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ICLS 2023 Proceedings © ISLS
1867
Exploring AnnotateEdTech as an Online Collective Third Space for
Developing Teachers’ Learning and Humanizing Practices With
Technology
Charles Logan, Northwestern University, CharlesLoagn2025@u.northwestern.edu
Abstract: Online collective Third Spaces can support educators’ learning about surveillance-
based educational technologies while simultaneously helping educators to develop humanizing
practices with technology. In this paper, I discuss AnnotateEdTech, an online collective Third
Space that brings together educators to use social annotation to critique educational technology
companies’ claims about their products. I share one case of an AnnotateEdTech gathering and
discuss how participants’ annotations are evidence of their learning and humanizing practices
with technology.
Introduction
Students and educators in the United States are increasingly forced to learn and teach beneath the harmful gaze
of surveillance technology. Hoadley and Uttamchandani (2021) offer several recommendations for addressing
surveillance-based educational technology. The authors advocate for a humanizing approach to technology that
considers how technology can “support learning and thriving by disrupting inequity through supporting identity
development, self-expression, authorship, collaboration, and activism” (Hoadley & Uttamchandani, 2021, p. 15).
The authors also argue for more opportunities for teachers to learn about these technologies.
AnnotateEdTech is a promising design innovation to support teacher learning that aligns with Hoadley
and Uttamchandani’s (2021) suggestions for humanizing approaches to technology; it can also be understood as
a collective Third Space (Gutiérrez, 2008). AnnotateEdTech is an online professional development experience
that brings together participants to use the social annotation tool Hypothesis to analyze, question, and critique the
claims educational technology companies make about their products on their websites. In this short paper, I will
offer a brief description of AnnotateEdTech and how it might help educators document and disrupt the creep of
surveillance-based educational technologies.
Collective Third Spaces and transformative teacher learning
Gutiérrez (2008) describes a collective Third Space as a learning environment that challenges participants to
reflect on who they are and imagine what they might accomplish individually and together. The learning that
occurs “becomes situated, reciprocal, and distributed, leading to new forms of learning” (Gutiérrez, 2008, p. 159).
While Gutiérrez (2008) discusses how a collective Third Space nurtures learning for youth from nondominant
groups, other educators have used the design to support teacher learning. For example, the Marginal Syllabus is
an online professional development project for K-12 teachers, university students, and university researchers that
uses the social annotation tool Hypothesis to facilitate discussions about educational equity scholarship (Kalir &
Garcia, 2019). The success of the Marginal Syllabus points to a need for more examples of online collective Third
Spaces that realize the possibility of social annotation for educator learning.
AnnotateEdTech as a collective Third Space for teacher learning
AnnotateEdTech is founded on the belief “that annotation expresses power in ways that are productive, networked,
and situated in social contexts” (Kalir & Garcia, 2021, p. 132), qualities that mirror a collective Third Space’s
situated, reciprocal, and distributed learning.
I first decided to create AnnotateEdTech as a way for educators to critique the narratives produced by
online proctoring companies. According to companies like Proctorio and ProctorU, their software can help
identify students who are cheating on an exam. Critics have labeled it a dehumanizing technology (Hoadley and
Uttamchandani, 2021). To better comprehend how a group of educators worked together to understand and
counter online proctoring’s harms, I explored the following research question: What elements of humanizing
approaches to technology did educators practice through their social annotation of online proctoring websites?
Research context and methods
Context
I worked with members of Ethical EdTech to facilitate the first AnnotateEdTech. My co-facilitators and I
promoted the first AnnotateEdTech through Ethical EdTech’s listserv and Twitter. On November 16, 2020, 16
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higher education faculty and staff joined an hour-long Zoom call and annotated 12 websites belonging to three
online proctoring companies. Participants created 96 annotations using the social annotation tool Hypothesis.
Methods
I began by developing more specific definitions of identity development, self-expression, authorship,
collaboration, and activism, grounding my definitions in relevant literature when necessary. For example, I turned
to Engle & Conant (2002) for help conceiving of authorship as producing knowledge through asserting agency to
define, address, and resolve problems. Next, I conducted deductive coding (Miles et al., 2020) using my more
refined definitions of humanizing approaches to technology.
Findings
The annotator with the username rstarry critiques Proctorio’s claim that their technology promises “total learning
integrity” (Figure 1). The annotation, playful and stinging, is a GIF from the film The Princess Bride. The
annotator’s memorable self-expression communicates the doubt and exasperation they experience as they learn
more about the discourse tactics used by online proctoring companies to frame and sell their products.
Figure 1
(a) An annotator’s self-expression and (b) An annotator’s authorship
(a)
(b)
In Figure 2, the participant Linkletter authors an annotation to illustrate Proctorio’s hypocrisy regarding
its claim that their proctoring software does not use facial recognition technology. Linkletter refutes the claim by
sharing evidence to the contrary: the second and third hyperlinks connect to tweets and a request for proposal,
respectively, that show Proctorio refers to its use of facial recognition technology. Linkletter uses the networked
nature of social annotation for distributive learning, a key characteristic of collective Third Spaces.
Discussion and conclusion
The harmful effects of surveillance-based educational technology require immediate action. Taking inspiration
from the possibilities of a collective Third Space, I have argued for designing online collective Third Spaces to
support teachers’ learning and foster their humanizing practices with technology through social annotation. My
initial findings show how fellow teachers work together to understand and resist the narratives sold by online
proctoring companies. Online collective Third Spaces can be a nourishing context for teachers to enact and hone
humanizing learning practices with technology.
References
Engle, R. A., & Conant, F. R. (2002). Guiding principles for fostering productive disciplinary engagement:
Explaining an emergent argument in a community of learners classroom. Cognition and Instruction,
20(4), 399–483.
Gutiérrez, K. D. (2008). Developing a sociocritical literacy in the third space. Reading Research Quarterly, 43(2),
148–164.
Hoadley, C., & Uttamchandani, S. (2021). Current and future issues in learning, technology, and education
research. Spencer Foundation.
Kalir, J. H., & Garcia, A. (2021). Annotation. MIT Press.
Kalir, J. H., & Garcia, A. (2019). Civic writing on digital walls. Journal of Literacy Research, 51(4), 420-443.
Miles, M. B., Huberman, A. M., & Saldaña, J. (2020). Qualitative data analysis: A methods sourcebook (4th ed.).
Sage.
