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How do we help our students navigate the world of public, digital scholarship in a world increasingly dominated by harassment, abuse, disinformation, and polarization?
Closing Tabs, Episode 3: Teaching with(out) Social Media – UMW Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies
That’s the piece that’s been missing, bringing the safety to the serendipity.
Online, we bring safety to the serendipity with our distributed communityWhat I have always been hoping to accomplish is the creation of community.Community is magic. Community is power. Community is resistance.Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century https://www.amazon.com/Disability-Visibility-First-Person-Stories-Twenty-First-ebook/dp/B082ZQBL98/ https://www.amazon.com/Disability-Visibility-Adapted-Young-Adults-ebook/dp/B08VFT4R9T/... and communication stack. Chance favors the connected mind. Our learners connect using 1:1 laptops and indie ed-tech. We give our learners real laptops with real capabilities, and we fill those laptops with assistive tech and tools of the trades.
Now we have the opportunity and understanding to move from emergency pandemic remote school and its pantomime of learning to purposefully designed online education spaces that are accessible, sustainable, and representative of the communities
Conference to Restore Humanity: The NeedWhat I have always been hoping to accomplish is the creation of community.Community is magic. Community is power. Community is resistance.Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century https://www.amazon.com/Disability-Visibility-First-Person-Stories-Twenty-First-ebook/dp/B082ZQBL98/ https://www.amazon.com/Disability-Visibility-Adapted-Young-Adults-ebook/dp/B08VFT4R9T/... they serve.

Created Serendipity
Chance Favors the Connected Mind

Writing Online
A Social Equalizer and a Path to Community and PowerThe 20th Century political scientist Karl Deutsch said, “Power is the ability not to have to learn.”I quote this statement often, because I think it’s one of the most important...

Indie Ed-Tech
Rewire and Reshape the World

Teams, Technology, and Help
Mitigate our weaknesses and build on our strengths with teams, technology, and help
No student will have mechanical limitations in access to either information or communication — whether through disability, inability at this moment, or even just discomfort. Learning is our goal, and we make it accessible.
The Basics of Open Technology
- 🕸 Created Serendipity: Chance Favors the Connected Mind
- ⌨️ Writing Online: A Social Equalizer and a Path to Community and Power
- Written communication is the great social equalizer.
- Writing is the path to power for those born without power.
- The Future Is Text: The Universal Interface
- Text Augments All Other Media
- A Workflow-Focused Approach to Writing Offers a Pathway to Agency, Creativity, and Confidence
- Disabled ways of languaging are primarily about modality.
- Writing Online and Community
- Typed Words, Loud Voices
- Let’s Augment Everybody, Let’s Leave No Mind Behind
- 🔌 Indie Ed-tech: Rewire and Reshape the World
- 👩💻 Teams, Technology, and Help
- ⏭ Continue on Page 3
🕸 Created Serendipity: Chance Favors the Connected Mind

Chance favors the connected mind. Opportunities for serendipity increase with bigger, more diverse networks. Build personal learning networks. Expose yourself to new perspectives. Listen in solidarity. Be in the space. When we seek perspectives differentOur friends and allies at Randimals have a saying, What makes us different, makes all the difference in the world.Randimals We agree. Randimals are made up of two different animals... than our own, share hunches, and connect ideas, we participate in created serendipity.
Created Serendipity: Chance Favors the Connected Mind
You, each of you, have some special wild cards. Play
Synthetic Serendipity – IEEE Spectrum and Vinge, Vernor (2007-04-03). Rainbows End (p. 52). Tom Doherty Associates. Kindle Edition.There is nothing more human than play. Humans were designed to learn in play. In fact, nearly all mammals evolved this way.Play's Power At our learning space, we provide learners fresh... with them. Find out what makes you different and better. Because it is there, if only you can find it. And once you do, you’ll be able to contribute answers to others and others will be willing to contribute back to you. In short, synthetic serendipity doesn’t just happen. By golly, you must create it.
if we don’t support young people in building out a strategically rich graph, they will reinforce the worst segments of our society
🎧 “Seeing New Worlds” danah boyd (Team Human) | Read Write Collect
⌨️ Writing Online: A Social Equalizer and a Path to Community and Power
Written communication is the great social equalizer.

