Intersectional feminism and instructional design & technology

I’d like to share with you a powerful paper that I read yesterday.

As a preamble consider this: The field of instructional design and technology has it’s fair share of problems. Naming them begins the process of tackling them, but it takes ongoing and dedicated work – and courage. I’ve been filled with hope over the past couple of years as a larger and more diverse group of people have led the way in tacking equity, diversity, and inclusion in IDT.

The paper? Romero-Hall, E. (2021). Navigating the Instructional Design Field as an Afro-Latinx Woman: A Feminist Autoethnography. TechTrends, (0123456789). If you have access to the journal: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-021-00681-x If you don’t have access: https://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1007/s11528-021-00681-x

What is the paper about? Dr. Enilda Romero-Hall details some of her personal experiences, as a woman of color and a graduate student, professor, researcher, and instructor in a field dominated by men, and white men in particular. She also describes the ways in which intersectional feminism guided her scholarship and responses. Please read the paper yourself – it’s worth the time reading Enilda’s words in her voice.

Why is the paper important to me (and possibly to you)?

  • The kinds of things that Enilda describes – lack of diversity and representation in the field, aggression and micro-aggression, etc etc –  aren’t just present in other fields. They’re in IDT too. They’re systemic. They’re not other people’s problems. They’re our problems too.
  • If you’ve been to AECT over the past few years, you’ve likely met Enilda. Personal stories, especially when connected to people we meet/know, may have a transformative power (which is partly why the volume that Ana Donaldson edited on Women’s voices in Educational Technology is such a significant piece of work). Full disclosure here: Enilda and I have known each other for many years. Our grad student days overlapped, though at different institutions. We’ve also served in AECT’s Research and Theory division together, and collaborated on a few other areas (a paper, a couple of panels, a grant, etc).
  • Addressing issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion in the field is an ongoing work that shouldn’t be solely relegated to those who do equity, diversity, and inclusion research. For example, one step that we can all take in our teaching is to diversify and decolonize our reading lists. Toward this, the University of Huddersfield provides a toolkit to explore.

BC floods and school closures

We experienced destructive floods and mudslides in BC this week, due to an atmospheric river. The province has declared a state of emergency. Much has been said and written since March 2020 about the ongoing pandemic and school/university closures. At the same time, more and more colleagues are exploring the relationships between crises such as climate catastrophe and schools, education, and the futures of teaching and learning.

Below is an example of how this event is described as impacting MEI, an independent school district in Abbotsford BC, by the head of MEI Schools:

MEI will be CLOSED WEDNESDAY to FRIDAY, November 17th – 19th, 2021. Our staff will make every effort to provide online learning opportunities to our students on Thursday and Friday through the platforms we have used in the past including Schoology, Seesaw, and Zoom.

This has been a very difficult decision.

Abbotsford is in the midst of a formal State of Emergency. Late last night, the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) notified Abbotsford residents of what could be a “catastrophic” event in Sumas Prairie with the potential failure of the Barrowtown Pump Station. If it happens, this additional layer to the existing crisis will “pose a significant risk to life” impacting beloved MEI families (Abbotsford.ca). The crisis is not yet receding, but seems to be gaining momentum.

I can confirm that our campus is ready to receive our staff and students, but the city does not seem ready to receive 1800 of us on the roads. Abbotsford’s EOC has given their support for schools west of Sumas Way to open for in-person learning. Although MEI is located in this region, we are not a catchment school. Rather, we are a commuter school with our community arriving from all parts of Abbotsford, Mission and into the Fraser Valley both east and west of our campus.

Currently, two of my 7-person leadership team, multiple staff, and MEI families have been trapped in the Hope/Coquihalla region since Sunday night. Additionally, multiple teachers, support staff, and many families representing more than 100 students will simply not be able to cross the prairie from the Chillwack area to report for work or attend classes.

