ONLINE INFORMATION: THEORISING PEDAGOGICAL ATTUNEMENTS THROUGH TECHNOFEMINIST PERSPECTIVES

ONLINE INFORMATION: THEORISING PEDAGOGICAL ATTUNEMENTS THROUGH TECHNOFEMINIST PERSPECTIVES

Written by: Mary F. Rice & JuliAnna Ávila

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to conceptualise the teaching of online information evaluation through a technofeminist lens. This lens draws on work on entangled relationality in intra-activity, interconnectedness, materialities, and agencies while questioning the human/non-human binary. We provide a rationale for setting a research agenda about teaching online information literacies as spaces where technologies and literacies represent indistinguishable fluid ecologies. To achieve our goal of positioning the technofeminist perspective on the practice, research, and policy landscapes of online information evaluation, we focus on three broad perspectival attunements in thinking about online information evaluation as a concept. To illustrate these shifts, we draw on a curricular unit where preservice teachers are asked to interrogate the cultural appropriation of Indigenous design alongside online source evaluation.

Keywords: technofeminism, online information evaluation, cultural aspects of online information, new materialism, cultural appropriation

TRANSCENDING THE HYPE: A COMPARATIVE PUBLIC MEDIA ANALYSIS OF THE EDUCATIONAL DISCOURSES ON MOOCS AND CHATGPT

TRANSCENDING THE HYPE: A COMPARATIVE PUBLIC MEDIA ANALYSIS OF THE EDUCATIONAL DISCOURSES ON MOOCS AND CHATGPT

Written by: Xinman Liu. University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.

Abstract: Within its early adoption stage, ChatGPT has inspired widespread discourse on the potential and threats of artificial intelligence in revolutionising education. Nonetheless, to what extent is ChatGPT truly disruptive in education? New educational technologies are oftentimes not complete novelties but rather built upon existing lineages and patterns. Hence, examining the broader historical implications of education innovations is crucial (Reich, 2020). This study conducts a comparative public media analysis on the current “hype” of ChatGPT and the “hype” of the massive open online courses (MOOCs) a decade ago, which similarly inspired unprecedented interest and involvement from the general public (Kovanović et al., 2015). Deploying Latent Code Identification (LACOID) framework (González Canché, 2023) and sentiment analysis, the study highlights how MOOCs and ChatGPT are similarly constrained within a sociotechnical context that discursively marginalises deeper structural and ethical concerns coated under the hype of proclaimed disruptiveness. It is thus crucial to transcend the perception of technological innovations as transformative solutions to existing educational issues, and instead harness them as a lens that prompts and challenges educators, policymakers, and researchers to approach educational change collaboratively and systemically.

Keywords: MOOCs; ChatGPT; early adopters; media discourse; education innovation

DISRUPTING HYBRID ETHNOGRAPHIC PRACTICES IN LITERACIES RESEARCH: A STORY OF SHIFTING DIGITAL RELATIONS WHILE VIRTUALLY ‘BABYSITTING DIANE’

DISRUPTING HYBRID ETHNOGRAPHIC PRACTICES IN LITERACIES RESEARCH: A STORY OF SHIFTING DIGITAL RELATIONS WHILE VIRTUALLY ‘BABYSITTING DIANE’

Written by: Diane R. Collier - Brock University, St. Catharine’s, Canada

Abstract: Researching online is often assumed to be difficult, distant, and flattened. Building relationships with young children is often said to be best done in person. This paper traces relations and events between a researcher working remotely from home with young children and their teacher working on photographic literacies in their classroom. The ways in which relationships emerged and were enacted are discussed. Thinking beyond narrow definitions of literacy to literacies, the analysis builds on Latour’s network of relations as used in Brandt and Clinton’s literacy-as-action to think about how literacies travel and engage with human and nonhuman actors. Framing literacy-as-event as proposed by Burnett and Merchant emphases how literacies can be playful, unpredictable, and emergent. While ‘following the iPad-baby-Diane,’ this paper shows how children improvised and played with metaphors and the researcher and built care and connection while performing literacies in online digital spaces. Relational online research was enacted as children were imitating and ‘becoming-with’ a distant researcher. Considering tools and innovative digital literacies practices as embedded in assemblages, it is possible to see intimacies and imagine literacies-as-relations across material and digitised spaces.

Keywords: relational research, assemblage, literacies, becoming, intimacy, iPads, online research, digital literacy