DIGITAL IDENTITIES (& Citizenship): Leading in the Open

BONNIE STEWART University of Prince Edward Island

April 6, 2017 Keene State College, NH

Me. (idealized digital identity)

photo credit: http://www.iamrachelpeters.com/

My work. (real digital identity)

Open practice

In other words…

scholarship what people had for lunch

+ Citizenship.

knowledge scarcity

knowledge abundance

open participation

public models

market models

gatekeeping

The shift towards Open reflects intersecting tensions

Leadership = citizenship. Scholarship = citizenship.

In the Open…

This is digital citizenship

But it is NOT about technology, per se.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_theory_(education)#/media/File:Islington_College_Multimedia_Lab.jpg

“Nothing could be more absurd than an experiment in which computers are placed in a classroom where

nothing else is changed.” – Seymour Papert, 1993

Open citizenship is a practice of SHARING

(blog posts, status updates, half-baked ideas, data, vulnerabilities, successes…)

But also navigating borders & belonging.

Sharing requires cultivation of audience

Citizenship… always / already complicated

https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e2-94cf-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

In the globalized 21st century, not all empires are geopolitical.

Empires are constructed from money, territory, & information.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pedrovezini/4995737599

Identity is the price of admission.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/143601516@N03/28011015990 http://www.flickr.com/photos/thelotuscarroll/6842167375/

Well, what happened?

Our sites of identity & citizenship = commodities in an

attention economy.

http://jaysimons.deviantart.com/art/Map-of-the-Internet-1-0-427143215

Our sites of learning, also.

.

Open has benefits for higher ed.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/30081278011/

Open also raises issues for higher ed.

let’s look at being a citizen of the Open.

In day-to-day practice…

Citizenship in the Open =

Market models

Open citizenship operates in quantified spaces

Surveilled spaces “When you work for a company or an institution that collects or trades data, you’re making it easy to surveil people…you’re making it easy to

discipline people. You’re making it easy to control people. You’re putting people at risk. You’re putting students at risk.”

- Audrey Watters, 2017

http://hackeducation.com/2017/02/02/ed-tech-and-trump

…and branded spaces.

The prestige economies of open scholarship & conventional scholarship intersect, creating benefits.

In an attention economy, visibility matters.

People without wealth are at a disadvantage.

But open citizenship is often built on free labour.

The more things change…

Given that higher ed is already stratified, we

need to ensure the Open practices

we model do not increase citizens’

disadvantages.

Knowledge abundance

https://www.flickr.com/photos/piper/19904408

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jaredzimmerman/15728149611/

"For the first time in human history, two related propositions are true. One, it no longer is possible to

store within the human brain all of the information that a human needs.

Second, it no longer is necessary to store within the human brain all of the information that humans need.

Education needs to be geared toward the handling of data rather than the accumulation of data.”

- Berlo, 1975

This demands open content + open practice…+ media literacy

http://blogs.ifla.org/lpa/files/2017/01/How-to-Spot-Fake-News-1.jpg

But media literacy is not enough.

If abundance demands the handling of data, not only our media & educational

practices need to change, but what we count as KNOWING.

No gatekeepers = no checks & balances

Racism, sexism, radicalization of all stripes

Participatory spaces

Performative

Open practices in participatory

space force constant

negotiation of identity.

Different from an institutional role.

Participatory open citizenship is built through ongoing signals & traces

But these must compete with distractions…

Spectacle

& Mistrust

* ¤ None of this is new…but it all contributes to an information

ecosystem in which people feel cynical and confronted –

by difference, by jealousy, by challenges to their worldviews, by

blatant efforts to deceive – all in the same spaces.

Participation is confronting.

Being confronted gets people all up in their feelings

We need new stories. We don’t have positive cultural narratives for

healthy participation in the Open, nor a vision of what that would mean.

http://gossipgenie.com/viewpoint-im-a-social-media-addict/

The more signals & traces we create… The more we likely we are to make someone

feel confronted.

Add in virtue signalling…

…and tactical contrarianism

…and identity spaces that amplify anger at loss of dominance

Polarization

So digital citizenship is a total gong show.

Close the internet & go home.

WAIT.

None of this is new. Not the spectacle.

Not the sexism. Not the racism.

Not the polarization. We the citizens have made this place.

To build citizens for abundance & participation, we need to practice

collaboration.

- Mike Caulfield @holden

We need to focus our attention on the parts of the Open – and of media, and of society –

that are NOT polarized.

And build new practices of citizenship

HOW? There is no simple button to push.

I have one story.

The Maritimes, 1920s: company towns, fishing, outmigration

Moses Coady & Jimmy Tompkins

1.  Take the time to understand our circumstances & the structures that shape our prospects

2.  Take the risk of working together to put pressure on those structures in the places we can move them

An adult education movement Literacy, economic cooperation,

rural community development, empowerment

3 Layer Model:

1.  Mass Meetings

2.  School For Leaders

3. Study Clubs

*

I want to do it again.

3 Layer Model:

1.  Global Network

2. Regional Institutional Hubs & Summer Institute

3. Community Workshops & Study Clubs

#Antigonish2 A way to work together to identify – & put our

shoulders to the wheel of – means to effect change.

Structures. Narratives. Practices.

Community Capacity-Building

Through a lens of Media Literacy

Goal: minimizing polarization

Will it solve all our problems?

NO

But it may help us figure out what to do when confronted…

#4wordstories

*

THANK YOU.