Quote: I won’t ever really understand what it feels like to work here, because I know that I get to leave

It’s been a few difficult and long months – more on this soon –  but this week was the first time in I-can’t-remember-when that I was able to sit at a coffee shop with a book with no schedule, without a pressing sense to spend my time on more productive and pressing activities. I’ve missed it. At said coffee shop, a local chain called Serious Coffee,  I was reading Emily Guendelsberger’s On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane in which she describes what it is like to work at a McDonalds, an Amazon warehouse, and a call centre.

I’ve always been drawn to ethnographies, stories from the inside, and such – please offer favourite books and articles in the comments – and this quote was a good reminder of the challenges we face in our efforts to understand other people’s experiences (p. 56-57):

I came to SDF8 [an Amazon fulfilment centre] to try to understand what it feels like to work in a fulfilment center. But the thing I really and truly understand now is that, regardless of how broke I may be, I’m the upper class. I always will be. I won’t ever really understand what it feels like to work here, because I know that I get to leave.

 

Online workshop: What Can Researchers and Research Communicators Do to Address Online Abuse?,

Please consider the following invitation

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If you have been subjected to online harassment as a result of discussing your work online, you might be interested in a virtual workshop being put on by researchers at Royal Roads University, Toronto Metropolitan University, and the University of British Columbia.

The online workshop, titled What Can Researchers and Research Communicators Do to Address Online Abuse?, happens November 23 from 10 to 11:30 a.m. PST. It’s specifically designed to support researchers and research communicators, but it’s open to everyone.

The workshop covers scenarios and strategies to protect yourself online, including how to limit the amount of data you expose online.

“None of us should have to deal with this alone,” Hodson says, adding that she and her team have met so many just doing that over the course of their research.

“I think people don’t realize that we could be a community. I think one of the broader goals for this and our work going forward is to help people recognize that they’re not alone and we really are stronger together.”

Learn more about the workshop and register now.

Workshop facilitators

Anatoliy Gruzd, Canada Research Chair in Privacy Preserving Digital Technologies, Toronto Metropolitan University

Anatoliy Gruzd is a Canada Research Chair in Privacy-Preserving Digital Technologies, a professor at the Ted Rogers School of Information Technology Management and the Director of Research at the Social Media Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University. He is also a Member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, and a founding co-chair of the International Conference on Social Media and Society. The broad aim of Gruzd’s various research initiatives is to understand how social media data can be used ethically to tackle a wide variety of societal problems from combating disinformation to helping educators navigate social media for teaching and learning.

Jaigris Hodson, Canada Research Chair in Digital Communication for the Public Interest, Royal Roads University.

Jaigris Hodson is a Canada Research Chair in Digital Communication for the Public Interest. She has published research in a wide range of academic publications and presented her work to national and international audiences. She has also published in non-academic publications such as The Evolllution and spoke at TEDX Victoria 2012. She is currently working on several SSHRC funded grant projects related to online harassment, anti social online behavior and digital misinformation. She is also a founding member of the Digital Public Interest Collective

Chris Tenove, Interim Director in the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions, University of British Columbia

Chris Tenove is the interim director of the University of British Columbia’s Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions (CSDI), and a researcher and instructor in the School of Public Policy & Global Affairs. He has published peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on the challenges that digital media pose to democracy and human rights, focusing on topics such as electoral disinformation, social media regulation, and online harassment of politicians and health communicators. His policy reports on these topics include Trolled on the Campaign Trail: Online Incivility and Abuse in Canadian Politics (2020), Online Hate in the Pandemic (2022), and Not Just Words: How Reputational Attacks Harm Journalists and Undermine Press Freedom (2023). Prior to obtaining a PhD in Political Science, he worked in Canada and internationally as an award-winning journalist.

Victoria O’Meara, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher and co-Founder of the Digital Public Interest Collective

Victoria O’Meara is a post-doctoral researcher at Royal Roads University in the College of Interdisciplinary Studies. She received her PhD in Media Studies from Western University. Her research draws from critical political economy and intersectional feminism to examine issues related to work, technology, reputation, and influence in the digital media economy.

