{"id":430,"date":"2025-08-20T12:31:02","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T19:31:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec565b\/?page_id=430"},"modified":"2026-07-14T15:37:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T22:37:15","slug":"metatheory-syllabus-2025-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec565b\/","title":{"rendered":"METaTheory Syllabus 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Topic Menu:<\/strong><\/h1>\n<\/header>\n
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1 Media Ecology<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a02 Tools & Things<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a03 Paradigms in Context<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a04 Pedagogic Communications<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a05 Externalizing Technologies<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a06 Prescriptive v Holistic Models<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a07 Re-mediation<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a08 Lines of Flight<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a09 Accountability<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a010 New Materialism<\/a><\/p>\n

Pre-recorded Syllabus Tour\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Before you begin,\u00a0 take an introductory tour of the course, and note down any questions you have.<\/p>\n

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Post to slack, any questions you have, bit or small!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

SLACK SIGN-UP LINK IS HERE<\/a><\/p>\n

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Topic 1: Educational Media Ecologies: Asking the Right Questions<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Back in 1968, Postman emphasized the survival value of media ecology as a scholarly activity. He did so, not because media ecologists have all of the answers. They didn\u2019t back then, and we still don\u2019t today. Rather, it is because media ecology scholars ask the right questions. That is who we are, that is what we do, and that is how we can make a difference.
\n<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u2014 Media Ecology as a Scholarly Activity, Lance Strate, 2002<\/p>\n

Readings:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
    \n
  1. Casey Man Kong Lum\u00a0(2000)\u00a0Introduction: The intellectual roots of media ecology, New Jersey Journal of Communication,\u00a08:1,\u00a01-7,\u00a0DOI:\u00a01080\/15456870009367375<\/a><\/u><\/li>\n
  2. Lance Strate & Casey Man Kong Lum\u00a0(2000)\u00a0Lewis Mumford and the ecology of technics,\u00a0New Jersey Journal of Communication,\u00a08:1,\u00a056-78,\u00a0DOI:\u00a01080\/15456870009367379<\/a><\/u><\/li>\n
  3. de Castell, S., Droumeva, M. & Jenson, J. (2014).\u00a0Building as interface: Sustainable educational ecologies.\u00a0MedienP\u00e4dagogik Vol. 24<\/em>, Berlin, Germany. Or online at\u00a0https:\/\/www.academia.edu\/8301131\/Building_as_Interface_Sustainable_Educational_Ecologies<\/a><\/u><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Intellectual production #1 (required)
    \n<\/strong>This assignment must be submitted on or before Sept. 22nd, 2026<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Your task is, first,\u00a0 to explain Strate and Lum\u2019s understanding or \u2018definition\u2019 of media ecology (this is a summary challenge \u2013 your job is to as best you can, define and summarize what media ecology entails). In what ways does media ecology \u201cask the right questions\u201d?\u00a0W<\/strong>hat do you think an educational\u00a0media ecology would have to involve, and what \u201cright questions\u201d might that theory allow us to ask?<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0(no bullets please, but you may add a\u00a0 diagram or image to your written account).<\/p>\n

    To do this, you\u2019ll need to think deeply and seriously about what \u201ceducation\u201d has been, is, and should be\/come, and then focus attention on what facets and complexities an\u00a0educational<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0media ecology has to encompass, identifying as many specific elements as you can. The \u201cbuilding as interface\u201d paper should help you with this,\u00a0 as one example of a media ecology study that focuses on an educational context. This opening (required) \u201cintellectual production\u201d activity is your (\u201cmeta-theoretical\u201d) foundation for the rest of this course, so extra effort on this one will be especially worthwhile. No more than 600 words, and non-textual media etc. are welcome.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    Topic 2: Tools of Intellect: From Tradition to Innovation<\/h2>\n

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    When we look at tools, we are looking at more than just objects\u2014we are looking at \u201cthings\u201d. It turns out that \u201cthing\u201d\u00a0 might not be such a simple concept: nowadays we have more and more work on the how and why things can be actors and have agency, how they are changing, not static, and even how things (and other non-humans) can be political and ethical subjects. Philosopher Jane Bennett observes,\u00a0\u201cAs our ability to detect and translate the more subtle forms of animal behavior and communication has grown, so, too, has our willingness to attribute intelligence to it and to recast it from behaviour to action.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(Bennett, 2009: p.108). It\u2019s increasingly common to think of even our tools as \u2018intelligent\u2019, as non-human agents that act on us, not just objects we use. In what ways do technologies act as \u201ctools of intellect\u201d, and how do different educational technologies shape our thinking? What ideas and practices are enabled by the various specific technologies we use to teach and learn, and what might they impede? To begin to understand technologies as agents, and not just inert objects, we\u2019ll be looking at \u2018things\u2019 from a media ecology standpoint, enlivened by a bit of actor-network theory.<\/p>\n

    What could be a simpler \u2018object\u2019 than\u2026a door! In the paper you read, written, by the way, 4 decades ago (!) Latour leads you painstakingly through the complexities of a door, showing us how the necessary door-opening actions that had to be performed by humans came to be \u201cdelegated\u201d\u00a0 to doors (and hinges, and\u2026). We are reading Latour here because that path breaking work to develop actor-network theory perfectly exemplified what a \u201cmetatheory\u201d is, and what it can do to enable much-needed and very different ways of seeing. Here is a terrific example of how Latour\u2019s metatheorizing works: \u201cRather than accepting culture or nature as explanations at face value, Latour, like many others in science and technology studies, turns them over from being explanations to being topics for his inquiries. Where the argument at its starkest uses, say \u201cbacteria\u201d as a source of explanation, Latour makes \u201cbacteria becoming an explanation for X happening\u201d the topic of his inquiry.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

