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Google is both wonderful and terrible. An endless amount of information is available through search engines, but how much of that information is valid? Personally, anytime I google a question, I look at several different sources because I do not trust the first answer I am offered. Racial bias in the form of technology is a scary truth to face. Who is programing the information to be sent out to the public? Where do we start to unwrite these algorithms? Joy's video example, demonstrating the lack of recognition her face got from a computer was really surprising to me. I would have assumed that facial recognition like this would be programed with shapes, lines, structures, but not color. This is crazy to me that the algorithm would have been programed with color at all. I think that this example really highlights the racial biases that are legitimately built into our society, literally and figuratively. I think this poses a deeper question that goes beyond technology. How as a species have we become advanced enough to be able to program a computer to recognize faces, but how as a society have we not advanced enough to leave color out of the recognition of a human?

I found Audrey Watters's piece difficult to take an overall point from. What is the point of Agitprop? Who is it benefiting? The technology companies? Is the goal to spread fear and use it to control the people?

Ruha Benjamin's talk shook me from the beginning. A bench with spikes on it??? Like are you serious?? Exposing an attitude toward the homeless equivalent to pigeons, lining roofs of buildings with spikes to deter birds from landing on them. She spoke of several different kind of biases within the field of technology, which I had never considered much. She asked a question, that what did it say about "us" to hope that we could find something within the biological makeup that mass murders/shooters all shared in common. While she praised the rationality behind it, predicting the possibility to save lives, she also criticized it, asking what it says about us. I did not share her view for this particular subject, I did not understand her rationale. I think her point was that it puts prejudice on people with mental illness, however, I feel like this is a stretch to me. Yes, I believe people who commit school shootings have mental illnesses and need help, but I do not find the research into the DNA of these types of people to be a prejudice against the overwhelming majority of people with mental illness. As a psychology major, I know that the human brain is vastly still a mystery, there is so much to discover about it. Obviously, this is my personal perspective but I respect her perspective as well and can understand her thought process at least. My question would be, who does it fall on to decide if research like this is ethical or necessary? Should the government have final say in green lighting or banning research that could potentially fuel biases?

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How can technology be taught as a tool for learning and enlightenment, rather than a distraction and hinderance?

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I am someone who loves technology, and feel like it expands my learning on an every day bias. I also love the accessibility that comes with technology. Anyone with access with wifi which can be free in certain places can gain knowledge on virtually any subject. However, this weeks readings brought the dark side out for technology for me. I had always known technology had a darkside. This week's readings highlighted to me how much blind trust we have in technology in every aspect of us not just catching up with our friends. I think the shifts towards are more important to be acknowledged now because they are not so perfect or harmless. Something I am wrestling with is how do we even begin change at this point with something we are so dependent on. Can we change what we have or do we have to restart? An aspect that stuck with me this week was Joy Buolamwini's talk. Buolamwini states she is on a mission to stop the algorithmic bias. She talks about looking at who is creating the code, why they are creating the code, and how they are creating the code. I think if more platforms and policies looked at their implementations under that perspective more issues would be dealt with long term. -Tess Dupree

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Technology in Education and Society-Meg Gilchrist

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Technology in Education and Society-Meg Gilchrist

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One of the first questions that come up for me is how people who work in education are unintentionally contributing to the situation described in the reading by Audrey Watters.  She described how “knowing and knowledge are decentralized and cheapened”.  Technology and Artificial Intelligence are being pushed as the savior for education. Are schools and teachers using technology without really thinking about if it adds to and enhances content area or just removes some of the human element and individuality.

Sofia Umaja Noble’s presentation about search engines reinforcing racism makes me wonder about how my own interactions with the internet and how my children are also absorbing racist and often incorrect information.  The presenter describes search engines as the new public library. If as the presenter describes algorithms and technology that inherently discriminates, then search engines are doing more harm than good.

I was really struck by Puka Benjamin’s talk about the kind of future we are designing.  Her example of the bench designs including the single benches, those with dividers and the horrible metered benches with spikes is a grim reminder about how we as a society are allowing consumer and capitalists ideals trump our basic humanity.

Meg Gilchrist

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Technology is absolutely scary to me. I deleted all my social media and really tried to take my face off the internet because of this. There are few guidelines to its power and many people on a global scale have a surface level understanding of what technology is and what it can do. I am not a “technology” person, but I do find myself intrigued by what technology can do for the humans it serves. Safiya Umoja Noble mentions that women of color are often sexualized and this is in high demand in the U.S. This is frightening to acknowledge and associate with my own experiences. A few of my questions include: How does this affect young women of minority groups' image of themselves?How do technology and integrity live together?Globally, how are we promoting and cultivating technology based projects to serve as solutions to some of the problems we face today that are interconnected between education and society?

