 Okay, good morning everybody. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you may be coming in from. It's great to have you here. This is our our midweek keynote, our final keynote for the week, but our midweek keynote as we're as we're kind of going along. Wednesday as I said in my morning announcements this morning slash last night is sort of the day when we when we think okay is this are we gonna make it are we gonna get to the end this is an exhausting time and so but we will get there and and this is this is our this is our opportunity to kind of have a have a moment and get re-inspired so as you're coming in feel free to introduce yourselves in the chat you'll see the little chat button down below you can open that up and introduce yourself let people know kind of where you're at say hello say good morning good evening wherever you might be at and then also if you take a look down below to there's a Q&A button and if you open that up we're gonna take questions for Audrey through the the Q&A so if you want to just put questions in there you can also put questions in the chat and I do have a couple of people behind the scenes I've got Jesse Stommel and Stephanie Che both here helping out with with questions that might come in through chat so we'll be watching the chat as well so sorry I'm a little distracted the zoom is not acting the way it's supposed to be acting this morning that's just the way it goes I guess we're all learning so much about technology this week all right it I I'm just gonna go ahead and I'm just gonna go so I just want to introduce I want to I want to spend a second introduce Audrey Waters there are few people that I'm more honored to introduce than Audrey Waters so please forgive me if I go on a little I first met Audrey in 2012 when we were invited to be part of a small group of educators a summit if you will to meet at Stanford University to discuss the future of education this was the year of the MOOC and everyone was fervently ecstatically talking about what was coming next for teaching and learning Audrey and I ended up in a small group together for the morning and I'll never ever forget that first encounter with her grounded practical cynicism a cynicism born out of compassion and out of hope for an education with pedagogy and teaching and learning and maybe even technology can be should be in an instant I'm with a smile Audrey took down the MOOC and asked us to consider a more human a more humane future for students and teachers Audrey is an accomplished writer a renowned speaker a truly gifted intellect she maintains her hard-hitting and incisive blog at Hack Education she's published four collections of Republic talks the titles of which are priceless the monsters of education technology the revenge of the monsters of education technology the curse of the monsters of education technology and the monsters of education education technology for as well as a book arguing that students should control their digital identities and digital work titled claim your domain she's in the final stages of writing her next book teaching machines which will be published by MIT Press she's a recipient of the Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship at Columbia University School of Journalism she's written for the baffler the Atlantic vice edutopia hybrid pedagogy inside higher ed the school library journal and elsewhere across the web and she's spoken around the world the educators at all levels. Audrey is a force a friend and an advocate against all odds for students teachers education and learning Audrey Waters for me Audrey Waters is inexorable Audrey has been called and calls herself ed techs Cassandra after that trojan seer who warned against the gift of a giant wooden horse and to whom no one paid heed but I'm here to say as I introduce this from Markleby Human that we should all listen we should all heed what Audrey Waters has to say please welcome Audrey Waters thank you Sean that was um that was such a kind introduction and it means it means so much for me to be here with you today all of you um ditch pet is incredibly special to me and Sean and Jesse in particular I would say are so absolutely crucial to my own professional development political pedagogical and I consider them some of my dearest friends and in fact looking at the um looking at the chat many of you are dear friends to me and oh man I'm like emotional um you've been very kind to me and what's been a very hard month um okay so we're going to do a flipped keynote which is good that I wrote things down last night and share maybe you had time to read I'm actually going to do something totally different today which is um a relief right um I want to talk about my dog um we haven't had a dog either kin or I in over a decade um partially because we traveled all the time right we were gone all the time and it made zero sense to have one but now since everyone's working from home and I don't plan on leaving my house um till there's a vaccine so maybe sometime what 2022 23 I thought maybe it would be a great time for us to get a dog um not to fill really you know a hole in our lives but kind of to fill a hole in our lives um but you know it's really difficult to get a dog right now a lot of people are thinking similar kinds of things like it's we're at home uh it's what better time to do house training um than when everyone is stuck in the house um and so even before the pandemic it was a challenge to adopt a dog in many parts of the United States um the uh there's been a dog shortage breeders um it's it's good news actually I mean Americans have gotten much better at getting their dogs spayed and neutered um and in the west coast in particular um peep the dogs for in the shelters tend to be brought in from elsewhere around the country from from Texas um and the south where I guess y'all don't do birth control for your pets down there um but with the you know with the everyone staying at home um the that kind of that that that relocation of of dogs and puppies hasn't really been happening so the shelters are largely empty and it's been um it's been really difficult to to find a dog which is great it's a great time to be a dog perhaps many of us want to um rethink it's kind of a lousy time to be a human but a great time to be a dog so we've been looking for a dog for a little while and it's challenging um adopting a dog has become um quite it's quite competitive um here in California and so I was on several