Category: digital literacy

Recalibration of Truth

On By Beyond DigitalIn artificial intelligence, Balance, change, digital literacy, Privacy, School, Social NetworksLeave a comment
Photo John Mikton

In our rapidly changing digital age, the idea of truth is undergoing a significant change. In the past, truth was often taken from shared experiences and clear agreements. Today, truth often is manipulated by social media, algorithmic biases, polarization, organizations, companies, and in more instances governments,  fueling the algorithms that influence what we see, hear, and believe.

I refer to this as a recalibration of truth. This new landscape requires us to navigate the complexities of deep fakes: video and voice, misinformation, and the algorithmically curated digital environments that condition our understanding of what is real and true.

Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” reminds us, ” Each one of us, of course, is now being trained, deliberately, not to act independently.”  Written in 1932, this quote resonates for me, in a world where we are tethered to our devices, influencing and amplifying our wishes and perceptions, often unconsciously. The world we live in has become a digital ecosystem that curates 24/7 our understanding of the world around us, guiding not just our hopes and dreams but also our understanding of truth.

Throughout history, the concept of truth has always been complex, with each era having its own unique ways of curating information. There was a time, not too long ago when agreements and truths were often established through a handshake or verbal agreement. Nowadays, our point of reference is formal contracts and notarized documents. This in many ways is a natural shift of our time in how we understand and evaluate truth. The digital age has only accelerated this shift, flooding us with a constant stream of feeds and push notifications. The overabundance of information and our ability to process it has led to what Maryanne Wolf, author of Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain in the Digital Age, calls ‘skim reading.’ The act of ‘skim reading” dilutes our attention span and reduces our capacity to fully engage with information, affecting our ability to pause, analyze, and read critically and deeply.

The recalibration of truth today involves more than just the weakening of the traditional concept of truth; it involves understanding truth’s new tools and architecture. The accelerated presence of artificial intelligence and the widespread influence of algorithmic curation challenge us to engage with information in entirely new ways. The emergence of synthetic media, such as deep fakes, further complicates our ability to trust what we see, hear, and feel, causing us to question the reliability of our senses.

Schools and educators play a critical role in addressing this recalibration of truth. The abundance of information available to us and our students is seamless and frictionless, yet its accuracy is often questionable, highlighting the vital importance of teaching digital and information literacy. These skills are and will continue to be, essential for evaluating information, cross-referencing sources, and understanding the mechanics and algorithms of the digital content we interact with.

As we navigate this new landscape, we need to be open to reevaluating our priorities, focusing on the development of critical thinking, ethics, and empathy. It’s about being willing to break away from the past and being comfortable to explore new resources, professional learning, and dispositions to navigate the challenges brought about by a recalibrated notion of truth. This underlines the importance of developing learning pathways focused on digital and information literacy, ensuring that our students have the skills and critical thinking agility to live in a world where truths are continually recalibrated.

I believe that as educators and schools, we have a responsibility to ensure our students are not merely passive consumers of edutainment but rather critical thinkers skilled at navigating the complexities of this recalibrated truth in the digital age

“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”  Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”

Sources and Resources to further explore: 

“Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.” Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5129.Brave_New_World

Wolf, Maryanne. “Reader, Come Home – HarperCollins.” HarperCollins Publishers, https://www.harpercollins.com/products/reader-come-home-maryanne-wolf?variant=32128334594082

Reading behavior in the digital environment: Changes in reading behavior over the past ten years: https://litmedmod.ca/sites/default/files/pdf/liu_2005_lecture_numerique_competences_comportements.pdf

Updates ‹ AI + Ethics Curriculum for Middle School — MIT Media Lab
https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/ai-ethics-for-middle-school/updates 

Carlsson, Ulla. “Understanding Media and Information Literacy (MIL) in the Digital Age.” UNESCO, https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/gmw2019_understanding_mil_ulla_carlsson.pdf

How deep fakes may shape the future
https://theglassroom.org/en/misinformation-edition/exhibits/how-deepfake-may-shape-the-future

FAKE or REAL? Misinformation Edition
https://fake-or-real.theglassroom.org/#/ 

John Spencer: Rethinking Information Literacy in an Age of AI. https://spencerauthor.com/ai-infoliteracy/.