“Written communication is the great social equalizer.” Bring the backchannel forward. Embrace the equalizer. Backchannels accommodate neurological pluralismANI launched its online list, ANI-L, in 1994. Like a specialized ecological niche, ANI-L had acted as an incubator for Autistic culture, accelerating its evolution. In 1996, a computer programmer... while fostering the serendipity of networks. Backchannels are vital parts of the internal networks that allow us to tap into not just “a diversity of voices, but a diversity and divergence of thinking and ideas.” Build such networks in your school with indie ed-tech. Look to distributed work for ways to integrate backchannels into education and workplace cultures.
Bring the backchannel forward. Written communication is the great social equalizer.
Writing is the path to power for those born without power.
The Future Is Text: The Universal Interface
Text Augments All Other Media
A Workflow-Focused Approach to Writing Offers a Pathway to Agency, Creativity, and Confidence

Ultimately, we argue that a workflow-focused approach to writing offers a pathway to agency, creativity, and confidence with computing-a spirit that is very much in line with the lineage of digital and multimodal work in composition studies.
Writing Workflows | Introduction
I’m learning a lot about myself since my ADHD
Writing Workflows | IntroductionADHD or what I prefer to call Kinetic Cognitive Style (KCS) is another good example. (Nick Walker coined this alternative term.) The name ADHD implies that Kinetics like me have... and autism
Autistic ways of being are human neurological variants that can not be understood without the social model of disability.If you are wondering whether you are Autistic, spend time amongst Autistic people, online and offline. If... diagnoses. One of the things I’m learning is that a lot of my ways of working are actually disability hacks: as it turns out a LOT of my people are very visual and a LOT of my people have poor working memory. Instead of trying to change myself to fit the ways of working I think I should have, because other people, I should maybe instead celebrate that I have, by trial and error and very little help or encouragement from anyone, kluged my way into some best practices for my particular career and set of challenges. I should congratulate myself on the self-knowledge that got me to a place that I’ve devised a whole workflowWorkflow thinking is the act of reading knowledge work as modular and intertwined with technologies. Through workflow thinking, writers break any particular task into a series of smaller steps and... that minimizes the disabling effects of my particular forms of neurodivergence
Neurodivergent, sometimes abbreviated as ND, means having a mind that functions in ways which diverge significantly from the dominant societal standards of “normal.”NEURODIVERSITY: SOME BASIC TERMS & DEFINITIONS Neurodivergent is quite... and allows me to shine. (para. 5)


Morrison’s post suggests that workflowsWorkflow thinking is the act of reading knowledge work as modular and intertwined with technologies. Through workflow thinking, writers break any particular task into a series of smaller steps and... can be an inclusive and productive concept-that we have much to gain by considering how we work, what tools we work with, and how those preferences can help us think beyond a set of default, invisible, or unstated norms.
Writing Workflows | Introduction
Disabled ways of languaging are primarily about modality.
DisabledThe label "disabled" means so much to me. It means I have community. It means I have rights. It means I can be proud. It means I can affirm myself... ways of languaging are primarily about modality.
Crip Linguistics Intro
If you are a dyslexicDyslexia is a genetic, brain-based characteristic that results in difficulty connecting the sounds of spoken language to written words. It can result in errors in reading or spelling as well... person or the parent of a dyslexic child, I recommend that you allow technology to become your new best friend.
The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan
I am introducing these terms to address an underlying bias in our schools: that eye reading
The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan: A Blueprint for Renewing Your Child’s Confidence and Love of LearningThere are three types of reading: eye reading, ear reading, and finger reading.The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan: A Blueprint for Renewing Your Child's Confidence and Love of Learning Most schools and... is the only form of reading. You can help move the needle on this limited assumption by using the terms eye reading, ear reading
There are three types of reading: eye reading, ear reading, and finger reading.The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan: A Blueprint for Renewing Your Child's Confidence and Love of Learning Most schools and..., and finger reading
There are three types of reading: eye reading, ear reading, and finger reading.The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan: A Blueprint for Renewing Your Child's Confidence and Love of Learning Most schools and... yourself and explaining them to your child.
…we must question what we are taught is the “normalNormal was created, not discovered, by flawed, eccentric, self-interested, racist, ableist, homophobic, sexist humans. Normal is a statistical fiction, nothing less. Knowing this is the first step toward reclaiming your...” way to do things, and instead integrate multiple ways for our children to access information.
Writing Online and Community
Writing Online and Community
The rare studies on Internet use by adults with ID show that information and communication technology is important to them, to forge their identity and find a place in which they belong to a social network. Adults who were interviewed, in the few studies published, like social networking sites (SNS) particularly for keeping contact with parents and friends, making new friends, and giving and receiving support (Holmes & O’Loughlin, 2012; Löfgren-Mårtenson, 2008; Molin, Sorbring, & Löfgren-Mårtenson, 2015; Shpigelman & Gill, 2014).
The majority of participants from Shpigelman and Gill’s (2014) study also reported finding it easier to make new friends by Internet and being more comfortable communicating online than face to face. Furthermore, adults with ID say that the Internet provides them with a (cyber)space where they can escape their parents’ or caseworkers’ control and be more self-determinedSelf-determination Theory (SDT) is... — a model, a macro theory, of human motivation. It’s one of several models of human motivation, but it’s one that has been confirmed over and....