lists I would see a dog online that I liked I would apply for the dog and they would be like oh man you're like number 40 on the list and finally um a couple weeks ago um we got a we got a message saying that we could meet a meet a puppy via zoom we could meet her and her foster family via zoom which is one of the myriad of weird interactions that now we're forced to have on this god-awful platform so we met our new dog at first on zoom and I felt compelled to have a bunch of questions ready so that I looked like I would be a good human companion right so that I um I wanted to know what her background was um what's her schedule does she have any favorite things does she have any fears um and so on and then I asked you know what how how she was doing and and her foster family said that she was having a few issues with uh house training she'd had a few accidents in recent days and and they weren't creating her um she was sleeping in their bed the ad let me be clear the ad said she was house and crate trained um you know and I figured when I heard that that any one that lets their foster dog sleep with them is planning on what's called the foster fail and that's when they end up keeping the dog so I kept looking for other dogs and then Tuesday of last week got a got a text message saying do you still want the puppy and I said yeah sure we can we can come get her this weekend and they're like well how about Thursday because we're going out of town so I had to do the mad scramble to get the collar the leash um the puppy food ready and we did glue it got her and um yeah we have a puppy so Poppy um is a nine-month old roddy mix her paperwork says shepherd but she's a rottweiler um she was about 55 pounds and she is definitely not house broken uh yet but we're we're getting there she's very smart um she's already getting better on the leash um it's sitting at street corners at not lunging and attacking all the pigeons that she sees uh in the park um it's sitting when dogs and people approach her and I think it's it's really important particularly if you have a big dog and a dog that people have I think perhaps certain preconceived notions about a breed of dog that people are perhaps nervous about that you train them well right and if if you have a dog you probably know that the best way to train a dog is through positive behavior reinforcement that is rather than punishing the dog when she misbehaves and she's being very good right now she's lying down on the couch rather than punishing her when she misbehaves the dog should be rewarded when she exhibits the desired behavior right and perhaps now you know where I'm going with this this is the basis of operant conditioning as formulated by the infamous psychologist B.F. Skinner and sort of the irony of course is that I've just finished writing a book on a history of teaching machines right a book that argues that B.F. Skinner's work is fundamental to the history of ed tech to how ed tech is still built today that ed tech is almost entirely operant conditioning and we should do everything in our power to resist it and now I'm going to wield that behaviorism to shape my dog awesome awesome so some background for those of you who don't know I'm so agitated so as part of his graduate work in the 1930s Skinner invented what's now known as the Skinner's box right and this operant conditioning chamber was used to study and train animals to perform certain tasks for Skinner most famously these animals were pigeons right so again do the tasks correctly correctly get a reward namely namely food so Skinner was hardly the first to use animals in psychological experiments that sought to understand how learning works right several decades before for his dissertation research Edward Thorndike had built a puzzle box in which an animal had to pull a lever in order to open a door and escape again rewarded with food for successfully completing the puzzle and Thorndike measured how quickly animals figured out how to get out of the box after being placed in it again and again and again and that's the learning curve right so we have in the puzzle box and in the Skinner box really the origins of education technology some of the very earliest teaching machines right and just like we have in the work of Skinner and Thorndike the foundations of education psychology and Ellen Kondliffe Wagamann has pronounced in her famous statement that Thorndike or Thorndike one do we lost right Thorndike one and many of the educational practices we have to this day are because of Edward Thorndike right the puzzle box prototypes for the multiple choice test this is really shaped how we think about educational research and how we think about learning so Skinner wrote in 1954 that once we have arranged the particular type of consequence called a reinforcement our techniques permit us to shape the behavior of an organism almost at will it's become a routine exercise he said to demonstrate this in classes of elementary psychology by conditioning an organ an organism such as a pigeon an organism such as a pigeon we often talk about lab rats when we as the shorthand for animals that are used in these experiments but we use the phrase too interestingly I think for people who work in labs who are completely absorbed in performing their tasks again and again and again and it's important I think to remember that in education and in education technology students are also the subjects of experimentation and conditioning and that is sadly often the point and Skinner's framework they aren't lab rats students are not lab rats they're pigeons and he wrote comparable results have been obtained with pigeons rats dogs monkeys human children and psychotic subjects in spite of their great phylogenetic differences all of these organisms show amazingly similar properties of the learning process and it should be emphasized he said that this can be achieved by analyzing the effects of reinforcement and by designing techniques that manipulate reinforcement with considerable precision only in this way can the behavior of the individual be brought under precise control bringing the behavior of the individual under precise control that is what edtech wants right so learning according to Skinner and according to Thorndike is about behavior um reinforcing this behaviors that educators deem correct and this is knowledge and answers in their mind this isn't just good behavior like sitting still and raising one's hand before speaking a behavior