Presentation to OER 19

1. Trouble with critical:
open education and critical digital literacies -
an open space for exploration
Helen Beetham
OER19, Galway, April 2019
@helenbeetham
digitalthinking.org.uk

2. 1. Opening the space
2. Open questions for you (15 mins)
3. Short contribution from me (5 mins)
4. Further developing themes
blog post: tinyurl.com/oer19digital
padlet: tinyurl.com/oer19critical
gdoc (for later): tinyurl.com/oer19themes
‘Writing is a technology that restructures thought’
Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy (1962)
Our session

3. ‘Multiple, critical techno-literacies’
(Kahn and Kellner 2005)
Critical computer literacy involves learning
how to use computer technologies to do research and
gather information,to perceive computer culture as a contested
terrain… as well as to interrogate the political economy,cultural bias and
environmental effects of computer-related technologies.
Critical media literacy not only teaches students to learn from media,to
resist media manipulation and to use media materials in constructive
ways,it is also concerned with developing skills that will help
create good citizens and make them more motivated and
competent participants in social life.

4. A. Open education demands ‘critically’ resourceful
learners
1. Does not foreclose questions of pathway, interface, time and
timing: How best shall I learn this?
2. May not foreclose questions of platform, tool, content, mode of
engagement, activity/production, outcome, community…
What should I learn? What does (this) learning mean to me? Who
am I as a learner?
3. Learners must be critical users/navigators of their own learning
4. They may need to be critical subjects in the domain of
knowledge/learning

5. B. Open education entails critical educators and
pedagogies
1. A pedagogical practice that develops critical subjects must
challenge power / privilege in the pedagogic relationship
2. As a matter of historical and political contingency:
‣ Digital open education movement met an intensification of
neoliberalism and marketisation
‣ Conflict within open ed between creating new market models and
developing a new, public, democratic knowledge commons
‣ Market models have largely won out and/or open education has lost
out in real, existing universities
‣ Open education is the ideal of the university as knowledge commons,
in critical revolt against really existing universities…?

6. tinyurl.com/oer19critical

7. Open questions
1. How do we know that learners are developing as critical subjects?
‣ What examples are there? How do we avoid ‘critical’ being
simply a badge of ‘the kind of learning we approve of’?
2. Do digital technologies and networks provide new opportunities
for learners to develop critical tools and stances?
‣ Materially what are they?
‣ Historically, contingently, what are they?
3. Are there new risks to criticality?
‣ What are they, specifically and without moral panic?

8. Open questions
1. How do we know that learners are developing as critical subjects?
‣ What examples are there? How do we avoid ‘critical’ being
simply a badge of ‘the kind of learning we approve of’?
2. Do digital technologies and networks provide new opportunities
for learners to develop critical tools and stances?
‣ Materially what are they?
‣ Historically, contingently, what are they?
3. Are there new risks to criticality?
‣ What are they, specifically and without moral panic?

9. Open questions
1. How do we know that learners are developing as critical subjects?
‣ What examples are there? How do we avoid ‘critical’ being
simply a badge of ‘the kind of learning we approve of’?
2. Do digital technologies and networks provide new opportunities
for learners to develop critical tools and stances?
‣ Materially what are they?
‣ Historically, contingently, what are they?
3. Are there new risks to criticality?
‣ What are they, specifically and without moral panic?

10. Critical/digital: the stakes
Texture of our personal lives
Surveillance society
Threats to democracy
Data as value

11. Automation and globalisation of cognitive labour
Precarity of employment
Concentration of value in digital platforms
Rising inequality
Hollowing out of the
middle class
Critical/digital: the stakes

12. Critical digital: a global agenda
‣ A human right (EU, UNESCO ‘5 laws’)
‣ An aspect of citizenship and civic participation (Council of Europe, schools
programmes)
‣ A requirement for economic participation (national digital strategies)
‣ An international measure of educational outcomes
(OECD’s PSTRE measure)
‣ A marketplace (MS, lynda.com,
google, Adobe, Mozilla…)
‣ … a plethora of frameworks
Social Europe
The European
Digital Competence
Framework
for Citizens

13. Critical digital: a global measure?
‣ An international measure of educational outcomes
OECD survey of adult skills (PIAAC 2017): % of adults scoring 2 or 3 on the ‘problem
solving in a technology rich environment’ measure (Australia and NZ highlighted)
0%
16%
33%
49%
65%
N
ew
Zealand
Sw
eden
Finland
N
etherlands
N
orw
ay
D
enm
ark
Australia
C
anada
G
erm
any
England
(U
K)
Japan
Flanders
(Belgium
)
C
zech
R
epublic
Austria
U
nited
States
Korea
N
orthern
Ireland
(U
K)
Estonia
Israel
Slovak
R
epublic
Slovenia
Ireland
Poland
Lithuania
C
hile
G
reece
Turkey
older (55-65) young (16-25) all (16-65)

