 Let me welcome everybody. Let me welcome you to the Future Trends Forum. My name is Brian Alexander. I'm the Forum's creator I'm the host. I'm your chief cat herder and your guide to the next hour of conversation as we Collaboratively explore the future of higher education I think pretty much everybody in the world for the past four and a half five years has been very concerned with problems of disinformation Disinformation bad news fake news and hoaxes and over the course of the pandemic These have become even more and more important and more urgent the World Health Organization has referred to an infodemic that describe a flood of bad information and bad quality connections So this has been a subject of a great deal of concern within academia Especially as we are devoted to truth to both exploring it than teaching it This is a recent book media technology and education of post-truth society That was it's an anthology looking at this topic from multiple angles Today, we're very fortunate to have not just two of the authors, but also its editor So I just want to point out we're gonna bring up on stage one by one. Dr. Emma pulse for Natalie Smolenski and Dr. Alex Greck But let me just get this slide out of the way and let me bring them up one by one So you can see each of them and then we'll start our great conversation So let's see about who we can find There is Natalie Let's see if we can get her up on stage Welcome Natalie. Hello, Brian. It's really good to see you. Welcome to the program. Yes. I'm so excited to be here Thank you. Oh great first question ask is where are you today? I'm in Dallas, Texas Is it a little cooler now or is it still blazing? It is blazing hot. I had dinner outside last night At a restaurant in light of you know, covid precautions and I was just like sweating bullets like my clothes were drenched I'm glad you're inside in the air conditioning right now. Yeah, me too Well, Natalie the way we introduce people here on the program besides saying you're wonderful, which obviously you are Is to ask you what you're going to be working on for the next year What's ahead for you? What are the big projects and what are the big ideas that are uppermost on your agenda? I love that question um, so i'm currently working on a book uh with my partner on protocol revolutions and the future of political economy, so You may know that um, I have background in the blockchain space. Um, I've been following it very closely particularly in its bitcoin incarnation and i'm very very keen on the implications that has for seeding something called digital self sovereignty meaning shifting the balance of power away from centralized brokers of information and data To the end users So that obviously has economic implications. It has political implications It has geopolitical implications in terms of relationships between nation states Um, so i'm gonna be exploring that in this book Fantastic. Oh, I'm really looking forward to seeing that and I think most of our guests would most of our audience would be as well Good luck. Excellent. Thank you. Well, Natalie hang on right there for a second Let me bring up some of your fellow, uh authors and um, some of your fellow your fellow editor effect So So you're from texas right now now. We get to bring him and uh pulse fort who is coming to us from cyprus Hi Brian. Hi Natalie Hello, i'm a very good to see you So, yeah cyprus today normally bath, which is less sunny, but natalie I can definitely empathize with the heat So, um, thank you for scheduling when it's uh evening when it's just a bit cruel Well, thank you for being able to make it in your schedule. I'm glad to see you um Emma one Let me just ask you a second question I put to natalie which is looking ahead to the next year. What are you going to be working on? What are the big projects and the big ideas for upper most divide? Well, the first thing I was going to say is wait for natalie's book and and read that avidly Um, it sounds fascinating. So really I suppose the next academic year is about building out some of the Covid era projects. I've been really fortunate to work on partly with alex and other organizations at the intersection of education and technology So one project being building out the digital literacy lab educators that I developed and co-delivered with alex's foundation in malta and the commonwealth of learning over in vancouver So we've done two iterations of that and we've got a follow-on program Which is looking to really bridge the gap between what we are understanding out of the learning sciences And education technology as well to really broaden out what we mean by digital literacy And those are educator-facing programs And alongside that working with some student-facing learning literally digital literacy programs and also other instructional design Um projects that are looking at again that theme of bridging the gap between University and post-university life world of work immersive employability projects one in the southwest Linking up the narratives of the climate crisis with potentially the engineering department over at the university of cambridge um, otherwise by night Producing classical music recordings, but that's for a different night different topic Whoa, how many emma palms forts are there? You're a one woman army Well a few hats. I just changed them There we go A lot of hats a lot of work emma that sounds fantastic And I would love to nerd out with you about classical music production afterwards um But also if you if you can if you want to throw into the chat a link to the uh some of the col projects I'm sure people would love that Yeah, perfect. Yeah, definitely So excited for you to be here And now let's complete the trike. Let's bring up on stage the uh books editor and it's cad herder Alex greck coming to you not too far from cypress from the wonderful island of malta. Hello, alex Hi, brian. Yes. I mean it's hot here too, but it's completely