EP 27 - Christelle Daceus from Johns Hopkins University - Humanizing Online Learning, Inclusive Practices, and Digital Neo-colonialism

In this episode, John and Jason talk to Christelle Daceus of Johns Hopkins University chats about digital neo-colonialism and efforts to humanize online learning through training about AI and promoting inclusive practices. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com

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Links and Resources:

• Christelle Daceus, M.Ed., is a Course Support Specialists at the Whiting School of Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, and the Founder and CEO of Excellence Within Reach 
• Watch for Christelle’s book chapter - Coming late 2024 on Springer Nature Press “Using Global Learning through the Collaborative Online International Learning Model to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals by Building Intercultural Competency Skills” coedited by Kelly Tzoumis and Elena Douvlou with a chapter titled “Combatting Virtual Exchange’s Predisposition to Digital Colonialism: Culturally Informed Digital Accessibility as a Tool for Achieving the UN SDGs”
• Johns Hopkins Excellence in Online Teaching Symposium
  • John & Jason’s 6 Guideposts - Slide Deck (via Gamma.app)
  • Christelle’s symposium video

Theme Music: Pumped by RoccoW is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial License.

Transcript

We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions or can help with any corrections!

[00:00:00] Jason Johnston: What'd you have for breakfast?

[00:00:01] Christelle Daceus: I did not have breakfast. I was thinking here that I have two dogs, so that my mornings consist of a lot of making sure they get their walk in and getting my nice kind of walk in the morning and things like that. It helps me start my day. And I spend a lot of time just hydrating, tea, I like, because I think I have a full plate, I would call it.

I like to have a really quiet morning, just like the simplest morning that I can have, depending on what my first thing is to do that day. This is my first meeting today, I was like, okay, I'm just gonna chill with the dogs, get into my emails and things like that.

[00:00:40] John Nash: Nice. We've been getting more into tea lately. There's wonderful woman-owned emporium near our house called White Willow and they've got a new herbalist and, we picked up a lavender earl gray tea there last night.

[00:00:53] Christelle Daceus: Ooh, that sounds good.

[00:00:54] John Nash: The little things.

I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston.

[00:01:00] Jason Johnston: Hey, John. Hey, everyone. And this is Online Learning in the Second Half, the online learning podcast.

[00:01:05] John Nash: Yeah, we're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation we've been having for the last two years about online education. Look, online learning's had its chance to be great, and some of it is, but there's still quite a bit that isn't. And Jason, how are we going to get to the next stage?

[00:01:20] Jason Johnston: That's a great question. How about we do a podcast and talk about it?

[00:01:24] John Nash: That's perfect. What do you want to talk about today?

[00:01:27] Jason Johnston: Well, today we're probably going to hit some pretty big themes, John, and it's partly because we have connected with somebody that we first connected with at the Johns Hopkins Online Teaching Excellence Symposium.

So we have with us today, Christelle Dacius. Thank you so much for joining us. And we're really just looking forward to talking to you today.

[00:01:51] Christelle Daceus: too. Thank you so much.

[00:01:54] Jason Johnston: Well, we wanted to get started by just talking a little bit about what is it you do currently? You're connected in with JHU maybe talk about that first, but I also know that you're an entrepreneur. They have other pursuits outside of JHU as well.

[00:02:07] Christelle Daceus: Yeah, I am a long time educator. I've had my hands in all things education at various levels. And yeah, now I'm at J. H. U. Working for the School of Engineering, working for the Center for Learning Design and Technology. I work as a course support specialist with the instructional designers and technologists, creating Materials for courses at the School of Engineering at Helmwood making sure that they're accessible and those materials are accessible, like videos have captions and are able to be, process and materials are able to be read by screen readers. And then we also have the faculty forward Academy where we provide professional development for faculty and I have some awesome opportunities to collaborate with the school of education in their international student work group and I'll be working in some workshops for them in April, providing some work with the faculty on AI and different tools and AI and how they can incorporate into learning and a no fear approach to AI because there's a lot of anxiety there. I think for faculty. And that's my goal with that workshop is to meet them in the middle and show them that AI is here. We can't quite get rid of it, but. We can, elevate our learning and how we, work with students. And so I'm super excited for that. I also work in some research with Global Learning, so I have some international partners I'm doing like exciting things with.