actually that is hard-coded into this terrible interface right but when educators fail to shape reinforce control of students behavior through techniques through technologies they're at risk in Skinner's words of losing their pigeon right in 1951 Skinner wrote an article for Scientific American how to train animals and really a lot of dog trainers stay well ones who know their history will point Skinner as sort of being the the origins for what they do and I actually pulled the pulled the article out to prepare for this talk and it contains almost all of the tips and steps that dog trainers now advocate for get a clicker right I got a clicker she's like what the hell's going on um use that as the conditioned reinforcer that gives a treat right because the clicker you can do the clicker more quickly than get the treats in the dog's mouth um you can train your dog to do anything in less than 20 minutes Skinner insisted and once you're confident with training a dog you can train a pigeon and then once you're confident with training a pigeon you can train a baby that's that's his argument so two years after Skinner wrote that article he came up with his idea for the teaching machine right he visited his daughter's fourth grade classroom he thought it was wildly inefficient um and he didn't think that students should have to move through their lessons at the same pace but and that they didn't get feedback right away they weren't getting the proper positive conditioned reinforcement um when things weren't graded immediately and the only way to address these would be to build a Skinner box to build some sort of operant conditioning chamber for children and that's the teaching machine and he thought that if we just break um material down into small chunks right small tasks and organize these in a logical fashion the machine would show sort of one chunk at a time one frame at a time the student would get the answer correct right they want positive behavior reinforcement the student would get the answer correct it could move on to the next question and this was called programmed instruction we call it personalized learning today and yeah it involves a lot of clicking right and edtech is really still doing so much of behaviorism I think people like to say that behaviorism fell out of favor that we all do cognitive science these days but really by and large the things we I think it's just we don't acknowledge that this is the origins of of the field badges notifications haptic alert real-time feedback gamification click click click click right and according to Skinner again when we fail to correct the behavior proper properly we're at risk of losing our pigeons I would say that this unexamined behaviors bent of edtech we're actually when we adopt it we're at the risk of losing our humanity this behaviorism I think is fundamentally against freedom in fact BF Skinner thought that freedom was a ruse he didn't believe in freedom and when we use operant conditioning Skinner wrote in his article that we must build up some level we must build up some degree of deprivation we in order to use operant conditioning we have to deprive the subject that we're trying to train so that our reward is more powerful and that I think is crucial to think about behaviorist edtech relies on suffering it relies on deprivation suffering that we could eliminate right if we were not interested in exploiting the suffering in order to reinforce compliance and that's pigeon pedagogy right that is pigeon pedagogy and that is in direct opposition to Luddite pedagogy which I talked about in my text for this keynote and so here's to all of us being lost pigeons right here's to all of us saying to hell with the training that the system has given us right to hell with that training I would like to be a lost pigeon that being said I really do need my dog to be a good dog okay all right okay so um that's my spiel Q&A time so yeah if you have any questions comments thoughts um stick them in the Q&A and I will do my best to answer okay um let's see Christopher Haynes what strategies my educators used to help cultivate digital digital literacy skills with students who need them for life career within a framework of Luddite pedagogy well so that's a great question um to reiterate my argument um to it's important to remember that the Luddites were not opposed to um machines the Luddites were critical of the ways in which machines in in particularly automation were being used to exploit and to displace people with knowledge and expertise and so I think that what you have to do in order to um to resist I mean I think that one of the great things you can do to help your students is to help them understand the way in which these machines work right and you have to give them the power to I think to be able to control to be able to ask questions to be able to be critical about the world and the machines the machines around them so it's being able to understand how to use technology sure but it's also being understand being able to be sort of critical and understand why technology wants to use you or wants to shape your behavior in certain ways right there's certain incentives there's certain things that both your employer the government um wants you to do and they use technology to shape this behavior and I think it's helpful to work with students to get them to understand that this a lot of this is demanding compliance and there are ways to skirt compliance without there are ways to resist and refuse to subvert compliance and I think that that's part of that is just understanding how the machine how the machine works okay um next question from jake of gaol at the 35 000 foot level which ideologies philosophies theories especially psychological theories do you think might effectively do battle with behaviorism okay so um I think actually that behaviorism still really dominates um so much of psychological um of psychological thought even I think cognitive science even some of the things that seem to be um run contrary to some of the arguments that skinner made I think are still it's still so constitutive of of that that um I think it's hard to um it's hard to get away from it's hard to get away from skinnerism through psychology I think the way in which we get away from skinnerism is through politics and through um through thinking about other other fields other disciplines other than psychology that is of course my my my my stance as a non-practicing non-psychologist but