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Media and digital literacies in Canadian teacher educators’ open educational practices: A post-intentional phenomenology

Platform - glossary item

In computer and technology, platforms refer to hardware or software serving as a foundation or base. Hardware platforms refer to the operating systems used for computers or mobile hardware e.g. Windows, Mac OS, Android, iOS. Software platforms are applications that host other software or user options. Nichols et al., (2021) refer to platforms as: "(1) infrastructures on which applications are built (e.g. a video game console is a platform for playing its compatible software); and (2) online networks that facilitate economic and social exchanges (e.g. a social media site is a platform for connecting with others)” (p. 345).

References
Definition of platform. (n.d.). PCMAG. Retrieved June 21, 2023, from https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/platform

Nichols, T. P., Smith, A., Bulfin, S., & Stornaiuolo, A. (2021). Critical literacy, digital platforms, and datafication. In J. Z. Pandya, R. A. Mora, J. H. Alford, N. A. Golden, & R. S. de Roock, The Handbook of Critical Literacies (1st ed., pp. 345–353). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003023425-40

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Glossary 19 alphabetic listing of glossary items with links to notes that describe each item plain 2023-06-28T15:29:30+00:00
Here is an alphabetic listing of the glossary items included in this dissertation document. Each item is linked to a note where the item is defined, described, and/or examples provided. These glossary items are also embedded throughout the document as notes within pages, where they provide 'just in time' clarification for you, the reader.
- Actor Network Theory
- Affinity Spaces
- Alternative Dissertation
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Black Box technology
- Block Chain
- ChatGPT
- Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS)
- Creative Commons
- Cynefin framework
- Data Gathering
- Digital Rights Management (DRM)
- Educommunication
- Emirec
- Episteme / Phronesis
- Faculty of Education (FoE)
- #FemEdTech
- Free and Open Software (FOSS)
- Homo Faber
- Hupomnemata
- Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)
- Learning Management Systems (LMS)
- Makerspace
- Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)
- Media and Information Literacy (MIL)
- Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
- Open Educational Practices (OEPr)
- Paywall
- Platforms
- PDF
- Portable Graphics Network (PNG)
- Post-Intentional Phenomenology (P-IP)
- Practice - both noun and verb
- Research Ethics Board (REB)
- Safety, Security, Privacy, Permission (SSPP)
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada (SSHRC)
- Teacher Candidates (TCs)
- Teacher Educators (TEds)
- Teacher Educator Technology Competencies (TETCs)
- TPACK
- Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans
- UNESCO
- Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
- Universal Serial Bus (USB)
- Visitors / Residents
Dimension 4.1
Criticality in the selection of tools, technologies, spaces, and places
Careful and reasoned examinations of software and hardware for pedagogical applications for use in FoE are not usually conducted by faculty but rather by technology support staff or purchasing agents. For many participants in this research, their OEPr includes criticality through self-reflection and examination of platform technologies for “predictive logics and commercial interests … which can work against their pedagogical values and commitments” (Nichols et al., 2021, p. 348). Platforms are defined as both infrastructures upon which applications are constructed and operated, as well as the “online networks that facilitate economic and social exchanges” (Nichols et al., 2021, p. 345). For participants in this research, their MDL within their OEPr includes a critical examination of platforms, tools and technologies not just for technical construction or socio-economic dimensions (Nichols et al., 2021) but also for pedagogical applications. Criticality of tools and technologies is evident in Rigel’s questions about to platform capitalism and Perseus' comments of technological architectures that embed market logics to perpetuate attentional economies. For Izar and Orion this criticality includes decisions relating to tools and technologies for the curation and aggregation of student work with a view toward technological agnosticism.

Implicit in the findings of participants’ lived experiences with platforms and technologies are critical approaches that examine hereditary concepts of MDL that spotlight the integrations of users, technologies, and content into educational contexts and distributed within “technical infrastructures and socio-economic relations” (Nichols & Stornaiuolo, 2019, p. 14). Connecting to Nichols and Stornaiuolo's (2019) research into digital literacies, I notice that Andromeda and Rigel question the impact and efficacy of integrating social media into course designs, Dorado and Leonis examine the synchronous or asynchronous delivery of content and connections in light of pandemic teaching and learning structures, Polaris questions the purpose of video captured lectures as a barrier to engagement, and Carina and Perseus critically analyze the use of video-conferencing for classes and seminars.

Participants in this research share their critical approaches to analyzing spaces and places for learning engagement. Nichols et al. (2021) suggested that criticality in MDL is helpful in identifying and analyzing digital practices, in order to contribute to a “wider repertoire of tactics for mapping, critiquing, and transforming digital ecosystems” (p. 345) that has implications for teaching and practice. For Andromeda, Aquila, Perseus, Polaris, and Rigel this means explicitly teaching students to identify invasive forms of digital and media ownership and governance that infiltrate and underpin the technologies being used in the education sector (Nichols & Stornaiuolo, 2019).

Criticality involves the creation of spaces for building knowledge that is grounded in the labour of marginalized communities while interrogating where people in positions of power inadvertently or intentionally erase the knowledge work created, as suggested by Collier and Lohnes-Watulak (Mackenzie et al., 2021). This is of particular importance to TEds in Canadian FoE in light of efforts to address and respond to issues identified in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Calls to Action (The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 2015). Opportunities to remix content and produce multimedia elements in courses in the FoE offers students a creative way to show what they know, thus “troubling the traditional definitions of academic authorship and knowledge … these new forms could validate understandings rooted in communities of colour, indigenous communities, and queer communities” (Mackenzie et al., 2021, p. 310). Opportunities for marginalized populations to share their stories as modelled in FoE, can shape the way TEds and TCs address concerns relating to access, equity, indigeneity, diversity, and marginalization. This echoes how criticality is applied to expressions of social imaginaries, described as the shared collections of artefacts, images and sounds constituting the representational milieu within which individuals give and receive communicated knowledge (Wallis & Rocha, 2022).

For the TEds in this research, this approach to criticality includes questioning and examining the tools, technologies, spaces, and places where teaching and learning occur, not only for their own courses, but also within the K-12 schools into which their TCs deploy. This is evident in Perseus' experiences with critical approaches to the video-enabled teaching spaces resulting from COVID pandemic teaching, Leonis' efforts to engage marginalized Muslim-Canadians' voices in video storytelling, and Aquila’s critical views of LMS when sharing experiences of students communications since the “LMS discussion forum is a place where ideas go to die”.