14. Beetham and Sharpe 2009
Digital literacy development
How do learners develop critical resources?
access
situated
practices
functional
skills
identity (self-
actualisation)

15. How do learners develop critical resources?
Extensive, open-ended tasks
Developing repertoire & persona
Intensive, scaffolded tasks
Building component skills
access
situated
practices
functional
skills
identity (self-
actualisation)

16. Varieties of (digital) critique?
Davies and Barnett (2015)
Approaches to critical thinking in HE
And other sources
sound reason
personal resources for
thinking and argument
stance
critical judgements or
(dis)positions
critique drawing on and
contributing to socio-
cultural resources
critical action (being)
solidarity, co-creation

17. Varieties of (digital) critique?
Pangrazio (2016) and other sources
user
(experience, response)
practitioner
(technique, design:
immanent critique)
critic
(disposition, theory:
espoused critique)
citizen (ethics, collective
action, solidarity)

18. Varieties of (digital) critique?
Pangrazio (2016) and other sources
user
(experience, response)
practitioner
(technique, design:
immanent critique)
critic
(disposition, theory:
espoused critique)
citizen (ethics, collective
action, solidarity)
curator
‘critical design’
practitioner

19. Varieties of (digital) critique
How can I produce this
for myself?
How can I situate myself/
realise my purposes?
How do I use it?
What can I do? (legitimate
practice, codified technique)
How am I being
situated/realised?
Whose knowledge?
Who has power?
How could things be
different?
Who can I act with?

20. Modes of (digital) critique
Media studies, information literacy
(Buckingham, Avila & Pandy)
Students as co-creators (UX/CX approaches)
New media studies (Kress),
Coding as critique (Rushkoff, Gauntlet)
CSCW and other forms of connected practice
Critical pedagogy (Freire, bell hooks,
hybrid pedagogy lab)
Critical digital democracy (Area &
Pessoa, Kellner)
Students as (social) producers
(Neary&Hall)
Critical theory (Giroux, Fuchs et al)
Digital sociology (Selwyn, Facer)
students as digital
consumers and users
students as digital
citizens and activists
students as creative
digital practitioners
students as critical
theorists of the digital

21. Expansive thinking
Engstrom’s activity theory
Activity focus
Activity system focus
Intersecting activity systems

22. student co-creation
(research/learning)
critical pedagogies
student
choice and
voice
open or public
pedagogies
Supporting pedagogies…
critical theory/critique as
taught method

23. 1. Opening the space
2. Open questions for you (15 mins)
3. Short contribution from me (5 mins)
4. Further developing themes (please!)
blog post: tinyurl.com/oer19digital
padlet: tinyurl.com/oer19critical
gdoc (for later): tinyurl.com/oer19themes
‘Writing is a technology that restructures thought’
Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy (1962)
Our session

24. Who can we learn from/with?
Three issues form the context of my thinking about Black
feminist pedagogy: the clarification of the source and use of power
within the classroom,the development of a methodology for teaching
writing skills,and the need for instructors to struggle alongside their
students for a better university.
Barbara Omolade (1987,Women’s Studies Quarterly Special
issue on Feminist Pedagogies)

25. Who can we learn from/with?
Optimism is a discipline,not an emotion.
We need to find forms of solidarity in this (open) community that are
more effective than those we have.
When we teach openly, we are doing the work of care - but open educators may
find their work of care being exploited (in an uncaring system).We must not
leave the work of fixing the system to the most vulnerable in it.
Kate Bowles, paraphrased,OER19 (this morning)

26. ‣ ‘Insights’ survey developed over three years,
validated by MVA, funded by Jisc
‣ 2018 ANZ survey had 21,095 responses from 12
universities: 10 in Australia, 2 in New Zealand
‣ 23 core (common) questions under 4 themes
-You and your digital tech
-Digital at your university
-Digital on your course
-Your attitudes to digital
‣ UK survey of 43 universities used as a
comparison group (37k responses)
bit.ly/2I63j8f
How do learners develop critical resources?

27. How do (some) learners develop critical resources?
Mode response on use of personal data: ‘neutral’
Free text comments concerning personal data: around 0.1%

28. How do (some) learners develop critical resources?

29. More evolved critique: ‘Don’t put everything online’
‣ Loss of human presence
“I find lectures in person much more engaging/easy to follow”
‣ Teaching quality
“More face-to-face classes and less dumping information on the LMS.”; “Don’t let
our lecturers use the phrase ‘blended learning’ as an excuse to leave the room.”
‣ ‘Blended is best’
“You need both digital and face-to-face for the best university experience.”;
‣ Value for money
“We are paying for interactive classes and teachers to talk to.... online classes are
a waste of our money.”
‣ Participation and equity
“some students (such as myself) can’t afford the devices”;“I have witnessed
decreased student participation due to over-reliance on digital tech.”

30. Reflections and contributions