    How does this perspective make a difference to our knowledge and actions? Again, from the same essay: \u201d\u00a0From his [Latour\u2019s] studies what we then find are the connections which associate specific explanations and ensuing courses of action (i.e. building the networks of pasteurisation, practice of sterilisation in hospitals, changes in food production etc.) with specific kinds of bacteria. His studies convincingly describe a world where there is no pure nature nor pure culture. There are only fibrous webs gradually extending and contracting, erasing one another, copying one another and producing the shape of space and time in doing so.\u201d (Eric Laurier, Bruno Latour: Biographical Details and Theoretical Context, p.6).<\/em><\/p>\n

    This is metatheory, its\u00a0 \u201cthinking about thinking\u201d, and actor-network theory gives us a\u00a0 way to understand how our ways of understanding\/misunderstanding shape our world, for better and, too often, for worse\u2014which is why we need the intellectual acuity to, as the Apple slogan (1997-2002) used to say,\u00a0 \u201cthink different\u201d.<\/p>\n

    Readings:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
      \n
    1. McLuhan\u2019s tetrad:\u00a0https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20180426192133\/http:\/\/www.collectionscanada.gc.ca\/innis-mcluhan\/030003-2000-e.html\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0and https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20180420175433\/http:\/\/collectionscanada.gc.ca\/innis-mcluhan\/030003-2030-e.html5-fall2014\/files\/2014\/08\/McLuhan-Tetrad.pdf\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/li>\n
    2. Laws_of_the_Media_by_Marshall_McLuhan_and_Preface_by_Paul_Levinson https:\/\/www.academia.edu\/28948299\/<\/a>\u00a0(download)<\/li>\n
    3. Latour, B. (1992)\u00a0\u2018Where are the missing masses? The sociology of a few mundane artifacts\u2019,<\/a>\u00a0in Bijker, W. E. and Law, J. (eds) Shaping Technology\/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, pp. 225-58, and, in an intriguingly different version,\u00a0Mixing Humans and Nonhumans Together: The Sociology of the Door Closer, by Jim Johnson<\/a>\u00a0(aka Bruno Latour)\u00a0 \u00a0(and to think about why they are different versions :\u00a0https:\/\/asociologist.com\/2013\/08\/30\/the-sociology-of-the-door-closer-redux\/<\/a><\/li>\n
    4. Latour\u2019s \u201cParliament of Things\u201d:\u00a0http:\/\/www.bruno-latour.fr\/sites\/default\/files\/downloads\/96-MTP-DING.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Intellectual Production #2 (required)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

      IP#2 is due on or before October 6th, 2026.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

      Research one of these educational technologies: abacus; audiocassette; ballpoint pen; blackboard; digital video; document camera; encyclopedia; eraser; filmstrip; Gestetner; hole-in-the-wall; hornbook; logo\/microworlds; lyre; makey makey; microcomputer; pencil; quill; radio; seven grandparent teachings; slate; smartboard; tablet; television; textbook; videocassette, DVD, overhead projector; videogame; whiteout.<\/p>\n

      When, where, how and by whom has your chosen technology been used as a learning tool?<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0Create a 5-slide presentation with speaker\u2019s notes\u00a0that describes\/explains that technology\u2019s users and uses to your peers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

      At least one slide should use McLuhan\u2019s \u201ctetrad\u201d to situate that technology in relation to its context, its predecessors, and its successors. You\u2019ll need at least 2 slides to represent the main ideas of \u201cactor-network theory\u201d, using examples from Latour\u2019s essay to sketch out\/theorize about a possible actor-network for the \u2018object\u2019 you have selected to focus on. (Hint: In Latour\u2019s terms, we have \u201cdelegated\u201d innumerable tasks and responsibilities to \u2018objects\u2019, to machines. What actions have been delegated from teachers to these educational technologies, and with what consequences? How, in turn do those technologies, these \u2018things\u2019\u00a0 impact us, change our actions, expectations and behaviours in response.) BE SPECIFIC. The more \u201cfine-grained\u201d your examples, the better. And what does Latour mean when he writes that \u201c\u2026what defines our social relations is, for the most part, prescribed back to us by nonhumans\u201d? Give an example. These first three slides are where you will be summarizing and \u2018brick laying\u2019 to get to whatever you chose in your 2 \u2018choice\u2019 slides.<\/p>\n

      The content of the other 2 slides is your choice. Make an effort to elucidate one or more of the main ideas in Latour\u2019s short essay on \u201cthings\u201d, and pay attention to the important distinctions he makes between \u2018objects\u2019 and \u2018things\u2019, and between \u201cmatters of fact\u201d and \u201cmatters of concern\u201d. (These papers are challenging,<\/strong>\u00a0so you\u2019ll need time and concentration and to look up things as you read, but its totally worth the effort, and will take you into levels and kinds of thinking you rarely get to experience\u2014like an epistemic roller-coaster! It should make your heart beat faster if you are doing it right. Very scary but exceptionally rewarding.)<\/p>\n