dark. It's a bit spooky actually outside my window, but um Yeah, here we are malta cypress does wherever you are these days Um All connected. Um, so thank you. Thank you for uh, you know, bring your guests here. I guess, um What shall we talk about brian? Well, the first thing I want to ask you about is what are you going to be working on for the next year? Oh, gosh, um I'm teaching uh, I I teach new media the university of malta. I teach I guess new media and digital literacy. So I've got about Three classes and I Actually, I'm meant to be teaching at the doctorate school as well. Um, I feel a bit of a misfit sometimes in the academic world because as you know, I I kind of crashed into academia late in my life after having done a phd for fun So it's it's always that kind of relationship. I have with With higher education, which is why I'm kind of intrigued. That's the whole idea of you wanting to crash post truths and uh And higher education. Um, I also run the the 3cl foundation, which is a tiny foundation. We we set up here in 2016 2017 um using the I guess the beauty of small states as island labs really where you can try out crazy things whether it's pedagogies, whether it's You know using blockchain for I guess education credentials, whether it's, um It this is an easy place to try and get people to together to get a pre-covid to for for a congress for a conference for a You know, and I guess the exception of Emma. I guess I people match to drag you here Brian a couple of times It's great every time But I guess my my focus at the moment is is steering some new projects for the 3cl teaching I'm running some Seminars, I guess for the Asia Europe foundation on AI I guess my my work these days because it tells you how old I am It's like it's whole thing, but you know, and you remember the old knocky thing by connecting people I mean, I'm I'm involved in a lot of networks. I guess, you know, yes real virtual. So I guess Um, I'm pretty determined to leave around this whole ed tech thing now post cobit And see where it's going to take us and then there's the book I guess which is which was fun and it's a byproduct. I guess one of those things within the past Yes, how the book came about Well, you are definitely a master networker and a master connector and that's one of the one of the ways that this book came about Friends, uh, the feature transform is devoted to the questions and comments that everybody in the audience has and To lead off we already have one And then we bring up the questioner on stage. This is Steve Covello coming to you from New Hampshire in the united states Hello, Steve. Hey, hey, uh, first I'd like to say thank you for making your first chapter Your preview chapter available like your timing couldn't possibly have been better I just had a course passed through a curriculum committee called synthetic media and the corrosion of reality And I think the subject matter that you are describing in the essays there. I think are Certainly supportive of that topic Uh, my question to you is this in Dana Boyd's 2018 south by southwest edu keynote address She stated in so many words that scapuling skills in media literacy alone Will not cure us as a society of our vulnerabilities to misinformation Rather, it is the worst actors who are the best at employing their literacy Towards anti-social and anti-intellectual ends So my question to you is do you see this as a political problem? An education problem a corporate strategy problem or a public health problem? What a great question, Steve, please who wants to take a right at that? I mean, if you want me to repeat it, it's kind of Can I can I can I dive in for a sec because maybe it's it's it's really about context And it's not because I'm I'm here to fiddle the book because I'm not but I I'll take you back to where I was they've been 2018, you know, I I kind of Interest I just I interface between the media technology and education world and I I think I had got to a space maybe because of Trump or other things that I I I couldn't figure out whether These things we call media technology and educational forces for good or making life worse and that was my first point of departure for What do we do about it? The second thing I had done was because I don't think there's a straight answer to your question is is to Try and get as many different types of people In the same space literally lock them up almost for like two days and see where it comes out So I had anything from philosophers to prosecutors to people who built technologies people who hate technology artists and And I guess the vague thing was this tension of clearly the with the digital literacy people And the other thing I wanted to do was was you you got all of these talking heads I guess was also to get young people Who I think are more knowledgeable about this so towards the end of This two-day conference We actually got in about 40 young people aged between 16 and 18 and said now you've had all this stuff Was all this bullshit or does it resonate? um, so my my first answer is I think It's it's complicated. I I think I I this thing that I fell in love with called the internet Years ago, I mean I got to know brian because through harvard reingold because we're both hippies I guess and we all thought in the old days that You know being able to say anything you wanted wherever you wanted was was really great And now here we are 15 years ago. There are things that people recorded me saying 10 years ago Now i'm embarrassed about what I said in the age of You know platforms And the rest of it. So that's my first spiel back. It's not an answer. It's like it's complicated Ladies That's me. Yeah, I'm happy to take up mental. I've been busy scribbling away Go ahead and I and I'll I'll follow up super Steve thanks so much for the question and and alex for Warming us up and into it. I think if I may sort of pick up on the media literacy the sort of terminology And that's