alternate title: Morgan can connect almost any topic back to cows

I grew up with cattle, a herd animal. You can’t keep a single cow by themselves – not if you want it to be happy. As a farm kid, summers were cattle show season, and while most went off to green pastures the show stock always had a few others stick around in the small pasture off the farmyard to keep them company (and to prevent escape artists). While humans have adapted to independence more than our bovine brethren – probably because of our positions as predators – we are still meant to live with other humans. We do live in a society, after all. We are completely reliant on our caregivers for much of our childhood, and we’re kidding ourselves if we don’t admit that it carries into our adulthood as well. Solitary confinement (a misnomer if there ever was one) is considered cruel and unusual punishment.

To me, the difference between solitude and loneliness, must be the product of the quiet, forced contemplation of the hunter – a time to gather one’s thoughts and sit in the silence required to hunt large prey – so that you can come back to your people with both food and as a better member of your society. Solitude centres us. The voice of loneliness is one of failure though. Being cast away has been a traditional societal punishment, from Greek ostracism to the British penal colony of Australia and the Gulags of Stalinist Russia, or the LGBT child exiled from their homes or sent to conversion therapy. The message? Others don’t want you around. You have no value. Others are better off in your absence.

Solitude is empowering. Loneliness is not.

One of the most interesting things about the time we live in is how our technological structure enforces loneliness, but not solitude. The very real fear we have of judgement means that the things we would not be willing to express in a classroom or work conversation, many of us will say through the distance of our device screens. Thus, we both feel not alone, and tear up the social contract of being a member of a group of people at the same time. And if the only place we can be our true selves is removed from the people themselves, that strikes me as the loneliest thing of all.

a reflection on the end of an era

Yesterday I handed in my last assignments for my last course in my Master of Educational Technology degree through the University of British Columbia. While I won’t graduate until May, it marks the end of an era – just shy of six years I have been plucking away at courses through UBC, first with my post-Bacc in Teacher-Librarianship, and then this program. Honestly, it probably won’t sink in until this January when the next semester begins and I am not juggling the demands of my day job and academia (and supervising the Varsity Boys Volleyball team, haha).

I am thankful for the learning of these years; the ideas and architecture of teaching, learning, and technology that have been made visible through thinkers and makers with skill much greater than my own. At least once a week I am reminded of the meme posted below, and when I pull back from my own unique situation, lenses, and experiences, I continue to be humbled by all of the things I know I don’t know, and even more so the things that I don’t know that I don’t know.

One thing I wish I’d had throughout this degree — and especially in the final projects — was a small community of co-designers. Working full-time while studying part-time often meant creating in isolation or across time zones and distance, without the iterative conversations that sharpen ideas and reveal blind spots. Learning is ecological, and I felt the absence of that ecology at times. For anyone thinking about MET, I strongly encourage it, but especially for you to take the financial hit and take as many summer institute classes as you can. It was these experiences that really got me keen on the importance of hybridity. Even so, the work felt like a reminder that none of us should be designing the futures of education alone.

The more I learned, the more I realized that technology is never neutral — it always arrives embedded with assumptions, values, and power. I came into this program as a tech optimist, but leave it as a tech realist. This kind of program (both the T-L one and the Ed Tech one), would not have been possible to me given my geographic location. Such programs don’t exist here in Manitoba. This program was a gift — but one that came wrapped inside an increasingly precarious technological landscape. However, to borrow from the words of Cory Doctorow, the enshittification of technology has hollowed out some of my previous optimism. When so much of the truly equitizing and democratizing potential of technology is hidden behind paywalls and gradually whittled away even then for increasing add-ons you begin to wonder if the world-views of yourself and the architects of these applications are in alignment.

As a teacher-librarian trying to think carefully about ed tech, I see the role of libraries, both public, elementary/secondary school, and university as a solution to some of these challenges. This will require sustained public funding, and the (mostly) corporations that design these materials to subsidize access to ensure these technologies don’t become yet another divide between the have and have nots. It is not hard to imagine a future where the ability to participate in digital culture depends entirely on one’s ability to pay for the tools required to access it. Perhaps this is no different than inequities within print culture — but it still runs counter to the vision of education I was raised in, both as a student and later as a teacher.

I also hope that the notoriously slow-moving systems of curriculum-development and education are focused on what strikes me as the most crucial adjustment necessary of the LLM age – assessment. Our paradigm has shifted almost instantaneously, and our previous methods of assessing work at its conclusion feel unsuited for the times we are living in. Honestly, it was never suited – but it was easier, and for the students who were able to submit a polished product thanks to the assistance of a tutor, parent, or other support, their ‘knowing’ was never assured in the time before. I hazard to say that it was our biases about who specific learners are, their backgrounds, and what they look like (plus maybe the discomfort in challenging involved families) that made us look the other way. AI didn’t break assessment — it revealed what was already broken.

While I worry that AI will mean increasingly high classroom numbers, I actually think that it calls for more teachers, more human mentorship, more conferencing and check-ins along the way – a necessity that is almost impossible in our current set-up. If AI teaches us anything, it’s that students don’t need us less — they need us differently.

Imagined as a rousing political speech, with patriotic music slowly swelling in the background.