AI Digital Literacy: Strategies for Educators in the Age of Artificial Intelligence https://blog.profjim.com/ai-digital-literacy-citizenship-best-practices/ 

“AI in Education: 18 Months Later – Learning, Ethics, and Opportunities”

On By Beyond DigitalIn artificial intelligence, Balance, change, digital life, digital literacy, innovation, leadership, SchoolLeave a comment

I had the privileged to facilitate this webinar for The Educational Collaborative for International Schools: ECIS and #ISLECISLoft with Nancy Lhoest-Squicciarini titled “AI in Education: 18 Months Later – Learning, Ethics, and Opportunities”. The guest where Kelly Schuster-Paredes co-host of the Teaching Python podcast- educator and Ken Shelton, presenter, educator and author. Two people who I have immense respect for and who bring a broad depth of knowledge and experience to this topic. Their respective insights generated a rich platform for the breakout room conversations between participants attending the webinar.

The webinar highlighted the significant impact of AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) on teaching approaches, creating opportunities for personalized learning, tailored feedback, and improved workflows for educators. These AI tools creating opportunities to amplify student engagement while also bringing about challenges, such as integrating innovative with traditional teaching methods, ensuring equal access, and re-evaluating assessment practices, to name a few.

Both guests emphasized the importance of addressing ethical concerns like bias, plagiarism, and privacy. More schools are realizing the importance of establishing guidelines for responsible AI use to mitigate biases, address academic integrity, and safeguard the privacy of both students and educators.

Our guest underscored the vital role schools leaders need to take on to ensure transparent communication about the role of AI in education and the critical importance for staff to have professional development in digital and media literacy. Creating professional development that equips educators to effectively integrate the learning opportunities that these tools can bring to the classroom, has to be a non negotiable. Schools need to design inclusive environments where the advantages of AI-enhanced learning are transparent and accessible to the entire school community, including students, educators, and parents.

A special thank you to Kelly Schuster-Paredes and Ken Shelton for these insights!

Cybersecurity for International Schools

On By Beyond DigitalIn Balance, digital grid, digital literacy, information technology, Infrastructure, International School IT, Privacy, resourcesLeave a comment

Cybersecurity is a multifaceted and complex issue, particularly in today’s world where a significant portion of our time, information, and lives are tied to digital devices, both for personal and professional purposes. It is increasingly crucial to possess a basic understanding and knowledge of securing one’s devices and managing digital security. For schools, the stakes are particularly high, and developing a solid cybersecurity plan is a critical aspect of managing the risks associated with digital devices in this day and age.

Recently, Dan Taylor, the host of the #internationalschoolpodcast, and I, the co-host, had an opportunity to discuss cybersecurity in schools, with a particular emphasis on international schools. Both of us have a keen interest in this subject, and Dan has been actively supporting international schools with Google Education Workspace’s robust security tools and processes. He has a genuine passion for this topic and has been doing a lot of work in this area. Meanwhile, I have facilitated workshops for parents, created videos and educator sessions, and worked with groups that provide one-on-one support and workshops to seniors focused on navigating digital ecosystems and devices.

In our discussion, Dan prepared an excellent slide presentation for the ECIS Leadership Conference, which he used to facilitate workshops for school leaders. We took the opportunity to share our perspectives and experiences, offering tips and strategies for school leaders to consider. Podcast version also available here

Beyond ChatGPT: Automation in Education

On By Beyond DigitalIn Balance, change, digital grid, digital life, digital literacy, innovation, international schools], leadership, SchoolLeave a comment

Over the last weeks ChatGPT and Natural Language Models of Artificial Intelligence have created a real buzz for many in the technology industry and general media. For schools the arrival of these have generated important reflections and introspection on the role of AI, Chatbots and Natural Language Models in schools and the classroom. ChatGPT bringing on important moments to think about the role #AI in a classroom- schools. How does this refocus and challenge educators pedagogy, which can often in schools be focused on teaching content -knowledge with assessments designed around tests and exams.