      Alright then, can these two theoretical frameworks, ANT and media ecology, \u201cspeak to each other\u201d? What would they say? What connections and disconnections do\u00a0you<\/strong>\u00a0see between these two approaches to understanding educational technologies. (Stop a second here\u2026Look! Now you are comparing theories with other theories, and applying them to educational technology to see how they construct, reveal and conceal \u2018reality\u2019\u2014And that\u2019s \u201cmetatheory!\u201d).<\/p>\n

      Reminder: Be creative with the medium, avoiding \u201cwalls of text\u201d and text \u201cbullets\u201d. Cite all images, cite all quotes. Cite, Cite, Cite.<\/p>\n

      \u2191 back to top<\/a><\/p>\n

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      Topic<\/strong>\u00a03: Tools and Technologies in Context: People, Places, Paradigms<\/strong><\/h2>\n

      Required Readings:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
        \n
      1. de Castell, S and Luke A: (1986) Defining Literacy in North American Schools: Socio-Historical Conditions and Consequences in de Castell, Luke and Egan (eds)\u00a0Literacy, Society and Schooling<\/u>. Cambridge University Press.<\/li>\n
      2. Watters, A.: (2021) Teaching Machines: The History of Personalized Learning. \u00a0MIT Press. Chapter 1, chapter 11, and conclusion.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Intellectual Production #3 (optional)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

        First, choose an educational theorist of particular interest to you:
        \nChoose one from this list<\/u>:<\/u>\u00a0Aristotle, Augustine, Dewey, Egan, Freire, Greene,\u00a0 Illich, Knowles, Locke, Malaguzzi, Montessori, Piaget, Plato, Skinner, Steiner, Von Bingen, Vygotsky, Whitehead, Wollstonecraft, Pythagoras,\u00a0 Bruner,\u00a0 Froebel,\u00a0 Pestalozzi, Rousseau, Bourdieu, .<\/p>\n

        Using the paradigms chart from your reading as a model,\u00a0create a chart for the theorist you have chosen<\/strong><\/em>. Supplement the chart with brief (300 words) comments\u2013this can be written or a short video) addressing questions raised below. What educational tools and technologies were associated with this theorist\/theory, and what educational tools and technologies did that paradigm modify or replace?<\/p>\n

        Here\u2019s a bit more help on how to do this assignment:<\/em><\/div>\n
        <\/div>\n
        Remember that the Classical\/Progressive\/Technocratic paradigms model in the paper you read is a snapshot of one analysis of paradigm shifts in educational conceptions and practices, and even though its decades-old, it gives us a pretty useful model for working out what someone\u2019s educational theory is. So, using that model of different educational frameworks, where and how do your theorist\u2019s ideas\/practices fit? Be as specific as possible.<\/em><\/div>\n
        <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
        Now create a new column for your chosen theorist, by using just the categories down the left hand side, and filling in the blanks.\u00a0 Again, be as specific as possible, with examples when you can.<\/em><\/div>\n
        <\/div>\n
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        (Now go back to the paradigms chart in the paper\u2014Do we need to update the chart and add one or more NEW columns? Maybe even add one for yourself? What came after the \u201ctechnocratic\u201d\u00a0 paradigm? What about Indigenous paradigm\/s? What\u2019s missing? )<\/em><\/div>\n
        <\/div>\n
        In summary, this IP is asking you to read\/learn about the history of\u00a0 (mainstream, western) educational ideas through a theoretical lens of several historically successive \u2018paradigms\u2019. Then it asks you to look more deeply into and think about the ideas, technologies and practices of the specific educational theorist you\u2019ve chosen, and then condense all of that into the constrained framework of a \u2018paradigms chart\u201d. Once that is done, return to, and address, the question of what educational tools and technologies were associated with this theorist\/theory, and what educational tools and technologies did that paradigm modify or replace? Here again you are meant to be thinking about how specific media differently shape and constrain what will count, in a given context, at a given time, as educational knowledge. (And its no accident that this IP is itself imposing a constraint on what and how you can represent ideas and information\u2014so think about that, too!)\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n

        \u2191 back to top<\/a><\/p>\n

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        Topic 4: Pedagogic Communications
        \n<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n

        Required Readings:<\/strong><\/h3>\n

        (Choose 2 of these 6\u00a0 for close reading)\u2014<\/em><\/strong>and enjoy a skim through the others! This IP gives you a chance to overview, and then dig into, the pedagogical impacts of specific educational media forms.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