And we have a book coming out in May or June with Springer Nature Press. And so that book is about global learning and how sustainability in education can be affected by the United Nations sustainable development goals. And so we just launched our book recently again at the world environmental education Congress in Abu Dhabi, just a few weeks ago, and we talked about our book and had a panel there and that was super exciting.

Very excited for that work. Obviously it was again like that natural opportunity. I was talking about earlier where it's just I'm meeting good people talking about the good work. And then we started creating some great work together, I'm really excited about that. And then, yeah, like I said, I'm an entrepreneur.

So I have a business in Baltimore City, which is an academic center that's really starting to really connect with the community and start starting to grow into a very. Well rounded program which is exciting because I'm just in maybe a few months. But, it's one of those moments where hard work is paying off even in the new pursuit, where a lot of the relationships that I've valued and forged within Baltimore and within education systems and Baltimore City schools are starting to just grow and I'm able to like really reach students.

Because just moving here, I'm actually from New Jersey, and I moved here maybe five years ago, and I've had an opportunity to contract in schools and things like that. And, Baltimore City Schools is constantly in the news for their educational needs and things like that. And because my career started in K 12, I really wanted to connect kind of the work that I do at this higher level, right?

Accessibility, advocacy, inclusive education, but bring it to a community level. And I think one of the things you guys asked me was about affecting the individual, like, how can we do that work and reach the individual and not just put out the research and all these kinds of things, which is amazing and important to have those conversations and keep pushing forward with.

Workshops and conferences and getting those ideas out there. But then I have an opportunity to not only give opportunities to other educators to bring those opportunities to students, but also really, impact the community, a community that needs it, Yeah. I also am a mom and I have a son he's four.

His name is Malcolm. He's the greatest. And yeah, I'm just a busy bee. I'm all over the place. But I love everything I do. And I think I have a good balance right now. So I'm lucky to do the things that I love.

[00:06:16] Jason Johnston: so we sent you some questions, but like you just. You just landed us with four pretty big things that you do. We could probably spend the entire time talking about any one of those things. So I'm going to have to show some restraint, because there's some things we would like to get to, and why we connected over this, that I think are really important.

I don't want to derail anything here, but I was really curious, and I'm sorry to our listeners, because we keep saying that we're going to stop talking about AI, and then it just keeps coming back.

[00:06:44] Christelle Daceus: You can, that's what I'm saying. That's the workshop. You cannot run away from AI. I'm so

sorry.

[00:06:51] Jason Johnston: And we love it. We like, it's really interesting to us. And all the time are like texting each other things. I actually texted my wife yesterday by accident, something I meant to text to John, and it made no sense to her whatsoever.

[00:07:05] John Nash: Does that make us work spouses right?

[00:07:08] Jason Johnston: I I think so or at least AI spouses. but because every time something comes up, I'm like, Oh, John, did you see this? Did you see that? And he's like sending me stuff back as well. Anyways, tell us a little bit about your approach with the "no fear AI."

Cause I really, I haven't heard that particular kind of phrase, but I'm interested because I think we're all in the same space in, in education.

[00:07:32] Christelle Daceus: Like I said, with the School of Education, they have a work group that works towards just how do we work with international students and within their own faculty groups they make sure that their programming and professional development includes that kind of work, and so they approached me because, a lot of faculty just don't know what to do. Right? The biggest issue is the plagiarism. Like, how do we keep up with this? How do we know that students are submitting authentic work? And that's the idea behind how , I'm planning for the workshop is, that we're talking about first, what really is AI, right? It's not this solve everything.

Like, there's so much more we need to know. There's so much kinks that need to be figured out. And it's so exciting when you see ChatGPT create a menu for you, create a business plan and all these kinds of things. But, people like us who work in online and work with technology, we know that there's like limitation to the authenticity of it to the like humanization of the technology, because there are people who create these technologies.