Internet access has opened a wide window of opportunity for people with ID and ASDAutistic ways of being are human neurological variants that can not be understood without the social model of disability.If you are wondering whether you are Autistic, spend time amongst Autistic people, online and offline. If..., but more education and support is needed to ensure safe and positive Internet use by this population.

ANI launched its online list, ANI-L, in 1994. Like a specialized ecological niche, ANI-L had acted as an incubator for Autistic
The neurodiversity movement: Autism is a minority group. NeuroTribes excerpt.Autistic ways of being are human neurological variants that can not be understood without the social model of disability.If you are wondering whether you are Autistic, spend time amongst Autistic people, online and offline. If... culture, accelerating its evolutionShe tells of a radical fringe of scientists who are realizing that natural selection isn’t individual, but mutual—that species only survive if they learn to be in community.Emergent Strategy: Shaping.... In 1996, a computer programmer in the Netherlands named Martijn Dekker set up a list called Independent Living on the Autism Spectrum, or InLv. People with dyslexiaDyslexia is a genetic, brain-based characteristic that results in difficulty connecting the sounds of spoken language to written words. It can result in errors in reading or spelling as well..., ADHD, dyscalculia, and a myriad of other conditions (christened “cousins” in the early days of ANI) were also welcome to join the list. InLv was another nutrient-rich tide pool that accelerated the evolution of autistic culture. The collective ethos of InLv, said writer and list member Harvey Blume in the New York Times in 1997, was “neurological pluralism
Pluralism refers to people of diverse and conflicting beliefs coexisting peaceably, linked by their adherence to a shared social contract which commits members of different groups to treating others fairly....” He was the first mainstream journalist to pick up on the significance of online communities for people with neurological differencesOur friends and allies at Randimals have a saying, What makes us different, makes all the difference in the world.Randimals We agree. Randimals are made up of two different animals.... “The impact of the Internet on autistics,” Blume predicted, “may one day be compared in magnitude to the spread of sign language among the deaf.”

The revenge of the nerds was taking shape as a society in which anyone who had access to a computer and a modem could feel less disabled by the limitations of space and time.
NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of NeurodiversityNeurodiversity is the diversity of human minds, the infinite variation in neurocognitive functioning within our species.NEURODIVERSITY: SOME BASIC TERMS & DEFINITIONS Neurodiversity is a biological fact. It’s not a perspective, an approach, a...

One day someone will write a history of the Internet, in which that great series of tubes will emerge as one long chain of inventions not just geared to helping people connect in more ways, but rather, to help more and more types of people communicate just as nimbly as anyone else. But for the story here, the most crucial piece in the puzzle is this: Disability is an engine of innovation simply because no matter what their limitations, humans have such a relentless drive to communicate that they’ll invent new ways to do so, in spite of everything.
Microsoft’s Radical Bet On A New Type Of Design Thinking: By studying underserved communities, the tech giant hopes to improve the user experience for everyone.