          \n
        1. Watt, Ian (1964)\u00a0The Seminar<\/strong>. Higher Education Quarterly,\u00a0\u00a0Volume18,\u00a0Issue4<\/a><\/u>. Pages 369-389\u00a0https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1111\/j.1468-2273.1964.tb01035.x<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n
        2. Tomislav Jagusta, Ivaca Botick, Hyo-Jeong So (2018). Examining competitive, collaborative and adaptive\u00a0gamification<\/strong>\u00a0in young learners\u2019 math learning.\u00a0Computers & Education,<\/u>\u00a0Volume 125, Pages 444-457.<\/li>\n
        3. Jason Nolan and Melanie McBride (2013)\u00a0\u00a0Beyond gamification: reconceptualizing\u00a0game-based learning<\/strong>\u00a0in early childhood environments<\/a>.\u00a0Information, communication & society<\/em>, 17, 5,\u00a0<\/em>594-608.
          \n<\/em><\/li>\n
        4. Brice-Heath, Shirley (1993). Re-thinking the sense of the past:\u00a0The essay<\/strong>\u00a0as legacy of the epigram, pp. 105-131 in\u00a0Theory and Practice in the Teaching of Writing: Rethinking the Discipline<\/u>, Lee Odell (ed).<\/li>\n
        5. A.W. Frank (1995)\u00a0Lecturing<\/strong>\u00a0and Transference: The undercover work of pedagogy. Pp28-37 in\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Pedagogy: The question of impersonation,<\/u>\u00a0Jane Gallop (Ed).<\/li>\n
        6. Olson, David (1980\/2006). On the Language and Authority of\u00a0Textbooks<\/strong>.\u00a0Journal of Communication<\/u>. Volume 30, Issue 1, 1 March 1980, Pages 186\u2013196,\u00a0https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1111\/j.1460-2466.1980.tb01786.x<\/a><\/li>\n
        7. \u00a0Jane E. Caldwell\u00a0(2017).\u00a0Clickers<\/strong>\u00a0in the Large Classroom: Current Research and Best-Practice Tips.\u00a0Life Sciences Education\u00a0Vol. 6, No. 1.\u00a0https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1187\/cbe.06-12-0205<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          Intellectual production #4 (optional):<\/strong><\/h3>\n

          Select 2 of the above 6 papers discussing different forms of pedagogical communications: the lecture, the seminar, the essay, the textbook, gamification and\u2026the clicker!\u00a0 From these 2 articles, your job is to\u00a0create a short video\u00a0<\/strong>(5 mins max, not ONLY talking head please), to accomplish the following:<\/p>\n

            \n
          1. Explain how the educational technology described in each article might support different communicative relations among teachers and students.<\/li>\n
          2. Describe what you think are the two most important ideas in each article, and explain them in your own words.<\/li>\n
          3. Choose a \u201crepresentative quote\u201d from each article and then explain what it means, how it is \u2018representative\u2019 of the article as a whole, and why it is of particular interest to you.<\/li>\n
          4. Ask a thoughtful question that points back to these 2 articles considered together, and then, to pedagogical communication considered more generally, from the standpoint of having at minimum skimmed all 6 papers. (You are invited to replace any with one or more of your own to help give a wider view of\u00a0 \u2018pedagogical communication\u2019 and the uses, and biases,\u00a0 of educational media\/tech.)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            \u2191 back to top<\/a><\/p>\n

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            Topic 5: Technologies of Externalization: From Embodied Knowledge to Virtual Realities<\/strong><\/h2>\n

            In 1931, Soviet psychologist A. R. Luria, conducted experiments to identify differences between literate and \u201cilliterate\u201d minds. Responses by Uzbek peasants to a syllogistic question indicated to Luria that non-literate persons were incapable of standard logical inferences. Here\u2019s the Q & A from that study:<\/p>\n

            Question<\/em><\/strong>:
            \n\u201cIn the far north, where there is snow, all bears are white. Novaya Zemlya is in the far north and there is always snow there. What color are the bears?\u201d
            \n<\/em>Answers<\/em><\/strong>:
            \n\u201cThere are different sorts of bears.\u201d
            \n<\/em><\/p>\n

            \u201cI don\u2019t know. I\u2019ve seen black bear; I\u2019ve never seen any others .. . each locality has its own animals: if it\u2019s white, they will be white; if it\u2019s yellow, they will be yellow.\u201d
            \n<\/em><\/p>\n

            \u201cI don\u2019t know, I\u2019ve never been to Novaya Zemlya. You\u2019ll have to ask someone who has been there.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

            \u201cWe always speak only of what we see; we don\u2019t talk about what we haven\u2019t seen.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

            \"Screenshot<\/p>\n

            Now that the internet has come to Novaya Zemlya, everyone who cares to know, no matter where they are physically located, or what they have personally seen, can tell you that the bears there are white.\u00a0Has the internet made us more logical?\u00a0<\/strong>(this is intended to be an ironic question, but no less an important one. How is syllogistic reasoning working out nowadays? What is educational technology externalizing?)<\/em><\/p>\n

            The purpose of this IP is to explore, from an educational standpoint,\u00a0 ways knowledge can be and has been externalized, moving beyond embodied human experiences into distant and then virtual spaces.<\/p>\n

            Required Readings:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
              \n
            1. Taylor, Peter G. (1996). Pedagogical challenges of open learning: Looking to borderline issues. In E. McWilliam & P.G. Taylor (eds)\u00a0Pedagogy, Technology and the Body<\/u>. New York: Peter Lang.<\/li>\n
            2. Rowling, J.K. (2003).\u00a0Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix<\/em>,<\/u>\u00a0Ch12 (excerpt)<\/li>\n
            3. Johnson, Melissa Carol. (2015). Wands Or Quills? Lessons In Pedagogy From Harry Potter.\u00a0The CEA Forum.<\/em>\u00a0journals.tdl.org\/ceaforum\/inde \u2026 um\/article\/view\/7061<\/a><\/li>\n
            4. Bayne, Sian et al. (2014) Being \u2018at\u2019 University: The Social Topologies of Distance Students. Higher Education 67:569-583<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

              Intellectual production #5 (optional)<\/strong><\/h2>\n

              \u201cWizards much older and cleverer than you have devised our new program of study. You will be learning about defensive spells in a secure, risk-free way . . . \u201d \u2014 HARRY POTTER<\/em><\/p>\n