We as educators and schools need to invite ourselves to ask what then is the value added proposition of learning in a classroom and school in the age of #AI #ChatGPT3. How do schools position themselves for a future with #AI. We all need to create the space, time, and support community voices to engage with this creative tension. To find the time and space, and hear these voices, will only allow us to be better prepared for such cohabitation.

I had the privileged to participate in a conversation on this topic facilitated by Camillo Montenegro Beyond ChatGPT: Automation in Education with fellow educators Tim Evans, and James Steinhoff. The recording for reference

Further resources to consider

AI in Education collaborative site with a lot of resources, lesson ideas, guides and information to support educators
https://sites.google.com/ecolint.ch/aiineducation?pli=1

Podcast with 3 International School IT Directors discussing its implications.
https://www.theinternationalschoolspodcast.com/e/88-greg-warren-and-wolfgang-with-dan-and-john-look-at-chatgpt3-in-education/

Digital Citizenship to Digital Fluency

On By Beyond DigitalIn digital grid, digital life, digital literacy, International School IT, SchoolLeave a comment

Pfannenstiel Switzerland

Over the last 18 months, our time spent online has simply increased to levels maybe not experienced prior to the pandemic. As we continue to juggle the complexity and nuisance of the pandemic, this also maybe is an opportunity for schools to re-explore their relationship to digital citizenship. The growing erosion of our privacy as well as our amplified cohabitation with Artificial Intelligence (AI) present us with new challenges. 

We all have become so much more aware of being tracked 24/7 with digital ecosystem grids which are seamless and frictionless parts of our daily routines. In (The Age of Surveillance Capitalism), Shoshana Zuboff describes this process of tracking “behavior surplus. Behavior surplus is the personal data that we leave on our devices and give away daily based on a mutual agreement (user agreements) between the digital companies and us. These agreements (when is the last time you read a user agreement?) give permission for our behaviors online/offline to be tracked, collected, monitored and analyzed by companies and in some cases governments at will. The purpose of “surveillance capitalism”  is to leverage this “behavior surplus” to mitigate the uncertainty of our desires and to better predict what we will do. This is then turned into a profitable commodity. The value of our “behavior surplus” is unprecedented and the raw material of human data is fueling the engines of innovation, economics, politics and power.

Over the past few years, and in some ways accelerated even more in the last 18 months, AI has a growing impact on our lives, more often than we realize. Daily, it seems we develop a growing dependency on this cohabitation with AI: be it our GPS, HomeAssistant, iRobot vacuum cleaner, Health Device, Dating Apps, SmartWatch, or SmartTV.  For our students, this seamless integration of AI into our lives often comes as a frictionless change. Tik Tok is a great example of this – a social media platform with sophisticated AI and unprecedented tracking algorithms, which in a short time added 1 billion users. Overnight, Tik Tok become a teen favorite and serious competition to Snapchat and Instagram.  For many educators, new digital consumables are embraced with hesitancy but somehow often the convenience is enticing enough for us to succumb to the charm of the “smart” and “wifi“ ready products.

I have worked with groups of educators and students to build a series of lessons around ARTE’s Do Not Track  in order to highlight the complexity and intricacies of how we are tracked. The different episodes are thoughtfully constructed with interactive components breaking down the erosion of privacy. I am surprised how often a percentage of students confidently express their indifference with this erosion of privacy and its implications. In some ways this makes sense. If the current privacy landscape is the sole point of reference, the current state of privacy is interpreted as normal. In comparison, educators interacting with ARTE’s Do Not Track respond with far more anxious discomfort as for many this erosion is compared to experiences where individuals felt greater control over their privacy. As we re-explore digital citizenship, we need to take these varying perspectives into consideration.