something very much. I think all of our contributions sort of circle round is this challenge of taxonomies and if I may Without Contradicting what alex was saying about the you know, the thorniness of the question and the topic at hand Is that the you know, if we talk about media literacy suddenly that can put off a whole load of stakeholders So very much. There's something that I've been thinking about for a while is what is it? What is the real problem here? Is it a definition and presentation problem? Which then will feed into reengaging Stakeholders at a time and by stakeholders to clarify what I mean by there is, you know Yes, grassroots activism is is is needed But also that top down or that government engagement and Commitments to really embed this I mean, I don't want to use the word skill because then we come into what do we mean by skill and knowledge and and our whole other contentious debate, but This, you know fundamental 21st century practical ability which is to discern information and work your way through it And in terms of the the chronology who may pick up on what alex was sort of outlining in terms of how the The decades have come by Maybe this is the time to recapture that optimism when the web first started developing And recognize that it is a very new form of technology if we think The Gutenberg press came out, you know 15th century and it took centuries before people really understood how to harness that technology of disseminating information Um, so here to sort of add in a dose of optimism as as far as I can That's we're all sort of continuing to face all these challenges Is this you know out of this forum the book and elsewhere? our opportunity really to Come back to what tim berners lee is launching it and advocating now Is you know thinking about how we define and present how we engage and how Based what words we use ultimately to talk about this very important area of Ability skill knowledge, whatever we want to call it Thank you. Emma and natalie. Do you want to add to that? Sure. Yeah no, I mean One of the predictable and reliable effects of democratizing information technologies is The is that it it predictably and reliably Creates the conditions for amplification anywhere and everywhere And amplification is a form of power So this this can be wielded, you know towards What what we might value as good ends? Toa say the arab spring Or you know more negative ends like Like isis using, you know social media to to source recruits from all over the world That's that's unfortunately and fortunately The predictable consequence there. There's no way to kind of top down manage The effects of democratization. There's a fantastic historical study of the impact of the Gutenberg press on religious movements in in england called burning to read And it described how the democratization of literacy Resulted in this upsurge of religious fundamentalist movements That were often quite violent and intolerant of others And and so there is a I would I would venture that any time a new Power is introduced en masse. They're going to be massively unpredictable social effects And the response many have to that is well, let's go back to the way things were where That power was not available at scale There were central authorities who maybe you know, we didn't particularly trust but at least they kind of kept stability and harmony And this is what we're seeing, you know happen at On a top down level now in china where the government is saying, you know, our top priority is stability We do not want The kind of wild market fluctuations that we see in the united states the unpredictable political atmosphere We want to ensure continuity because we have a central centrally directed five-year plan that we are working toward as a nation That is very much antithetical to Let's say the american approach, which Definitely has a more More bottom-up emphasis on generating truth through the violent contestation bottom up So it's bound to make us uncomfortable, but it also Has I think raised some really important questions. I mean, we have people in younger generations Digital natives absolutely who are openly asking the question like is fascism a good idea? Like is is that is communism a valid way of organizing political economy? and They haven't had the same The same history or inheritances of the 20th century ideological contests And so they don't have a lot of preconceived notions about what is self evidently good or bad And that has kind of forced people Who maybe are carrying forward the kind of late 20th century liberal consensus to to Answer questions that they're not used to answering like things that we thought was just settled knowledge and we had all agreed on Um, these are now being contested And so I would say that it's challenging us all Um to be better to be better thinkers to be better leaders um You know any laps and character integrity by someone in a position of power Can and will immediately be weaponized against them through the amplification of social media So it's holding everyone to account in ways that Are new but I suspect ultimately very generative There's so many great ideas here in all three of you. Um, and and first of all, thank you sti for the fantastic question Um, uh, and if you're new to the forum, um, the kind of question that steve asked is the kind of questions that people ask And you can just join him on stage just by asking a question just by pressing the raise hand button Happy to beam you up and the richness, uh, the diversity of responses We just got from alex from emma natalie. I'll also show you how awesome the book is except for my chapter My chapter is very different. You'll read that if you like, um This was covered so much ground a couple of things came up in the chat. I just wanted to hoist up Um, uh, we had one person who said uh, too bad. We couldn't figure out how to uh, get everybody some critical thinking before we Unleash social