              Risk-free education takes on new meanings in a pandemic that has seen online learning soar. For this activity, you are encouraged to form an online discussion group of 4 or 5 people to help you grapple (more fully than you can for this IP) with the Taylor article, which is complex but VERY relevant to MET students and VERY worthwhile understanding. This two-part question asks you to\u00a0bring together two unlikely texts:<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0Dolores Umbridge\u2019s introductory lecture on the sufficiency of textbooks for learning Defence against the Dark Arts (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix), and Peter Taylor\u2019s paper on some of the unrecognized perils of online learning.<\/p>\n

              First, sticking closely to Taylor\u2019s specific arguments, (and plucking a few choice examples from Dolores Umbridge\u2019s speech to the Dark Arts class), identify and explain some ways that online learning can risk reverting to The Umbridge Approach. Has COVID driven education even further away from embodied knowledge? What does that mean when all bodies are virtual? And what to do about that!<\/p>\n

              Then, using Taylor\u2019s own terms, supplemented by your reading of the Baynes et al paper on being\u00a0 \u2018at\u2019 UBC as a distance ed student, what has been your own experience of online learning\u2014as student, as teacher, as parent, etc. Describe your own current situation in the MET program at UBC. How would you take up Taylor\u2019s argument\/s about the \u201crelative value\u201d of your degree under conditions of massification of online education? Has COVID impacted that? How?<\/p>\n

              (500 words max, however you would like to represent those)<\/p>\n

              \u2191 back to top<\/a><\/p>\n

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              Topic 6: Prescriptive vs Holistic Technologies:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

              \u201cIt is my view that today\u2019s real world of technology is planned and run on the basis of a production model that is no longer appropriate for the tasks we want to undertake. Any critique or assessment of the real world of technology should therefore involve serious questioning of the underlying structures of our models, and through them, of our thoughts\u201d. (Franklin,p.26)<\/em><\/p>\n

              Required Listening<\/strong>: Ursula Franklin (1989) The Real World of Technology, part 1.\u00a0https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/radio\/ideas\/the-1989-cbc-massey-lectures-the-real-world-of-technology-1.2946845.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/a>or at this link\u00a0 \u00a0<\/a>https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/player\/play\/14195315<\/p>\n

              Required skimming<\/strong>: Ursula Franklin (1989) The Real World of Technology. House of Anansi Press (Lots of free online versions, or UBC library)<\/p>\n

              Required CLOSE reading<\/strong>: CLOSELY READ Illich, ABC: The Alphabetization of the Popular Mind, ch 2. paying particular attention to the \u201cmemory palace\u201d as an oral technology.<\/p>\n

              Intellectual Production #6 (optional)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

              This set of Massey College Lectures on technology is 30 years old. The recording, the first of its kind, takes place at Massey College, University of Toronto, a place \u201cemblematic\u201d of Canada\u2019s intellectual establishment.<\/p>\n

              Using the form (slides, audio, video, text, formal essay) you find most useful for this IP to\u00a0consider these\u00a0<\/strong>questions about your assigned listening\/skimming\/reading<\/strong>:<\/em><\/p>\n

                \n
              1. What was it like for you,\u00a0listening<\/strong>\u00a0in to this lecture from 30 years ago in the elite educational setting of Massey College? Describe the kind of \u201cmedia ecology\u201d this lecture created? In what ways is the formal lecture an \u201ceducational technology\u201d?<\/li>\n
              2. Skim<\/strong>\u00a0Franklin\u2019s text The Real World of Technology. How do Franklin\u2019s categories of \u201cprescriptive\u201d and \u201cholistic\u201d technologies apply to\u00a0educational<\/u>\u00a0technologies?<\/li>\n
              3. Closely read<\/strong>\u00a0the chapter by Illich and Sanders (ABC). What \u201coral technologies\u201d are described, and how do they shape thinking, memory, communication? How is the \u2018memory palace\u2019 a peculiarly \u201coral\u201d technology?<\/li>\n
              4. What differences did you see<\/strong>\u00a0as you switched from listening to skimming to close reading? Were you able to experience the recorded lecture in any ways differently than when reading the text? Listening takes more \u201creal world\u201d time, so where did spending that extra time get you in terms of understanding?\u00a0 What things did you notice?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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                Topic 7: Mediation\/Re-mediation<\/strong><\/h2>\n

                Media ecologists like McLuhan and Postman drew attention to what have been called, a bit misleadingly, \u201cproperties of the medium\u201d. Their work paid attention to the ways in which the conditions of a medium, both its affordances and its constraints, impose \u2018biases\u2019 (Olsen) or \u2018tendencies\u2019 more than strictly predefined and stable \u201cproperties\u201d. And these shape and constrain what we can, and cannot, and cannot help but do in\/through that medium. How does the specific medium in which we operate \u2018re-mediate\u2019\u2014(change, transform, re-figure) what that we are trying to accomplish through its means?\u00a0 What are the formative\/transformative \u201cproperties\u201d of the specific, different material forms in which our own (personal, cultural, political, professional) information is encoded, exchanged, managed\u2014and destroyed. Safiya Noble\u2019s Algorithms of Oppression provides one current example of the often-overlooked impacts of remediation from material text to digital algorithm. She writes about\u2026\u201dwhy we should be concerned about data retention in the digital world and\u2026 ways in which the previous paper-based information-keeping processes by institutions faced limitations of space and archival capacity.\u201d Here record keeping has been profoundly changed. And why? Because\u00a0the storage medium itself\u00a0<\/em>is an \u2018actor\u2019 in the network. As Noble explains \u201cThese limits of space and human labour in organization and preservation presuppose a type of check, or \u201cinstitutional forgetfulness\u201d \u2026 that was located in the storage medium itself, rather than relating to policy limits on holding information for long periods of time (e.g. The EU\u2019s Right to be Forgotten) (p.125)<\/p>\n

