For my final project I have researched the affordances and considerations for utilizing virtual labs in a science classroom. Prior to the Covid 19 pandemic, virtual labs were low on my priority list of instructional tools. When students were sent home in March 2020, virtual labs became a way to maintain student’s laboratory skills and their interest in science. Now two years later, the number of virtual labs available (both free and paid) are rapidly increasing. The infographic I created is designed to explore the affordances and considerations for utilizing virtual labs now that we are back in the classroom. The infographic was designed using Canva and can be found here.

For further information, please check out my references here. 

For my last linking assignment, I decided to examine our last task, speculative futures. I looked through a number of my peer’s speculative futures and found that a number of our dystopian futures had some similar features: lack of resources, no autonomy, no privacy, no diversity and  punishment for not staying on task. Our class has certainly painted a grim picture of what can go wrong with AI algorithms. However, what was more interesting to me was the utopian futures that everyone imagined; these were more unique in their descriptions. 

In my personal utopian future, I imagined a world where teachers had a work-life balance. The AI worked to save time, energy and resources for the teacher. You can read my utopian future here. Upon reflection, this probably speaks to the burnout that I have felt over the last number of years teaching, working on the MET program and parenting. In my ideal life, AI is used to give me back some family and personal time to pursue my interests and hobbies. 

Comparing my utopian world to the one described in Agnes’s assignment, they are vastly different. In fact, her utopia is actually dystopian to me. Read her utopian future here. Agnes describes a world where school is not necessary. I love school; a world where students are unable to collaborate with each other and share in a learning experience sounds terrible to me. I opted for designing a school where virtual assistants can give you the basic facts, but the students are responsible for taking that learning higher on Bloom’s taxonomy: analyze, evaluate, create.  

Agnes describes a world that allows only one child per house; I actually included that in my dystopian future. She also describes a world where transportation is not necessary: no planes, trains, cars. For me the travel to a destination is one of the most exciting parts. Finally, as a food lover, when Agnes describes the same food being delivered every day, it immediately made me feel stressed. Examining these three features of Agnes’s utopian world, I’m wondering if her work or personal focus is the environment and that’s why she made these decisions? 

I really appreciated reading all of my classmates’ speculative futures. It was incredibly interesting to hypothesize why certain features were included into each person’s utopian future. I particularly liked Agnes’s multimodal format, which made it fun and engaging to hear and read.

For this linking assignment, I took some time to examine my classmate’s responses to the Golden Record. A number of the classmate’s sites that I visited determined criteria that they deemed important to help make their selections. My criteria focused on the use of languages in songs. You can read about it here. Others, such as Sage defined three overarching themes that all songs must have: Pertinence to the human experience, Wealth of information and Decipher-ability. You can read about that here. Srupa also created criteria and you can read about it here. I wonder if Sage and Srupa are also classroom teachers. It has been drilled into us the importance of well developed rubrics and in the absence of a rubric, it would have been really hard for me to fairly decide which songs to include on the Golden Record. 

On the other hand, there were also a number of classmates who went with personal preference. Georgia admits that she did not create a rubric, instead she decided to pick songs that were pleasing, comforting to her ears: “I chose songs with softer melodies and/or had a relaxing tone to it”. You can read her post here.  Similarly, Trista stated: “I was immediately more drawn to songs that were familiar to me”. You can read more of her post here. Although this is a valid method of choosing songs, is this the impression that we want to give ET’s? The opinion of one individual on earth of pleasing songs? Do these selections then lack diversity? 

It was an interesting experience reading the methods of selections for this activity. An interesting follow up to this activity for me would be examining if  those who chose criteria and rubrics are teachers and if those who did not use rubrics work outside of the education field.

For this linking assignment, I watched Erin Duchesne’s Tik Tok video for “what’s in her bag”. You can link to her Tik Tok here. Erin created an engaging multimodal video that utilized background music, voice over, text and visuals. I choose to link Erin’s task for a number of reasons: 

1.  I am not yet on Tik Tok, but it is a social media site that I am curious about joining. Personally, I find that I already waste too much time on Facebook and Instagram, so adding an additional social media site worries me. However, as Erin states Tik Tok is used around the world to create both entertainment and educational content, perhaps it is a medium that I should investigate further. Erin was smart to use this assignment to dive deeper into the features afforded on this platform. 
2. Erin’s Tik Tok shared the same modalities that I used in my iMovie: background music, voice-overs, text and visuals, however I preferred her clean and organized format to my clunky, disjointed iMovie. 
3. Erin references that mode-bending was a great exercise to get us out of our comfort zones and I would agree. In the absence of this task, I would never have learned to create an iMovie and Erin would not have had the time to pursue different formatting options available in TikTok. I will admit that Erin’s post was a bit more positive than mine and she appears more willing to try to make another TikTok than I am willing to make another iMovie. 