media And then uh, rea anderson offers the sage advice Of course, whether you view social media events as positive or negative Certainly depends on the point of view you are looking through, which is quite quite true Um friends, if you'd like to ask other questions, uh, again the forum stands open for you and for your questions Uh, and there's one that just came from annie epperson And I want to flash that on the screen so everyone can see it give you all a chance to answer it And i'll read it out loud so you can all hear it Uh, annie asks i'd be interested in hearing what emma and or natalie would say when american president biden's proposed infrastructure investment i.e. does it open the door to greater government oversight of the internet? Great question annie Yeah, um, actually so i'm chair of the board of the texas blockchain council, which is a trade association that advocates for the blockchain industry in texas and and the united states um, there was a provision inserted into the infrastructure bill sort of at the last minute To propose a level of oversight of the cryptocurrency industry that would literally have been impossible to comply with um under the auspices ostensibly of taxing the cryptocurrency industry as a pay for um for the infrastructure bill um, however the the people who wrote this amendment or this provision Did did not very on very well understand this industry And so they basically created a new set of reporting requirements that would have required a kind of surveillance not not just by the state but by anyone um using cryptocurrencies So like if you were to send bitcoin to someone you would have to Fill out a 1099 form for that person so that they would then you know report So so people who weren't brokers were basically being treated like brokers everyone from miners to holders of cryptocurrency um This kind of casual Oversight happens all the time in government. Um, it's you know, elected politicians are not subject matter experts in in the fields that they legislate you know, um ostensibly there, you know lobbying groups are there to educate politicians, but then that often results in regulatory capture Um, so there isn't a very clean or easy solution to the problem of governance um, the the state has um in all contexts exhibited a tendency toward uh greater and greater surveillance um, basically whatever surveillance tools are available to them they will use And this is why a whole generation now of young software engineers is basically saying well We cannot reform the system politically. We have to the only way to return any Freedom to to users of digital technologies Is to simply build alternative architectures that get such widespread adoption So as to not be killable or co-optable by by any nation state or coalition of nation states so What a passion that in great answer uh to the fantastic question um Natalie you were addressed and emma you were also invoked. How would you respond? How would you add? your thoughts Thank you this this plays very nicely Into what I was talking about or do talk about in my chapter of playing around with this idea of where does the responsibility lie? for overcoming the huge information challenges is its regulation Is it content moderation? Is it education and this question of regulation? I was just going back to How do we define it? And I took from some legal scholars this definition that it is the intentional use of authority to affect behavior Of a different party according to set standards Now the problem we have and I think we've already been circling around this and also in the chat Is that we're always playing catch-up? so the I'd love to um, I'm sure we could spar for hours on this on the at the comment from one One person in the audience who's saying, you know too bad. We didn't have critical media skills before we had social media But is it that actually we need slightly different? We need to sort of upskill the critical thinking literacy skills because of the New contexts and new ways of communicating that social media is brought with us so this I mean I suppose broad brushstrokes after Natalie's um very sort of um precise A response to the question. I think this is a really interesting case study of A government coming in trying to do that catch-up and it's always it's a struggle with The pace of technology and how it how quickly it develops and we've got you know, there's many of uh, I suppose an an anecdote from the u.s select committees Bringing forwards, you know zuckerberg whoever it might be and asking some questions That's those in the tech world would think are Let's say a little naive so it's um Would be a very interesting. I suppose a case study shall we say to see develop? I'm just delighted that we have such very very different perspectives. Um, and uh, that's Those give us two very very different ways into this really really solid question Um, so annie. Thank you. Thank you very much for this Also, I like the way Natalie and emma that you circled back to steve's initial question to a degree only What kind of problem is this? Who does it belong to? Is it a governmental program? Problem as good as this problem is an academic problem um We have a we have a question that came in that follows this up by someone who is just barely able to get in But I don't think his camera will let him handle what she needs right now. This is from Paul wall Sean, just believe me some love Academic freedom is seen as an evil these days leaving good kids astray exposing young minds to devilish the deviant How do you see the mindset impacting here in? Well, authoritarian Use this as leverage to silence the intelligence here Who knows to grapple with that No, I might because um I have tenure in an academic institution And the word tenure is normally what the term is Whether people feel that they can say what they want to say whether they can be kicked out and that seems to be The norm In most countries or at