Thunder Bay, ON – Contact North | Contact Nord features a conversation with Audrey Watters,
self-described” education writer, independent scholar, serial dropout, rabble-rouser, and ed-tech’s
Cassandra” to warn us of the most pervasive trend in education technology today – surveillance.

Building Anti-Surveillance Education Technology
Monday, July 20, 2020, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 PM EDT
Free Webinar – Selling Out Fast!

Audrey Watters is the author of The Monsters of Education Technology, The Curse of the
Monsters of Education Technology, The Revenge of the Monsters of Education
Technology, as well as a book arguing that students should control their digital identities
and digital work, Claim Your Domain.

She a journalist specializing in education technology news and analysis. She has written
for Edutopia, MindShift, O’Reilly Radar, ReadWriteWeb, and The Huffington Post, in
addition to her own blog, Hack Education.

“By embracing surveillance as a core tenet of education technology, we are sacrificing students’
privacy and their safety. How can we imagine, and build, a different set of ed-tech practices, one
that is founded on trust rather than suspicion, on care rather than on control?” says Watters.

In Conversation with Audrey Watters is hosted by Dr. Paul Prinsloo, Contact North | Contact Nord
Research Associate and Research Professor in Open and Distance Learning (ODL) in the College
of Economic and Management Sciences, University of South Africa (Unisa).

Sarah Gauvreau, Contact North | Contact Nord Research Associate, and webinar organizer,
notes that post-secondary educators are seeking more information about how education
technology is being used in ways they never imagined due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Participants in this very popular webinar can expect to be challenged hard by Audrey Watters
who is one of the world’s most knowledgeable, insightful, and critical commentator on
educational technology”

The worldwide webinar tackles tough questions:

•  How we often overlook one of the most pervasive trends in education technology over the last few decades, rarely featured in lists of “what’s new” and “what’s hot” surveillance.
•  How by embracing surveillance as a core tenet of education technology, we are sacrificing students’ privacy and their safety.
•  How too often in education and ed-tech, we confuse surveillance for care. We need to watch students closely, we tell ourselves, because we want them to be safe and to do well.
•  How caring means trusting, and trusting means being able to turn off a controlling gaze.

Register for the free webinar or learn more about upcoming free webinars by Contact North | Contact Nord visit https://teachonline.ca/webinars