For this linking assignment, I attempted to read Amanda B’s extremely long emoji story. You can see her story here. I’m fairly confident that the movie she is describing is Hustle, a movie that I have recently watched. 

I chose to link her assignment to mine, as she also decided to tell her story using the “play by play” method, as opposed to trying to represent the big ideas. For both of us, I think this was detrimental to the telling of our story. Because her story is long, I found myself getting lost in the characters and who was doing what in which country. Although my story was not as long, I’m sure that others had a difficult time following what my main character was doing every line. You can view my emoji story here. 

Amanda highlighted a few ideas that really resonated with me and made me think about my own emoji story reflection.  Here are my main thoughts: 

1. We have come a long way with emojis. Amanda articulated that she appreciated the representations of color, race and gender in her emojis. As a person of color, I also appreciate that I can use a thumbs up sign that looks like my skin color instead of a yellow thumb. However when it came to doing this assignment I used the standard yellow girl option. I wonder why I did that? Was it because I read a book and didn’t visualize my main character as a particular race? I’m not sure. 
2. Amanda also pointed out that she enjoyed creating this story as she didn’t have to worry about punctuation or spelling. I would agree with this sentiment as well; it was refreshing (and time saving) to not have to edit forever. 

I really enjoyed reading Amanda’s emoji story and I think she did a great job describing the plot in detail using emojis. 

For this linking assignment, I have chosen to reflect on Elvio’s potato printing adventure. You can link to his assignment here. Similar to Elvio, I completed this task with my kids; it made the task fun, we learned together and when we finished we had multiple stamps that the kids could use in new and exciting ways. Because of the way we both approached this task with our families it afforded us the opportunity to relax (Elvio says therapeutic) and this was a refreshing change from the everyday hectic life of a working masters student who has to parent as well. 

Through Elvio’s reflection, I can hear the traits of a great teacher: “ approached with humor and errors”, learning from mistakes (mirroring and deep cuts) and recognizing lessons learned (should have planned). I appreciate that he shared all of his mistakes without reservation so that others can learn from them.

I also appreciated that in Elvio’s post, he included a section on how he would include this lesson in his teaching practice. I am a science teacher and I struggled to see how this could be implemented beyond an elementary art project, but Elvio wonderfully links this project to the history of the Renaissance.

I really enjoyed reading Elvio’s thoughts and struggles relating to this task.

For this linking assignment, I have chosen to examine the similarities and differences between my response to “What’s in your Bag” and Melissa Santo’s response. You can link to Melissa’s assignment here and my assignment here. 

To begin, Melissa is clearly more creative than me. She beautifully spelled out her name using the contents of her everyday purse; whereas I (not a very creative person) literally dumped out my gym bag, made sure you could see everything and snapped a photo. Does this speak to our personality differences? As I read Melissa’s reflection, she hypothesizes that the reason she spells her name is to give us a visual. Perhaps Melissa is tired of people spelling her name incorrectly and wanted to lead with this visual. 

Similar to me, Melissa identifies a number of text technologies present in her purse: Covid vaccination receipts, grocery receipts and even birthday card invitations. However, what Melissa did differently that resonated with me was recognizing that we live in a “multilerate, global, corporate economy”; Melissa identifies the local and global brands found in her purse which allowed me to recognize that my gym bag doesn’t have any local products and I need to remedy this problem. 

I really appreciated the opportunity to have a glimpse inside Melissa’s purse to begin to understand her as a person; she is a mother, wife, passionate traveler with some dietary restrictions. 

Speculative Futures 

Utopian 

Photo by Zac Durant on Unsplash

The year is 2052 and many advancements in AI have been used to improve student education, as well as the work-life balance for teachers. 

In 2052 students have access to virtual assistants throughout their school day. These virtual assistants are used for activities such as guiding student research, scheduling student’s calendars and answering factual basic informational questions, allowing students to dig deeper into a topic to analyze, evaluate and create new products and ideas. 

In addition to virtual assistants, students also have access to social robots. These robots are excellent support systems for students who are struggling socially, students who can not attend school for an extended period of time or are struggling with depression and/or anxiety. Not only are these robots able to provide much needed friendship for these students, they are also able to practice social skills with the students or work on developing empathy. 

Finally, students have access to an AI tutor-bot each day at school. These tutor-bots have been shown to provide the best possible education to each individual student. The AI tutor-bots provide immediate, one-on-one support to each student, and are able to differentiate the instruction to meet the needs and interests of each student. 