least in in this part of the world, I think um I tend to be more interested at the moment in what What is going to be the future of? academia In terms of misinformation specifically in terms of how we're grappling with information pre-covid post-covid and and and and also grappling with really practical things I'll give an example. I'm supposed to be teaching in three weeks time and Dealing with issues like you know, do you go into a class? And is everybody safe and is everybody supposed to be socially distanced? I refuse to go and teach with a mask for instance and have other people um With a mask on their face because I just thought That's not the way you do teaching. It's better to do it this way in a way. You'd be amazed how many people Are still harking back exactly and pretending that you know, we're going to go back to that kind of thing. So Dovetailing back to what can you do or what can't you do? With an academia, I think there's a lot of tension Going on right now. You know, what is this artifact called? Especially the higher education institution because I think that's what you know, you want us wanted us to talk about as well Brian, um, I'm involved in uh in one of these european projects, which is trying to look at the impact of emerging technologies like blockchain and ai on the future of education And and so we set off you know looking at all of this stuff and then covid happened happened immediately And what we found out is that you have people who didn't know how to use zoom or you know And we didn't pivot into some sort of teaching we pivot into emergency teaching for instance Now grappling with this idea of misinformation what to do what not to do with it the chaos doesn't seem to have been Has it doesn't seem to have got any better? I think we you know where here we are in September 2021. It's it's all very uncertain from can I teach can't I teach is it safe to teach? What should I teach? How do I teach online? Is this performance? Do I ask my students to switch on their cameras and and people saying and you have a dictat from the university for instance saying Um, it's it's a curtsy to your lectures to switch on your cameras and people saying I live in a I live with my two siblings and they're jumping out in the background I don't want to share my space for instance. There's all sorts of new norms which are coming in and whatever or at the same time I'm still saying, you know, I've had somebody switching on her Phone and I think she was in the supermarket But you know and I'm listening to my lecture. Is that a good or bad? Maybe it's good at least she's listening So all sorts of new norms real practical norms that educators I think are trying to grapple with It's my five cents bit Well, it's a lot to grapple with and thank you for Sharing your story including having tenure and that powerful shield Yeah, Emma or Natalie. Did you want to add your other perspectives? Natalie to go ahead If you'd like to could you read that question again, Brian? Sure. Sure. Now this had to do with the question The way that authoritarians can weaponize social media against the intelligentsia so Paul asks Academic freedom is seen as an evil these days Leading good kids astray exposing young minds to deviant thought How do you see a gap mindset impacting higher ed and will authoritarian elements uses leveraged to silence the intelligentsia? Yeah, well first I would say from the perspective of people making that critique of academia They almost always make that critique in the name of academic freedom Not authoritarianism. In fact, they they contend that academia currently is an authoritarian Institution that manufacturers consent and compliance with a particular ideological worldview So it's really important that we characterize the arguments of people we may disagree with In ways that you know that they would actually Ascent to The other, you know comment I would make is that the intelligentsia or public intellectuals Have just as often And and always been tools of authoritarian regimes As much as they have been critics of it, you know, one need only to think of, you know, heidegger's Desire to be the the geistig leader of nazi germany On the university front But you know, this is true under virtually every ideological political arrangement And so, you know, what I would propose is that there is no direct correlation between intelligence scholarship Or education and political orientation Over the long run The challenge for us as educators Is to actually make make truth The ultimate source and an object of our inquiry And generally whenever you do that Whatever political arrangement you happen to find yourself in You will run afoul of the The structures that demand that education be used as a tool for manufacturing consent Whatever their ideological orientations. And so the scholar who is able to In inhabit Over the long run that position of of truly making power Uncomfortable but not simply for a kind of base contrarianism but but out of a genuine Seeking of truth. I mean that is that is an ideal and a rare one that we can strive for Thank you for that. That's a great that's a great conclusion for that Emma, did you want to add more or should we keep going? Yeah, a few thoughts if I may to Add on So it's just a really again Going back to the themes that and that both Alex and I highlighted Especially this idea of power and amplification um I think what comes Forward for me in this question is this idea of authority and understanding The power and the impact of words. So if academic freedom is just What could they do? Feel as an opinion in whichever space you choose Then I think that's only just a part of the That comes if you have an understanding of the impact of the use of that language in that particular arena And to give us a precise example of this something I talked about in the digital literacy lab uh educators program that I developed with Alex with this idea of empathetic