Abstract: Teacher educators often introduce technologies to teacher candidates as if they are neutral and just depend on instructor choice. However, we believe that the field of educational technologies requires a critical technoethics because the technologies, cultures, and systems in which the competencies are enacted are not neutral. Moreover, technologies increasingly extract and exploit students' data, nudge their baehavior towards problematic information, and harm democracy more generally. In this workshop, we argue that teacher educators should foreground a critical technoethics model which we created which can help teach about technologies and their appropriateness and justness for schools and society. The model is centered around asking critical questions addressing ethical, democratic, legal, economic, technological, and pedagogical issues around learning technologies.

Objectives

- Participants will understand why we believe a critical technoethical model is necessary in teacher education - Participants will understand the host of dangers technology companies pose to teacher candidates, their students, and society more broadly - Participants will learn about our critical technoethics model that includes ethical, democratic, legal, economic, technological, and pedagogical issues - Participants will plan uses of our critical technoethics model for their classes

Topical Outline

This workshop is intended for all teacher educators but can benefit all educators. The critical technoethics framework provides a rigorous, but flexible, series of questions that help teacher educators address ethical issues with the learning technologies they use in their classes. The session will address the four learning objectives listed in the previous section: - Participants will understand why we believe a critical technoethical model is necessary in teacher education - Participants will understand the host of dangers technology companies pose to teacher candidates, their students, and society more broadly - Participants will learn about our critical technoethics model that includes ethical, democratic, legal, economic, technological, and pedagogical issues - Participants will plan uses of our critical technoethics model for their classes As an example, a teacher educator might decide to use a closed Facebook group in their class. The class would apply the critical technoethical model to explore how social media companies like Facebook extract and sell user's data, include microtargeted advertising from foreign groups like the Internet Research Agency, and regularly fails to address harm done on their platform. They would then assess whether they should use that medium in classes. We will apply the model to technologies like Class Dojo, Google Earth, even iPad tablets. The session will end with participants preparing and practicing the critical technoethical model for their classes.

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for participation.

Experience Level

Beginner

Qualifications

The model proposed by the authors is currently in press with the the Journal of Technology and Teacher Education (JTATE). Moreover, the lead presenter has published on technoethical issues related to social media in Teachers College Record and these issues will be included in the presentation: Krutka, D. G., Manca, S., Galvin, S. M., Greenhow, C., Koehler, M. J., & Askari, E. (2019). Teaching “against” social media: Confronting problems of profit in the curriculum. Teachers College Record, 121(14). Retrieved from https://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?contentid=23046 The authors have also implemented the model in their classes and have gained in wisdom in it's application.