The fact is that most of our students are highly proficient digital consumers and not digital natives. The same goes for many educators in general. If we think of our own interactions with digital environments, it’s very likely that most of our time is focused on consumption over creation.

We need to consider re-framing how we support educators and students in a school setting away from a sole focus on digital citizenship to a broader focus on digital fluency. This requires us to develop an approach where the focus is on developing purposeful connections to our digital ecosystems with the goal of becoming ethical digital creators of content. 

The concept and idea behind digital fluency is built on the work of the DQ Institute and its DQ Framework and the 8 digital intelligences. Digital fluency is facilitating an approach where learning opportunities are constructed around the natural connections of our day to day lives with these 8 digital intelligences. The important aspect of this focus is not excluding other essential learning in the curriculum. To make this meaningful, digital fluency needs to have clear connection points to personal experience, ensure these connection points are purposeful, and build on the learning already taking place in a school’s curriculum and the different learning pathways of the units of learning.

Grade 6 responses to survey on what 8 digital intelligence they would like to focus on ranking them 1-8

The above graph is one sample of several surveys done with Grade 5- 6 students asking them what areas of the DQ Framework they would like to learn and focus on. Interestingly, there was a clear pattern across several groups for Digital Safety as the highest priority (from the DQ Competencies.)

An important aspect of this is allowing student voice to actively guide the design of these digital fluency connections. They are identifying valuable needs and ensuring this open communication is key to making this shift meaningful to them.

Here are some examples of what digital fluency could look like, and what some schools are already actively creating. One example is giving high school students a LinkedIn account and spending time supporting what it means to have a public profile and how to curate a positive digital footprint compared to a personal social media footprint. Other schools are creating blended courses for parents on how to understand the difference between the pedagogic use of digital devices in schools and the challenges of a more open ended environment of digital device use outside of school in the home. Another example is having students develop public service announcements regarding malware and then coaching younger students on how to identify phishing emails and how to manage an antivirus app. Another is walking through the architecture of effective password creation and developing sustainable strategies to ensure a solid level of security in the students personal lives as a podcast. Or having students coach their parents through the privacy and security settings of their favorite app and create a how-to help screencast.

It is through these activities that participants build on a set of dispositions, skills and knowledge where they feel a sense of autonomy in addressing the complexities, challenges and opportunities of the digital ecosystems we are so intimately connected to. 

The new year, 2022, at our doorstep will be even more intrinsically connected to cohabitation with AI and a continued dilution of the autonomy we have with our privacy. Scaffolding digital fluency as an essential part of the learning pathways provides a guide for students to shift their energies away from being passive digital consumers to active digital creators. Digital fluency provides a mindset to better understand the importance of the ethical responsibilities of digital creation and the implications of the digital ecosystems which permeate our lives, both visible and invisible. Ignoring this will just amplify a society of passive digital consumers, while eroding our free will.

John@beyonddigital.org

Sources-References

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff.” Goodreads, Goodreads, 15 Jan. 2019, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26195941-the-age-of-surveillance-capitalism
Asthana, Anushka, et al. “The Strange World of TikTok: Viral Videos and Chinese Censorship – Podcast.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 7 Oct. 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/audio/2019/oct/07/strange-world-tiktok-viral-videos-chinese-censorship
Written by Yuhyun Park, Founder and Chief Executive Officer. “8 Digital Skills We Must Teach Our Children.” World Economic Forum, www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/06/8-digital-skills-we-must-teach-our-children/.
DQ Framework: “What Is the DQ Framework?” DQ Institute, http://www.dqinstitute.org/dq-framework/.
“Coalition for Digital Intelligence.” Coalition for Digital Intelligence, www.coalitionfordigitalintelligence

A summer reflection: Harnessing Digital Literacy

On By Beyond DigitalIn Balance, change, digital life, digital literacy, Integration, International School IT, leadership, SchoolLeave a comment

With the unprecedented experience of COVID19 that we all have juggled over the last months, and the complexities we all are living with today, our days have been intense. As part of the Pearl of Wisdom protocol of the Principal Training Center, I, as a trainer at the PTC reflected on my own experience as an education leader working and facilitating with digital literacy and fluency in an international school setting and navigating the dynamics of the COVID19 pandemic. A 20 minute share out.