If we open, we may not have enough staff for meaningful learning to take place or the basic supervision needed for the safety of our students. Additionally, we anticipate having classes that include some students in attendance and others unable or uncomfortable to attend…

 

Twine as a reprieve from yet-another-meeting

On Wednesday, my work day started at 8. That’s how it starts, every day (well, except on those days that it starts at 5, like today). And then it went like this:

  • Empirical Educator Project summit 8-9 (in Engageli)
  • Team meeting: Education for Misinformation project 9-10 (in Bluejeans)
  • Break & email 10-1030
  • OTESSA board meeting 10:30-11:30 (Zoom)
  • Research grants budget overview/planning meeting 11:30-12:00 (Teams)

I imagine the above meeting-after-meeting rings true for many of you, as well. My days weren’t like this in the before times, especially the “what platform am I supposed to be in for this meeting now?” feeling.

But I did get to spend some time in the afternoon working on an education simulation in the form of narrative fiction that the misinfromation team is developing (Chandell Gosse, Shandell Houlden, Jaigris Hodson).

We’re working with Twine, and there’s lots to appreciate about that tool. For example, because it generates an html file and works on the browser- rather than the server-side, you can  download/import other people’s projects, and explore their storylines. A while back I imported Hana Feels (TW: self-harm) and September 7, 2020 (a student learning in the pandemic), tinkering with the structure and seeing how it may work for our own project. It would have been incredibly hepful to know this earlier, but I didn’t figure it out until after we created our first simulation. That one aimed at helping people understand the experience of a faculty member facing online harassment.

 

Call for chapters- AECT at 100: A Century of Leadership in Educational Technology 

Sharing this CFP on behalf of colleagues.

The editors of AECT at 100: A Century of Leadership in Educational Technology have extended this call for chapter proposals until November 30, 2021 and are still accepting submissions on a variety of topics, particulary in the gap areas highlighted in the attached revised call for chapters.

 

The purpose of this book is to highlight AECT’s 100 years of leadership in educational technology and learning. AECT has a rich history, evolving from the National Education Association’s (NEA) Department of Visual Instruction (DVI) and later the Department of Audio-Visual Instruction (DAVI). Over its 100 years, AECT and its members have had a substantial impact on the evolution of American educational technology and learning, including in the areas of audiovisual instruction, instructional design, and online learning. This book seeks to recognize the individuals within AECT whose leadership has contributed to the survival of the association and to the association’s impact on the field of educational technology. Additionally, issues faced in the field and research and theory topics over the years will be addressed.

 

A full description of the updated call is attached and can also be found at:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RbVIfb_ioXdj3fXpb6wgMt-YjsLWwiNj/view

 

Initial proposals should include an extended abstract for chapters (1000 words plus representative references) or a description of a leader spotlight (500 words plus a summary who the spotlight will address and what makes the spotlight interesting to readers and/or researchers

To submit your proposal go to https://forms.gle/fobwQXFrgSN8XtadA

 

SUPPORT RESOURCES
A list of author resources are provided at the following page. https://docs.google.com/document/d/17utUC773kOlG2Cd848_hR2ZmQsyENbG0VcVD8ijtlKE/edit?usp=sharing

Impacts Experienced by Faculty Stemming from the Intersection of the Covid-19 Pandemic and Racial Tensions

The Journal of Interactive Media in Education published a special issue entitled Learning from Lockdown: challenges and benefits. Colleagues and I contributed a paper on the Professional and Personal Impacts Experienced by Faculty Stemming from the Intersection of the Covid-19 Pandemic and Racial Tensions. Our abstract appears below:

The disruption that resulted from COVID-19 in 2020 impacted the ways in which higher education faculty lived and worked. Earlier literature describes how faculty members’ experiences during the early months of the pandemic included emotional impacts such as stress and anxiety, with little support to manage these impacts. In this paper we report on a thematic analysis of interviews with Canadian faculty members which revealed that the sources of impacts on Canadian faculty were both the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as racial tensions. These impacts revealed themselves in both the personal and professional lives of participants. With regard to their professional role, participants reported that the additional time and care that they put towards learning new technologies, implementation of new teaching practices, support of students, and efforts to sustain their perceived obligations as a scholar carried an emotional burden. With respect to their personal lives, participants noted that emotional impacts emanated from increased caring responsibilities for family and friends, reduced in-person connections, and news reports and social media. We conclude by presenting support recommendations for individual faculty members, teaching and learning centres, and university administrators.

