Module 8: Critically Conscious Computing

Due by EOB Fri 6/23

At A Glance

What does it mean to be critically conscious of technology?

What questions should we be asking? Critical stances should we be taking?

What questions are meaningful to us? How might we incorporate our expertise and perspectives in our critiques?

What design choices might we need to make when considering how to teach about, with, through, and against computing?

Affordances

Abstraction

Inputs and Outputs

Algorithms

Data Practices

This part should take you approximately 2 hours to complete.

Prepare

Prepare

Module Introduction Video

Watch our module introduction video to prepare for the rest of the activities.

Transcript here, or you can use closed captioning on the video.

Explore

Explore

Explore this gallery of critical analyses in which authors, academics, creators, journalists dig into computing technologies to better understand the power dynamics at play. We’ve labeled them with About, With, Through and Against orientations from the CITE Framework to help you navigate the perspectives being taken. We think the analyses with a Through orientation may give you an opportunity to tinker.

Keep in mind the critical practices in your disciplines and the computing practice of creating and using abstractions as you peel back the layers.

Who is critiquing? Who/what are they critiquing?

Does the critique refer to the tool’s impacts, affordances, algorithms, how it utilizes data, other abstractions?

What techniques are they using to understand and evaluate the systems they are investigating? Which may be helpful as you think about teaching “against” computing?

Stretch goal: Do you recognize any of the tools or computing systems in the critiques? Do you use them or interact with them? Do they resemble anything in your life or environment? How might you tinker or experiment with them to understand how they work? What might you try to reveal?

Apply

Apply

Click on your college team’s Flip Discussion Group below. Follow the directions there to respond to some prompts related to the resources you explored above.

Flip Discussion Group Links

Consolidate

Consolidate

Module Exit Video

Exit videos are here to help you consolidate and reflect on all the knowledge contained in a module. Feel free to take notes and consider your key takeaways!

Transcript here.