Will you be our Civics of Technology neighbor?
by Marie Heath and Dan Krutka
The creation of this Civics of Technology project was not a sudden invention. It came out of conversations we’ve been having with a lot of educators and scholars for years about critical ways of thinking about technology and educational technology. More than anything, we wanted a website that could be a hub of critical conversations and, hopefully, a place to grow community. We’ve only been doing this for two months, but we’ve been overwhelmed at the conversations that have ensued, the new people who’ve reached out to us through the site, and the community that is starting to form. In this post, we want to take the next steps toward continuing this growth and we want to offer four ways that you can get more involved.
You can find information for all these events at CivicsOfTechnology.org/Events.
Civics of Technology Virtual Conference
We are very excited to announce our first CoT conference to be held from 11-3pm EST on both August 4th and 5th, 2021! The conference will be fully virtual, incorporating organized sessions as well as EdCamp inspired unconference spaces.
We are planning for both invited and accepted sessions. Please consider submitting a proposal for a session using this form (or find link at CivicsOfTechnology.org/Events). Proposals are due by 11:59 PST on June 6th. Proposals will be reviewed and acceptance notices sent by June 13th.
(In addition to the annual virtual conference, we are in planning stages for an in-person retreat starting in 2023. Details forthcoming.)
AERA/CUFA/SITE Meetups
Our virtual conference is going to be great, but we still would like an opportunity for CoT community to meet up in person. If you are attending the upcoming SITE or AERA conferences in San Diego, please email Marie or Dan or use the contact form on the site. We’ll be sending out more information on a meetup as we get closer to the conferences.
Three Book Club Opportunities
As we announced in our blog post last week, we will have three book club opportunities upcoming! We are excited that each of our nominators have agreed to lead these book clubs. Here are the opportunities:
REGISTER HERE: 8pm EST on Thursday, May 26th, 2022: Disruptive Fixation: School Reform and the Pitfalls of Techno-Idealism by Christo Sims (led by Earl Aguilera)
REGISTER HERE: 8pm EST on Thursday, July 28th, 2022: More Work for Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology From The Open Hearth To The Microwave by Ruth Schwartz Cowan (available for free via Internet Archive; led by Phil Nichols)
REGISTER HERE: 8pm EST on Thursday, September 29th: The Design of Everyday Things, Revised And Expanded Edition by Donald A. Norman (led by Jacob Pleasants)
We hope that each of these book clubs cannot only lead to discussions, but potentially lessons, projects, or papers too. Or, just really good discussions.
Write a Blog Post for Us
We want to learn from you! If you have an idea for a blog post that aligns with the focus of the Civics of Technology project on critically inquiring into technology then we’d love to hear from you! Please pitch your idea by emailing Dan or Marie or just using the contact form on the site.