115 Introduction to Literature course. Red Rocks Community College students built content. As the instructor, I assisted with the design process and media creation.

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eLCC Presentation Overviewing D2L Orientation Design

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eLCC Presentation Overviewing D2L Orientation Design

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This presentation outlines the principles and process behind the RRCC D2L Orientation redesign effort.

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720.842.5053

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AmandaHardman88@gmail.com

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https://tinyurl.com/hardmanteaching