                Required Readings:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
                  \n
                1. Bolter, J.D.& Grusin, R. (2000). Networks of Remediation. In\u00a0Remediation: Understanding New Media.<\/u>\u00a0Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press<\/li>\n
                2. Your choice: find a research paper that contributes to your understanding of how your own area of concern has been \u201cre-mediated\u201d by specific technology\/ies.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                  Intellectual production #7 (optional)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

                  Identify and describe a particular tool\/technology that is remediating your educational practices at work, in the classroom, or in other education-related areas of your daily life. Referring back to Bolter and Grusin, prepare a presentation for your colleagues that helps them understand\u00a0how remediation has changed \u201cknowledge\u201d and \u2018\u2019knowing\u201d in your area of concern,\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>and what specific technologies have played a role in those changes. If text, then 500 words max, if slides then 5 max, with explanatory speaker\u2019s notes, if video then 5 minutes max-NO talking heads only, must be multi-modal, for any other formats you would like to try out, email instructor.<\/p>\n

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                  Topic 8: \u201cLines of Flight\u201d Over Times and Across Space: Historical and Cultural Trajectories<\/strong><\/h2>\n

                  \u201c\u2026observing the use of laptop computers in a Seoul high school raises a completely different set of issues from observing what appear to be the same devices being used in high schools in inner city Sao Paulo, or, indeed, in a classroom in rural Wales\u2026The use of any \u2018digital technology\u2019 device in any country is therefore a complex knot of issues, interests, actors and agendas.\u201d\u00a0 \u2014\u00a0<\/em>Neil Selwyn (2012) Education in a Digital World: Global Perspectives on Technology and Education<\/em><\/p>\n

                  Required Readings:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
                    \n
                  1. Mitra, Sugata & Crawley, Emma (2014) Effectiveness of Self-Organised Learning by Children: Gateshead Experiments. Journal of Education and Human Development, Vol. 3(3) pp. 79-88<\/li>\n
                  2. Brayboy, Brian (2009) Indigenous Knowledges and the Story of the Bean.\u00a0Harvard Educational Review<\/u>, Vol 79, no. 1, pp. 1-21.<\/li>\n
                  3. Third reading is YOUR choice. Post to the class site one reading you would like to see added to this course that looks BEYOND current mainstream anglo-american, first world contexts and extends our perspectives on educational technologies and their associated practices. Work by indigenous scholars is particularly needed in educational technology studies, and especially welcome in this course.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                    Intellectual Production #8 (optional)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

                    First,<\/strong>\u00a0read Brayboy and Mitra, and then try to identify what educationally significant taken-for-granted assumptions these papers disrupt and destabilize. Why and how? And\u00a0specifically<\/em>, for example?\u00a0\u00a0Next,<\/strong>\u00a0invite your suggested reading into the conversation, explaining how it contributes to understanding educational technology in richer, broader and more diverse contexts of practice. Here again, be as specific, using examples from the papers.\u00a0To conclude<\/strong>\u00a0swing back up to this topic\u2019s opening quote from Selwyn (2012), and focus on\u00a0identify[ing]\u00a0<\/strong>the \u201cissues, interests, actors and agendas\u201d within which that technology is\/was\/will be used.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

                    500 words max, or equivalent in the form\/medium you choose.<\/p>\n

                    Here are your guidelines:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

                    \n
                      \n
                    1. In your own words, what is the main point of the article you\u2019ve chosen with respect to contributing new trajectories for technology in education? What, for you, are its highlights (why do you recommend this paper)? make sure to discuss Mitra and Brayboy in some depth, and bring the three papers into the picture.<\/li>\n
                    2. What methodology do the authors use? Be specific, and cite sources.<\/li>\n
                    3. Who or what are the author\u2019s subject\/s, in your chosen paper? Purposes?<\/li>\n
                    4. Analysis\/Argument: What are the paper\u2019s main arguments?<\/li>\n
                    5. What are the author\u2019s primary conclusions? Your own conclusions?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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                      Topic 9: Educational Accountability: Technologies of Surveillance; Technologies of Support<\/strong><\/h2>\n

                      \u201cBut you\u2019ve spent a lot of time in hospital yourself of course,\u201d she said.
                      \n<\/em>\u00a0I stared at her.\u00a0<\/em>The imbalance in the extent of our knowledge of each another was manifestly unfair. Social workers should present their new clients with a fact sheet about themselves to try to redress this I think. After all, she\u2019d had unrestricted access to that big brown folder, The Bumper Book of Eleanor, two decades worth of information about the intimate minutiae of my life. All I knew about her was her name and her employer.\u201d
                      \n<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u2013Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Gayle Honeyman, 2017<\/p>\n

