I purposefully produced three versions of the same talk here: a written transcript, a set of slides with images and text, and a video.
None is a mere copy of the others. Each has content that doesn’t easily transfer from one medium to the next. I also conducted a live discussion and Q&A, which added another layer. And that was also recorded.
I took efforts to make sure each version of this “talk” stood as a thing on its own, without need for additional context. The bulk of my time was spent designing for the folks who couldn’t “attend.”
One of my central points, across all versions, is that we can’t just live-stream and record a conversation to address issues of access. A fly on the wall view of a classroom is not “access,” by any stretch, but an empty carbon copy, 10-feet removed from the actual conversation.
Right now, we have to find ways to design first for the folks who can’t be present in-person or synchronously. Even if we have to sacrifice some attention to what can happen live and synchronously.
But we shouldn’t enable access at the expense of privacy and security.
The students most likely to have felt excluded already in education are the ones who won’t be able to “pivot” back to face-to-face learning in the Fall. And a bunch of cameras installed in classrooms won’t help those students (or any students) feel less isolated or marginalized.
As I said today, if I had the ear of every college president, I’d say we must design primarily for online in the Fall and then find creative ways to use whatever time some of us can spend together. But our marginalized, sick, disabled students shouldn’t be an afterthought.
