A Reflection on Year One of Civics of Tech
by Marie K. Heath, Daniel G. Krutka, & Jacob Pleasants
Civics of Tech announcements:
Next Book Club: Our next book club will discuss the 2020 book Data Feminism by Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren F. Klein on Thursday, March 16th, 2023 from 8-9:30pm EST/7-8:30pm CST/6-7:30pm MST/5-6:30pm PST. The book is available in multiple formats, including audiobook, and a paperback version was just released! Register on our Events page or click here.
Launching “Talking Tech” Monthly Meetings: We are launching a new monthly event called “Talking Tech” on the first Tuesday of every month from 8-9pm EST/7-8pm CST/6-7pm MST/5-6pm PST. These Zoom meetings will include discussions of current events, new books or articles, and more. Participants can bring topics, articles, or ideas to discuss. Our first meeting is Tuesday, February 7th. Register on our Events page or click here.
On January 26th, 2022 we debuted the Civics of Technology project with a Matrix quote in our first blog post. This launched the Civics of Technology project. What started as a conversation about the effects of technology on society quickly grew to include curriculum resources, weekly blog posts, monthly book clubs, an annual conference, and most importantly, you. Your comments, participation, and readership in this space has created a thoughtful community of educators committed to critical approaches to technology education.
Scholars and educators from across disciplines and geographic locations contributed new curriculum ideas and wrote blog posts ranging from critiques of anti-shooter technology to the possibilities of speculative fiction in ed tech. Our most popular blog post of the year was Charles Logan’s powerful Applying the Baldwin Test to Ed Tech. Rounding out the top five posts were Dan’s caution to Maybe Don’t Send that Email, Marie and Aman Yadav’s critique of The Silver Bullet of Anti-Shooter Educational Technology, Marie’s exploration of critical theory in educational technology when she asked about A Racist Soap Dispenser, and Charles’ discussion of the inquiry lesson based on Audrey Watters’s Teaching Machines book with the compelling question, Whose Interest do Teaching Machines Serve?
We didn’t just develop and post curriculum; we also taught with the activities in our classes. Dan spent a day at a local middle school teaching 7th graders with the introductory activities such as the technology quote activity and the simulation reset. He ended up learning from the students as they proposed a world with “healing technologies” that seek to redress harm. Jacob, Dan, and Ryan Smits taught the quote activity in several teacher education classes and professional development settings. Jacob used many of the project ideas to teach in an afterschool program. We were in contact with classroom teachers using Ryan Smits and Dan’s Unfolding a Smartphone curriculum.
In the spring, Dan and Marie finally stopped talking about their dream ed tech conference and instead put together a space for it to happen. We put out a call for our first annual conference submission and then promptly fell out of our chairs when the proposals started rolling in. We wanted to attend every session, and you still have to pinch us that so many of our academic heroes were willing to share their labor and energy into our conference theme of Visioning Just Futures.
Next week, we will post a vision for new paths in our second year. But first, we wanted to reflect back and say thank you for joining us thus far. In the comments, please let us know what resonated with you in year one and what you’d like to see more of this year.