I'm not sure that I'm not sure that that um the tools of psychology actually can help us dismantle behaviorism I think that what we need is a politics um and I think that that that's that's how we get there um that's a great question though um Rachel sorry how asks how much how and how much my behaviorism classroom and ed tech policing be based in whiteness and systemic oppression um I think that that is so much of it I think that it's I mean I think that I think that it's a huge expectation about um about control um and about under about the idea that particularly in in Skinner's case um but here we can see some of that in in the um in the beliefs and the way in which new technologies are are coded today that there's a sense that certain people understand how best to engineer the world right and that they they should be the ones who decide what's best for the rest of us I mean I think that Skinner certainly thought that he was a nice guy he was a nice dude um that didn't really want to you know he he was against war and he wanted to and nuclear proliferation um but I think that he really thought that he knew what he knew as a scientist he knew what was best for the rest of us and I think that um Mark Zuckerberg for example thinks he knows what's um what for the best of us as well and I think a lot of people who design education technology similarly have this idea that they are educated enlightened they know what's they know what's best and I think that that is that's certainly based on ideas of of power that are sort of baked into a lot of these a lot of these systems. I have a story that I'll tell that I talk about more in my book that in the in the 1960s after the teaching machines had become quite popular and of course this is all before computers um in the Mississippi Freedom Summer actually some of the members of SNCC were interested in using teaching machines and programmed instruction in order to help improve literacy of black Mississippians of course because there were all sorts of restrictions on voting um literacy tests for example and in order to be able to vote and so they thought well let's do let's use programmed instruction in order to help improve adult literacy and what they found was really that that they struggled with they still struggled with the idea of can this practice of programmed instruction ever be a practice of liberation right because not only is the content written the curriculum written by white folks who don't understand them the material reality of black Mississippians but but there's something about training and operant conditioning that is really antithetical to some of the other things that were going on during Mississippi Freedom Summer including the Freedom Schools which were really more about sort of Socratic learning um small group discussions um curiosity based and project based learning and so could the teaching machine and could the sort of behavior behaviors conditioning ever get us to freedom and I think that the the SNCC activists of SNCC certainly decided that no it it couldn't and I think that that's worth our thinking about too when we when we you know think about education I believe education is a practice of freedom we should we should strive to have education be a practice of freedom but it does is ed tech antithetical to that um I think I think it's worth it's worth thinking about okay um let's see Christina Lopez is it possible to practice a Luddite pedagogy in an LMS or is the LMS too far gone um that's a really great question I think that there are ways I mean there are ways in which we can always subvert technology I think that the um even within systems that are that are really about well as the name learning management system suggests that are about control um there are ways in which we can push back um there the there are things that you can run in the background of your browser to make it look like you've been on screen use it having a tab open for a long time that you've been clicking around on things um the state of Kentucky I believe this year has decided that the way in which they're going to take attendance for students is not through having teachers record attendance but by monitoring how long students are logged in every day online and so if that were me um hypothetically speaking I would certainly look at you know how how do these things how can we manipulate these things how are people manipulating these things what are the sites of refusal and the sites of refusal and resistance are really interesting to study I think um in as you know to study not because we not to force people to be compliant but to sort of recognize how how and ask why people are pushing back in certain ways I mean I think that the I think that if you're mandated to use the LMS I think your options can be they can you know your ways in which you can sabotage and subvert that are there's a myriad of ways um you can just use it for the bare bones things and conduct everything elsewhere you can also help the students understand what how the how the LMS works show them the amount of data that the learning management set um the learning management system collects about them right reveal to them what what what faculty could and and other staff could learn about them in via the LMS I think that that's a really powerful way to give students some of these tools in which they understand that understand the ways in which the surveillance the surveillance technologies are are are working even in institutions and in software that in software that they're compelled to use but in institutions and software that is supposed to be sort of for their benefit I think it's it's super powerful that's a great question okay um what are some strategies we can use let's see as educators sorry this is Rebecca Salisbury Braver's question what are some strategies we can use as educators to break away from behaviorism in our teaching in edtech and otherwise I'm thinking about how I've been asked in my institution to construct my canvas space as chunking materials for students to understand yeah I mean I think that this is this is so challenging because it's you know we have we we are products of history right we have inherited a hundred years now a hundred years now of teaching machines it's very hard to sort of snap our fingers and do something do something different with instruction with instructional technology when we have this very long legacy this very long legacy that we've inherited and I