consumption this idea As soon as you put words out into the ether in whatever form that might be You have to have a an understanding before you hit publish of the impacts those words can have whether that's on Someone making a voting choice and one opting for a vaccine or a cure or a Treatment any ailment it might be And I think coming back to the context of higher education one of the Elements that really Scares me to be honest is that it is not standard across a lot of degree programs To take what is normally seen as the reside of the humanities the ability to Pick apart and unpick arguments in the craft of language And take that skill and apply it to whatever Information you're tackling So to conclude then to it for me academic freedom can only come When it's paired with that knowledge and understanding and if we are going to lord that in a higher education setting Then we must be equipping empowering the students we mentor and nurture and want to become outstanding citizens with this skill ability That sounds almost like a total mode for understanding communication And perhaps rhetoric in an older sense That's fantastic Emma and I I have so many questions, but but all of you have had your questions and comments I'll make sure people get a chance to add these In the chat fill fill cats wants us to think about the assumption that higher education is about the search for truth Uh lisa durf has her own good suggestions And we have a long-term future transform Participant and author who wants to join us on stage. So let me just bring this gentleman up Assuming that I don't crash his computer and so doing Hello tom Hey So you weren't you weren't responsible for crashing my computer. That was that was entirely uh My electronic devices Okay, um, but that's not why we're here. So, um, I wanted to ask What I see is one of the major problems with the current information environment is its complexity And the fact that there are so many layers now that we didn't have before there were the they were always there But they were well hidden, you know, you you didn't really care what was going on behind Walter Cronkite You kind of assumed he was operating with a high level of integrity and ethics Which may or may not have been true and there were a lot of stories that weren't heard as a consequence and I think on the whole This is a a real Plus that's happened in the last decade or so where we started hearing a lot of these voices I think that's what's driving a lot of this tension a lot of new things coming up Which is only good for us in a diversity perspective The concern I have is um transparency And to me, I think that's the thing that government should be regulating toward Is maximizing transparency Um, there's you know, if you see a piece of information on twitter or you see a piece of information on facebook or whatever You don't know if that came from aunt emma or urie in odessa And so, you know, when we operated within the context of an academic scholarly world, we have very strong Information change where we cite things and you go back and if you don't do that you get smacked and so on and so forth There's a there's a process there. How do we build that into a much broader system of information? That's my question I give the easy questions It's just to clarify. Are you asking, you know, how how we can More accurately determine the identities of people making claims online Yeah, well, that's part of it. But just in general the the provenance of information I mean, so when you you know write a scholarly book you can figure out the provenance of information through your citation And uh, but how do we do that in a much more systemic using technology in a much more systemic Way and can government play a role in that? I think that's where the regulation should come in To be honest Yeah, we quite heavy on regulation in europe, you know with all this gdpr stuff and things like that That's the way This is kind of a me but called the eu tries to do things and that's why when we look across the pond Which is where all the evil is coming from of course, you know, google Facebook's and all the other platforms There's always this tension Yeah like natalie I was I was sensing this undercurrents of Identity and in a way it's almost like reminds me of the old what 1994 thing, you know on the internet. Nobody knows you're a dog and And for a long time we thought that was great. I thought I thought it was great. That could be a dog online or whatever it is um And now it's kind of pivoted The the other way and at the same time I was thinking, you know I was watching I started watching on netflix. I don't know if you guys are seeing this thing It's like how to how to sell drugs online or whatever it's called. I can't remember. It's got a very long title If I could get everybody to watch it because it's a really crash course on gen z And and this whole thing about both performance, but also identity and and how we're using social media Or misusing social media and and our misunderstandings of it and this huge generational divide I mean whenever whenever I teach people it seems like every single year I teach People look down on the previous year and say, oh, you know, this lot's coming up are really weird They're really doing some weird shit And I think as educators we're all really trying To grapple what the hell is going on So then you have these institutions like the EU was regulated and those fine people On the other side, you have the platform saying this is all great clickbait and all the algorithms We don't know how it works anyway, which I think there's lack of transparency. We're talking about We kind of call it in between but I also sensed That there is this maybe pushback in the same way all of us who used to read Perry Barlow and say this is what What the words that there is a sense that maybe now whether we're going to grasp through decentralization The blockchain and and and and self