2018

On By Beyond DigitalIn Balance, change, digital life, digital literacy, leadership, PrivacyLeave a comment

Photo John Mikton
Waiting seagulls, Nyon, Vaud, Switzerland.

As the first days of 2018 arrive, any reflections on last year seem to contain an uncomfortable rawness because of the events continuously populating our devices – the immediacy, brutality and complexity of a world fueled by- “FakeNews?”, each one of us trying to construct a context in the “Filter Bubble” choreographed by algorithms from which we build a sense of the world we live in.

As International School educators, we straddle between the walled garden of “school” and the outside “world”.  The reality is that we are surrounded by constant change and ambiguity. But there is a gap between the accelerated rate of change and our capacity to adapt to it. For some, the gap is wide. For others, the gap stays the same, and for a few, the gap is narrowing. How we interpret and engage with the gap and our own capacity to keep up influences many of our feelings and emotions. These in turn fuel the perceptions, opinions and behaviors with which we express ourselves.

International Schools have to juggle the fine line between ensuring students and parents are pleased and ensuring that they feel safe, challenged and cared for. In the unique world of International Schools, a percentage of parents come from a comfortable socio- economic environment. Often times, their education is a contributing factor to their current positions. This education provided the opportunities for their successes and their economic prosperity.  Living with this becomes a strong marker in what International School parents believe their children should get from an education and an International School.  This pedagogic reference point in many cases 25+ years old. The world was a very very different place then. However we try as schools to innovate, change and adapt, we do this with a level of caution and reservation. At the end of the day, the invisible mandate between parents and international schools, is “provide my child with stability, continuity, what I remember from my school days and more certainty then I have in my life today“.

As educators, we fall into a similar narrative. We have a desire for of stability, continuity, and more certainty than in the outside world we interact with. We do innovate and change in our schools, but the presence of the invisible mandate between our parents and schools influences the level by which we break the status quo.

Today the level of stability, continuity, and certainty that we were once used to has eroded. Uncertainty, ambiguity and volatility are an unavoidable part of the day. The complexity of this change permeates into everyone’s lives, and often not by choice.

2018, is an opportunity to embrace the world’s uncertainty, ambiguity and volatility, not as something eroding our past and challenging our present, but as an opportunity to re-frame the possibilities in front of us as a unique and rich learning journey. We have a responsibility to take this on in our roles as mentors, facilitators and educators. We bring a wisdom, resilience and care that has served us well and can continue to serve us today. Many of our students will one day be International School parents or educators who look back at their education as a point of reference for their own success. The measures will be different.  We live in a world where uncertainty, ambiguity and volatility are part of our lives.  We should not depend on reference points from our past to give us stability, continuity and certainty. The gap for many will still get bigger and more uncomfortable. But hopefully, in 2018, we can work to bridge that gap as well.

John @beyonddigital.org

If we forget to look out of the window.

On By Beyond DigitalIn change, digital grid, digital life, digital literacy, information technology, leadership, management, organization, School, Social Networks2 Comments

Photo by John M
A window out

Every year has its moments, and 2016 was no exception. Various significant shifts occurred, including changes in the political landscape in the United States, United Kingdom, and other countries around the globe. And the horrors of war, civil strife, terrorism and an underlying global tension have been constantly fed into our digital lives from the comfort of our screens.

As we consume the aggregated algorithmic social network feeds, each customized to ensure we get what we want to digest, we are choreographed into a more divisive world.