New report: Generative Artificial Intelligence in Canadian Post-Secondary Education

Supported by D2L and the Canadian Digital Learning Research Association, I wrote a report on the state of Generative AI in Canadian post-secondary education. This was released yesterday and you can find it here: https://www.d2l.com/resources/assets/cdlra-2023-ai-report/ D2L shared the report with colleagues in the US who noted  similar trends in the US context: https://www.d2l.com/blog/how-generative-ai-being-received-in-higher-education/

What is the report about?

The Pan-Canadian Digital Learning Survey conducted by the Canadian Digital Learning Research Association in Spring 2023 received responses from 438 administrators and faculty members, located at 126 unique institutions across Canada. This report examines faculty member and administrator perspectives on Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Findings indicate that:

  1. The development of policies, regulations, and guidelines relating to Artificial Intelligence at Canadian institutions of higher education is at an early stage.
  2. Faculty members and administrators express varying levels of optimism, concern, and uncertainty about AI.
  3. Use of AI appears to be ad hoc, uneven, unequal, experimental, and largely guided by individual faculty, while supported by some institution-wide initiatives such as workshops and working groups.
  4. Faculty members and administrators
    1. anticipate AI becoming a normal and common part of higher education.
    2. emphasize that its value depends on numerous factors.
    3. anticipate that it may lead to further questions around the cost of education.
    4. are concerned about the biases and limitations of AI, including the potential dystopic futures that it makes possible.

Recommendations include the following:

  1. At the institutional level, leaders should further publicize the institutional stance, guidance, and/or policies to faculty members and administrators. Such guidance would be most useful if it supported faculty, staff, and administrators in learning about and experimenting with the technology, rather than controlling and penalizing its use.
  2. At the institutional level, leaders should develop plans and initiatives around AI that account for institutional and disciplinary contexts, including ways in which the institution will support effective, creative, equitable, and responsible use/nonuse.
  3. At the disciplinary, institutional, provincial, and pan-Canadian level, continue engaging in conversations around the limitations and biases of AI, and seek ways to engage with AI designers and developers in order to pro-actively impact the future of this technology.
  4. At the disciplinary, departmental, and institutional level, continue engaging in conversations that address the question “What does ethical AI practice look like?”
  5. At the institutional, provincial, and pan-Canadian level, continue engaging in conversations that center the question “What do preferable education futures look like?” that account for the emergence of AI, as well as the myriad of other challenges that higher education is facing.
  6. At the pan-Canadian level, develop a database of institutional regulations, policies, and guidelines pertaining to AI.

Recommendations on the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence at Royal Roads University

Today I met with Royal Roads University’s Board of Governors to present the work that we have completed in relation to Generative AI. I appreciated the opportunity not only to meet with the board, but also to hear comments and questions around this work and AI more general.

Because this was a public session, I thought it might be beneficial to share the recommendations we put forward. The full report will likely appear on the university website but for those of you who are tracking or thinking about institutional responses, this short timely summary might be more valuable than a more detailed future report.

As background: In March 2023, Royal Roads University established a generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) taskforce. Chaired by Dr. George Veletsianos, the taskforce consisted of Drs. Niels Agger-Gupta, Jo Axe, Geoff Bird, Elizabeth Childs, Jaigris Hodson, Deb Linehan, Ross Porter, and Rebecca Wilson-Mah. This work was also supported by our colleagues Rosie Croft (University Librarian), and Ken Jeffery and Keith Webster (Associate Directors, Centre for Teaching and Educational Technologies). The taskforce produced a report with 10 recommendations by June 2o23. The report (And its recommendations) should be seen as a working document that ought to be revisited and revised periodically as the technology, ethics, and use of AI are rapidly evolving. The recommendations were:

  1. Establish and publicize the university’s position on Generative AI
  2. Build human capacity
  3. Engage in strategic and targeted hiring
  4. Establish a faculty working group and foster a community of practice.
  5. Investigate, and potentially revise, assessment practices.
  6. Position the Centre for Teaching and Educational Technologies as a “go-to” learning and resource hub for teaching and learning with AI.
  7. Future-proof Royal Roads University [comment: a very contextual recommendation, but to ensure that this isn’t understood to encourage an instrumentalist view of AI or understood to mean that the institutions solely focus on AI, the report urged readers to “consider that the prevalence of AI will have far-reaching institutional impacts, which will add to the social, economic, political, and environmental pressures that the University is facing]
  8. Revise academic integrity policy
  9. Develop and integrate one common research methods course [comment: another very contextual recommendation that likely doesn’t apply to others, but what does apply is the relevance of AI to student research suggesting that research methods courses consider the relationships between AI and research practices.]
  10. Ensure inclusivity and fair representation in AI-related decisions.

