Our research.
Find Scholarship on the following lines of inquiry below:
Technoskepticism | Critical Tech | Technoethics
Technoskepticism
As part of the community of scholars involved in the Civics of Technology project, we contend that educators should cultivate a technoskepticism among students to ensure that we advance more educational, humane, and just futures. Developing a technoskeptical disposition (or practice, orientation, habits, outlooks) toward technology challenges us to slow down and think intentionally and critically about technology in our lives. Technoskepticism involves building knowledge about how technologies function, their complicated interactions with and effects on society, and how political decisions are made about their use and non-use. It also involves forming skills to think critically about technologies, imagining speculative futures, and taking just actions. Educators can teach technoskepticism, for example, explicitly through the use of our five technoskeptical questions and other curriculum, or implicitly through small actions and critical questioning about technology in and out of schools.
Heath, M. K., Krutka, D. G., Jarke, J., & Macgilchrist, F. (2024). Critique needs community: On a humanities approach to a Civics of Technology. Postdigital Science and Education, Online First.
Metzger, S. M., & Krutka, D. G. (2023). Interrogating the smartphone: Teaching through technoskeptical questions. Social Education, 87(5), 313-318.
Krutka, D. G., Pleasants, J., & Nichols, T. P. (2023). Talking the technology talk. Phi Delta Kappan, 104(7), 42-46.
Krutka, D. G., Heath, M. K., & Smits, R. M. (2022). Toward a civics of technology. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 30(2), 229-237.
Krutka, D. G., Metzger, S. A., & Seitz, R. Z. (2022). “Technology inevitably involves trade-offs”: The framing of technology in social studies standards. Theory & Research in Social Education, 50(2), 226-254.
Krutka, D. G., Caines, A., Heath, M. K., & Staudt Willet, K. B. (2022). Black Mirror pedagogy: Dystopian stories for technoskeptical imaginations. The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy, 11(1).
Mason, L. E., Krutka, D. G., & Heath, M. K. (2021). The metaphor is the message: Limitations of the media literacy metaphor for social studies. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 21(3), 770-780.
Krutka, D. G., Heath, M. K., & Mason, L. E. (2020). Technology won’t save us–A call for technoskepticism in social studies. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 20(1), 108-120.
Technoskepticism Publication References
Critique needs community: On a humanities approach to a Civics of Technology
Postdigital Science and Education | 2024
Interrogating the smartphone: Teaching through technoskeptical questions.
Social Education | 2023
Talking the technology talk.
Phi Delta Kappan | 2023
Toward a Civics of Technology.
Journal of Technology and Teacher Education | 2022
“Technology inevitably involves trade-offs”: The framing of technology in social studies standards
Theory & Research in Social Education | 2022
Black Mirror pedagogy: Dystopian stories for technoskeptical imaginations.
The Journal of Interactive Technology & Pedagogy | 2021
The metaphor is the message: Limitations of the media literacy metaphor for social studies.
Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education - Social Studies | 2021
Technology won’t save us–A call for technoskepticism in social studies.
Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education - Social Studies | 2020
Critical Tech
As our motto suggests, technologies are not neutral and neither are the societies into which they are introduced. As technology continues encroaching in our lives, how can we advance technology education for just futures? Our research around critical technology perspectives particularly investigates how technology intersects with systems of oppression. We build off the scholarly work particularly of Black women scholars such as Ruha Benjamin, Safiya Noble, and Meredith Broussard.
Heath, M. K. , Gleason, B. W. , Mehta, R. , & Hall, T. (2023). More than knowing: Toward collective, critical, and ecological approaches in educational technology research. Educational Technology Research & Development, 1-23.
Heath, M. K. , Asim, S. , Milman, N. , & Henderson, J. (2022). Confronting tools of the oppressor: Exploring justice in educational technology and teacher education. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 22(4).
Yadav, A., Heath, M. K. , Hu, A. D. (2022, May). Toward justice in computer science through community, criticality, and citizenship. Communications of the ACM, 65(5). 1-3.
Yadav, A. & Heath, M. K. (2022). Breaking the code: Confronting racism in computer science through community, criticality, and citizenship. TechTrends. 1-9.
Heath, M. K. , & Segal, P. (2021). What pre-service teacher technology integration conceals and reveals: “Colorblind” technology in schools. Computers and Education. Online first.
Krutka, D. G., Seitz, R. Z., & Hadi, A. M. (2021). How do we oppose racist Zoombombs?: A discriminatory technology audit. In R. E. Ferdig, E. Baumgartner, R. Hartshorne, R. Kaplan-Rakowski, & C. Mouza (Eds.), Teaching, technology, and teacher education during the COVID-19 pandemic: Stories from the field, pp. 753-759. Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/216903/
Gleason, B. W. , & Heath, M. K. , (2021). Injustice embedded in Google Classroom and Google Meet: A techno-ethical audit of remote educational technologies. Italian Journal of Educational Technology. IJET-Online First.
Critical Tech Publication References
More than knowing: Toward collective, critical, and ecological approaches in educational technology research.
Educational Technology Research & Development | 2023
Confronting tools of the oppressor: Framing just technology integration in educational technology and teacher education.
Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education | 2022
Breaking the code: Confronting racism in computer science through community, criticality and citizenship.
TechTrends| 2022
Toward justice in computer science through community, criticality, and citizenship: Proposing a justice-centered CS education.
Communications of the ACM | 2022
What pre-service teacher technology integration conceals and reveals: “Colorblind” technology in schools.
Computers & Education | 2021
How do we oppose racist Zoombombs?: A discriminatory design technology audit.
Teaching, technology, and teacher education during the COVID-19 pandemic: Stories from the field | 2020
Move slower and protect people: Toward social media inquiry and activism in social studies.
Social Education | 2020
Technoethics
Educators often use technology in classes without interrogating the technologies, and whether they should be used. We have published several papers that explain and demonstrate possibilities for conducting technoethical audits of edtech. We contend that a technoethical approach does not simply help individual teacher educators and students address singular problems, but centers ethical behavior in the context of democratic citizenship for the common good.
Krutka, D. G., Smits, R. M., & Willhelm, T. A. (2021). Don’t be evil: Should we use Google in schools? TechTrends, 65(4), 421-431.
Heath, M. K. (2021). Buried treasure or Ill-gotten spoils: the ethics of data mining and learning analytics in online instruction. Educational Technology Research and Development, 69(1), 331-334.
Gleason, B., & Heath, M. K. (2021). Injustice embedded in Google Classroom and Google Meet: A techno-ethical audit of remote educational technologies. Italian Journal of Educational Technology, 29(2), 26-41.
Krutka, D. G., Heath, M. K., Staudt Willet, K. B. (2019). Foregrounding technoethics: Toward critical perspectives in technology and teacher education. Journal of Technology for & Teacher Education, 27(4), 555-574.
Krutka, D. G., & Heath, M. K. (2019). Has social media made it easier to effect social change?: Inquiring into tactics for change through primary sources. Social Education, 83(5), 269-274.
Technoethics Publication References
Don’t Be Evil: Should We Use Google in Schools?
TechTrends | 2021
Buried treasure or ill-gotten spoils: the ethics of data mining and learning analytics in online instruction.
Educational Technology and Research Development | 2021
Injustice embedded in Google Classroom and Google Meet: A techno-ethical audit of remote educational technologies.
Italian Journal of Educational Technology | 2021
Foregrounding technoethics: Toward critical perspectives in technology and teacher education.
Journal of Technology and Teacher Education | 2019
Has social media made it easier to effect social change?: Inquiring into tactics for change through primary sources.
Social Education | 2019