think that I think actually um Jesse I think Jesse's written a lot about scaffolding before and I think that some of that is some of this ideas I think that Jesse writes about are pushing back on these common notions like chunking and scaffolding because I do think I do think that if there are ways in which those kinds of tasks not only are they behaviorist but I think that they um they have us see content in a certain way they have us think about what the goals are of student uh what the students goals are in a certain way they really shape the way we think about the material itself the assessments um the kinds of assignments and assessments that we have students do and I think that once you start unraveling some of those threads I think that there's you find that there's quite a large blanket for us to unravel right um because I think when we start asking questions about um about the way in which we think about um assembling content in in classes you find that we have lots of these legacies that are about again um about control and compliance um yeah okay uh Gordon Ashford's question um we dogs and the other creatures we share our world with ah we okay my screen looks green hopped um wondering if you have any thoughts on critical interspecies pedagogy oh my god this is such a great question as central to eco social justice and thus on dogs not just as learners but as our teachers um that is such a great question um you know Donna Haraway um wrote a book on the dog as the companion species and uh the um I think that she has a lot of interesting things to think about the way in which we are a co-evolutionary we are a co-evolutionary um species and our companionship is really important and dogs are here for us um not just um not just to serve us right but they they provide um they provide something to us in addition to um love and protection right um but yeah that's a really interesting question I'll have to I have to think think some more about it I mean I think that this is also the child like this is the challenge about um the dog training but also baby training and child training and and and teaching is that we do have expectations about what we want students what we want our dogs and our our small people and our young people and our even adult learners to to be we have expectations we have desires of what we what we want from them um and so you know what is it that we're imposing our control on our expectations on them and what are the things that are negotiable um some things some things are not negotiable as in um where my dog tees and poops um not yeah I caught a glimpse of the puppy yeah go lay down thank you um good girl yeah um can you control a classroom that is without motivation to learn the tools that you're trying to teach um can you control a classroom that is without motivation yeah I mean the controlling a classroom is like um it's so it's so it's so hard I mean part of it is actually after writing a book that you're like everything like I feel like I feel like the it's like the kid in the sixth sense where it's like I I see dead people it's like I see everywhere now and it's really hard to sort of think about the the ways and sort of sort of understand that we that some of this is so ingrained in in our own in our own in our own practices I think that motivation is motivation is also kind of one of those really um not naughty and not like naughty like like bad but I don't want to say it too loud when talking like what I'm just grabbing my toy and sitting down um it's one of those naughty problems right where I mean what motivates people and why is really is really different I mean I think that um puppy seems to be food motivated which is nice for training um motivated with by infection that you know students students are motivated by by a lot of different things and I think that motivation is really hard to sort of plan for and control because students students desires are students desires are all so very different and so I think that it's I think that that's it's really challenging to be able to sort of plan your plan the plan and control a space based on motivation because I think we're all so very so very different about the reasons why why we're in a class why we're in school why we're in a particular class what we want out of a certain class what we want out of life in general okay Eric Dodson the big four tech companies are testifying before congress today what would you want to ask them or what questions would you want um to raise awareness awareness of on a super public stage um that's a great question so the big four what are the big four I don't even know what the big four so Facebook Google Amazon Apple Microsoft Twitter I don't even know who the big four are um zoom um I think I would I don't know if I would have questions for them um I would maybe ask them to stay the hell away from education um that I think that I think that these companies are I think that they're all incredibly dangerous and their their their interests in education are I think quite frightening partially because of sort of the the ways in which the billionaire billionaire philanthropy works it is so profoundly anti-democratic and these companies I think they're these companies have it extends obviously through education and it extends to other things as well these companies have so much control over um over our information over education um they shape they power have powerful ways of shaping shaping our culture and I think it's just profoundly anti-democratic um um I don't know I can't think of a question um but maybe I'll we'll think about it and I'll answer that on on twitter lately it's like you want to ask these people if they've read any good books lately but then you don't kind of you kind of don't want to know if like they just finished like reading like Ayn Rand or something and then you don't want to know that they've actually you know people say like if Mark Zuckerberg could just like stayed in school and maybe taken to see the humanities classes he'd be a much better dude but I don't think that I don't think that what Mark Zuckerberg is missing is necessarily a class in like 18th century you know like the the Victorian novel right like the Victorian novel would have made a difference in him not being such a I'm a authoritarian asshole I don't think so um that being said you know what he majored in in at Harvard for like the whatever two semesters he was there was psychology he wasn't even a computer