Coffee with a Friend Who Asked Me What I’m Reading in Ed Tech These Days

We had turmeric lattes (who knew there was such a thing) and avocado toast (that I knew) at a cafe. My friend asked what I’ve read recently that’s interesting in the ed tech space. I rattled off a few titles but didn’t do the question justice. Here’s what I would have shared with a little more forethought, in no particular order:

• Distrusting Educational Technology: Critical Questions for Changing Times by Neil Selwyn | A thoroughly informed skeptical exploration of the value of technology in education.
• Beyond Technology: Children’s Learning in the Age of Digital Culture by David Buckingham | A sweeping examination of the influence of media on learning.
• Big Data in Education: The Digital Future of Learning, Policy and Practice by Ben Williamson | A systematic presentation of the role of data in education, with particular attention paid to how market-driven values can undermine the higher purposes (and ethics) of education.
• Digital Difference: Perspectives on Online Learning by Sian Bayne | A thoughtful and compelling review of online learning in its current and potentially future state.
• Researching a Posthuman World: Interviews with Digital Objects by Catherine Adams and Terrie Lynn Thompson | A required reading for anyone who wants to better understand the human influences that make digital technologies what they are.
• Coding Literacy: How Computer Programming is Changing Writing by Annette Vee | A bad-ass case for understanding coding as itself a composition practice, which could shift whole paradigms in K-12 CS education if taken seriously.
• The Philosophy of Software: Code and Mediation in the Digital Age by David Berry | An accessible and wickedly intelligent study of the very nature of software itself (spoiler: software is a humanly constructed, often invisible, and thoroughly imperfect linguistic construct)

If you or someone you know reads any of these because of this post, holler at me. I’d love to chat about them. 😉