Information is power. This year, the pollsters, news agencies, and pundits got caught out with two big votes, and so many predictions seemed off.

Our landscape of information has entered a level of Orwellian curation, and what is news, fact, or reality seems dictated by emotion and perspectives constructed from our own curated news feeds. They are rarely factual. “Post Truth” – Oxford English Dictionary Names ‘Post-Truth’ Word of the Year by Jon Blistein is the word that defines these moments and a shift to a new narrative.

For many of us, this Orwellian curation has us struggling to distinguish fact from fiction. The level of sophistication of not only the algorithms but how these are manipulated to shift thinking is the new power. In schools, we are being told by various studies that our students capacity for media and information literacy is weak. (Students Have ‘Dismaying’ Inability To Tell Fake News From Real, Study Finds by Camila Domonoske ). When you consider we as adults struggle with this landscape, it is no surprise that our students struggle too.

In a world of algorithms where the sophisticated digital curation of social media, news, blogs, and video feeds can be manipulated to match an individual’s perspective, the challenges we face as educators are immense. This manipulation, shared in this sobering article “ Google, democracy and the truth about internet search by Carole Cadwalladr“, highlights the complexity of being truly media literate.  The prevalence of third party curation in social media feeds during elections highlighted in this article “Macedonia’s fake news industry sets sights on Europe by: Andrew Byrne” emphasis the challenges we all face in understanding what is “real” news.

To be complacent is short-sighted in a school setting.  There is a tendency with school professional development to not explicitly address the digital reality that engulfs our lives as an essential part of our professional learning. Information and Media literacy are what frame our own democratic values: choice, perspective, empathy, resilience, and critical thinking. If we as educators are going to assign students critical thinking tasks and ask them to engage with media and information while juggling screen time in a complex digital landscape, we cannot be passive bystanders.

As school leaders, we need to re-frame our engagement with the role of digital life in professional development. Together, we need to understand the complexity and impact of algorithmic information flows on our devices.

We also need dedicated spaces for this professional learning. We must learn how to mentor information flows, authenticate media, source perspectives, and understand the pedagogic impact of a curated news. We must approach this with patience and empathy, and allow everyone to build an understanding of the digital flows we live by, tapping into the talent of our librarians and digital coaches as guides. We must take advantage of the frameworks available to us (e.g: #1 or #2) and use them ourselves, as a point of reference for a pedagogic consensus on how to mentor our school community.

The paradigm shift asks us to look at Digital Intelligence as a core intelligence. As defined by http://www.projectdq.org: “- the sum of social, emotional, and cognitive abilities essential to digital life.” and shared out in the World Economic Forum  article: “8 digital life skills all children need – and a plan for teaching them“.

Digital Intelligence needs to be woven into the curriculum. We do this on a daily basis with all other aspects of the curriculum. Let us do it with Digital Intelligence. Re-structure the focus and content to explicitly encompass screen-time management, privacy management, cyber security management, digital footprints, and digital identity; use these to make authentic connections based on our experiences. Then, reflect on our digital habits, likes, tensions, questions and understandings to create activities to share. In this process, we should hope to find comfort in being honest with our own vulnerabilities.  We can then use this life-learning to support our students’ understanding of digital intelligence.

Being explicit about implementing Digital Intelligence in faculty professional learning ensures this is an essential part of our educators professional growth.  Working together, as adults learners, we need to harness the complexity of the choreographed digital world. By ensuring this is in our professional learning landscape, we are then empowered to share our digital intelligence to students. It is the only way to counter an Orwellian curation of information in a “post truth” world.

a wonderful resource by Joyce Valenza : Truth, truthiness, triangulation: A news literacy toolkit for a “post-truth” world

John @ beyonddigital.org

Hal, is in the house.