Colleagues, I know many of you are excited about NotebookLM, especially that uncannily almost-human podcast feature. We upload our readings, videos, and professional documents, then receive instant synthesis supporting multimodality and differentiated instruction. But I want us to consider what’s happening to our professional expertise when we adopt this tool—or any LLM-based assistant. We’re witnessing the remediation of educational expertise itself, transforming teachers from knowledge-holders into knowledge-brokers. NotebookLM stands out for grounding its responses in uploaded materials, lending its outputs an authority that masks their mediation.

To understand what’s at stake, let me introduce a concept from media studies: remediation. NotebookLM remediates the entire research apparatus of teaching—our file cabinets, OneDrive folders, annotated textbooks, and accumulated professional wisdom. Bolter and Grusin (2000) argue that remediation occurs through networks of formal, material, and social practices:

Formally, it remediates the academic literature review, the planning notebook, even Socratic dialogue; but promises “complete and comprehensive access to information” while obscuring the interpretive labor that transforms information into knowledge (Papacharissi, 2015).

Materially, it replaces physical artifacts of teaching expertise (marked-up curriculum guides, annotated student work, scribbles in margins) with algorithmic processes that appear transparent through source citations yet are hidden behind algorithmic choices. NotebookLM produces what Bolter and Grusin (2000) describe as hypermediacy (visible layers of mediation like source links, formats, AI voices) that paradoxically create a sense of immediacy and authority rather than critique.

Socially, it remediates us as expert practitioners. When we upload materials and receive instant analysis, our professional authority shifts from knowing to prompting—a different kind of expertise entirely.

Goodbye Inquiry, Hello Output

Linguist Adam Aleksic (2025) argues that “truly knowing an answer requires struggling with uncertainty.” Consider planning a unit on New France in Canadian history—a unit Manitoba students often struggle to find relevant. Traditionally, this required understanding primary sources, synthesizing across texts, connecting to standards, curating materials, anticipating misconceptions, designing meaningful assessment.

NotebookLM generates all of this in seconds. But as Aleksic describes, “with each additional abstraction from uncertainty, the easier it is to find answers, and the more confident those answers sound.” The tool produces seeming pedagogical expertise with the “aura of truth, objectivity, and accuracy” that danah boyd and Kate Crawford (2012) identify in Big Data mythology.

Yet can we explain why these particular connections matter? In philosophical terms: do we know what NotebookLM claims, or merely believe what it tells us?

The Question Behind the Question

Aleksic describes how “the lost ritual of asking has collapsed the meaning of the question in the first place.” When we can instantly generate unit materials, we never wrestle with fundamental questions: Why teach about New France? What should students understand? How does this connect to their lived experiences?

These aren’t questions NotebookLM can answer. They require what Haraway calls “critical, reflexive relation to our own practices” (as cited in Papacharissi, 2015). The tool can synthesize curriculum documents but cannot interrogate why we chose those documents, what we’re unconsciously prioritizing, or whose perspectives remain absent.

As Aleksic (2025) writes, “figuring out which question to ask is more important than the answer itself.” But NotebookLM’s efficiency makes all questions appear equivalent. We’re “drowning in a sea of answers, forgetting how to ask the right questions.”

Papacharissi (2015) captures this perfectly: AI outputs “oscillate between the unbearable lightness of information and the impossible gravitas of knowledge.” NotebookLM offers comprehensive information access but cannot deliver genuine pedagogical knowledge; the heavy weight of knowing that emerges only through sustained engagement with uncertainty.

Colleagues, I’m not asking us to abandon NotebookLM, but let’s use it differently. Treat its outputs as another text to interrogate, not authoritative synthesis. Our students need us to model what it means to genuinely know, not merely retrieve.

References

Aleksic, A. (2025, December 3). the importance of not knowing. Substack.com; The Etymology Nerd. https://etymology.substack.com/p/the-importance-of-not-knowing

Bolter, J. D., & Grusin, R. (2000). Remediation : Understanding new media. MIT Press.

Boyd, D., & Crawford, K. (2012). Critical questions for big data: Provocations for a cultural, technological, and scholarly phenomenon. Information, Communication & Society, 15(5), 662–679. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2012.678878

Papacharissi, Z. (2015). The unbearable lightness of information and the impossible gravitas of knowledge: Big Data and the makings of a digital orality. Media, Culture & Society, 37(7), 1095–1100. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443715594103

An assignment in which I didn’t quite follow the instructions properly, but came away with a greater understanding because of it. This video was made with the help of Adobe Podcasts and additional images and text were added in CapCut.

References

Black, E. (2001). IBM and the Holocaust : The strategic alliance between Nazi Germany and America’s most powerful corporation. Dialog Press.

Franklin, U. (1989, November 6). The real world of technology: Part 1 [Lecture]. CBC Massey Lectures. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-1989-cbc-massey-lectures-the-real-world-of-technology-1.2946845

Franklin, U. (1990). The real world of technology. House of Anansi Press.

Illich, I., & Sanders, B. (1988). ABC: The alphabetization of the popular mind. York University Press.