sovereign identities and other other ways of Getting back to truth truth matters Experts matter. Maybe if that's what we think education is all about But I think I I do sense there's a bit of a pushback, but at the same time Bring back to education. I just think this cold covid stuff which is happening is complicating matters Even even more, you know, I mean either the country where 90 percent of people have got vaccinated for instance Okay, and then I don't know what's happening at Dallas Natalie, you know about So again truth some truth some basic things And social media is not helping helping from that point of view. I guess Or maybe it does I guess Emma and Natalie they give you a chance to uh to respond that especially to make alex feel even older Go ahead Thank you so much for the question toman and I think you know You underline a really Huge issue is this idea that source or authority is just not Really understood outside of our daily bread and butter shall we say And I just to pick up what was going on in the chat someone Talked well bringing up the case study of wikipedia for a long time. He said don't use wikipedia Um, you know find an authoritative source But we didn't define and again it's coming back to where we started definition and presentation To engage the stakeholders whoever they might may be Well, if you didn't define what we meant by authority, well wikipedia being a peer reviewed resource Okay. Yes, we know there's uh, there are still falsities peddled there Um, but what we did was we handicapped that development of using different sources across the internet Developing that lateral reading developing that critical Are they when you're coming to sources? So, um, you know, and it's just the magnitude of the of the problem. I think Is indicated in for example in the uk We have a huge booming tutoring industry and the essay writing mills And many a time has someone come and locked my door and offered an exit sum to write An essay whatever it might be. Um, just a flag of you know, obviously Haven't done that But you know apart from academic integrity and planning my early retirement Well for me the problem is not that The students of any age come and try and find someone to write their dissertations for them Is that they they have been disempowered with the skills to undertake such Activities but then to come back to what you were saying tom about, you know, okay That's one thing ensuring that someone Undertakes a rigorous degree program has these skills. What do we do to bring it outside of the so-called ivory towers? Um, well, I think we've got to we all have to work harder to show And bring out different examples of where not having this ability to critique language understand craft and the cunningness of craft Um is around us every day. I mean we're speaking at a really Um, I suppose good moment for this. We have the theranos trial starting this week. I mean The words of elizabeth holmes who've fooled many a silicon valley investor and journalist, etc, etc Um, we have, you know, the one coin crypto to come to Sort of natalie's brennan butter the one coin crypto currency The people that sold their life, you know, giving up their livelihoods to invest in um well A con right um We could talk about brexit. We could talk about so many different examples And yet these are not ushered forth in the service of Underlining what we mean by authority and what it means when you don't understand What authority is and how you can discern it? Um, I and to just finally pick up on alex's optimism I think there is a sense that there's the next wave of tools that digital tools that are promoting this such as hypothesis.is You know this annotation tool online um, and and others of a similar ilk so uh There are lots of challenges But so you bring in that spark of optimism and and hand over to natalie We we need zanadu from uh, ted nelson. All right, that would solve all these problems, right? Ted made it work, but please Natalie We're working on it. He's still working on it Yeah, so, you know tom to answer your question um You know, I I don't think uh, I don't think there's ever going to be um a A citation trail behind Guys who post pepe memes, you know on on reddit. And I don't think that's that's the case. Yeah Yeah, but to what extent can we regulate an openness so we can see those trails of information More clearly than we currently do because right now we're only seeing the front of those You know, okay, we're going to take this uh cow deworming medication to cure covid Where the hell did that come from right? I should be able to work my way backwards if I'm just a normal person And figure that out Right. Yeah, and in some cases you you can through um doing things like language analysis and tracking the emergence of a term It's it's a take But it's a lot of work and the reality is you know as fuko has has taught us Culture is memetic um, so there is no Author so to speak to whom we can trace a final attribution of say a conspiracy theory um, and so the the only real Uh way to say prevent, you know, the spread of misinformation is cultivation of not just You know the capacity for critical thinking but the character of people inhabiting human societies um, it takes it takes uh character traits like humility for example to be be willing to admit What you don't know it takes character traits like fortitude to be able to hold to a position in the face of popular outrage It takes character traits like um generosity to avoid, you know Jumping on to a pitchfork mob who's canceling someone over a misunderstanding And it's it's what we're seeing now is actually the amplification of a kind of Weaknesses of character that are being used as attack vectors across every human society I I have to pause this right now with with incredible regret Um, because we are almost out of time Uh tom as usual you ask a deep question. I'm glad you do. Let's end on an optimistic note We're all sorry