On By Beyond DigitalIn digital life, digital literacy, innovation, International School IT, leadership, organization, Privacy, School, Social Networks2 Comments

Harvest
Fall Harvest Photo jmikton

A colleague of mine and her Kindergartners were busy exploring where an egg comes from. “Was it born like a baby? Does it grow on its own? Where do they come from? Different perspectives and ideas were shared enthusiastically. The children discussed and challenged each other with their theories. At the end of the activity, one child turned to her partner and said, “when I get home, I’ll ask Siri for the answer.” A routine response in our classrooms? Or an important moment to understand that artificial intelligence (AI)  has embedded itself in our day to day lives? For a generation of children who have been raised on iPads and Siri,  AI – with a name and voice like a human – is as ubiquitous as any other technology.

AI is a tool that learns, anticipates and predicts. It provides us with instantaneous information or completes routine tasks remotely. The Amazon Echo and Google Home, two new devices that have recently gained traction, have begun to enter the home as personal assistants. The Echo and Home are two of many voice-activated AI assistants that tap into vast artificial intelligence networks. They aggregate information based on our digital footprints and predict our habits based on a learning algorithm that engages continuously with the data we share on our digital devices.

A shift has occurred in our relationship with AI and the impact is profound. It is the seamless adaptation of AI into our lives – a frictionless experience that is slowly making us dependent on this predictive technology. This new relationship meets our unique taste and needs, and only gets better the more it knows about us. Over time, this is changing the way our brain functions when interacting in the digital world. This short video by AcademicEarth.org -“ Cognitive Offloading,” is a reminder of the neurological changes AI is having on our learning.  We collectively feel more and more comfortable subcontracting out tasks to AI. The term ” let me google this” is an example.

For educators, this shift is showing up in our classrooms informally and in some instances invisibly.  Artificial intelligences are important elements of the devices which exist in our school tool kits. These include mobile devices, apps, browsers, search engines, smartwatches, and more. Writer and professor Jason Ohler asks an important question in his article “Bio-Hacked Students On the Outer Edge of Digital Citizenship”. How should we, as educators, shift the curation of a scholastic experience when students come to the classroom with embedded or wearable artificial intelligences? This alters the value of the commodity of knowledge in the classroom and highlights a potentially new hierarchy where AI supplements a user’s expertise. Suddenly, we have 24/7 access to predictive and anticipatory information which has the potential to disrupt the independent learning experience of a typical classroom. In his article “Artificial intelligence is the next giant leap in education“, Alex Wood reflects on the role AI could play in education.

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source: <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/HAL9000.svg/2000px-HAL9000.svg.png&gt;

Coming to terms with these exponential changes takes time to digest. As educators, we need to understand that engagement and critical thinking are vital components of education, especially as AI shifts the classroom narrative. The ethical issues which surround these exponential changes are here now. The complacency that schools engage with in the discourse of what it means to be in a world dominated by AI is a tension we cannot ignore.

What will a world look like when companies can remotely delete pictures and videos which do not fit a predefined perspective fueled by an AI?  Danny Yadron questions this in his article “Apple gets patent for remotely disabling iPhone cameras.” What will a world look like when you scan a person’s image on the street and instantly receive their aggregated digital profile? In Shawn Walker”s  “Face recognition app taking Russia by storm may bring end to public anonymity  ” he shares the dynamics of the “FindFace” application, reminding us of the reality at our doorstep.

As educators, we have a unique opportunity to design curriculums around the narrative of artificial intelligence. We need to be encouraging our students to not only be good digital citizens but proactive digital leaders who understand the complexity of a world fueled by artificial AI. Schools should promote the skills and inquiry mindsets which provide students with the capacity to harness the power and opportunities of AI and not become complacent with the technology. Ultimately, we want our students to be active leaders and architects of AI’s continued growth. As educators, we have a responsibility to ensure our students have a working understanding of how to navigate a complex and changing world fueled by artificial intelligence for the good of future generations.

John@beyonddigital.org

 

 

 

Living in a “GAFA” world.