Wikipedia Contributors. (2021, December 20). Ursula Franklin. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_Franklin

Video tour and final course reflection

Okay, so my video is a bit longer than 5 minutes, but I swear there’s a reason! My video tour is presented as a mock news segment with Artie Smarts, an animated robot newscaster. I went with this format to keep things conversational and fun while still walking through the project in detail, drawing on Mayer’s (2009) personalization principle to show that professional learning can be engaging as well as practical. The playful opening, a few jokes, and the closing segment were all part of setting that tone and holding attention — though they do push the video slightly past the suggested runtime. I was having a lot of fun making it (using a combination of Adobe Express, Apple Clips, and CapCut), and I hope that comes through when you watch.

Sometimes you plan something and follow your itinerary to the letter; other times, despite your best intentions, another path calls to you and you end up going in a completely different direction. Such was the case with my learning throughout ETEC 524. In hindsight, it’s probably not surprising that my main work ended up focusing on AI and educators; it is a topic I’ve been almost obsessively engaged with for the past two years. But this was not where I initially set out to go in May.

My original goal was to outline and begin developing a hybrid online/classroom course for Grade 11/12 students, centred on skill development and mastery in an area of their choice. I’ve long wanted to create space for students who are not drawn to more traditional academic programming to pursue a deep dive into something meaningful to them. However, as the course unfolded, I shifted toward building a professional development module for educators in my school division. This shift came partly from recognizing the immediate usefulness of such a resource, and partly from seeing an opportunity to help teachers design more accessible, less cluttered Edsby environments for their students.

When I compared my initial and final projects, I noticed that both aimed at the same underlying challenge: addressing crucial shortcomings in current pedagogical models. The difference was that the PD module would allow me to act on these ideas sooner and in a context where I could model thoughtful technology use for colleagues as well as students. That reframing not only changed the direction of my final assignment, but also reframed how I now think about my role as a teacher-librarian — not just supporting student learning directly, but shaping the digital spaces and professional practices that make deeper learning possible.

I suppose we always live in ‘interesting times’, but the phrase seems particularly apropos of our current moment. Large Language Model tools, economic models that incentivize the capture of our attention and data, and political dialogue are currently shaking the foundation of what it means to learn, and therefore what it means to teach. I leave this course with many great resources to strengthen my toolbox, but also quite a few existential questions about where we move on from here.

In terms of resources, several were especially important in shaping my thinking throughout the course. I’m always one for an acronym, and Bates’ (2015) SECTIONS model and its clear breakdown of considerations for technology selection was a very helpful frame. I still struggle with it in some ways, but only because I see that it may lead organizations to prioritize immediate cost over sustainability. Of course, this is a systemic issue. Planned obsolescence, increasing energy demands, and security and privacy issues create a scenario where tech requires frequent updating and replacement, while the majority of companies that have significant interest in developing hardware and software run on a model of infinite profit and growth. This results in devices where parts can’t be swapped out, or where our data is traded like a commodity. Fighting against this means using open source or older technologies that require more in-house tech support, and often significantly less ease of use. I can’t help but worry that we’re paying out of our future for ease of use today.

Outcome development and assessment was another area of growth for me. Given my role in the public school system, I am much more familiar with assessing by outcomes that have been provided to me, rather than creating those outcomes myself. My part one of my second assignment showed my weakness in that area. Assessing for PD learning rather than an academic course was something that I hadn’t really thought about. In most of my school-based PD learning experience, assessment seems to boil down to your name being on the attendance sheet, or (for online modules), a series of automatically graded multiple choice and true/false questions that staff often did as a group. But we know that simply being in the room isn’t learning something, and that tests generally only measure lower-order skills (Mazur, 2013). As such, Mazur’s suggestions to improve assessment by mimicking real life, focusing on feedback not ranking, and assessing skills rather than content were especially useful, and I tried to mindfully incorporate them into the activities I planned in my unit. His fourth point about resolving the coach/judge conflict is tricky for online learning especially, as instructors are often spread more thinly. For older users, peer and self-assessment can be a useful workaround.

Media literacy (particularly around images, and also video)has also emerged for me as an essential skill for both students and educators. Yousman’s (2016) discussion of speed versus depth, appearances versus analysis, and the emotional pull of images resonates strongly with my concerns about online-only learning. In a digital environment where learners are often inundated with visuals, the skill to pause, question, and analyze becomes a prerequisite for critical engagement.

Ultimately, this course has left me feeling more positive about the state of in-person teaching, and with significant question marks about the long-term sustainability of online-only-asynchronous education — especially given generative AI’s rise. Many edtech tools, whether devices, applications, or Learning Management Systems, allow for holistic application of UDL principles into a blended learning environment; a fully inclusive environment that allows for multiple means of engagement, representation, and action & expression (Bourlova, 2025). But assessing learning without a real connection to the learner in an online-only environment becomes increasingly challenging in a world where almost anything can be made for you in seconds. When we are digitally siloed, it becomes far too easy to “other” the entire world. Bringing learning back to community, even in a hybrid format, becomes a moral as well as a pedagogical imperative.

This is why I leave this course particularly invigorated to see how learning technologies can be applied to hybrid environments, especially in the realm of professional development. When I plan professional development in schools, I often hear how great it is to have bespoke learning that is relevant, personalized, and even a bit fun when topics are difficult. I know, though, that these sessions are limited in their universal design, as some individuals need more time to process, different modalities, or repeated exposure to key ideas. What if this kind of work can be done at my divisional level to plan PD that reaches more of us, on locally relevant topics, and what if that trickles into our classrooms? One next step I see is reaching out to upper administration to share my vision of hybrid-learning PD using our Edsby system. I don’t know of anyone within my division with this specific background and training, and I wonder if I might be able to shape a role for myself in this space. McErlean’s (2018) work on interactive narratives also strikes me as especially relevant here — using immersion to engage participants while still controlling the delivery of key content. I think hybrid learning could benefit greatly from this balance.