I hope this is helpful to others.

September 30: Orange Shirt Day and the annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

The newsletter below is from UBC’s Edubytes which highlights emerging trends and innovations in teaching and learning in higher education. Today’s newsletter focuses on orange shirt day 2023, and I thought it might be helpful to others, so I’m posting it below in its entirety. [If you are reading this post on LinkedIn, click on the URL above to see the links – for some reason, my cross-posting to LinkedIn eliminates all the links]

Orange Shirt Day 2023

September 30 marks Orange Shirt Day and the annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. This day brings us together to observe the legacy of Canada’s Indian residential school system and commemorate those who survived, and those who were lost.

This edition of Edubytes shares the history of the residential school system and context for understanding the ongoing impacts. We want to honour Survivors and their families, and celebrate our communities’ strength and resilience.

This edition has been curated and written in collaboration with the CTLT Indigenous Initiatives team, with contributions from:

  • Janelle Kasperski, Educational Consultant
  • Kyle Shaughnessy, Educational Consultant, Staff Training
  • Carissa Block, Educational Resources Developer
  • Samantha Nock, Educational Consultant, Campus and Classroom Climate

CONTENT NOTE: This editorial contains information on the residential school system, missing children, and Survivor testimony. Furthermore, resources will address Missing and Murdered Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit Kin, the Child Welfare System, and other ongoing impacts of the residential school system.

If you need support during this challenging time, please reach out to:

The Indian Residential School Emergency Crisis Line is available 24/7 for those that may need counselling and support: 1-800-721-0066. Alternatively, the 24-hour National Crisis Line is also available: 1-866-925-4419.

The Hope for Wellness Help Line is open to all Indigenous Peoples across Canada, and offers 24-hour mental health counselling, via phone 1-855-242-3310 or chat line.

Call 310-6789 (no area code needed) toll-free anywhere in BC to access emotional support, information and resources specific to mental health and substance use issues. Available 24 hours a day.

The KUU-US Crisis Line Society operates a 24-hour provincial Aboriginal Crisis line for adults, elders, and youth. See more below:

  • Adult/Elder Crisis Line: 250-723-4050
  • Child/Youth Crisis Line: 250-723-2040
  • BC Wide Toll Free: 1-800-588-8717
  • Métis Crisis Line BC Toll Free: 1-833-638-4722

For Indigenous Kin: Colleagues and Community

September is a long and complex month for all of us. Please know that whatever you are feeling, you are valid; make decisions that are the best for you and your kin in how you want to participate. Does that mean taking time to step back from public gatherings or showing up to public gatherings? What would fill your heart and help you feel held, seen, and supported? You are loved through the time and space of this grief and healing.

ORANGE SHIRT DAY AT UBC

A note on navigating this newsletter for Indigenous Kin:
This communication contains many educational links and resources for non-Indigenous people to continue their learning, along with links to local events. Please take care while clicking through links, as many of them can be activating. One way this newsletter could be useful for you is by sharing it with non-Indigenous colleagues, family, and friends.

 

Orange Shirt Day and the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

Orange Shirt Day started in 2013 as a grassroots commemoration event that took place in Williams Lake, BC. Together, families of former students of St. Joseph Mission Residential School from the Secwepemc, Tsilhqot’in, St’at’imc and Southern Dakelh Nations gathered to honour and remember the legacy of St. Joseph Mission. Based on Phyllis (Jack) Webstad’s story of her first day at St. Joseph Mission, the orange shirt has become a symbol in memory of those who attended residential schools, those who never returned home, and the continued remembrance of this ongoing legacy. September 30 marks Orange Shirt Day and the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to reflect the time of year when children were stolen from their homes and placed in the residential school system.

