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Kean University 2021, The Network

What Do We Mean By Community?

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            At the beginning of 2020, before the pandemic really took the entire world by storm, NPR released an article entitled “Most Americans Are Lonely, And Our Workplace Culture May Not Be Helping”. According to their sources, loneliness had a relatively large leap from 2018 to 2019; this leap encompassed people from all backgrounds, though some groups like women and Boomers were less lonely than men and Gen Zers (paras. 7&9). I decided to look this up after listening to […]

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collective action, Kean University 2021, The Network

The Way Forward

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The readings this week present a way forward. In Kelley’s article “Students Are Pushing Back Against Proctoring Surveillance Apps” we get a jumping off point from which we can follow a trail of hyperlinks on how to address issues of surveillance and privacy in education. The emphasis is on raising awareness, asking questions, rallying with others who are impacted, and holding those in authority accountable for making the necessary changes policy-wise. “Digital Detox #6: Build Back Better” serves as an […]

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Kean University 2021, policy, science and technology, The Network

Change in Policy Doesn’t Guarantee Change

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                Ruha Benjamin’s article “Catching our Breath” once again solidifies the point that the way we are creating and approaching technology is bringing with it all the issues that are present in our society. I was intrigued with her emphasis on the fact that education alone isn’t enough, on the “routineness” of racism, and with the way she discussed how progress needs to embody an “abolitionist consciousness”. But as I sat down to write on this, I found I just […]

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Change, Kean University 2021, Parable of the Sower, The Network

Becoming Shapers of Change

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                We want change to have an end goal. Even the language we use around change lends itself to sustaining this hopeful delusion: working towards a more ______ society, becoming a more ______ person, creating a world where ______ is no longer an issue. The problem isn’t the desire found in these visions of change, it is in the notion that eventually there is a place of rest from striving for them. Deep down, each of us hears the whisper […]

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Kean University 2021, The Network

Stages of Change

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Shoshana Zuboff’s discussion of surveillance capitalism leaves the tech user feeling stripped of dignity. As it turns out, the “lack of knowledge” that has led to a casual approach to issues of privacy online has immense consequences that many of us don’t understand the half of. Zuboff says that this lack of knowledge is the continued hope of big tech companies that are profiting off our ignorance. By increasing their rights to privacy and stealing ours, they create a self-sustaining […]

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Kean University 2021, The Network

I’m going to get baking ads now, aren’t I?

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                When I encounter a new topic that I have no foundational information about, I start to feel the sensation of panic that arises from *gasp* not being knowledgeable about something. This is a deep insecurity that I mask with baking and researching in a chaotic fashion that usually leads to more questions than answers. Yet out of the swirl of chaos and carbs, a technique of learning has emerged that seems to be mellowing with age – whether it […]

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Kean University 2021, quantified self, The Network

The Quantified Self in the PPU

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                Rettberg’s chapter on the “quantified self” left me in a bit of a depressed mood. The idea of using technology to “interpret” and “represent” our lives through tracking software isn’t as bad as the notion that everything is never ending. Don’t get me wrong, the tracking software itself is unnerving. At first when I was reading her article, I felt like not only was it a little creepy, but also the most frivolous idea I’d ever heard. Really? A […]

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Kean University 2021, The Network, Zoom gaze

Yas Cat and Empty Containers in the Post Pandemic University

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                Remember that vine with the cat ‘saying’ “yas” to wanting a treat? If you don’t, the description says it all. I remember watching this video with someone and them having a hard time fully believing that it wasn’t actually the cat saying ‘yas’ instead of someone voicing over the cat’s meow. This simple exchange shocked me at the time in an oddly deep way. How could you question something that was so obviously contrived and fake? Even now when […]

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citizenship, Kean University 2021, The Network

Idea vs Reality in the Post Pandemic University

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          I’ve been reflecting a lot on how difficult it is to bridge the gap between ideas and reality. This was made clear last week in our discussing of IEHospitality and trauma informed practices, and it is clear in this week’s consideration of the internet. The ‘reading’ (podcast) for this week, “The Internet of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” is laden with ideas around the world of technology and the internet and the tricky relationship they have with […]

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Connecting in Learning, Intentional Equitable Hospitality, Kean University 2021, The Network, trauma informed, VConnecting

The Body in the Post-Pandemic University

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A theme that is beginning to emerge in my contemplation of the material we are reading in NetNarr is Body. I realize the notion of Body is not a new one and there are many, many people before me that have fleshed this out. This framework of the Body started to come to me partly because I am reading The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolkfor my class on trauma and also after reading the article “Bodies […]

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Kean University 2021, The Network

The Problem of Prestige

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                I’m making my way (slowly) through two of Ibram X. Kendi’s works on antiracism and the history of racist power, policy, and ideas in America. His writing has been transformative for my thinking, and not just in the obvious ways around racism. I’m a small picture person. I don’t really know what makes someone a big picture person and another a smaller one, but that just seems to be the way my mind works. Though there are some strengths […]

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Kean University 2021, The Network

Into the Rabbit Hole…

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            I think like most of my experience in the English-Writing program so far, I am in a state of dazed confusion but intrigue after our first class. I initially wasn’t going to take this course because I was having to decide between a few paths I thought I should take; but in the end, I made the switch both because of listening to this fantastic podcast from the New York Times called Rabbit Hole and listening to Dr. Zamora […]

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