I’m also especially interested in making Open Educational Resources that align with UDL standards. In creating accessible and Creative Commons-licensed resources, I can work toward reducing the paywall creep that has marked the shift from the open optimism of the Web 2.0 era to today’s increasingly commercialized edtech landscape. This work would not only address accessibility and equity concerns but also provide sustainable, adaptable materials that could serve both students and educators long after their initial creation. In my job as a teacher-librarian, I can promote the heck out of these resources to teachers; we don’t have to be in the pocket of big textbook anymore.

This course has reinforced for me that educational technology is at its best when it strengthens human connection, promotes equity, and cultivates critical engagement; not when it simply delivers content faster or more efficiently. The challenge, especially in “interesting times,” is to hold on to those values in the face of rapid change, commercialization, and the seductive ease of automation. My next steps (from advocating for hybrid, UDL-informed professional development to creating accessible OERs) are grounded in a belief that technology should expand possibilities for both teachers and learners, without locking us into closed systems or shallow engagement. The tools will keep changing, but the responsibility to use them thoughtfully remains the same.

References

Bates, T. (2014). Choosing and using media in education: The SECTIONS model. In Teaching in digital age. Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/part/9-pedagogical-differences-between-media

Bourlova, T. (2025). Week 8: Creating Content. [Lecture Notes] UBC Canvas. https://canvas.ubc.ca

Issa, T., & Isaias, P. (2022). Sustainable design : HCI, usability and environmental concerns. Springer.

Mayer, R. E. (2009). Multimedia learning (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.

McErlean, K. (2018). Interactive narrative. In Interactive narratives and transmedia storytelling: Creating immersive stories across new media platforms (pp. 120-151). New York: Routledge.

The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60–93.

Yousman, B. (2016). The text and the image: Media literacy, pedagogy, and generational divides. In J. Frechette & R. Williams (Eds.), Media education for a digital generation (pp. 157-170).

AI Essentials for Educators; one step closer to reality

I love a good digital story—that’s the teacher‑librarian in me. So when Part II called for one, I went big. I split the module into three chunks: a gentle, non‑academic primer on LLM limitations; Shannon Vallor’s short talk on AI as a mirror; a practical on‑ramp via a choose‑your‑own‑adventure (CYOA) story; and then some hands on AI tool interaction. My audience (Senior Years teachers new to gen‑AI) was not going to read Crawford’s Atlas of AI or Noble’s Algorithms of Oppression, so I let Clippee do the ranting instead.

I actually started in Twine, but Edsby doesn’t play nicely with Twine embeds. Google Sites would have worked, but I wanted to model inside the LMS they already use. So I pivoted to Canva. That constraint forced me to prune eight branches down to four core scenarios. I think this was ultimately a blessing, because it sharpened the key myths I needed teachers to bump into. Guided by Bruner’s claim that “practice in discovering for oneself” makes knowledge more usable in problem solving (Bruner, 1961), the branching story lets teachers feel the pitfalls before I name them. In Bruner’s “hypothetical mode,” learners aren’t “bench‑bound listeners” but co‑constructors; every click in the story and every prompt revision in the lab puts them in that role.

Multimodality mattered too. The New London Group’s push for multiliteracies (1996) and UDL principles nudged me to balance text, images, and short audio clips. I recorded voices in CapCut (yes, shameless self‑promotion—I want invites to co‑teach CYOA projects). Vallor’s mirror metaphor (2024) shaped Clippee’s tone: he “magnifies” what the AI quietly distorted, echoing Crawford’s critique of data extraction and Noble’s warnings about encoded bias. But in a much more accessible way.

Within the walls of my module, H5P’s paywall (thanks, D2L) pushed me to CurrikiStudio for the formative checks. That choice wasn’t just budget—Curriki is something teachers can actually replicate in their own Edsby pages tomorrow, without approvals or fees. Peer interaction is Edsby’s Achilles’ heel, so I farmed discussion to Padlet. It’s clunky to add another tool, but the final course task also lives on Padlet, so repeated exposure helps. I even seeded sample posts so no one stares at a blank board.

Overall, this module blends hands‑on pragmatism with just enough theory for what my audience needs: useful, not heavy.

References

Bruner, J. S. (1961). The act of discovery. Harvard Educational Review, 31(1), 21–32.
Crawford, K. (2020). Atlas of AI. Yale University Press.
New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60–92.
Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of oppression. NYU Press.
Vallor, S. (2024). AI is a mirror of humanity [Video]. Institute of Art and Ideas.

without the features you want; a struggle story

Hey readers! I’ve just finished my first stab at Assignment 2 in my Learning Technologies: Selection, Design, and Application course. It has been a learning experience full of ups and downs. But I see something of utility shaping up. You can get a login link to my course sandbox on our course Canvas page (sorry internet lurkers, this one isn’t for you).