Resources

To learn more about the history and contemporary impacts of the residential school system, please check out these resources:

What’s the difference between Orange Shirt Day and the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation?

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is a recent federally recognized statutory holiday, created as one of the steps the federal government has taken in recognizing Canada’s role and history in the Indian Residential School System. Coinciding with Orange Shirt Day, September 30 is a day of commemoration for Survivors, Intergenerational Survivors, and relatives that did not come home. While Orange Shirt Day is a grassroots initiative started within Indigenous community that is representative of many years of remembrance and resistance, it is not a federally recognized day of observance.

After the confirmation of unmarked graves on Residential School grounds across the country, there was a renewed call for accountability from the Canadian Government, beyond the original 2008 apology by then Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Learn more: Canadian Residential Schools: A Timeline of Apologies

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation was born out of the timeless labour and activism of Survivors and their families, fulfilling #80 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada’s Calls to Action (PDF):
“We call upon the federal government, in collaboration with Aboriginal peoples, to establish, as a statutory holiday, a National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to honour Survivors, their families, and communities, and ensure that public commemoration of the history and legacy of residential schools remains a vital component of the reconciliation process.”

September 30 now marks a federally recognized statutory holiday to ensure public commemoration of the legacy of the Indian Residential School System, though not unanimously recognized as a provincial holiday.

Indigenous perspectives vary widely on the implementation of this day. You can read the different responses below:

So… What Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action Have Been Widely Implemented?

The Yellowhead Institute, an Indigenous-led research and education centre based in the Faculty of Arts at Toronto Metropolitan University, has created an annual accountability check on the TRC Calls to Action that the federal government has implemented over the last seven years. As of 2022, these are their findings:


You can learn more about Yellowhead Institute’s methodology and further analysis by checking out: Calls to Action Accountability: A 2022 Status Update on Reconciliation (PDF).

Observing Orange Shirt Day and the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation as a non-Indigenous Person

It is integral to remember that the statutory “holiday” on September 30 is not a “free” day off, but a federally instituted day of remembrance. There is a misconception that the historical and contemporary legacy of Indian Residential Schools are an “Indigenous peoples’” responsibility when, in actuality, it is a Canadian responsibility.

“There was kind of a renewed sense of not just carrying on with the work of reconciliation and addressing calls to action, but an important and key reminder about truth and about what truths […] maybe weren’t heard loud enough.”
Dr. Tricia Logan, interim academic director, Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre on recent changes in the national conversation regarding Indian Residential Schools and reconciliation.

Learn more: ‘A different place’: How the missing children of a former B.C. residential school changed Canada

Take this day to educate yourself, attend local commemorative events, and have difficult conversations with your family and friends. Take time to personally reflect and process emotions that are coming up and, through self-research, answer some of those uncomfortable questions that are coming up.

ORANGE SHIRT DAY AT UBC: COMMUNITY EVENTS

Consider attending Indigenous-led and organized gatherings, such as the annual Intergenerational March to Commemorate Orange Shirt Day led by the Faculties of Applied Science and Land and Food Systems. If you’re unable to be on the UBC Vancouver campus, consider these local gatherings:

Reconciliation does not begin and end on September 30; it is a lifetime and intergenerational responsibility. Consider the ways in which you are working to uphold reconciliation and decolonization in your everyday life. Learn more:

An important part of this work is holding difficult conversations with family, friends, and colleagues. A troubling rise in Residential School denialism has emerged over the last few years and is continuously gaining traction. Deeply rooted in anti-Indigenous racism and violent colonialism, these sentiments are becoming insidious talking points in mainstream narratives.“Indigenous people put up memorials to honour their children, not to make settlers feel bad. And it’s the emotions of these settlers, not those of Indigenous people, that are clouding the issue and obscuring the truth. It makes them eager and willing to reorient the national conversation away from its acknowledgement of Indigenous realities and toward a soothing, redemptive alternate history.”  
Michelle Cyca, The Dangerous Allure of Residential School Denialism

Challenge denialism when you see it, be an active participant in reconciliation.