Until one day… you find a whole world of people who understand.
The internet has allowed autistic people- who might be shut in their homes, unable to speak aloud, or unable to travel independently- to mingle with each other, share experiences, and talk about our lives to people who feel the same way.
We were no longer aloneAloneness is a characteristic that many creatives embrace and yearn for. Being alone is anything but lonely. Reading, writing, and creating art all demand a personal space where one can....
7 Cool Aspects of Autistic Culture » NeuroClastic
I know I’m not the only one. For many disabled people, social media gives them access to a social life and community involvement in an otherwise inaccessible world. Not only does social media give me the platform to correct assumptions, people don’t assume things about me in the first place, because it’s a level playing
I’m a Disabled Teenager, and Social Media Is My Lifeline – The New York TimesThere is nothing more human than play. Humans were designed to learn in play. In fact, nearly all mammals evolved this way.Play's Power At our learning space, we provide learners fresh... field. For example, when I Tweet, my addled movements are replaced by various emojis and reaction GIFs, which gives me a vaster palette to express myself.
Typed Words, Loud Voices
Another way that typing has helped me is with my blog. I am able to say things, especially about my feelings that I cannot get out through my mouth. Sometimes, it can take weeks to get it out even by typing, but it does come. If I was trying to speak, it would never come out. I have noticed that when I am upset about something, if I blog about it as soon as possible, I am able to get my real feelings and frustrations out. This is a new and helpful thing. It is helping me to become a better advocate for others and myself. The words are starting to come out through the keyboard, but it has to be done as soon as possible, otherwise the words disappear. I also have to be careful because certain people may read what I write and get worried (this has happened even though there is no reason to be). I am tempted to start another blog but keep it anonymous so that I can say whatever I need to say. It would be interesting to see what would happen if I had that freedom. Something I have definitely never had with the spoken word.
Typed Words, Loud Voices is written by a coalition of writers who type to talk and believe it is neither logical nor fair that some people should be expected to prove themselves every time they have something to say. Read our arguments and hear us. Help us change the world.
I type to talk. Without typing I have no voice to tell you I am smart. I spell my thoughts because I cannot speak with my mouth. Thoughts remain imprisoned in my mind escaping only through my finger on a letterboard or keyboard. I tell of my experiences of being autistic in my writing and blog. Without typing I am misunderstood as retarded and unteachable. You cannot tell from my exterior that I am following everything you say. Understanding comes easy to me.
Fingers are better communicators. They’re just harder to be listened to if you’re in the same location. Sometimes this isn’t used because speech is so much faster, but the fingers give so much more detail, phrase in so much more depth, get tied up so much less. Fingers don’t get lost in their own sentences.
Even those who can always make words with their mouths often find typing a more eloquent and less stressful means of communicating than speech. No one should feel that they have to prove they are “disabled enough” to deserve the supports that will make their lives easier, happier, and more productive. Increasing my ability to communicate with others has filled me with so much hope and joy. I want everyone to feel that way. I want everyone to be heard. Typed voices are a celebration of communication and connection. Listen to them and rejoice. The clicking of the keyboard is the song of life unfolding.
Typed Words, Loud Voices: A Collection – Autonomous Press

Let’s Augment Everybody, Let’s Leave No Mind Behind
Digital communication and collaboration technologies enable NeurodiVenturesNeurodiVenture : an inclusive non-hierarchical organisation operated by neurodivergent people that provides a safe and nurturing environment for divergent thinking, creativity, exploration, and collaborative niche construction.NeurodiVentures | Autistic Collaboration NeurodiVentures create safe spaces for groups... to act as a catalyst for trusted collaboration between groups.
Autistic people – The cultural immune system of human societies | Autistic Collaboration
Using hyperlinkingThe hyperlink is our most potent weapon in the fight against disinformation.It’s time we brought back the hyperlink and learned how to really use it. It’s time we used information... and contextual computing, we take the written word (and the underlying paradigm about how we work on a computer) from one dimension and convert it to three dimensions.
It is the way for computers to truly serve the role as “bicycles for the mind“.
The Growing Movement for Hyperlinking and Contextual Computing
My hope for the Future Of Text is that, as in the past, it will adapt to us as we adapt to it. That it will bring the body—of writer and reader—back into view in all its differenceOur friends and allies at Randimals have a saying, What makes us different, makes all the difference in the world.Randimals We agree. Randimals are made up of two different animals... and complexity.
Embodying Text, The Future of Text


Let’s augment everybody, let’s leave no mind behind.
The Future of Text
🔌 Indie Ed-tech: Rewire and Reshape the World
A Domain of Their Own: The Web We Need To Give Students

“Indie ed-tech” offers a model whereby students, faculty, staff, and independent scholars alike can use the “real-world” tools of the Web — not simply those built for and sanctioned by and then siloed off by schools or departments — through initiatives like Davidson Domains, enabling them to be part of online communities of scholars, artists, scientists, citizens.
‘I Love My Label’: Resisting the Pre-Packaged Sound in Ed-Tech
Giving students their own digital domain is a radical act. It gives them the ability to work on the Web and with the Web, to have their scholarship be meaningful and accessible by others. It allows them to demonstrate their learning to others beyond the classroom walls. To own one’s domain gives students an understanding of how Web technologies work. It puts them in a much better position to control their work, their data, their identity online.
And then — contrary to what happens at most schools, where a student’s work exists only inside a learning management system and cannot be accessed once the semester is over — the domain and all its content are the student’s to take with them. It is, after all, their education, their intellectual development, their work.
The Web We Need To Give Students