Platform Choice 

I built the course in Edsby, our division’s Learning Management System. I knew this decision would impose limits—Edsby lacks several features common in other LMSs—but I welcomed the challenge of adapting those features within a familiar environment. Also, it’s sort of fun to find ways to work around limitations and problems 🙂 

Audience Lens, Hidden Curriculum & Assessment (oh my!)

Designing the course as a divisional certificate PD offered a double benefit. Many teachers have never seen Edsby “from the student side,” so completing the course lets them experience its interface firsthand. That perspective shift—alongside activities such as embedded Padlets, polls, and streamlined content panels—forms a hidden curriculum in which participants learn both about large language models (LLMs) and about effective Edsby design. Knowing my audience includes colleagues who describe themselves as “not tech-savvy,” I recorded short, captioned tutorials for every unfamiliar action—changing a Padlet display name, uploading a file, finding copilot, etc.—so nobody is left guessing. 

Assessment is intentionally lightweight but still purposeful. Every required Padlet activity and the final AI-analysis assignment is marked on a single pass/fail checklist: if all criteria are met the first time, the task is marked Complete; if anything is missing, I’ll return a brief note—usually within 48 hours—pinpointing what needs to be added or clarified. This approach models formative, mastery-oriented assessment, keeps marking manageable for me, and gives even tech-skeptical colleagues multiple low-stakes chances to succeed.

Challenges & Pivots 

Problems surfaced quickly: Professional Development Groups in Edsby accept assignment submissions, yet those submissions vanish because PD groups aren’t linked to a gradebook. I pivoted to a student-course framework for this prototype and plan to share it as proof of concept for divisional staff learning. 

Edsby’s main feed clutters fast and lacks threaded discussion, so I outsourced dialogue to Padlet. This aligns with Chickering & Ehrmann’s (1996) call for active learning and Bates’s (2015) three interaction types (learner–content, learner–teacher, learner–learner). The workaround—email notifications for every Padlet post—is clunky, but Padlet’s LTI integration could resolve that if I can get my IT to enable it. This is not something that will happen during the time we are in the course, but would be a great feature for other teachers in the future. 

By confronting Edsby’s constraints head-on—and documenting practical pivots—I aim to model the same critical, creative mindset toward technology that the course has encouraged us to embrace so far. 

References

Bates, T. (2015, April 5). Chapter 8: Choosing and using media in education: the SECTIONS model – Teaching in a Digital Age. Opentextbc.ca. https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/part/9-pedagogical-differences-between-media/

Chickering, A., & Gamson, Z. (2001). Implementing the seven principles of good practice in undergraduate education: Technology as lever. Accounting Education News, Journal, Electronic. https://go.exlibris.link/N0tYMtWd

The Learning Environment evaluation rubric was an interesting assignment for me, as I joined a group focused on post-secondary education, despite all of my teaching experience being at the middle and high school levels. Specifically choosing Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College (CMCC) as our organization provided an excellent opportunity to explore how technology could be leveraged in a program that relies heavily on in-person and hands-on practicum. As I joked in one of our meetings this week—I don’t think I would be willing to go to a chiropractor who was trained only virtually! As such, it became clear that the platform we recommended needed to complement, not replace, face-to-face and practical training.

I had a lot of fun collaborating to develop the rubric for this assignment and weaving together elements from both the SECTIONS and CITE models to create a more holistic overview – what we have entitled the LEARNERS Institutional Needs Assessment Scale and the LEARNERS Learning Tool Assessment Calculator. While the SECTIONS model offers a clear lens for classroom integration, the CITE framework (aimed at global development) brings in valuable perspectives around equity and community benefit—something I believe should be considered in a Canadian context as well. That said, the CITE model can be difficult to navigate, which led us to focus on identifying overlaps and building something new that worked for our scenario. You can see the Needs Assessment Scale here, and the Assessment Calculator here.

One key realization for me during this process was the difference between equity and accessibility in evaluating a technology’s appropriateness. Coming from a public school background, I often prioritize equitable access across diverse devices and connectivity levels. However, in the context of CMCC, with a smaller and more homogenous student body, these concerns were not as high on the institutional priority list. This highlighted how institutional context truly shapes which values are seen as essential—and which are optional.

This project also gave me the opportunity to explore two LMS platforms I hadn’t previously encountered: Docebo and Google Classroom. Docebo, which is used largely in corporate settings, did not sit well with me. Its marketing—“There is no reason we can’t quadruple revenue in the next two years… Docebo has allowed us to create an education engine that’s very plug-and-play and very scalable” (Docebo, 2025)—left me wondering whether education was being reduced to a one-size-fits-all revenue model. That’s obviously beyond the scope of our rubric, but it left a lasting impression (and not a good one). That being said, it offered almost all of the bells and whistles you could be looking for 🙂

Google Classroom is a more familiar and affordable option, but I worry that its low cost is being subsidized through user data collection. The recent bankruptcy of 23andMe (Allyn, 2024), and the concerns about what might happen to user data post-collapse, made me reflect on the fragility of digital trust. While Google Classroom receives a passing grade from Common Sense Media, even their evaluation notes several red flags around data use.

The following two images (Common Sense Media, 2022) show concerns re: data in the Google Classroom ecosystem.

By the end of this assignment, I found myself increasingly skeptical that a truly ethical, learner-centered LMS exists. This exercise sharpened my ability to evaluate tools critically—but it also reinforced my concerns about the broader systems behind them.