Learn more: Residential School Denialism Is on the Rise. What to Know: And how to confront it. Because without the truth, there can be no reconciliation

Respectful Engagement with Indigenous Programming and Supports: Understanding Capacity

Increased truth-telling and awareness on Indigenous histories, lived experiences, and current events have led to a greater investment by non-Indigenous scholars, programs, and employees in exploring their own role in reconciliation. People truly want to do better and work towards decolonizing and indigenizing their work in meaningful ways. This positive move forward has also led to increased requests coming in for consultation and support for Indigenous-focused programs and staff.

Here are some ideas for how you can engage mindfully when requesting learning support.

Plan ahead

When you anticipate an upcoming need, get in touch with Indigenous programming early. Given the high volume of requests that come in for consultation, support, collaboration and information, it may take a bit of time before a program or staff is able to meet with you about your request. It is a best practice to provide plenty of space to ensure there is time to meet or check-in. Two months is recommended when requests focus around annual events such as Orange Shirt Day.

Spread Out Your Engagement

Prioritize decolonizing work in your programming throughout the year- not just during specific events, such as the National Day for Truth & Reconciliation, Indigenous History Month, Red Dress Day, etc.

Consider Timing

Be mindful of current events relevant to Indigenous communities: days of commemoration, community tragedies, acts of injustice, and difficult truths coming to light, such as the confirmation of residential school burials. These can often be times where many Indigenous staff and faculty are also experiencing personal loss or are needing to dedicate increased resources to personal and community care. Ensure you are being considerate in the timing if your request for consultation or information is related to a recent loss or injustice.

Reconciliation, decolonization, and indigenization work is important work that we are all invested in. When we can give it the space and attention it needs, lasting and meaningful change can truly happen.

UBC INDIGENOUS LEARNING PATHWAYS

 

Reminder Call for papers: Higher Education Futures at the intersection of justice, hope, and educational technology

A reminder that our call for papers focused on Higher Education Futures at the intersection of justice, hope, and educational technology is open, and will be closing on Oct 31, 2023. If you have a paper that you feel may fit the aims of this call, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me or one of my co-editors.

High school senior: Why aren’t more teachers embracing AI?

One of my joys in life is reading student op-eds. Here is a wonderful example, by a high school senior who asks: why aren’t more teachers using AI?

The student describes how they use it, how they find it beneficial, and how their teachers are suspicious of it.

I believe that the student, and many others, parents included, are truly curious. In other words, I don’t think the question is rhetorical. Why not use a technology which seems to offer so many benefits? So, I thought I’d take a few moments to answer it. A point of clarification before we turn to a list of possible reasons:

  • It’s not quite clear what is the prevalence of AI use in K-12. In the US, one survey suggests that around 10% of teachers use it, while another puts that number at ~50%. Even with the high number, we need to clarify what “AI use” means because teachers’ AI use might be invisible to students (e.g., using it to create/refine rubrics, produce examples, etc). In other words, teachers might be using AI, just not in the pedagogical ways described in the op ed.

Here’s a list of possible reasons

  • Lack of familiarity and knowledge about how to use AI in the classroom.
  • Concerns about AI (e.g., about its biases, ethics, and implications for equity and access).
  • Lack of support and guidance (e.g., at the administrator or school district level) as to whether and how teachers ought to use it.
  • For decades, edtech promises to revolutionize education. AI comes with similar promises. Teachers are tired and weary of these unmet promises.
  • Inconsistencies between the technology and the school/testing environment that teachers operate under.
  • It takes time for technology to spread into education settings, and for good reasons (e.g., devising ways to integrate a technology with an uncertain future takes more time and effort that people realize, and, if one thing is certain, teachers lack time).

There’s likely other reasons, and these can be grouped into individual reasons (e.g., why aren’t individual teachers using AI?), community and organizational reasons (e.g., why aren’t schools supporting teachers in using AI?), and societal reasons (e.g., why did our  society structure schools in ways which limit rapid adoption of AI?).

Importantly: A lot of it relates to context, such as the content area or the particular school. And so, if you’re interested in why your particular teachers at your particular school in your particular part of the country aren’t using a technology (or a pedagogical strategy even), it’s important to identify local reasons for use/non-use.

And to be clear: This isn’t to say that teachers should or shouldn’t use a particular technology in education.

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