Belikov, O., VanLeeuwen, C., Veletsianos, G., Johnson, N., Torcivia, P. (2021). Professional and personal impacts experienced by faculty stemming from the intersection of the COVID-19 pandemic and racial tensions. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 1, p. 8. http://doi.org/10.5334/jime.647

One highlight of this paper that isn’t visible in the final product: Being able to support and mentor Olga, Charlene, and Nicole in publishing. Also: finally being able to identify an opportunity to work with Patrice on a paper!

You may also be interested in the rest of the papers in this issue:

The online course marketplace and online courses as side hustle

This post is a rough patchwork of resources and notes. It’s aiming to explore the intersection of online learning, online course marketplaces, education entrepreneurship, course creator economies/economics, side hustling, digital products, education-as-commodity, and digital learning platforms.

In describing education/learning models other than MOOCs, in 2014 Tannis Morgan identifies 3 models:

  • Affinity Group Learning:  MOOC-like without the course
  • Subscription-based learning sites
  • Micro-content affinity sites

(Aside: These could be mapped to the social learning typology of groups, networks, sets, and collectives described by Dron and Anderson, as well as the dimensions of formal-informal learning they identify here)

In 2019, Tannis re-examines these models and brings them together under the umbrella of “course content marketplace.” The focus is pretty much learning experience platforms (LXPs).

What I’d like to specifically focus on here is the online course marketplace and course creators (outside of higher ed).

Focusing on the LXPs, Tannis writes that back in 2014 course creators were (mostly) using “WordPress and Woo commerce, and it took some determination and persistence to get things going for the average non expert.” Fast forward to 2019: “So no surprise that a new marketplace for Online Course Platforms (different from the LMS) has sprung up, with affordable subscription models to get the side hustler with no instructional design skills and few multimedia skills up and running in a few days with their online course.”

What’s it like in 2021?

DIY-solutions using WordPress, or outsourcing the WordPress-based design and development is still going strong.

Platforms that make it easy to quickly set up and sell asynchronous courses

Some of these include memberships and communities.

  • Examples: some of the platforms above, plus Kajabi

And, most-recently, cohort-based course-selling platforms a la Section4:

The products developed from these are often called courses, but they’re also described as institutes or academies.

Right now these platforms seem to be selling tools to course creators to launch their courses, and aren’t quite marketplaces just yet, i.e. spaces where users can browse and buy courses from various providers a la Udemy.

Most of these platforms

  • create groups (rather than networks or collectives, per Dron & Anderson),
  • are a radical departure from the ethos and aspirations of the open learning community,

I’ll pause here. More connecting threads hopefully soon. If you’ve come this far, I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of these.

 

Recent talks on returning back to “normal”

Institutions, institutional leaders, faculty, and students face very many challenges in “returning back to normal.”

In our ongoing research – which we are furiously trying to make available as soon as possible – students and faculty in particular tell us that they hope institutions “carry forward” what was learned during the pandemic, while they hope to avoid a return back to “normal.” There’s an important distinction here. Hopes for a “return to normalcy,” aren’t hopes for a return to the pre-pandemic status quo. They want better futures, different futures, futures that are more accommodating, supportive, equitable, and stable, and see this as an appropriate and opportune time for making long-awaited changes.

I gave two talks recently focused on these ideas. Below is the abstract from my keynote at Simon Fraser University’s Symposium on Teaching and Learning. My keynote for the Faculty Summer Institute at Texas State focused on this topic as well, but from the perspective of student voice and resilience, drawing on earlier research.

Online and blended learning in post-pandemic settings
Much of the conversation in higher education at this particular point in time focuses on “building back better.” To engage in such rebuilding means to recognize that various pre-pandemic teaching, learning, and institutional practices were problematic. “Building back better” invites us to ask: What do future online and blended learning environments look like, who do they serve, what are they for, and how do we justly make them available to everyone? How do we make our learning environments more equitable, flexible, accessible, enriching, sustainable, decolonial, and responsive? As we are invited to return back to campus, what aspects of pre-pandemic teaching and learning should we strive to avoid returning back to? In this talk, I draw from a series pan-Canadian studies conducted over the last year with students, faculty, staff, and administrators, and share findings that inform our collective efforts for creating effective, but also engaging and equitable, learning environments.

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