References

Allyn, B. (2024, October 3). 23andMe is on the brink. What happens to all its DNA data? NPR. https://www.npr.org/2024/10/03/g-s1-25795/23andme-data-genetic-dna-privacy

Bates, A. W. (2015). Teaching in a digital age. In opentextbc.ca. Tony Bates Associates Ltd. https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage

Common Sense Media. (2022, December 19). Common Sense Privacy Evaluation for Google Classroom. Privacy.commonsense.org. https://privacy.commonsense.org/evaluation/Google-Classroom

Docebo. (2025, April 21). The LMS for education. https://www.docebo.com/solutions/education/

Osterweil, S., Shaw, P., Allen, S., Groff, J., Kodidala, S. P., & Schoenfeld, I. (2015). A framework for evaluating appropriateness of education technology use in global development programs. https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/115340/Summary%20Report_A%20Framework%20for%20Evaluating%20Appropriateness%20of%20Educational%20Technology%20Use%20in%20Global%20Development%20Programs.pdf

Ponderings on Usability

What is usability? 

Perhaps it is simpler to view usability through the lens of a stone age technology. The wheel proliferated because it is infinitely usable. To borrow from Issa and Isaias’ usability criteria (2015, p. 33), the wheel was easily understood and adopted across various cultures (learnability). It could be adapted for use in many places (flexibility). When properly designed, it rarely failed (robustness). The wheel significantly reduced the effort required for transportation (efficiency), and its design was simple, effective, easily reproduced, and impossible to forget how to use (memorability). Small imperfections don’t usually effect its utility (error handling), and it made people’s lives better and easier (satisfaction). When we are designing tools for use, usability must be the end goal, or else we are building Rube Goldberg machines; complex machines that perform tasks in indirect and convoluted ways (Wikimedia Contributors, 2019) that are more of a puzzle and pastime for the designer than solutions to widely held problems or ways to improve quality of life. 

What about educational usability? 

From an educational lens several ideas are missing. Unlike the profit-driven motives of the free market, which often lead to excluding certain users in technology design, the education system prioritizes inclusivity, catering to diverse learning needs, and supporting both teaching and learning processes. When technologies have been designed for commercial usability rather than educational, educational outcomes and learning effectiveness are often sacrificed. Adding features necessary for ensuring support for different age groups, modes of learning, technological proficiency and integration with learning standards are not marketable in the same ways.

Data privacy is another concern. Individuals of legal age can consent to technology use and data terms, but schools must prioritize student data privacy, often facing higher costs for technology that adheres to these standards, unlike commercial tech subsidized through data sale (Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, 2023). Ultimately, one could define educational usability as technology that meets Issa and Isaias’ criteria on top of being ethically responsible and inclusive, which prioritizes the learning process, and recognizes the financial and security challenges that are unique to the educational field. 

When usability studies go wrong 

User-centred design is integral . Woolgar effectively argued that in his observed usability study, he saw the configuration of the user to the technology. This is problematic because it can lead to a notable mismatch between user needs and the technology, resulting in a product that is difficult to use, or doesn’t serve the problem it is intended to address. It also leads to potential user frustration and disengagement because they are forced to adapt to a system that doesn’t align with their natural behaviours, expectations, and motivations.  

One issue that stood out for me was the very close presence of testers during the process. The testers were physically in the space and verbally guided the users along the way, telling users when they could give up, or providing positive reinforcement to encourage useful behaviours like reading a manual (Woolgar, 1990, p. 85). Would users outside of this ecosystem persist in their use of the technology, and where would users genuinely struggle? Configuring the users muddies the water. 

Woolgar highlighted the insider/outsider contrast, with insiders like tech support often surprised by outsiders’ real-world use of technology, exemplified by simplified computer instructions posted in a school computer lab. (Woolgar, 1990, p. 72). The sheer depths of knowledge and experience of designers act as blinders to the everyday needs of average users, who may not share the same level of expertise or perspective. Perhaps a better process for usability testing would have helped create a device that was more intuitive. 

Usability over time 

Woolgar’s points on usability are particularly relevant when considering the DOS-based 286 computers he references in 1990, which, due to their novelty and hardware constraints, necessitated user adaptation and lacked key usability aspects like learnability and satisfaction set out by Issa and Isaias 25 years later. It is likely that in Woolgar’s case users legitimately needed to be configured. Now that technology is ubiquitous, and screen recording technology/keystroke-logs exist we can now take the lessons learned from Woolgar and apply them in a way that helps users configure the tech rather than vice versa. Testers no longer need to physically be in a room with those doing the testing, as we can gather helpful data virtually. In Woolgar’s case, usability studies were an end of process project to be completed shortly before heading to market, whereas Issa and Isaias frame usability evaluation as a recursive process of prototype releases; this is a significantly more proactive, user-centric approach. Ultimately, when read together these pieces highlight how important it is that our conceptions of usability do not remain static. 