On By Beyond DigitalIn change, digital grid, digital life, digital literacy, innovation, International School IT, Privacy, Social Networks1 Comment

Think of what Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon services and products you use daily. How much are they a vehicle for communications, work, social life, purchases and tasks? How often do you connect to them? Count the number. How many? Surprised? Now, out of the 4 companies, how many do you use? Or do you not. The reality is that you probably use at least one, if not all of the four, very frequently.

Lac Leman, Rolle Switzerland -photo J.Mikton

Welcome to the “GAFA” (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon) world. The”GAFA” world is where most of humanity’s internet users and consumers work, communicate, socialize, learn, entertain themselves, and share, in services provided by one, two, three or all four of these companies: the “GAFA” grids.

We have become comfortable with “GAFA’” being part of our lives in multiple venues, and as a result, schools, educators, students and parents are investing significant amounts of monies into “GAFA”. It is an essential component of our ability to function at school and at home, and the collective convenience and seamless experience of “GAFA” intoxicates us.

In Terry Heick’s (@TeachThought) thoughtful article “How Google Impacts The Way Students Think”,  he highlights how learners working in a Google ecosystem develop an appetite for a black and white information age.  The expectation? Immediate answers, 24/7. The convenience of this immediacy creates an illusion of thinking, but actually disengages the user from deep critical thinking. It does this by simplifying the process of gathering information and giving the impression it is all connected.

In order to have a constant infusion of innovation and creativity, “GAFA” also hungers for start-up companies. By absorbing these companies, they are able to facilitate the pollination of ideas, products and services and enrich their ability to generate more seamless methods of connectivity. In this way “GAFA’s” largeness and versatility is engrained in all aspects of our lives

This innovation also provides “GAFA” with opportunities to tie our lives closer together with multiple platforms and venues in a frictionless environment. Examples of this reach are Amazon’s cloud service, which hosts large architectures of company websites, services, and databases, including the CIA’s; Google moving into the home with Nest and pursuing the development of artificial intelligence (Dark Blue Labs and Vision Factory); Apple’s acquisition of Affectiva, a company that specializes in emotion recognition, and investments in health apps and services; and Facebook’s expansion into virtual reality.  Making its services ubiquitous, as with the “free wi-fi-with-check-in ”in hotels and small businesses. Its purchase of “Whatsapp” is another example of how a “GAFA” company spent billions on an innovative service.

The algorithms provide a treasure trove of information with which to understand our behavior, habits, aspirations and desires.  In Raffi Khatchadourian’s  article “We Know How You Feel”, we are reminded that the hunger for data is tied to a hunger for emotional interactions. In Shelley Podolyn’s New York Times article, “If an Algorithm Wrote This, How Would You Even Know?”,  she highlights the level of sophistication of writing algorithms generating news articles and books. In tandem, the growth of “The Internet of Eyes“ in objects we interact with, as part of the “ Internet of Things.” brings about a new dynamic to data mining. It is a reminder that many of these algorithms being designed within “GAFA” play an almost non-negotiable role in our lives.

Many schools believe that their curriculum’s should allow for authentic connections to the world around them. What about “GAFA”?  Should we as learners, guides, mentors, and facilitators highlight “GAFA”? Is this important? Should its presence be considered in our learning outcomes?  To ignore “GAFA” is to create a disconnect with present changes that are reshaping all of our lives. It sidelines a reality that is the future. What does “GAFA” mean, to us, our schools, community and educational institutions? Schools have a responsibility to ensure this is part of the curricular discourse.  We need to construct learning moments and scaffold time to pause, reflect, understand, explain and critically think about what it is to live in a “GAFA” world.

If personal privacy, independent thought, critical thinking, differentiation, balanced perspectives, mindfulness and our capacity to be unique are in our school’s mission, we need to address what it means to be curated by “GAFA”.  Will we not lose an important aspect of humanity, if we continue to ignore “GAFA”?

John@beyonddigital

P.S: Next time you are at a Starbucks drinking your coffee remember that the free wifi is a “GAFA” gift!