                      Many of the educational technologies we now use collect, compile and report information on its uses and users. Privacy violation is just one of many new forms of risk that digital technologies, in particular, enable and intensify. After decades of relative immunity, tech companies today are beginning to be held to account for the consequences of their designs, and new protections and controls are, slowly, being implemented. (Think here of impacts of Facebook on people and politics, or the gruelling work of content moderators, or how racism and sexism gets hard-wired into video games, for example).<\/p>\n

                      Educational technologies, too, bear ethical responsibilities for the capture and uses of data. The purpose of this IP is to crack open a few of the documentation tools and practices used in education in order to think critically about these as designed technologies. The reading should help you consider these questions: What kinds of documentation do we routinely carry out in the name of education? What are we documenting, and what have been the main uses of documentation in education? What relationships does this documentation create and enable? Who has been well served by documentation and who has been harmed? What kinds of documentation support learners (and which learners?), and what kinds prioritize other ends\u2013institutional management, for example, or ideology, or capital accumulation (or all of the above)? What ethics govern, or should govern, data collection and uses?\u00a0 Who are we accountable to, what are we accountable for?<\/p>\n

                      Required Readings:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
                        \n
                      1. de Castell, S., Jenson, J. Thumlert, K., & Muehrer, R. (2016).\u00a0Assessing assessment: An exploratory study of game-based, multimodal learning in\u00a0Epidemic<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0Digital Culture & Education<\/em>\u00a0(8)<\/li>\n
                      2. Romero, C; Ventura, S. & Garcia, C. (2008) Data mining in course management systems: Moodle case study and tutorial.\u00a0Computers & Education<\/em>,\u00a0<\/u>51, Issue 1, pp.368-384\u00a0https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.compedu.2007.05.016<\/a><\/li>\n
                      3. (SHORT) Carol Ann Wien (2013) Making Learning Visible Through Pedagogical Documentation\u00a0http:\/\/conference-handouts.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019-nctm-san-diego\/pdfs\/378-<\/a><\/li>\n
                      4. Bjiarveit et al (2019). The Living Wall: Implementing and Interpreting Pedagogical Documentation in Specialized Settings\u00a0https:\/\/journals.uvic.ca\/index.php\/jcs\/article\/view\/19058<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                        Intellectual Production #9 (optional)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

                        Paying particular attention to the kinds of learner data captured and documented, provide an overview of the functions and uses of learner documentation discussed in these assigned articles. Then identify and describe a specific approach to learning assessment that is of particular interest to you (and say why it is of particular interest)\u2014this can be a digitally enabled environment, like a learning management system, or any other form of assessment that involves collecting and analyzing student data. How does this approach to learner documentation and assessment construe knowledge and understanding? How does it assess and report learning, and to whom does it report? What ethical questions arise with assessment tools and technologies generally and this one in particular? What issues of social justice and human rights might be raised?\u00a0\u00a0Be as specific as possible.\u00a0This is a choose whatever medium you want activity, just make sure you cover each of the readings and are explicit as possible when taking up and engaging with the required readings. Don\u2019t be afraid to detail your thought processes.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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                        Topic 10: The New Materialist Turn<\/strong><\/h2>\n

                        An introductory note to our concluding topic:<\/p>\n

                        These readings and this last IP are intended to give you insight\u2014with a final surge of epistemological vertigo\u2014into a fairly new trajectory of theoretical work with big implications for both education and technology. Choose from the resources you find most interesting and useful, making sure to pay attention to unpacking the quotes from Toohey and Bennett that introduce your final required IP\u2014no fewer than 3 sources should be used.<\/p>\n

                        I hope you will find these readings helpful in getting the gist of what \u201cNew Materialism\u201d is about, and how it changes so many of our \u201ctaken for granted\u201d assumptions: about agency, about the epistemic shift from studying \u201cwhat actually happened\u201d, \u201chow things work\u201d, what the facts are\u201d, how things are, etc, to \u201cwhat is this thing becoming? What are the agents of change and transformation?, How are we and things \u201centangled\u201d? \u00a0How is inTRA action different from inTERaction?. Science (but no less philosophy, \u00a0social sciences, etc) has concentrated on causation, on the past, on \u2018what is\u201d, on distinctions between and among people and things, (People are \u2018sentient\u2019, things are not; people are rational and use tools, animals do not. NM attends to convergences, assemblages, \u00a0intersections, entanglements, inTRA action: how people and things are related, not how they are different; what animals and humans share, not what separates them.<\/p>\n

                        We are now watching eons-old glaciers melting, oceans heating up, species disappearing, catastrophic storms that neither our ships nor our airplanes were engineered to withstand, and new maladies, both physical (COVID and fertility are notable areas) and mental, are erupting at unprecedented rates\u2014most intensified or even caused by environmental pollutants. We are quite literally sharing this trajectory with every other creature, since all of us, even in the remotest, uninhabited islands of the Galapagos, now have plastic as part of our bodily structures. For these reasons and more, we can no longer turn to epistemologies rooted in the past, but must instead find new ways of thinking and acting focused on what is\u00a0becoming<\/em>. Greta T makes the point (not her words) that the question we and our governments must face\u2014our \u201cnew economic metrics\u2019\u201d you might say, are no longer \u201cHow much does this cost?\u201d but \u201cHow much can this save?\u201d<\/p>\n