And these people are often in an industry that is dominated by people who look a specific way, right? And so those people have specific ideologies. And so when they're creating their work, they're using their specific values and ideologies and biases to create that work. And it's amazing work, but it's not something that is, Full spectrum hitting the complexity of humanism.

And I won't scare the faculty by phrasing it that way. But, that's really the conversation of just, letting them know that there is limitations and as much as it looks like it can do, we are still, we still have the power in our hands, right? Because we have this thing that AI or any kind of technology would never have, which is the human brain.

And it's capable of so many things that no matter what we create and no matter how exciting and shiny and new it is it's just never going to be more meaningful than that. And we, the important thing is not allowing it to, right? Not allowing to ourselves to give AI and VR and XR and all these kinds of things.

The power to take our human interactions or communication or connections and make them artificial. Right? So yeah, so that's the idea behind the workshop is that we are going to now give them the tools, right? Okay. So what does that look like? You're telling me don't be scared. Don't be nervous and just. Embrace it. Okay. What does that look like when embracing it? Right? And so I want to talk about some faculty that are already doing that. How can we use ChatGPT is what everybody knows to review work that students are turning and tell them, sure, use it, get it out of their system, and they're going to start to recognize if you show them, okay, the reason we're concerned about this is because you're not getting the accurate information, right? So let's have the students sit down and compare some of their own research to ChatGPT's research and on a similar topic and, compare those things and analyze the technology itself, and it's gonna, teach them some things, which is exciting, right?

It's going to give us some new things, but at the same time, it's going to help them question. They're learning in an authentic way that it's not just I'm answering the question and that's it. But I'm having this moment where I'm like, I'm thinking about my thinking, right? It's something that is in something that we created within the engineering school.

But this metacognition of Remembering that it is a technology, right? It's not our reality. It's just something, a tool that can be applied to the courses, especially online.

[00:11:11] John Nash: Wonderful. Really cool. I think, I have a million questions. I, I've been worried about the the historical bias inside the large data sets that these LLMs get built on, even as actors inside universities like mine who are doing sub projects, they can go out and get the, I guess I'm learning about these, but there's the common crawl data set.

There's BookCorpus, Wikipedia, these things where the data comes from. And then on top of that, as you just noted, the developers values and ideologies get put on top of that. And so I'm thinking about ways to help others, particularly teachers, see their evolving role , as an actor inside this network of flow of information from the large language model to a learner, whether they're over 13 years old and it's okay for them to use them or whether they're in post secondary.

And I'm wondering how you're feeling about that too. I see now teachers are needed more than ever as the mediator between the screen and the learner in helping set up critical conversations. And I'm thinking about these guideposts that we talked about Jason and I did at the symposium at Johns Hopkins and being human to your students and yourself, treat humans as individuals, and you helped us expand on a point which was to recognize that not all humans are present. And so I'm thinking about that. And are you still feeling that way that there's a place for teachers to help learners remember that not all humans have been present in this AI flow of information.

[00:12:53] Christelle Daceus: I think the difficult part is having the time for those conversations in the classroom, I think that's where immediately teachers are like, this is just another thing, right? On our plate for us to, have to deliver, but that's where I'm hoping to encourage authentic, interactions and opportunities to have those conversations, right?

And so I really try to encourage faculty to. Talk about their own process, their approach to a assignment, right? So let's say we have this AI assignment or whatever assessment that we have in a course and they can talk for a moment, whether that's in the overview of the assignment or in the overview of the module, where they're saying, Okay, here's what's assigned this week.

Here's some things that I would keep in mind when I'm approaching this and here's how I would approach, an assessment like this or an assignment like this. And just, remind them that they're not on their own, right? It's not just especially online. It's so easy to just be on the other side of the screen and not really connect.

But if you remind them that, hey, I'm still here and, I try to do these things too. I found my way, I think a really good habit that I'd love to see is, that faculty in their course introductions or syllabus can talk about how they got to their role, as a professor like, yes, we have the bios and, tell them a little background, but really what courses that they take, what, how did they approach their learning in those courses?