As for teachers in the year 2052 they have used AI to support their student learning, improve their lessons and finally find a reasonable work-life balance. In the year 2052, teachers are getting all their marking and planning done during the day, leaving their evenings for their families and their own interests. 

In 2052, teachers have virtual assistants that are able to manage the traditional paper work: website management, grant applications, communication with parents and marking. In addition to the virtual assistants, teachers have academic support robots. These support robots are responsible for photocopying, supervising and cleaning of science labs and classrooms. The support robots are able to keep students on task, provide extension activities, differentiate instruction and assessment to provide voice and choice to the students and monitor student progress. 

In this utopian world students have autonomy over their learning, can focus on interesting issues, have access to global platforms, thus are motivated learners. This world supports diversity, growth mindsets, transparency in education and most importantly supports students in their personal learning journeys.

Dystopian

Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash

In 2052, the world is overpopulated, has large food and water shortages and all governments are focused on scientific advancements at all costs.Therefore, AI is used in schools to monitor students to reduce the population, conserve water and food and promote academic achievement in science education. 

Overpopulation is the root cause of most of the 2052 issues, thus the government has demanded that males and females be educated separately to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Dances, clubs, sports and any other extracurricular activities have been strictly banned to reduce mingly between the opposite sexes. Students are introduced to their ideal mate at the end of their grade 12 year. This ideal mate has been chosen through an algorithm. Mates have the option to remain childless (surgery required immediately if biologically possible to produce offspring) or have one healthy, genetically ideal child which is selected for them.  Overtime, this process has led to a decrease in the diversity of the human population. 

To conserve food and water, all food served at school is strictly monitored by AI and only the needed nutrients are provided to the students throughout the day. The students are no longer excited to go to the cafeteria, as it is a sterile, clinical and boring environment. Water usage at the school is severely limited: there are no green spaces outside the school or plants inside. The schools have moved from hand-washing to using hand-sanitizer and rain water is collected through a system to fill the toilets and for cooking. 

The government recognizes that a healthy body equals a healthy mind and has enforced mandatory physicals and exercise programs which are monitored and adjusted daily through AI algorithms. To create the best scientific minds, schools have shifted the focus to teaching a variety of subjects to only science and math. AI now streams kids from an early age to train through for their IQ matched jobs, thus classes are very uniform. Students wear headgear all day at school to allow AI to scan student’s brain functions to ensure maximum engagement in lessons. Students who do not meet academic or engagement requirements are sent to work “basic” jobs and are not allowed to re-enter the school system. 

In this world, students have no autonomy, no privacy and are accountable to the AI. This results in a world that lacks diversity, creativity, critical thinking and fun.

Module 11 focused on algorithms; a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or problem solving operations, usually done by a computer (Wikipedia, 2022). This module examined the influence of human biases in the creation of algorithms, particularly in policing. 

The task we were challenged with this week was completing a simulation called Detain and Release. In this simulation, the user acts as a judge using a risk assessment tool to determine whether to detain or release the defendant until trial. The risk assessment tool in this simulation was created using data from the U.S Census and Bureau of Justice Statistics to generate defendants and alleged offences (Porcaro, 2019). The information provided in the risk assessment tool was the probability that the defendant would fail to report to trial, would recommit a crime and their propensity for violence. The simulation limited the user’s space in jail and provided feedback to how the fictional community was feeling based on their decisions.

Porcaro (2019) states: “Software has framing power: the mere presence of a risk assessment tool can reframe a judge’s decision-making process and induce new biases, regardless of the tool’s quality” (pg. 1).  I would agree with this statement; I did not question the risk assessment tool’s quality. I made decisions based on my own personal biases and in fact felt more confident and comfortable with my decisions as the simulation progressed. 

As I reflect on this task I recognize a few biases and/or thought processes that were present as I made each decision. 

First, violence was a major factor. If the probability for violence was reported as high, I immediately detained them. The one defendant who was being charged with rape, I clicked detain the fastest. Does this have to do with my gender and/or size? Would a large male make the same decisions I did in these situations? 

Second, as a person of color, I am very aware of the statistics in North America of the disproportionate amount of BIPOC people in jail. In Canada in 2018, 28 percent of the incarcerated people were Indigenous, even though Indigenous people represent only 4.1 percent of the overall Canadian population (Department of Justice Canada 2018). The true crime podcast really highlighted this fact; with stories of targeted summons, particularly for young black men (Vogt, n.d). Consciously I tried not to look at the skin color of the blurred image, but when I did I believe that I overcompensated for systematic racism and was less likely to detain a BIPOC defendant. 

Finally, I was not very concerned about the flight risk of the defendants (unless they were violent). I was more concerned about the defendants not being able to keep their jobs, families or homes. This was evident when I finished the simulation with more public fear than people in jail. 