                        Donna Haraway (Living with the Troubles<\/em>), Karen Barad, Rosi Braidotti, Jane Edwards, Bruno Latour, and many others have tackled these hard and urgent questions about how to live in a dying world, and I think they make very clear why we need new theories, new methods, and above all new purposes and perspectives. It\u2019s for this reason I\u2019ve wanted to conclude our meta-theoretical studies with \u201cNew Materialism\u201d as a promising new framework for building better theory.<\/p>\n

                        This future-oriented perspective is a place to begin to rethink education, teaching, learning, technologies, policies, and indeed every aspect of our work, because business-as-usual is no longer possible and our best chance is to focus on what and how we are becoming with others.<\/p>\n

                        OK, now lets get back to introducing IP#10\u2026<\/p>\n

                        The New Materialist Turn<\/strong><\/p>\n

                        The persistent calls for inter-or transdisciplinary and engaged research by many scholars recognize the entangled and material nature of humans, discourses, machines, other objects, other species, and the natural environment (Frodeman et al, 2017). The growing scholarship that recognizes these linkages refers to such a perspective as posthumanism, feminist materialism, process philosophy, relational ontologies or new materialism\u2026 New materialism sees people, discourses, practices and things continually in relation, under construction and changing together.<\/em>\u00a0(Kelleen Toohey, 2018: 25; 29)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

                        \u201cTheories of democracy that assume a world of active subjects and passive objects begin to appear as thin descriptions at a time when interactions between humans, viral, animal and technological bodies become more and more intense\u2026Of course to acknowledge nonhuman materialities as participants in a political ecology is not to claim that everything is always a participant, or that all participants are alike. Persons, worms, leaves, bacteria, metals and hurricanes all have different types and degrees of power\u2026but surely the scope of democratization can be broadened to acknowledge more nonhumans in more ways, in something like the ways we have begun to hear the political voices of other humans formerly on the outs: \u201cAre you ready, and at the price of what sacrifice, to, live the good life together? That this highest of moral and political questions could have been raised for so many centuries, by so many bright minds, for humans only, without the nonhumans that make them up, will soon appear, I have no doubt, as extravagant as when the Founding Fathers denied slaves and women the vote.\u201d (Vibrant Matter, P.108\/9, Jane Bennett, 2009)<\/em><\/p>\n

                        \n

                        Required Readings:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
                          \n
                        1. Toohey, Kelleen (2018) \u201cNew materialism and language learning\u201d, Ch. 2 in\u00a0Learning English at School<\/u>\u00a0(2nd<\/sup>\u00a0edition) Multilingual Matters: Bristol<\/li>\n
                        2. Jennifer Charterisa, Dianne Smardona and Emily Nelson (2017) Innovative learning environments and new materialism: A conjunctural analysis of pedagogic spaces.\u00a0Educational Philosophy and Theory,<\/u>\u00a049, No. 8, pp. 808\u2013821\u00a0https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/00131857.2017.1298035<\/a><\/li>\n
                        3. Cher Hill (2018) \u201cMore-than-reflective practice: Becoming a diffractive practitioner\u201d\u00a0http:\/\/journals.sfu.ca\/tlpd\/index.php\/tlpd\/article\/viewFile\/28\/pdf<\/a><\/li>\n
                        4. A pretty good intro that is readable I think, and covers the main ideas, is this paper. https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/10.1080\/2159676X.2018.1428678 (There are also videos online, YouTube, search for \u201cnew materialism\u201d: here\u2019s one a 3 minute one:\n

                          https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=v0SnstJoEec&feature=emb_title<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                          Intellectual production #10 (required)\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

                          IP# 10 is due on or before November 24th, 2026.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

                          Making direct and substantive reference to at least 3 resources,\u00a0 please respond in writing (no bullets) to ONE of the following questions;<\/p>\n

                            \n
                          1. Returning to the specific educational technology activity you worked on in Topic 2, focus on the ways that technology was \u201centangled\u2019,\u00a0 with humans and non-humans. Looking this time into that tool\u2019s inter-dependencies, inTRA activities, processes of change,\u00a0\u00a0what could you now change or add to your initial description\/characterization<\/strong><\/em>, reconsidering that technology from a new materialist perspective. (500 words max\u00a0multi-modal work is encouraged.<\/em>) OR<\/li>\n
                          2. Imagine you are leading (You are getting paid a lot of money to do this!) a professional learning seminar for educational technology specialists wanting to \u201cthink outside the box\u201d.\u00a0How would you get them to understand what new materialism is?<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0What are some examples, or activities, you could use to illustrate some of the differences a new materialist perspective offers to educational technology studies? How would you get them to understand why new materialism invites a re-seeing and re-thinking of \u201cbest practices\u201d? (5 slides with speakers notes that elaborate on each slide)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                            Topic Menu: 1 Media Ecology\u00a0|\u00a02 Tools & Things\u00a0|\u00a03 Paradigms in Context\u00a0|\u00a04 Pedagogic Communications\u00a0|\u00a05 Externalizing Technologies\u00a0|\u00a06 Prescriptive v Holistic Models\u00a0|\u00a07 Re-mediation\u00a0|\u00a08 Lines of Flight\u00a0|\u00a09 Accountability\u00a0|\u00a010 New Materialism Pre-recorded Syllabus Tour\u00a0 Before you begin,\u00a0 take an introductory tour of the course, and note down any questions you have.   Post to slack, any questions you have, bit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91513,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-430","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec565b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec565b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec565b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec565b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec565b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec565b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":472,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec565b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/430\/revisions\/472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec565b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}