All posts by Tanya Lau

Behind “Something is Rotten in the State of…Twitter”

Twitter, , ,

By Bonnie Stewart, Prince Edward Island, Canada

This post emerged from a conversation between Bonnie Stewart (@bonstewart) and EdConteXts facilitator, Maha Bali (@Bali_Maha) following Bonnie’s post “Something is Rotten in the State of…Twitter.” It is an explanation of the thinking – and context – behind that post.

My house is currently infested with fruit flies. I have hidden all the fruit in the refrigerator, but still they come. They are last gasp of summer where I live, the swarm that makes it possible to look ahead to six months of winter as almost a reprieve. They make me think about rot, and what it feeds.

I ended up thinking mostly about Twitter.

I’ve been on Twitter seven years now. Initially, it was a space for real-time banter and discussion within my blogging network: when I started out online, my life was far removed from academia. As my identity has shifted back towards education and career, my Twitter circles have expanded to reflect each new facet: fellow Ph.D students, educators, researchers interested in the socio-cultural implications of technologies, people with something to say about identity in the 21st century. But the bloggers and mombloggers remain, and the para-academics who first walked with me through thinking about what it means to be online, together, in networked environments. Continue reading Behind “Something is Rotten in the State of…Twitter” →

EdConteXts finds 5: on social justice, edtech, & open learning

Contexts Matter, EdConteXts

by EdContexts Facilitators

Here are our CLMOOC inspired “#f5f” (“Find 5 Friday”) “picks” for August – thought-provoking posts we’ve come across during the month that have shown sensitivity to context in education.  Themes of social justice, edtech, and learning in open spaces are covered in our finds this month.

Cody Charles (educator) _@CodyKeith_

We first noticed Cody Charles’ post “WTF? 10 Counterproductive Behaviors of Social Justice Educators”  in late July when it was published on the  “Teaching Social Justice” blog, which we featured last time in our #f5f. This is an insightful post that points out 10 habits or behaviours that can be easy for social justice educators to fall into, but which tend to hinder rather than help our cause. Many of us at EdContexts thought it raised such important points that it’s something we’ll likely be posting above our desks as a reference to inform our daily practice. Continue reading EdConteXts finds 5: on social justice, edtech, & open learning →

Education in Context: A Few More Good Picks

Contexts Matter, EdConteXts, MOOCs

by EdContexts Facilitators

In response to the often grandiose and paradoxical claims made by MOOC providers and professors, educators around the world have brought up critical issues about education across borders. An issue that has become more pronounced in the discourse of cross-border higher education is that MOOCs are making education more “democratic” while in fact they are further re-centralizing it and eschewing collaboration among educators across nations and contexts. Indeed, a lot of the educators who decided to enter cross-border higher education from the fancy door of xMOOCs often show striking lack of knowledge, experience, or even interest about the implications of teaching/learning crossing borders. Many professors, usually in the Western world, show up in the new landscape without having thought about complexities of cross-contextual pedagogy, diversity and cultural difference, and the many vagaries of contexts on a global scale.

However, the discourse about MOOCs and cross-border higher education, including in the mainstream media, we’ve come across a lot of conversations that add nuance to the issue of context in education. Continue reading Education in Context: A Few More Good Picks →