science major so I do think that somewhere he maybe attended like he maybe attended the intro to psychology class and was like oh behaviorism that seems uh that seems great oh okay so hopping around here so Heather Pleasons um your question is great this is so complicated I mean not following the rules can get folks of color killed literally or figuratively how does one help a young black woman who is college bound resist this kind of learning without becoming a casualty this is so important yeah I think that I mean I think that there are ways in which we can think about we can think about this resistance um we have to think about resistance depending on where you are where your power where you are sort of in the hierarchy of power um and that's not that's sort of systemically and in small um in smaller interactions as well right and I think that students have a different power than faculty do adjunct faculty have very different power than tenured faculty do faculty have different power than staff and so on but then even within those groups I think power looks very different for a first generation student of color than it does for someone who um someone who got into Harvard because their dad you know donated a million dollars to the school right and so I think that you know I think that following the rules I think that so I think knowing the rules is really important actually and I think that that's one of the things I think we can help students understand because there is a lot of sort of the hidden curriculum there's a lot of knowing how to college right but you know how to do if you if you um come from an academic family for example if you have um if you have sort of been um if your educational career has sort of been sort of moving you towards that if you've gone to certain schools so knowing what the rules are of of college I think is is helpful to explain to people because knowing what the rules are you can kind of then understand what the constraints are and what constraints where the where the where the wiggle room is I think that a lot of students particularly first generation students have a really hard time knowing how to college and I think that it's a responsibility of faculty and staff to help them know what that means and I don't mean I don't mean by that I don't mean like study hard and go to class every day I know I think it means things like explain to them what office hours are the office hours aren't like they aren't putative and you don't have to go just because you're struggling um but you can go if you're struggling but you can go and really just like shoot the shit with with your professor you can go to office hours of people who aren't your professors that you can um that there are people who can who you can talk to that again are hopefully not part of a disciplinary regime that are there that are going to be interesting and want to help you and I think that you know other things like how to figure out how to get textbooks um how to share textbooks how to not follow the rules with textbooks like right so like when do you not buy the textbook when do you look at the syllabus will you get the syllabus you don't buy the textbooks before class starts you get the syllabus you're like wait we're reading five pages of that book I ain't gonna buy that book right those are the sort of hidden curriculum the subtle subtle rules I guess of of and those are the things I think that we can help students help students understand yeah um uh Andrew Del Antonio I love the idea of resisting refusing compliance if we take grading as a form of compliance oh right how do folks inserted within academic institutions resist the structure of compliance when it's so deeply imprint entrenched may be easier for those of us who are tenured but you have suggestions for those who don't have that's kind of security authority within the system yeah I mean I think that grading is absolutely um grading is obviously the way in which teachers force compliance from uh of students but particularly as we live in this through data driven madness I think that grades are also how the school administration forces compliance of its faculty and I think that it's really important to understand where how power works within all of those within all of those um things I mean I think that for the from the faculty side of thing I think it's I think it's important having discussions with students um about what grades why and negotiating no having having that be a negotiation rather than a command it was really interesting I think this spring when halfway through the term um students some some schools some classes moved away from grades for the first time for a lot of students a lot of students experiences moved away from grades to a pass fail system um and I think that you could sort of if you look at that you can sort of see the um see where the stakes are highest you see the students that say well that's great I'm I had an a and I actually need I need the a or I need a certain grade for my for my scholarships or to maintain um uh my uh to to maintain status for the athletic program that I'm in and understanding I think that how that getting good grades or getting a grade is is more complicated I think and so I think that the the grading thing is is super important I think so looking at those moments looking at those moments and see understanding why people balked um and what can be done and I think that faculty faculty who have power I think need to probably advocate more loudly as a general friggin rule then um for for the kinds of negotiation um negotiation on behalf of students but also on behalf of adjunct faculty as well um I think that but I think that you know when we see this I mean that this is one of the blessings and curses of this moment we can kind of see we can kind of see when when this crisis is happening we can kind of see the different points in which things might be more negotiable than we thought they were and I think that grades might be one of those I think that they're I mean obviously standardized testing everyone for the last hundred years was like somehow if we don't do standardized testing the whole system is going to collapse and now everyone's like oh shit looks like we're not going to do the sat this year looks like there's not going to be standardized tests you know at the end of the school year um and so suddenly it seems maybe standardized tests aren't so aren't so actually fundamental to school after all