because we're human No I've got a better note Here's my My request is this In under one minute Can each of you give us marching orders for higher education? To what we should do In order to best grapple with this problem You know, should we teach some form of backtracing and origin as tom suggested Should we come up with a blockchain based verification system? Should we teach more digital literacy? What is what would you advise us to do? Uh, and let's uh, let's let's work backwards. Uh, let's start off with uh, natalie What would you advise us to do in less than a minute less than a minute? Yeah, absolutely um my view is that the purpose of higher education is ultimately to craft the character of the residents of of the future society and so My what I would encourage educators to do Is precisely to build those traits of character that are going to give students the independence of mind And pro-social inclinations that will help them navigate a world Full of information based predation and warfare that they're already amidst Thank you. So character formation for this chaotic room. Thank you, natalie Over to you. Emma in playpress. What would you advise us to do? Well to pick up on natalie's point of taking her holistic view I love what we say natalie about focusing on character I've been thinking quite a lot in the last few days about what's again this purpose of the university in a time when Other disruptors are challenging the conventional institution and for me coming back to the Even let's say looking back to the early modern period where across disciplinarity the polymath This looking across the disciplinary boundaries was so important. So for me and certainly part of my Work and the activism in this space is really identifying common languages between different disciplines and encouraging that dialogue If we are to prepare 21st century citizens, then we surely must be doing this Lovely. Thank you. And thank you for reaching back to the early modern period to get us thinking I'm going to put something in the chat for that. Thank you, Emma And back to malta. Alex, what would you recommend that the university of malta and the rest of us do? Well, the first thing the university of malta should do is stop behaving like it's a bricks and mortar institution and and and focus on The the real business of of co-learning I would say because I think everybody can learn from each other and I learn More from my students. Sometimes I suspect that they learn from me I'll pick up from what emma is is saying We set up the 3cl foundation as an interdisciplinary foundation Break down the silos break down the silos between faculties Um use the new media if that's what it is for people to get scared together Um, you know on the old principle of weak ties and the strength of weak ties still works It doesn't just have to work as linked in it can happen in many other forms Don't trust the Zuckerberg and company So, yeah, maybe use signals that have whatsapp as a basic things And and question what you see on the screen while at the same time Get better at being on the screen whether you age 10 or 90 I think because the screen is the way we're going to be navigating life I think for a while whether the screen is this small or this big or whatever it is Whether we have it in our pocket and we think it's listening to us Or whether we're using it to broadcast our lives and sharing our holiday or you know Saying happy birthday to your aging father, I guess, yeah Beautiful Alex all all three of you. Thank you so much. This has been so rich Um, I feel privileged to have been able to borrow you for this one hour of time Um, Alex Emma Natalie each of you have given us so much to chew on. The world needs to hear more of this kind of thinking Um, Alex, thank you for assembling the book on everybody. You should grab a copy however you can Alex if you can think of it in the chat box tell us the netflix documentary about How to buy crack online or whatever you had in mind Yeah, it's streaming on netflix right now. I'm not suggesting just put it in the chat. Yeah, but I'll I'll find it somewhere But it's it's it's very powerful. This is how memes start In the meantime, uh, all three of you please, uh, wherever you are on the surface of the earth Please take care keep up the great work and we're looking forward to seeing everything you do next Thank you so much brian. It's pleasure Our pleasure, but don't I have to tell you what's happening next in the future transform We have a whole bunch of stuff coming up and I want to make sure that you hear about it um And while i'm doing this, let me thank you all for really really great questions And you saw how they provoke wonderful answers So looking ahead we next week We're actually looking into open access and scholarly publication a topic that came up in the chat quite a bit We have sessions on STEM and equity rethinking learning rethinking the university and also introducing a new idea Is he called eco media if you'd like to learn more just go to forum that future of education that us If you want to keep talking about this should the government or what role should the government play in regulation? And which government the european union or the united states is this up to blockchain? Is this something the individual should be responsible for please keep the conversation going you can use the hashtag ftte You can tweet at me brian alexander or tweeted the shindig events have Hashtag it or follow us on the blog brian alexander.org And if you want to go back into the past and look at some of our previous sessions When we've been talking about information issues just go to tinyorl.com slash f t f archive for more And in the meantime keep thinking about these issues the fall semester is just starting up These are definitely of the moment love to hear from everybody But also I'd like to wish all of you well. Please take care stay safe and we'll see you online Bye. Bye