BA in French Teaching; PhD in Educational Technology; Associate Professor of ICT at University of Kentucky School of Information Science. My CV is available here, you can browse my research here, and my Google Scholar profile here
Supported by digital methods, my research focuses on online social spaces, community practices within these spaces, and the influence of the platforms where they are found. My research is interdisciplinary, exploring spaces associated with teaching and learning, Mormonism, the far right, or even combinations of these themes.
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I sometimes write in French! To only see the French content (which is also available below, alongside English content), please click on [fr] in the site header.
assessment as proof of learning or as learning itself?
Recently, an idea has been bubbling in my head that’s the culmination of months—even years—of thinking about how I assess in my courses. I’ve typically taken the pretty-standard approach that assessment is the process of students’ proving that they’ve learned something. What if, though, assessment is itself the proof of the process of students’ learning something. That is, what if we doled out points for students’ proving that they appropriately participated in learning activities and then trusted the learning to happen on its own?
in memory of a mentor
This morning, Mormon studies scholar Dr. Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye passed away after a years-long struggle with cancer. Melissa was an amazing scholar, fantastic mentor, and just great person, and I think a lot of people—even just those who knew her professionally—are going to be spending time writing, thinking, and crying about her today and in the weeks to come. Other people will have more, and more important, things to say than I do, but I’m deeply grateful for Melissa, and I want to show that gratitude by sharing a few thoughts of my own.
🔗 linkblog: We Are Not a School—We Are a Hospital System with a Football Team'
I don’t know if I love or hate that McSweeney’s has so much content for academia.
🔗 linkblog: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal'
This criticism of “learning things they won’t use in real life” has always been frustrating to me, so I appreciate this response.
🔗 linkblog: How anti-vaccine activists and the far right are trying to build a parallel economy'
Gab’s been showing up more in the news lately, so I guess I should dust off some of that Gab data I have and move it closer to publication.
🔗 linkblog: College DEI programs survive as clock runs out on KY Republican supermajority'
This feels too good to be true? But if the legislation is really dead (at least this time around), I’ll take it.
religious authority, Mormonism, and Instagram
As I hinted at in a recent linkpost, something really interesting happened this week that serves as a sort of microcosm of my research interests related to online Mormonism and religious authority. Here’s a rundown of what happened, as reported by the Salt Lake Tribune (and republished here via MSN).
First, a leader of the official Latter-day Saint women’s organization gave a sermon last Sunday, one quote from which was uploaded to the official Latter-day Saint Instagram account:
do you want to be good or to be optimized?
This Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic from yesterday spoke to me at a deep level:
My first thoughts went to generative AI, an area in which I feel like a fetishization of optimization is crowding out really important questions of what is good. As I put it in a university survey earlier today, there are undeniable benefits to the use of AI tools, but there are important questions as to who benefits.
🔗 linkblog: Call for Submissions: The Deleted Comments Department - Exponent II'
Bookmarking for future research. What a fascinating (if frustrating) interplay of social media platforms and religious authority.
🔗 linkblog: Hackers are targeting a surprising group of people: young public school students'
Audrey Watters was warning about something like this almost a decade ago. It’s time for edtech folks to step up and recognize that technology in schools goes far beyond that exciting new classroom tech—and that we can’t do something about stuff like this if we’re overly focused on efficiency and effectiveness.
what would Doctorow University look like?
One of my favorite academic anecdotes to share in conference rooms and university hallways is for my dissertation defense, two of my committee members were there via telepresence robot. This is less impressive post-2020, when a lot of defenses happen entirely over Zoom, but it’s still different than an online-only defense, so the story still attracts some interest. At any rate, as good as I thought my story was, I got a real kick out of this bit in the prologue to Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom:
hooray for faculty collegiality
My unit is currently hiring three new faculty members, which means that we’re right in the middle of nine(!) campus visits. We’re all getting well practiced at talking about the strengths of our unit and why people might want to work here. One thing that we’ve said over and over in meetings and interviews with candidates is that we work together well and get along with each other, too (we also acknowledge that this is not true 100% of the time, but that the exceptions prove the rule).
far-right Mormonism and the boundaries of Twitter hashtags
There are a couple of weeks before the deadline to submit abstracts for the Mormon Social Science Association’s sessions at the 2024 meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, so I’ve been filling some nooks and crannies of my busy work week by looking at some Twitter data. Last year, I published with my colleague Amy Chapman a qualitative look at the #DezNat Twitter hashtag, which blends Mormon orthodoxy with far-right and anti-feminist thinking.
🔗 linkblog: UK looks to change role of faculty senate. Employees worry it will take away authority'
Need to read more on this before I fully understand what’s being proposed and what the consequences will be. I struggle, however, with the argument that reducing the power of faculty is somehow improving faculty governance.
🔗 linkblog: How to Overcome Imposter Syndrome in Academia When You’re Six Raccoons Living in a Fjällräven Parka'
I really ought to be reading more McSweeney’s.
🔗 linkblog: University of Michigan Sells Recordings of Study Groups and Office Hours to Train AI'
This is straight-up awful. Shame on the university for doing this.
🔗 linkblog: UK president to legislature: Proposed DEI, tenure legislation is ‘deeply concerning’ for Kentucky colleges'
I appreciate it when our president speaks up against legislation that would hurt the University of Kentucky.
🔗 linkblog: Ky. Senate passes bill to limit DEI in higher education in the name of free speech'
Well, crap. Not a lot of hope that House will stop this.
🔗 linkblog: The Absurd One-Sidedness of the Ethics of AI Debate: A rant | Punya Mishra's Web'
Punya is a bit warmer on AI than I am, so I wasn’t sure what I would be reading based off of the title, but this is one of the best things I’ve read on generative AI in education. These companies have so much power and could use a little more Parkerian responsibility.
🔗 linkblog: Generative AI course statement – George Veletsianos, PhD'
George’s example statement is one worth bookmarking.
🔗 linkblog: House education chair says professor review bill is not aimed at limiting tenure in Kentucky - Kentucky Lantern'
You can say that, but it’s hard to understand how this isn’t limiting tenure.