Thread by @Katja_Thieme

Reading Audrey Watters' "School Work & Surveillance."

"I am under even more pressure to say something, anything nice about ed-tech, to offer reassurance that—over time, by Fall Term surely—the tech will get better. I can't. I'm sorry."
#surveillance 1/

hackeducation.com/2020/04/30/sur…

"Ed-tech is not a tool that exists only in the service of improving teaching & learning, although that's very much how it gets talked about. There's more to think about than the pedagogy too, than whether #edtech makes it better or worse or about the same just more expensive." 2/

"Tools have politics. They have histories. They're developed and funded and adopted and rejected for a variety of reasons other than 'what works.' Even the notion of 'what works' should prompt us to ask all sorts of questions about 'for whom,' 'in what way,' and 'why.'" 3/

"I don't want the future of #education to be more monitored, data-mined, analyzed, predicted, molded, controlled. I don't want education to look that way now, but it does." 4/

"#Surveillance is not prevalent simply because that's the technology that's being sold to schools. Rather, in many ways, surveillance reflects the values we have prioritized: control, compulsion, efficiency." 5/

"Despite all the claims that ed-tech 'disrupts,' it is just as likely going to re-inscribe. That is, we are less likely to use ed-tech to rethink assignments or assessments than we are to use ed-tech more closely scrutinize student behavior." 6/

Such an old piece of wisdom, so sadly true: "The fear that students are going to cheat is constitutive of much of #edtech. This belief dictates how it's designed and implemented. And in turn it reinforces the notion that all students are potential academic criminals." 7/

TurnItIn has been challenged by students who've complained it violates rights to ownership. A judge ruled in 2008 that copyright wasn't infringed upon as they'd agreed to Terms of Service. What choice is there but to click "I agree" when compelled to use software by a prof? 8/

"Every student is guilty until the algorithm proves their innocence.

Incidentally, one of its newer products promise to help students avoid plagiarism, and so essay mills now also use TurnItIn so they can promise to help students avoid getting caught cheating." 9/

Proctoring tools "require a student show photo ID to their laptop camera before the test begins . . . the software gathers data like name, signature, address, phone number, driver’s license number, passport number, along with any other personal data on the ID." 10/

"Some of these products capture a student's keystrokes & keystroke patterns. Some ask to hand over the password to their machine. Some track location data, pinpointing where the student is working. They capture audio & video—background sounds & scenery from a student's home." 11/

"We know algorithms are biased, because humans are biased. We know facial recognition software struggles to identify people of color & there've been reports the proctoring software has demanded students of color to move into well-lit rooms or shine more light on their faces." 12/

"Because the algorithms that drive the decision-making in these products is proprietary and "black-boxed," we don't know if or how it might use certain physical traits or cultural characteristics to determine suspicious behavior." 13/

"We do know there is a long and racist history of physiognomy and phrenology that has attempted to predict people's moral character from their physical appearance. And we know that schools have a long and racist history too that runs adjacent to this." 14/

"Like I said, not all of this is about preventing cheating, but all of it does reflect a school culture that does not trust students." 15/

Schools are going to be under even more pressure to buy surveillance software: ⬇️⬇️⬇️

16/

Surveillance of everything students are doing while using the software.

Surveillance of everything teachers are doing.

Surveillance of everything workers are doing. 17/

"Zoom...another example of enterprise tech:...there is functionality of the software that reveals whose interests it serves—the ability to track who's paying attention, and who's working on smth else (a feature the company disabled after complaints about security & privacy)." 18/

"Who's cheating the time-clock, that is. Who's cheating the boss." 19/

"Social media monitoring tools that are used to surveil students are also used to surveil workers, identifying those who might be on the cusp of organizing or striking." 20/

"These technologies will for foreclose possibilities for students and for teachers alike, shutting down dissent and discussion and curiosity and community. Too often in education and ed-tech, we have confused surveillance for care." 21/

"But caring means trusting, and trusting means being able to turn off a controlling gaze. Unfortunately, frighteningly, it seems we are turning it up." 22/

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