References 

Canadian Centre for Cyber Security. (2023, August 4). Protecting your information and data when using applications- ITSAP.40.200. Canadian Centre for Cyber Security. https://www.cyber.gc.ca/en/protecting-your-information-and-data-when-using-applications-itsap40200 

Goldberg, R. (1931). Self-operating napkin [Comic]. In Wikimedia Commons. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Rube_Goldberg%27s_%22Self-Operating_Napkin%22_%28cropped%29.gif 

Issa, T., & Isaias, P. (2015). Usability and Human Computer Interaction (HCI). In Sustainable Design (pp. 19–36). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6753-2_2 

Wikipedia Contributors. (2019, April 10). Rube Goldberg machine. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg_machine 

Woolgar, S. (1990). Configuring the user: The case of usability trials. The Sociological Review, 38(1_suppl), 58–99. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954x.1990.tb03349.x 

When I first sat and pondered this week’s blog topic, I was reminded of the ‘charitable’ practice of donating used clothing. According to this 2018 CBC News article, 80–90 percent of clothing donated in Canada isn’t being resold here. Some is cut into rags, others ground down into upholstery filler, but the majority is packaged up to the developing world where it is sold. The issue with this is that this is the end of the line of the re-use cycle, as once they end up in these countries the clothing will inevitably end up in a landfill. Another issue is that these donations and second-hand goods end up suppressing the textile industries in these countries – industries that would offer citizens good paying jobs and the promise of economic development (Jay, 2018). Thus, these donations end up empowering the developed world (the United States economy is benefitted over $680 million each year from used clothing exports) while the economies of importers get access to cheap clothing, but at a developmental impact. Several decades ago, almost half a million Kenyans worked in the garment industry – in 2017, only approximately 20,000 of those jobs remained (Harden, 2019). 

Weeded donations – good deed, or pushing garbage onto others? 

Are book donations from the developed world similar? Are they just another way for those of us here to feel good about ourselves and get rid of items that we don’t want any more anyway? Are we just assuaging our privileged guilt? 

I think the answer might be yes, at least a little bit. In a world before internet access and mobile devices, an old book very well might have been better than no book at all. And when the option is between nothing and something – yeah, I’d generally take something. However, my research on this week’s topic tells me that librarians in the developing world don’t see donated books as being key to their development and growth. Mose and Kaschula researched the impact of donated books from Book Aid International on primary school literacy levels in Kenya. It should be noted that these donated books were not weeded copies from libraries, but rather from using fundraised monies to purchase new books from publishing companies. Their report showed that students showed a definite improvement in literacy levels, and an increased level of enthusiasm for reading. (Hooray!) However, the authors noted that the donated books were often not relevant culturally to the readers, and went on to explain: 

Rudman (1988) states that ethnic groups need to see themselves reflected in literature and that their portrayal should be well developed and offer a multi-faceted view of their heritage; this is not the case in a majority of the books donated by BAI and supplied to schools by KNLS. Rudman further indicates that individuals who develop an appreciation for their own diversity are more likely to value others.

(Mose & Kaschula, 2019, p. 396)

Perhaps our support would be better used to assist developed nations to create, write and publish culturally relevant materials of their own. Mobile and internet technology is key to this transformation. This assistance would provide untold economic development to the nations where it occurs. 

It should also be noted that it is significantly more likely that a discarded book will be recycled in the developed world. By sending our unwanted books to other countries, we are also increasing the likelihood that they will end up in a landfill. 

What’s being done 

Access to digital resources and community building were themes frequently revisited in my research this week. Tilahun Shiferaw, a librarian at the Haramaya University Library in Ethiopia referred to his library as a space to enable innovation, have cultural meetings and create community hubs (Ray, 2019, p.14). While half a world away, these words sound like they could be coming out of the mouths of any of us in this program. Shiferaw’s own research focuses heavily on digital methods – database management, digital knowledge base systems, digitization and system administration, as well as community service and research (Ray, 2019, p.14). 

Several thousand miles away from Ethiopia, in the West African nation of Ghana, Dinah Baidoo says that the greatest prohibitive factor in her university library is the extreme cost of subscribing to electronic resources (Baidoo, 2017). This sounds like something I would say. If donations are needed from the developed world, maybe access to these electronic resources would be a better option? Some academic publishers are already offering free or reduced-price access to institutions in the developing world, like Sage Publishing’s Public Private Partnerships. 

Barriers for school libraries 

In “A Consolidation of Challenges Faced by School Libraries in Developing Countries” Liah Shonhe from the University of Botswana completed a literature review on issues facing school libraries specifically (2019). Educational policy, staffing, funds, and inadequate facilities for maintaining physical connections were commonly reported issues across nations in Africa and South-East Asia. The review contains a long list of policy changes and recommendations, including the importance of collaboration between school and public libraries, but I was particularly struck by the following: 

Developing countries should consider embracing technology and fast track-rural network connection. This will ensure that school libraries provide access to the internet and up-to date information to students.

 (Shonhe, 2019, p. 9)

The role of mobile devices 

In a 2014 article by United Nations University, United Nations data indicates that 6 billion of the world’s population now has access to a working mobile phone (only 4.5 billion have access to a toilet, for perspective). 

While these may not be complex smart phones, they feature rudimentary screens that allow people to read text, and even books. Studying the use of these devices in seven developing countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Uganda and Zimbabwe) approximately one in three stated that they used their mobile phones to read to their children. Mobile readers are heavily skewed female, with women reporting 277 minutes per month, while men average 33 minutes. This bodes well for development of female literacy, given that a disproportionate amount of the world’s population that is considered illiterate is female (64%). Mobile reading is inexpensive and allows reading to take place despite social stigma around female education. (Smith, 2014).