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Technology is absolutely scary to me. I deleted all my social media and really tried to take my face off the internet because of this. There are few guidelines to its power and many people on a global scale have a surface level understanding of what technology is and what it can do. I am not a “technology” person, but I do find myself intrigued by what technology can do for the humans it serves. Safiya Umoja Noble mentions that women of color are often sexualized and this is in high demand in the U.S. This is frightening to acknowledge and associate with my own experiences. A few of my questions include: How does this affect young women of minority groups' image of themselves?How do technology and integrity live together?Globally, how are we promoting and cultivating technology based projects to serve as solutions to some of the problems we face today that are interconnected between education and society?

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Technology in Education and Society-Rory Donahue

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Technology in Education and Society-Rory Donahue

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I recently did a presentation on child development and technology use. Because there has been such a progression in the production of technology, it seems overwhelming. Recently, the creation of zoom and being able to attend classes online and complete assignments online allows learning to be accessed anywhere and everywhere. But with that being said, access to adequate and correct information is still in question. There has always been the issue of misinformation but with the increase of use in technology and the excess of it now allows misinformation to be spread every single second and is widespread. During my time researching technology use and child development, it was found that

Electronically embedded toys may benefit a child’s development IF experts in child development and toy designers come together

Electronic toys may have a greater impact on children already at risk for poor development

Environmental factors such as low socioeconomic status and access to a resource

Mental health factors such as child abuse and trauma

Developmental factors such as developmental delays

I think this goes hand and hand with education and technology. There are so many detriments to technology such as the lack of access, the spread of misinformation, and even inaccurate findings that impact what children are learning. But, the push for technological literacy is huge for the job market and sets people up for success in the long run.

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Technology in Education and Society - Haley Wells

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Technology in Education and Society - Haley Wells

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WOW. I always find it remarkable how technology can change and advance so quickly, however, this makes me wonder why it has been so difficult to come up with a solution that combats racial bias and misinformation in technology. Is it just perhaps that those who have access to money for technology or have the knowledge on how to do so do not want to? When  Ruha Benjamin stated “ We the customer-not we the people”, my jaw dropped. This quote is so true, and it makes me wonder why I have not heard it before. Those who can pay for things always come first. Those who can support themselves always come first. People advocate for supporting children through their life as adolescents, but shy away from supporting adults who need similar resources and support and for what reason? Why is it looked at negatively when an adult is struggling, but not a child? When do we, the people, decide that someone can magically support themselves regardless on if they were supported or not through childhood? Simply put, its once a person reaches an age where they are “expected” to have the resources or funds to provide for themselves, however, they may have never learned how to. This makes me so frustrated! Further, if technology is so advanced and is ever-changing, why is there racial bias in coding? Who/what decides what a “normal” face is? I think this is beyond crazy. Like Joy Buolamwini said, police departments are now using facial recognition software that is still not as accurate as they need it to be, yet are using it to incriminate people who may be innocent. To me, this is all newish information, and it makes me wonder how much longer algorithm bias will be apparent in search engines and coding today.

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It is truly amazing how far technology has come since the first telephone, computer, phone, and so on. After listening to the TEDTalks and doing the reading, I can't help but wonder how much will technology continue to advance, especially in our school systems, but also present more challenges overall. A really big question that came up for me was what is the solution to combating the quick spread of misinformation and algorithmic biases. This is important to resolve considering that some school systems have adapted into using technology in every day classrooms. It makes me wonder how much information students are retaining that are actual research based, proven, subjects, rather than biased information that is incredibly hard to sift through.

A quandary that I have is being amazed at how far technology has come overall to the point where we can find microscopic organisms in space, but are not able to pinpoint certain facial recognitions just as what Joy Buolamwini was talking about through her experiences. This all makes me wonder how far we truly are in technology, and how far we are along an order to “perfect” the entire algorithm.

- Jamie Walker

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Why does this all feel so heavy and scary? I absolutely agree that it is important to acknowledge this sort of information and it is known that technology has progressed faster in the last 20 years than in all of history, but consuming this type of content makes me feel doomed because will it slow down? Will AI take over or are we going to step in and find a balance? How do we keep up? Like many of my colleagues, I find value in technology in education, especially following the pandemic's virtual learning, and when it comes to those difficult conversations with veteran teachers who are hesitant to try new technology, sometimes it can be frustrating when people are not willing to adapt and evolve, but at what point are we supposed to pause and reflect on how quickly things are progressing to avoid the doomed and scary feeling? And is the inequality gap growing as the technology progresses and people just do not have access to the resources or education required to use them?

I feel that my thoughts may be all over the place and possibly have veered off track of what the module is asking us to discuss, but it feels as if one thought snowballs into another with topics like these and some very important ideas come to mind.

-Stephanie Adams

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The use of fear and propaganda is a very interesting one. One instance of this case comes from the Ed-Tech Agitprop article which discusses the use of “agitating propaganda.” One quote from this article discusses how the use of this rhetoric has impacted how we as a society view the progress of technology, “‘robots are coming for your jobs’ is one side of the coin; ‘immigrants are coming for your jobs.’ is the other. That is, it is the same coin. It's a coin often used to marshal fear and hatred, to make us feel insecure and threatened.” With this quote, you can begin to see how some teachers, especially from an older generation, may be less inclined to begin using technology. I have witnessed this at the school I am currently employed at. I’ve noticed in many instances that teachers under the age of 35 are much more inclined to use technological features such as iPads and Schoology. For the most part, the older teachers still kill about 50 trees an assignment.