A lot of program, if you think about the school of engineering these are common courses a lot of engineers have to take to reach their programming so a lot of these, more senior engineers and people in the industry, they've had those experience. They've had to approach the learning and it might, the learning might look differently right now, but there's things that work when you're, gaining retention or learning new things that just work, right?

And no matter how the learning is approached. And so what I realized is there's an assumption that because you're at a certain level, you just know those things and you should just know how to, you know, um, really organize yourself well enough and organize your course materials, prioritize your learning in an independent way when in actuality, online learning is so new, there's no real approach to it, right?

Right. There's no real guideline to, okay, well, this is how the norm of learning online is for the student, right? I think we spend a lot of time making sure that teaching is accurate and like we're putting out good materials and we're accessible and all these things, but then students, they're just told, log in, learn, even though it's different than anything you've ever done for the majority of your academic experience.

And. But, do it and do it well. And so yeah, those are the things I think about that technology moves so fast that we forget to step back and make sure that everyone has the steps to apply it and be a part of it and participate. And I think that's what true accessibility is not. Pinpointing the people who are most in need all the time, but sometimes it's if everyone can reach this most likely, that's the best products, right?

That's the best experience. And so that's how I approach accessibility and online learning and the design of those courses.

[00:16:14] John Nash: I don't want to oversimplify something you just said, but it, did it seem like I was hearing you say that there are too many instructors who take on an online teaching team? Thank you. endeavor, inadvertently throw the students to the wolves a little bit. There's not enough thought going in there to everything.

[00:16:32] Christelle Daceus: I'd even say it's at an institutional level because half the time, the faculty or teachers are also being thrown into new technology and they, start the school year and they say, Hey, these are the things we're using our courses. This is the LMS that we're using, teachers don't really have an opportunity to decide on those things, so I think that's really what it is that yes, there's.

The aspect that teachers could, step in the ways that I talked about, right? And helping them adjust to the technology. We have to make sure that as an institution, we're reaching them. And me working in K 12, that's the, that's where I see that the most, right? They put these laptops in classrooms and they have all these kinds of very amazing educational technology, but, Half the time, it's just, this is what we're using now.

This is how we're, looking at the data, how we're tracking our students progress, and all these kinds of things. And you just have to adapt and what happens to the teachers that can't, right? Which is what happened in higher ed with COVID. Hundreds, thousands of classes all around the country were placed online and everyone said, figure it out

[00:17:39] John Nash: Yep.

[00:17:40] Christelle Daceus: and not only in higher ed, but then there's all these K 12 kids logging into zoom with no idea what they're doing.

And that's the example I would use of just technology moving a touch too fast. Right? We saw an emergency which is the pandemic, and we're shutting down. We're locked down. We're in our house. And someone said, Oh, but we have the technology. We've created this. We've got it, but didn't think, okay, but schools are safe places for students.

Right? And especially at the K 12 level, are we making sure that this is safe, right? Are they logging into secure servers and all these kinds of things? That's where you saw Zoom immediately change its entire kind of interface. Very quickly, they were like, oh, we can't allow these Zoom links to be shared all over the place and people are popping into different rooms and things like that.

And so you started the more of the enterprise model and for schools and things like that and yeah, which is important. It's important for us to learn, but we don't want to put our most vulnerable people, our most vulnerable stakeholders at risk, which are our students, right? At any level. They are the stakeholders investing, if not their time, with younger students, but also financial investments when you're at the higher ed level, they invested into this product, which is their higher education experience, and they want to make sure that it's high quality and it's reaching them in a meaningful way, right? And they're walking away from that experience. And so when I always say I am so happy I didn't graduate around that time or I wasn't trying to go to college because, that experience of, oh, I'm having my first, second year of college and. All of a sudden, they're like, get off campus and go on your laptop.

You still have to, pay that ticket price. You still have to pay, to be there and be present and reach all the same goals, but it's a completely different environment. And we don't even know if you're going to be able to succeed in that environment, but we all just have to. Because we want to, well, this is the colonialist piece, so I won't get too much into that. Um, but yeah, it's just the continuation of capitalism. That's, that was the priority, right? That we needed to keep doors open, we needed to keep institutions pushing and we're literally dealing with a global health pandemic, people's lives are at risk, people are dying And instead of taking a second to make sure we're delivering this essential need, right, of education in the best possible way.