Mobile devices allow for access to multiple modalities of text, including e-books, audiobooks, and built in translation and dictionary tools. They can be accessed at any time, from remote locations, they are incredibly mobile and they make text accessible for many. For an increasing subsection of the global population, mobile devices are what makes literacy possible. 

Access across a range of mobile devices

As mobile devices continue to evolve, one thing that will need to be kept in mind (globally, not just in the developing world) is accessibility. In a 2017 article entitled “We went mobile! (Or did we?)”, Laura Turner and Alejandra Nann discuss what makes mobile based web experiences optimal. For their research, they used the following 4 criteria:

1. It uses mobile friendly software.

2. It does not require the viewer to zoom and can be read from the page’s initial loading.

3. The viewer does not have to scroll horizontally.

4. Links are easily clicked on. (Turner & Nann, 2016, p. 216)

Barriers to accessibility included having to download an app, download PDF files, or use Flash. Web browser-based solutions were deemed most accessible. This takes me to my final point. 

Innovative ideas from the global community 

So… we want materials to be culturally relevant and in their mother tongues, up to date, and easily accessible. What is being done in edtech in these areas? 

My research led me to Worldreader, a global non-profit charity that only works in digital publications. Through web-browser based e-reader technology, which can be accessed at read.worldreader.org, students have access to free e-books. All these books can be downloaded on to your device to read offline (a great feature for places in the world with spotty access to mobile data or internet). The browser-based app includes awards and motivators for reading, allows readers to set goals, read in multiple languages and increase font size. 

In partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Worldreader studied the impact of the e-readers in libraries in Kenya. More than 80% of participants reported reading more, 254 community events were held, 20000 people were trained to use the e-readers, and library visits at pilot sites tripled. You can read more about the effects of Project LEAP here. 

This screenshot shows a view of English book options in the Worldreader catalog

I appreciate that their financials are available for all to check out on their website – something I find very important. Also, using the four criterial from the Turner and Nann study on mobile-friendly technology, Worldreader provides an optimal web-based experience. Finally, upon browsing titles I was struck by the diversity of characters, settings and topics. Non-fiction texts about women and technology, and crime thrillers and other fiction set from Ghana to Cambodia can be found on the site. To see oneself reflected in what you read, see and hear is so very important. 

When children cannot find themselves reflected in the books they read, or when the images they see are distorted, negative, or laughable, they learn a powerful lesson about how they are devalued in the society of which they are apart. 

(Bishop, 1990) 

This is only one innovative idea that I found.  https://libraryforall.org/ is another non-profit that seems to be working along the same principles. It operates via its own app, rather than an in-browser option, which makes it slightly less accessible. 

I’m excited to see the other gamechangers that exist in the world of mobile technology that my classmates will suggest!  

Sources

Baidoo, D. (2017, April 13). Digital resources in developing world libraries: supporting research needs and increasing usage. Retrieved from https://connection.sagepub.com/blog/opinions/2017/04/13/digital-resources-in-developing-world-libraries-supporting-research-needs-and-increasing-usage/

Bishop, R. S. (1990). Mirrors, Window, and Sliding Glass Doors. Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom, 6(3), https://scenicregional.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Mirrors-Windows-and-Sliding-Glass-Doors.pdf

Developing World Initiatives. (2019, December 16). Retrieved from https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/developing-world-initiatives

Harden, M. (2019, May 1). The International Impact of Donated Clothing. Retrieved from https://borgenproject.org/the-international-impact-of-donated-clothing/

Jay, P. (2018, May 29). Here’s where your donated clothing really ends up. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/donated-clothing-where-it-ends-up-1.4662023

Mose, P. and Kaschula, R. (2019), “International book donors and public libraries as partners in primary school literacy development in Kenya: Literacy prospects and obstacles”, Library Management, Vol. 40 No. 6/7, pp. 392-401. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.1108/LM-05-2018-0046 

Our Library. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.worldreader.org/our-solution/library/

Ray. (2019). A check in with Librarians from around the world. International Leads, 33(1), 14. 

Shonhe, L. (2019). A Consolidation of Challenges Faced by School Libraries in Developing Countries. Library Philosophy and Practice, 1–12. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5867&context=libphilprac

Smith, C. (2014, May 9). Mobile Phones to Prompt Reading Revolution in Developing World. Retrieved from https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/mobile-phones-to-prompt-reading-revolution-in-developing-world

Turner, L. S., & Nann, A. (2017). We went mobile! (or did we?) reviewing and promoting third-party device neutral library resources. The Serials Librarian, 72(1-4), 214-222. doi:10.1080/0361526X.2017.1297594 

UNESCO. [UNESCO]. (2014, April 22). Reading in the Mobile Era [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/4gOtpCIl-Ng  

Worldreader. [Worldreader]. (2016, September 21). Readtokids.com [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/CUicPi3QQOY 

Worldreader. [Worldreader]. (2018, November 19). Worldreader Kids – English [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/JmwnhFF-kCY  

Cover Image Source

Mobile phone use. [Photography]. Retrieved from Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest.
https://quest.eb.com/search/132_1307294/1/132_1307294/cite