because now that you haven't done the standardized testing in the spring of 2020 your metrics for your metrics are going to be off for uh for spring of 2021 and now that you've not done SATs or now that you're not requiring SATs or GREs or whatever for admission for the fall of 2020 or you know do you do you decide in that the students who are applying in 2021 do need that I don't think so so I mean I think that we're able to see the places in which we can we really can push back push back because a lot of stuff that we do a lot of the stuff that we do are really just legacy practices that have been very hard to challenge and I think that this is a moment to to certainly to certainly push push back on okay let me see um okay so uh Chrissy duke which is question is really great seeking rewards and avoiding punishment are fundamentals of how behaviors is shaped that's genetic and evolutionary Skinner took the application too far but he wasn't wrong that these are fundamentals to changing behavior even cognitive behaviors we cannot get away from using rewards and punishment so what's the real danger it's not behaviorism so this is I mean I think that this is this is the challenge that I'm facing right now right I mean the reason that we use behavioral conditioning with our dogs and often with our children is that it does work right it is incredibly effective there's a new app that I've seen advertised on um called noon noon I think and it also uses operant conditioning I think for weight loss and behavioral change um smoking cessation a lot of the thing a lot of a lot of a lot of the things that we do do use do use um behavioral conditioning and they it is effective but that's that right there raises the challenge of what are the behaviors that we're shaping and why and I think that this was sort of some of the things of pushing back that a lot of people did on um on Skinner's work particularly once he once he really went down sort of his authoritarian his authoritarian path in his book beyond freedom and dignity because Skinner said that um there's no such thing as freedom that really all of our behaviors are controlled all of our behaviors are engineered to a certain extent and therefore really freedom is something that makes it might make us feel good but it's really doesn't exist um and you know Noam Chomsky wrote a wrote a sort of a blistering a blistering critique of of that saying you know this is if this is true then this is sort of as like the fascism fascists will would gladly use behavioral conditioning as much as sort of the sort of liberal Harvard um Ivy League professor will and so we have to think it's not necessarily the shaping of behaviors that we have to be aware of who's shaping behaviors what are the behaviors that are being shaped and and why and I think that we can we can resist this and of course I think the the great thing that helped many people in the 1960s or 1970s decide that Skinner and operant conditioning was incredibly dangerous was the movie Clockwork Orange right which wasn't operant conditioning per se because that was um aversive rather than positive behavior reinforcement but people realized that like what's you know that there's if this idea of not having a free will this idea of having no freedom this idea of having no agency and just being and just having your behaviors shaped for the good of society right we stopped um we stopped now I can't think of the characters named Malcolm McDowell's character we stopped him from we stopped him from raping and and murdering people bravo but you know the priest and it's the priest in the movie who says you know but he's what's the point what's the point if man has no freedom right okay I don't know if I answered your question I do think the day I do think the I do think the behaviorism is um part of the part of the danger you know they're doing that um I definitely think that Skinner is as part of the danger I do think we have to just think about the systems of rewards the systems of rewards and punishments certainly um but I think that we also have to think about what is the what is the shape of society that we want to have and is really um it is really sort of conditioning the way in which we want that to happen right is conditioning if if we most effectively manage and control and condition everybody great we make society better but at what cost right and I think that that's something that you could think of in a sort of a giant level but also individually within your classroom right if you shape and control students behavior most effectively and every student comes out with an obedient school certificate that says I know how to sit and stay right um that might be great if you're a Rottweiler but it's not so great if you're a human being who has to make you know who I think is responsible for making all sorts of all sorts of different decisions and should have agency and should have the ability to say no right um my dog does not because I'm the authoritarian of my household I mean not really uh Ken is thankfully doing his own webinar in another room and did not hear that comment okay um what Leanne Waddington's question what is your vision for ideal learning environments and use of technology so this also I think comes back to my my point about the Luddite pedagogy I think use of technology I really want and this isn't just in school I really wish that we all had more control over the technology I wish that it was not in the hands of the big four that are testifying today in front of Congress um and I think that wish that students in faculty in particular had more control one of the things that I find so egregious about so much of the technologies that students are compelled to use and increasingly I think faculty are going to be compelled to use as well particularly if we're all working at home is that students own data students own scholarship students intellectual work their labor as extracted from them is taken from them and um is used to to make money for to use to make money for a third third party vendor I mean I think that turn it in as a pretty egregious example of this right where students actual work their intellectual property then becomes the intellectual property of turn it in and I feel like that's fundamentally wrong so I think that the students should be able to control control their own work we should treat them as though they are scholars we should treat them as though their contributions are valid and that they are