Suppose that when students matriculate, they are assigned their own web servers…
As part of the first-year orientation, each student would pick a domain name. Over the course of the first year, in a set of lab seminars facilitated by instructional technologists, librarians, and faculty advisors from across the curriculum, students would build out their digital presences in an environment made of the medium of the web itself.
In building that personal cyberinfrastructure, students not only would acquire crucial technical skills for their digital lives but also would engage in work that provides richly teachable moments ranging from multimodal writing to information science, knowledge management, bibliographic instruction, and social networking. Fascinating and important innovations would emerge as students are able to shape their own cognition, learning, expression, and reflection in a digital age, in a digital medium. Students would frameWhen we successfully reframe public discourse, we change the way the public sees the world. We change what counts as common sense. Because language activates frames, new language is required..., curate, share, and direct their own “engagement streams” throughout the learning environment. Like Doug Engelbart’s bootstrappers in the Augmentation Research Center, these students would study the design and function of their digital environments, share their findings, and develop the tools for even richer and more effective metacognition, all within a medium that provides the most flexible and extensible environment for creativity and expression that human beings have ever built.
A Personal Cyberinfrastructure | EDUCAUSE
Too often, education technologies are developed that position students as objects of education, a reflection no doubt of how traditional educational practices also view students. Education technologies do things to students, rather than foster student agency. If we are to challenge what “school” should look like, we must also challenge what “ed-tech” does as well. What sorts of technologies can and should we build to give students more control? What sorts of technologies can offer students the power to “own” their learning — their data, their content, their digital profiles, and their domain?
Claim Your Domain
No Student Will Have Mechanical Limitations in Access to Either Information or Communication

No student will have mechanical limitations in access to either information or communication — whether through disability, inability at this moment, or even just discomfort. Learning is our goal, and we make it accessible.
We hand our students real laptops with real capabilities, and we fill them with software, apps, and bookmarks.
We want our children to discover how to choose effectively for their own needs. To do that, they need choices, and so we believe in Toolbelt Theory.
The Basics of Open Technology

laptops in the classroom represent the first real chance at Universal Design for Learning"Sure," they say, "with enough humiliation we can allow you to do things differently, as long as you understand that we'll never consider you an equal part of the school."... – the first real chance to allow every student to choose the media format most appropriate for their own needs – the first real chance for students who are different to be accommodated without labels
SpeEdChange: Humiliation and the Modern Professor
Punk DIY: Students should have the freedom to explore and experiment with their school-issued devices.
“Indie ed-tech” draws rather explicitly on the spirit of indie music and the DIYIn the arts, bricolage (French for "DIY" or "do-it-yourself projects") is the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available, or... (do-it-yourself) ethos of punk
‘I Love My Label’: Resisting the Pre-Packaged Sound in Ed-TechEverything that was normally supposed to be hidden was brought to the front.Punk subculture - Wikipedia The First Rule of Punk: Be Yourself Our Second Rule of Punk: Reframe The... rock.
To best prepare students for the future, we must think deeply and openly about our vision for school technology today. I believe every student, in every school, deserves equal and open access to computers. Students should have the freedom to explore and experiment with their school-issued devices. In an open schoolhouse, every student is trustedAutists conceptualise the world in terms of trusted relationships with unique people.The beauty of collaboration at human scale The Autistic way of developing trust is based on experienced domain-specific competence.... with learning technology and empowered to rewire and reshape the world.
The Open Schoolhouse – Building a Technology Program to Transform Learning and Empower Students
👩💻 Teams, Technology, and Help
Successful human beings, whether they have learning differences or not, mitigate weakness through teams, technology, and help, and they build a life around strengths, gifts, talents, and interests.
What we know about successful human beings is they take an interest and they make it a passion and they take the passion and they make it a sense of purposeSelf-determination Theory (SDT) is... — a model, a macro theory, of human motivation. It’s one of several models of human motivation, but it’s one that has been confirmed over and... and they take the sense of purpose and they build a pathway.
Lab School Lecture Series
The most successful human beings aren’t good at everything, they’re good at one or two things and they scale those strengths. How do they mitigate those weaknesses? They mitigate those weaknesses the way we all do, with teams, technology, and support.
The Gift: LD/ADHD Reframed
Craft, Flow and Cognitive Styles
⏭ Continue on Page 3
The story continues on page 3, “☀️💪 Offline: Fresh Air, Daylight, and Large Muscle Movement“.