Is there a way to frame the use and progress of technology as a positive benefit rather than a negative?

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The following quote from the “Ed-Tech Agitprop” article intrigued me: “What does it mean in these stories…to ‘know’?  To know Kung Fu or English or Shakespeare? It seems to me, at least, that knowing and knowledge here are decontextualized and cheapened.  This is a hollowed-out epistemology, an epistemic poverty in which human experiences and culture are not valued.”  If the future of education is being increasingly “bent toward the machine” with the rise of technology, the human experience of learning will suffer.  I feel like the process of learning isn’t something that is focused on as much in schools with a drive toward performance.  It is interesting that a conceptualization of the future of learning includes the idea that you can swallow a pill to “know” something new.  This completely removes the struggle and the joy of an “aha moment” that are so important in learning.  I also thought it was interesting that the author refuted the common claims about the future of the workforce, including the claim that “40% of all jobs will be automated in the next 15 years.”  I have seen several iterations of this claim, and I never considered how it could have been created to promote fear and division.

Something else that stood out to me was Joy Buolamwini’s discussion of algorithmic bias in the facial detection software.  As a white woman, I’ve never had to look far to see myself represented in books, movies, or TV shows, and I made a connection between this privilege and the privilege of being a face recognized in the computer software.  I enjoyed Joy’s message at the end of her video about reflecting upon who codes, how we code, and why we code.  It is so important to have Black coders in order to identify biases in software and work to create inclusivity.

Most of this week’s content was focused on the decisions made by people in the technology industries.  I’m wondering what to do with this information as a classroom educator.  How can this knowledge apply to my field in a meaningful way?

- Mary D.

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The content from this week shifted my perspective of technology in some ways. As with most movements, the development of new resources, etc. there are good intentions behind them but so often there are voices missing that are detrimental in the development of those products. Ruja Benjamin stated, “we risk reproducing social inequalities” when voices are missing at “the lab bench.” And, this point resonated with me. I'm wondering, whose voices are missing? How do we produce change when the perspectives of those affected are not present in the process? How do we gain their buy-in?

I am sitting with many of the points raised by Audrey Watters and Joy Buolamwini. During the COVID closure, our only way of connecting to the world outside of our homes was through devices. We pushed our students to become technologically literate and created a world within this space. It benefitted us in some ways but harmed us in other ways. I’m wondering how this has contributed to growing inequalities within our systems? What other movements can be developed, like “Algorithmic Justice League” to institute positive change to the design of products that discriminate against people in society?

~ Kristen O'Block

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How can we get to a place where technology can advance but also enhance all lives for the greater good rather than the good of a few people's pockets?

A few thoughts I had while listening and reading that lead me to this overarching question:

An I-pad in a classroom cause your daycare or school can afford it? Great! But it doesn't need to be accessible all the time. Though having a tablet is the new norm and yes, children should know how to use it (and smart phones), it shouldn't be the end all be all rather a tool to enhance lessons and activities.

Is the automatic sink not registering some of my students hands because they just a little too short or is it the tone of their skin like the AI Joy Buolamwini was programming?

Our students now are the future. Can I continue to model kindness and acceptance to not only teach the importance of individuality but also to combat the urge to design a world only for some and to push away others? Will they grow up to want to get rid of the single person benches?

~Leigh

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What day and time I'm engaging with this content, and how it feels, and a few questions I have 

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What day and time I'm engaging with this content, and how it feels, and a few questions I have 

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This week I engaged with the content on Monday morning. It's quite comical, in a way, and empowering in others, to listen to these talks and conversations at a time where capitalism seems to roar (i.e. Monday morning, the start of the 9-5 work week). it's selfishly refreshing, too, because the "rules' and collective consciousness about what the experience of work / returning to work is like, seem so silly, at best. At worst, it's more motivating to keep doing the work because this reality is far from just "silly," rather it continues to do harm, and there will always be more work to do in creating a world with freedom and equity for all persons at the center.

Question: is there a "center" or a singular driving factor / vision or intended impact that helps to organize my actions in aiding in equity? Is equity THE goal? Or is it shared power? Empowerment? In other words, I find it helpful to have a "key" "goal" in how I organize my action taking and dismantling / disrupting. Is it possible to have ONE "goal" as the driving force? Or is there a better way?

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Questions from the "How I'm Fighting Bias in Algorithm" talk 

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Questions from the "How I'm Fighting Bias in Algorithm" talk 

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"Who is coding? How are we coding? Why are we coding?"

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"We the customer" says a lot in so few words.. what strategies do we have in sharing power? In equitable design? In educational spaces?

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"We the customer" says a lot in so few words.. what strategies do we have in sharing power? In equitable design? In educational spaces?

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I was just talking about similar topics with some friends. Sadly a lot of systems are depending on technology development (the prison and justice system!!) to make them "better." But technology is made by the same people in power who already have biases.
True equity comes from sharing power, in this case, creating power.