that what they're what they're learning how to do is practice practice being scholars practice being thinkers practice being critical um citizens and I think that by taking away their knowledge and and often actually then students losing access to it with the end of the at the end of the semester you lose access to all of your great and witty comments that you might have made in the discussion boards um of your learning management system and I think that that's I think that that's wrong and so for me the the the ideal technology is where students control control their own control their own space control their own technology I mean that's why I'm such a fan of students having their own website right their own website where they can demonstrate to their peers and their professors what they're doing but also demonstrate to the world and and not and not have that demonstration of their worth simply be to an algorithm that's going to decide whether or not they're cheat right whether or not they're a fraud and I think that there's so many questions of of trust um and really recognizing the skill and the expertise of the student and again this is what the Luddites were pissed off about the Luddites were skilled artisans they were skilled artisans who used machines they were familiar with the loon machines what they didn't want is the they didn't want to have to work in the factories and work on machines that were going to automate their work and and um have their have actually what they produced the the material that they produced be extracted from them in exchange for lousy wages right and so that's that's exactly what I want for students I don't want the students work to be extracted from them for lousy wages right okay autumn hey autumn um autumn kane's question oh this will be my last question yeah crates are lousy wages exactly um autumn my dear can you say more about the intersection of capital with capitalism and how money flows through these companies and into the larger education landscape holy mackerel I'm on a mailing list for those really awful folks that do the ASU GSV conference maybe some of I don't actually they are it's the Venn diagram of like the Venn diagram is like the ASU GSV people and then the digital pedagogy people and like maybe the intersection is me that I went to that awful event one time um man anyway they are so excited that there is a pandemic right now and that people are going to be going to school online and in their vision using more and more and more and more technology because the little Scrooge McDucks they're just like swimming through the gold coins of how much money they're all going to make so ASU ASU is Arizona State University GSV is Global Silicon Valley they one is a public university the other is a venture capital firm they do a conference every year and it's really actually one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen in my life but yeah those folks I'm on their mailing list now and they are so excited about how much money is going to be made and of course they've been excited for a very long time one of the founders of GSV is Michael Moe who way back in George Bush the first era really was excited about the idea of vouchers and the idea that we could probably privatize education we just thought of it as a marketplace gave parents money um and he was one of the early financial backers of Edison schools and so these folks have been waiting for a very long time they have been scheming for a very long time about the moment in which they can privatize education when they can outsource privatize and and shut down this um public a public system a public system of education and I think that they think that this is their moment they truly believe that this is their moment and I think that it's so important right now that we resist we resist that vision that we do everything in our power to stand up for public education and I think that public education and that and I think that that's I mean I think that public education is so fundamental it's such a it's such a problematic institution we all know that right we all know that in the institutions that we've that we've been to school at that we've taught at we know that they are they are deeply deeply flawed but the alternative of like little white women on facebook organizing their teaching pods is horrifying right the the option of private privatized online k through 12 ink um education via zoom for everyone is also really really horrifying and I think that um I think that this is an important moment for us all to for us all to really really defend defend public education and I think that yesterday yesterday the um american federation of teachers said that they had authorized they authorized their teachers to strike if school districts are not going to adequately prepare for the fall and I think that if there's one takeaway that I want you all to greatly consider is that we absolutely have to think about how we can shut it down if if the powers and the powers that do not adequately protect teachers and students this fall and I think that the strike again the strike is something that people should that people should really be considering and I know that plays out different ways for people of different power but I really think that we cannot we cannot let public education die and we cannot let teachers and students die because people have a vision of education that runs absolutely contrary to human freedom human dignity and justice and I think that we have to make sure that we resist and fight it however we can in whatever ways we can and this is a crucial crucial moment for that and I think that I'm going to stop there before I light something on fire all right thank you guys thank you Audrey that was fantastic as as and you get you're getting all the applause in the chat that's what we do now we can do this that was wonderful that was wonderful and and I just want to remind everybody that this isn't the end of Audrey's presence at digital college lab this year we actually do have a a sort of more informal chat planned for this evening at 7 p.m. eastern time and there's a registration link on the schedule in the auditorium at dpl.online so you can take a look there and register to come in and have sort of an informal conversation it won't be a webinar so you'll actually be on screen with everybody and and so you can actually just sort of chat more casual so thank you again so much Audrey and we'll see you all soon