BA in French Teaching; PhD in Educational Technology; Associate Professor of ICT at University of Kentucky School of Information Science
I am an interdisciplinary digital methods researcher studying meaning-making practices on online platforms. Most of my work has dealt with informal learning through social media, but I'm increasingly dabbling in online Mormonism, the online far right, and various combinations of the three.
My CV is available here.
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🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Can anyone stop President Musk?'
I’m teaching a social media research methods class this semester, and I’m pretty sure I need to bring this article up in this week’s class. https://www.theverge.com/politics/605609/musk-trump-doge-takeover-crisis
Jacques Ellul's technique and generative AI
Throughout my career, I’ve been a data-first researcher, and theory has always been one of my weak areas. This is not to say that I dismiss the importance of theory: I appreciate danah boyd and Kate Crawford’s critique of Chris Anderson’s “the numbers speak for themselves” in their 2012 paper Critical Questions for Big Data as much as I appreciate Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein’s similar critique in their book Data Feminism.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Evolution journal editors resign en masse'
More suckiness in the world of academic publishing. link to “Evolution journal editors resign en masse”
trapped between generative AI and student surveillance
We’re getting to the end of the semester here at the University of Kentucky, which is my traditional time to get overly introspective about grading. There’s a lot on my mind at the end of this semester, but one thing that has popped into my head tonight and that I think will be quick to write about is a dilemma that I’m facing this semester, when I’ve had faced more suspicions about student use of generative AI than in any previous semester.
new publication: Canvas and student privacy awareness
For the past couple of years, my colleague Dr. Meghan Dowell and I have been working on a paper on students’ awareness of what data the Canvas learning management system collects (and subsequently makes available to certain stakeholders). I’m a fan of Nick Proferes’s paper [Information Flow Solipsism in an Exploratory Study of Beliefs About Twitter] and have long wanted to do something similar related to LMSs. This is even more Meghan’s area of specialty than mine, though, so I was grateful that she was also interested in the subject and took the lead in turning this idea into reality.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'A Faculty Member’s Self-Evaluation at the End of the Semester'
McSweeney’s content on academia is always darkly hilarious, and this is no exception. link to “A Faculty Member’s Self-Evaluation at the End of the Semester”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Someone Made a Dataset of One Million Bluesky Posts for 'Machine Learning Research''
It’s uncomfortable for me to think about how close my “digital traces” research is to surveillance and YOLO data mining. link to “Someone Made a Dataset of One Million Bluesky Posts for ‘Machine Learning Research’”
on the performativity of teaching
Before writing what I want to write, I want to make a few things clear. Teaching is an important and noble profession, I love being a teacher, and it’s possible (and often easy) to distinguish between better and worse ways of teaching. With that out of the way, I want to start off this post by arguing that teaching is less of “a thing” than learning is. That is, learning is the real phenomenon here, and teaching is sort of an auxiliary practice that aims to support learning but can’t ever quite be the same thing.
I think the conference hotel wi-fi is blocking competitors' websites?
I’m currently at the 2024 conference for the Society of the Scientific Study of Religion, where the Mormon Social Science Association always organizes a number of panels. (I presented on a reactionary Mormon Twitter hashtag earlier today!). MSSA traditionally has a Saturday evening no-host dinner, and as long as I’ve attended (okay, only since 2021), we’ve relied on a foodie board member to find a place for us to eat. Rick isn’t here this year, and somehow that got turned into my becoming responsible for finding us a restaurant to meet, eat, and chat at.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Employees Describe an Environment of Paranoia and Fear Inside Automattic Over WordPress Chaos'
Wild to read this so soon after finishing Character Limit, because I’m getting very similar vibes. link to “Employees Describe an Environment of Paranoia and Fear Inside Automattic Over WordPress Chaos”