It was a little rush and we were, we put kids in danger. We put, institutions in danger in that way. So

[00:20:21] Jason Johnston: I feel like whether it's a, global pandemic pushing us in this direction, or maybe a school is pivoting to online or even down to a teacher who's been, asked to move their classes online. I feel like our default is to try to continue the same things that we've been doing, but just stick them online.

So if a teacher is very comfortable and this is the way they've always done it with specific kind of assessments or a very lecture based approach that everything just online and all of a sudden becomes just this kind of like same stuff, different package.

[00:20:58] Christelle Daceus: it's a folder, right? It's just like holding all the things and we hop online. We do our little lecture or recording and that's learning and the, we try to do interaction through discussion boards and things like that, but I think even the creation of discussion boards and the, is that why did we need to look like replicate discussion?

Why did we not instead create moments of authentic discussion, which is harder to, of course, analyze quantitatively , but I understand we have to find a balance, it's not easy, but this is why I say, my approach to, thinking about the professional development of educators is to show them the way, right?

Am I making sure that my materials are reaching every student in the room, right? And that means taking a moment to check in on if there's translating opportunities, right? What is the demographic in my room? Am I making sure that the content is culturally relevant to them? Okay. Am I sure that the words that I'm using are sensitive to the kinds of like cultural mindsets that are in my classroom.

And sometimes as educators, you're not in a room with people who look like you. I hope most of the time that's not how that looks, and you don't wanna miss opportunities for a student to grow and to reach the really good content that you're trying to deliver because they couldn't access it online, right?

Let's think about international students who are checking in online and we have links to sites that in their country are banned. So then we have a student that's okay, but I really want to go to this school, so I'm going to get a VPN. And I'm going to do what I need to do so I can get this degree.

And maybe it's normed, but is that really what we want as institutions or as educators that students are risking themselves in a, I guess legal way or judicial way where they have to go this extra mile versus the educator creating unique materials in such a way that they don't have to click on a link, right?

The learning is in the LMS. There's interaction there with their peers. They're really having an authentic experience instead of going into another space. Maybe you send that information in a different way. Maybe you have alternatives and you can still have your link, but making sure that they can reach that in some way, right?

I've, through this work, found out there's YouTube alternatives and all these kinds of things in places like China and the UAE, getting familiar with that, or at least, in the education, if you know that's a demographic that you serve, that should be a part of your own professional development, right?

That you're pursuing how to adjust your teaching for those students. But I think as institutions and as educators, we have to norm those conversations, norm it in a way that I think once you start saying inclusion and diversity and people get, "Oh, but I am, like I am, I'm doing the right thing.

I'm doing my best" and everyone's doing their best. But, once you start to put practical steps to it, okay, well, there's things I can just. Add to what I'm already doing and we just enhance overall, just the quality of education. And everybody would ideally.

[00:24:24] Jason Johnston: Yeah. Yeah, that theme of intentionality was something that came up over and over again in that J. H. U. symposium and what I hear you saying is part of that intentionality is being able to, is taking the time to do professional development so that you can take a step back, you can think about maybe where some practices need to change, and ideally as part of the professional development.

Here are some practical things that you could do today. Maybe some small steps or maybe some individual individual examples of things that, that could be done.

[00:24:58] Christelle Daceus: Yeah, and I would say it doesn't have to be the big conference or all these things can be reading, a really good book, a really good author who's familiar with the work

[00:25:06] Jason Johnston: Yeah.

[00:25:07] Christelle Daceus: If that's, of concern to you relating yourself to the other voices that, Are matching your values of that you want to bring into your classroom.

And I would say even at conferences you get to sign up for different sessions and my favorite session to sign up for the small ones that they put in the room that's all the way down the hall. And there's only a couple of attendees because we sit in there, we have amazing conversations, because everyone's being heard.

And it's not just anybody talking at you. It's real educators and they're having real conversations and then putting in some action steps. "Okay. How can I help you with this at your institution?" And how can we, collaborate in that way? And even actually, at the conference I went to recently, we had field trips, I think, on the last day of the conference we were on one of the charter buses and a colleague from London, they're working on some environmental work there.

