Looking for Ethics on Twitter, King Arthur had it easy…

Blog Post 1: #EdTechEthics Review Activity – Twitter

The course started as anyone might expect. Introduction posts and emails from the prof and a little pre-reading assignment to get the ball rolling. One all-class synchronous Zoom call later and here I am, mind-blown, writing a blog post explaining how I felt about my first assignment. It was a simple enough ask. Go to Twitter and search the #edtechethics hashtag and scan for tweets of personal interest. Since this might be a bit confusing for someone who has never or very rarely ever uses Twitter, we were tossed into a random group of three or four students and sequestered in a Zoom ‘breakout room’ to work collectively on one example (if you have not had the pleasure, a breakout room is like a tiny digital prison for MEd students and other Ne’er-do-wells, but I digress).

Once in our virtual anti-room, our group became acquainted (re-acquainted for 3 of 4 of us who had worked together in past courses). After adequate quantities of obligatory social convention had been reached, we chose a tweet about how “The Higher Education Industry Is Embracing Predatory and Discriminatory Student Data Practices“. Our expected output was to complete a Google Sheet and indicate our thoughts on how this particular article related to ethics, and specifically EdTech. In this case, we chatted about our ideas and worked toward a consensus. Time ticking away, we all did our best to fill out different cells in the target sheet while simultaneously crafting a shared opinion about Connections to Practice, Connections to Educational and Ethical Theory, and Connections to Ethics Context. Though blurry from the firehose of information received in the Zoom session, my memory says we were leaning toward the ethical theory of Consequentialism (Farrow, 2016) since there is more than one way to look at the practice of using Artificial Intelligence in determining ‘suitability’ of humans as decided by machine-learned algorithms. We identified the Humanistic learning theories of Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and James F. T. Bugental as related to this tweet’s subject. As Dr. Farrow’s work has demonstrated, it is important that we understand the influence and impact of ethical considerations when researching any topic, especially when education and learning are implicated. Anyway, then time abruptly ran out and we were unceremoniously ejected from our sojourn in the video conferencing vestibule and thrust back into the main room where my protests for more time were met with playful indifference. I was assured that, though we did not reach the intended destination, that we had accomplished the desired learning.

After class, I ventured on and chose two additional tweets to repeat the exercise independently thus fulfill the requirements of the first assignment and demonstrating that the little birdie can fly. I focussed on How Law Enforcement Gets Around Your Smartphone’s Encryption , and Twitter ban on Trump signals escalating debate on online speech that will be one for the ages. I didn’t notice this at the time, but now I realize that my choices are one tinfoil hat away from needing a meeting of CTA (Conspiracy Theorists Anonymous). I think that this was a worth while exercise, if for nothing else then to impose a governor on the speed at which our thumbs race past our daily ration of highly charged posts of dubious authenticity. Covid-19 conditions have somehow perverted our ability to determine the accurate passing of time and the majority of feedback that I have received on the topic is that days seem to be “racing” by. This is all the more reason to purposefully impose some intellectual drag and mental resistance if only in our own minds. Our current use of technology, especially access to, and manipulation of enormous datasets is unprecedented and unplanned. This Renaissance will bring us unexpected consequences.

Farrow, R.(2016). A Framework for the Ethics of Open Education. Open Praxis, 8(2). http://dx.doi.org/10.5944/openpraxis.8.2.291