I am incredibly interested in reviewing our class results from this simulation. It was shockingly easy to make decisions based on randomly generated data in a risk assessment tool. Until we see how our decisions affect real people and have real consequences, it is hard to humanize it. This task allowed me to examine my biases in the justice system, but more importantly it reminded me that algorithms are not neutral, that we have to question their biases and remember that there are real-life consequences based on algorithms. 

References: 

Algorithms. (2022, July 17). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm

Department of Justice Canada. (2018). “Indigenous overrepresentation in provincial/territorial corrections.” Just Facts. Research and Statistics Division. https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/jf-pf/2018/docs/nov01.pdf

Porcaro, K. (2019, January 8). Medium https://medium.com/berkman-klein-center/detain-release-simulating-algorithmic-risk-assessments-at-pretrial-375270657819

Vogt, P. (n.d.). The Crime Machine, Part II. In Reply All. 

Task 10: Attention Economy 

 Attention economy is based on the scarcity of the capacity for the reception of information or cultural goods (Citton, 2017). There are a plethora of books to read, movies to watch and podcasts to listen to but what is limited is my attention and time to attune to these cultural goods. Harris (2017) paraphrases the Netflix’s CEO who recognizes that one of Netflix’s biggest competitors is sleep (Harris, 2017). In this way, attention is considered an economy. Paying attention to something increases its value. Because there is value in our attention, companies are in direct competition for our attention. Harris (2017) states: “What we don’t talk about is that a handful of people working at a handful of technology companies through their choices will steer what a billion people are thinking today”  (00:41).

The use of deceptive tricks that companies use to distract users’ attention on the web to trick them into agreeing to share more information, buy more products and/or spend more time on a particular site have been termed “dark patterns” (Brignull, 2011). In today’s task, we were asked to play a game called User Inyerface designed to represent a number of different “dark patterns” used to deceive users and manipulate our attention. I found this game extremely frustrating. It began with this introductory page which took me 10 minutes to move past. 

On this page a number of “dark patterns” are present: 

1. I immediately clicked the large green button to get started on the game. I did not read that the button said “No”, I just clicked it. This is because past experiences impact how color is perceived (Imtiaz, 2016); my past experiences with green circles on a website have always resulted in the game starting. This was not the case with this website. 
2. After realizing that the green button was not going to let me precede, I looked below and saw: click here to start the game. This did not work. As Birgnull (2011) explains, users don’t want to read pages, they want to scan them, therefore a deceptive website can hide a lot of information in the fine print. This was the case here, as I clicked the underlined word click when I should have been clicking HERE. 

Finally, I was able to get to the next page where I was overwhelmed with visual information: a red banner about cookies, a help button that I couldn’t minimize, the numbers 1-4 changing colors and a timer. These are all deceptive techniques; the timer evokes a feeling of scarcity and urgency which has been shown to increase sales (Imtiaz, 2016). In multiple locations, the size of the writing is used to distract or deceive the user. For example, the red banner at the top asks if cookies are a problem; the options are “not, really” in small text, or a large Yes in a white box. Size is a technique that is used in web design to show dominance and is typically used to encourage users to choose the larger text (Imtiaz, 2016). This is why I clicked YES before realizing I should have clicked “not really”. My next frustration on this page involved my instinct to stick with the default settings, which Brignull (2011) indicated is typical user behavior. I was unable to move to the next page until I deselect the default about agreeing to the terms and conditions. This page was incredibly hard to move past; I needed to google cyrillic characters, create a fake email (because I didn’t trust this page) and constantly had to dismiss a hurry up message! 

The next couple of pages were just as frustrating; clicking boxes that didn’t want to be clicked and a help button that blocked important information. The final frustration for me was the multiple images I needed to scan through to prove I was human. This page again proved Brignull’s (2011) point that users typically scan; as I just began clicking before realizing that the game was hiding the boxes above the pictures and I had been using the boxes below.

However, I preserved and I managed to complete this game. This module provided me with a better understanding of the deceptive techniques that are used on the web and gave me insight into my weaknesses when exploring the web. As Harris (2017) states, the best way to combat this web deception is to acknowledge that we are persuadable and use this to be more alert. 

References: 

Brignull, H. (2011). Dark Patterns: Deception vs. Honesty in UI Design. Interaction Design, Usability, 338.

Citton, Y. (2017). The Ecology of Attention. John Wiley & Sons.

Harris, T. (2017). How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/tristan_harris_the_manipulative_tricks_tech_companies_use_to_capture_your_attention?language=en

Imtiaz, S. (2016). The Psychology Behind Web Design. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.17394.56001