We just connected immediately, and he starts talking about how he" is looking for how to elevate the design and meet the community and be inclusive and all these things. I was like, Oh, I love that's what I love. I love to do all those things," and that didn't happen because I sat in his session and, heard all his bullet points and stuff like that.

But it's because we came together as educators. We're trying to have an authentic experience where we get to, Abu Dhabi is very sustainable and environmentally aware. And so we were going to a mangrove where they plant trees and expand foliage there. And it was great to have this authentic moment where we were like, "this is just something that I love."

And, at conferences is almost like a safe place to nerd out about the things that you really love in education. And so you get into these conversations. "Oh, what do you do?" And then all of a sudden. You found, your match that somewhere in another institution, but doing similar work and seeing that, it works the things that you're doing, but maybe in a different way somewhere else.

And you're getting new ideas and we're building education in those ways. So that's what I'd like to see, I think, in the future of professional development and conferences, like having those more authentic, just conversations, open discussion on these real things. Like, how are we really holding back our students by allowing colonialist practices to seep into education where there's one voice, there's one identity that kind of leads the way, right? There's one version of what the the most what is the word? Something that has, I don't know, you're more important because you went to a certain institution, you're from a certain part of the world, or from a certain culture there's a better word for it, but my point is that, we hold our students to a lesser standard when we stop short replicating in person online.

When we have educators, creatives, to really come together and are like, "This is an opportunity to create a whole different educational environment that can just reach students in a different way, it doesn't have to be end all be all we don't have to get rid of, schools or anything like that".

But there's a lot, especially at the case level where schools are fully online and they're interacting with students like that. But I would hate to think that a student. Spend 12, 14, 15, 16 years of their education, and they're just, staring at the same thing year after year, and they're just reading things online and they're missing opportunities to interact with their peers and grow their ideas and hear.

Validation and feedback like we did sitting in the classroom. Yeah,

[00:28:52] John Nash: You brought up the notion of colonialism and you've talked a little in the past about digital neo colonialism. Could you give our listeners the digital neo colonialism 101?

[00:29:05] Christelle Daceus: Yeah. So, this idea that um, I think I just mentioned colonialist practices are replicated through education. Right? And if we're thinking about imperialism. It's this pursuit of resources, right? In the past, it was the pursuit of humans, right? And the institution of slavery was the exploitation of human labor and human bodies and cultures and the eradication of culture so that other cultures could be elevated and given power socially, economically that stands to this day, right?

And. When you don't have the massive institution of slavery, it continues in different ways. And we saw things like the black codes and all the limitations that freed black persons had to deal with after emancipation that kind of limited and how people of color could be successful.

And that's just an example at, the domestic level. But then when you really think of it globally, there's just a continued, repression of so many cultures, whether that's in the Caribbean, whether that's in Africa and Asia, these cultures that were impacted by colonialism and intruded upon and some of these places, their Colonizers are still there, right?

They have embassies there and offices and, and we just made these laws and all these things. Right? And it's the same thing in education where just like the for profit prison system, right? That's a continuation of enslavement of control over the population is a way to control, consequence to what the larger they decide as what is criminal behavior, what is dangerous to the society that we are trying to uphold? And of course, that's important, but when it's designed based on stereotype and race and, these false ideologies of inferiority due to differences of, skin color or being an immigrant or different economic class, that's when those things get spread further and further, right?

And so in education, this looks having international students come to American schools to become more legitimate. That's the word I was looking for earlier, where these institutions legitimize you, right? Whereas you don't have American students going to some of the other institutions because in certain places, like the global south is what they'll call it, right? Those third world countries or whatever you want to call it you don't see American students or British students or Asian students going to those countries because the legitimacy is not there, right? There's the social legitimacy of that degree would not have the same weight, right? Even though I'm sure there's plenty of institutions with great work and they're like, I have partners all over the world.

And so what does that do? That brings more economic growth to certain institutions, certain regions, certain countries, brings more influence because this education is legitimate. So the research they're putting out from this institution is more legitimate than those other ones. And so those perspectives from the people who can afford to go to those institutions are then pushed forward, it's this kind of continued.

Elevation of a certain voice, right? Of a certain pedagogy, even, right? Again, we're going back to replicating what's in person online. That doesn't work, because, It was already barely working in person, right? We're still figuring that part out. So, you know, We to, to, to replicate something that's not even that doesn't as strong as a foundation is we wanted to online, which is something.

We don't even know as much as we can about it becomes just this loose experience, right? Where people aren't getting as much as they're investing into it. I think we're all spending a lot of time getting familiar with technology, investing into it, incorporating into our lives and we want to make sure that what we're getting back is not just a regurgitation of.

Colonialist thought of, making sure that the majority is elevated, that the global north is stays in its position. It's an opportunity for the global north to move out of the way and say, yes, because we have this technology that allows us to talk to people from all over the world. This is an opportunity for us to just give them that platform, right?

We want to give them the opportunity to speak for themselves. Like we don't need to advocate or save or, any of those things we need to. Just not bombard the industry, right? We don't need to dominate in a way that doesn't leave space for the global south or different institutions or different voices to actually be heard which is something I talk about in my chapter as well.

[00:33:59] Jason Johnston: Yeah, this idea, and please correct me if this is not part of what you're talking about here. One of the practical ways of moving forward is this idea of allyship. Does that resonate with you or is that is that different than what you're saying here?

[00:34:16] Christelle Daceus: Yeah, I think that's a really good word to put to it, so that I love it when big ideas can be consumable, right? And yeah, it's this authentic allyship. Right, that we remember that, yes, there's pursuits of greater things. However, we don't want to perpetuate competition and capitalism and just growth for the sake of, being bigger than the guy next to you kind of thing, but rather than, if you think about the SDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals, the goal is to really elevate our earth, right?

And to expand the longevity of our earth and our climate and making sure that in all aspects, industry and education and health and economic, we're all growing and we all have the same opportunities. To be, players on the world market. And yeah, so the allyship comes from first accepting that, the end all be all is not being the person that's most on top, and even if you are the person that's most on top, there's no problem with helping those that come behind you, right?

Or who are in a different position than you are, and bringing them to where you are, right? I think we have to get out of this illusion that technology creates and being online creates that, this is just a person on the screen. It's no, the world is still, if we're connecting the world and we're having these international conversations or conversations with people all over the country, or even in your community, we're not even meeting.

I could be in Baltimore still having my Zoom meeting with someone that's a couple blocks down. We don't do that anymore, right? It's oh, I don't want to meet you at your office. I'm just going to hop on Zoom, and that's it. And not forgetting that when we do have in person interactions to make them meaningful, I think, in a new way, because they're becoming less apparent and less available to us and enjoying life in that way, I think.

And as professionals, just really, like I said, just recognizing, one where you're coming from and what your strengths, privileges, whatever you want to call it, are. And when you are thinking about enhancing that work or growing that work, making sure that it's not just one voice that you're hearing in your head, right?

That you're trying to elevate those other voices that are available to us and trying to learn from us, right? They deserve that.

[00:36:51] Jason Johnston: You wonder about what this disembodiment of meeting together will do to our psyches over time, the fact that we're just floating heads here in zoom looking at each other versus being in body with one another.

Anyways, that's a whole nother topic . But I but I think I recognize what you're saying there in terms of our meeting together, how, the digital, although can span, because it'd be some amazing affordances to Zoom and we can span distances.

We would not be connecting again. I don't know the next time I'm going to be in Baltimore, might be a while. And so this is a wonderful way that we're using digital technology to span a distance that couldn't be spanned otherwise,

which is amazing and has expanded even in our conversation today, all the things you're talking about has expanded my way of thinking about things, hopefully have helped to move me towards more humanizing of people that are online and as we were talking about this, but also recognizing some of the dangers in the affordances that we're using.

That's good.

[00:37:57] John Nash: Yeah I appreciate you helping me remember, I think I was a little bit harsh on my own ilk, , the, of the instructor. I think that there I don't know if is victim the wrong word, but I see systems. rolling in place and then instructors are not victims of the system, but they are, they're caught in the system and don't know opportunities to change.

And then in turn, learners don't get to see the opportunities for change. But I appreciate that. I think I'm too hard on my fellow instructors thinking that it's all at their feet to make the difference. There is some there, we have some agency and we should be bringing our thoughts to that.

But yeah, I appreciate that.

[00:38:37] Christelle Daceus: Yeah. Even in my chapter, I go through things that kind of every level, right? And what we can do policy wise, right? What is the government giving us to even work with? Right? And what are we doing with vendors, right? The people who are creating this technology and how we're connecting them to the actual institutions and the leadership of that institution and the staff and the faculty and then the students, right?

After all that is said and done that's where I think the biggest missing pieces and where I always go back to, I really want people to just give students the path, right? Give them the steps to succeed. You know that education doesn't need to be this, you just have to figure it out.

You have to find the answers yourself. Right? And I think when we are more empathetic, like you said to our faculty, where it's like, they're learning too, right? And we're all just okay, we're on this new kind of adventure together. Let's do this. Approach it as a community, right? And see how instead of replicating the kind of like logistics of education, how can we replicate community online?

Right? How can we bring that experience where you see your favorite teacher? Or you knock on them on their door during lunchtime, but, nobody else is in there and you finally get to talk to them and share your favorite TV show from the weekend or whatever it is, those little experience.

How can we bring that online and the rest of the learning? But it's because we have the teachers already, right? We already have good learning and we have people like myself and my team who are working on accessibility, making sure that people with different abilities can reach the material, people like my partners who are doing global learning and VR but making sure that students who are blind can still participate in that, right?

Going that extra mile for them because the students are saying I don't care that I, Have different abilities. I want the experience. I invested into this the same way that my classmates did. And just because I have a different ability doesn't mean that I get part of the experience. And so it's our job to meet them, meet those students where they are and make sure that they're having that experience.

Right. And they're having Equilibrium experiences across the board.

[00:40:53] Jason Johnston: Yeah, I think meeting students where there are, that's a great place to land. And unfortunately we're going to have to land this. I have a thousand more questions for you. And I think John probably does too. I think we could talk for a long time and I just just put a pin in that to say, let's do this again.

Okay.

[00:41:07] Christelle Daceus: Absolutely. Happy

[00:41:09] Jason Johnston: been really good. Also your chapter of your book it's yet to come out. Is that correct? When do you expect it to be published that people

[00:41:17] Christelle Daceus: Springer Nature Press we're working for June, I believe, end of May, beginning of June. Not the editor, so I don't show any of the logistics of those things, but I will send that information to you, and then you can share it with the people when that is ready.

[00:41:31] Jason Johnston: Okay, we'll put that in the show notes as well as our slides from the JHU. Again, we'll put in the show notes and you can see some of these quotes as well as your session from JHU is now up on video. It's great. I've sent it on to quite a number of people. So many good things. So if you want to hear more from Christelle check out our show notes and she did a great session at JHU that you can watch as well.

Thank you so much for being with us. This has been great talking to you. I really appreciate you. We really appreciate you taking the time to share.

[00:42:00] Christelle Daceus: Thank you. I am happy to do this again anytime and talk with you guys. So thank you so much for, giving me some time with you guys.

[00:42:09] John Nash: Yeah and hey Christelle, I'll send you an email, but we have a It's not a parting gift because we're going to see each other again, but anyway, we send a, Jason doesn't know this. It's a new policy. We send a mug, one of our online learning in the second half podcast mugs as a thank you gift.

[00:42:25] Christelle Daceus: Oh, thank I'll send you an email. You can let me know an appropriate mailing address. Something real and physical will arrive for you. And so you can drink your tea out of it if you want,

thank you so much. for thinking of my teeth.

[00:42:38] John Nash: All right. Thanks you all.

[00:42:40] Christelle Daceus: Have a

[00:42:41] Jason Johnston: Thank you so much. Yeah. Have a great day. Bye.

[00:42:43] John Nash: Bye.