Freire first published Pedagogy of the Oppressed , especially in light of a global pandemic that not only exacerbated and made visible existing inequalities but also created new ones . The emergency transition to online teaching and learning was not immune from widening and producing inequalities . Digital poverty , among other issues including ‘ Zoom fatigue ’ ( Bailenson 2021 , 1 ), competing work and / or care responsibilities ( Cooper et al . 2020 , 6 ), and unsafe or unsuitable spaces to work ( Barber et al . 2021 , 67 ), are among the issues that resulted in some voices dominating conversations in online learning environments and others being absent or silenced , thus replicating hierarchical power dynamics critiqued by critical pedagogues such as hooks and Freire . These are all issues that educators need to be aware of when working to create inclusive learning environments that challenge , rather than replicate , patterns of inequality by creating conditions that promote equitable participation .
Jesse Stommel , Chris Friend , and Sean Michael Morris ’ work on critical digital pedagogies is particularly helpful in thinking through these issues , since it encourages educators and students to ‘ dismantle ( criticize ) institutional and societal impediments to learning ’ online ( Stommel et al . 2020 , 3 ). Like Freire and hooks , Stommel , Friend , and Morris place people at the centre of critical pedagogic praxis in an attempt to promote democratic and emancipatory dialogue geared toward creating more just classrooms and societies . As Morris and Stommel argue elsewhere , ‘ A Critical Digital Pedagogy demands that open and networked educational environments not be merely repositories of content ; rather , they must create dialogues in which both students and teachers participate as full agents ’ ( 2018 , 9 ). Talis Elevate , as I will discuss , provides a great opportunity for the production of critical digital pedagogic practices that not only attend to social injustices in the subject matter but also in teaching and learning practices . In other words , Talis Elevate helps to create online learning environments in which all students are empowered to participate and pose questions that implicitly and explicitly challenge oppressive power structures at and beyond university . Before discussing the main outcomes of using Talis Elevate for student learning this semester , it is necessary to provide an overview of the tool and how I integrated it into seminars throughout the module .
Talis Elevate
Talis Elevate is a digital collaborative annotation tool that enables students and educators to annotate the same document , which means they can read and respond to one another ’ s comments about the text , image , or video being annotated . Students can access documents on Talis Elevate asynchronously and synchronously ; as a result , students can interact with the learning materials during and outside of live sessions . Comments can be added publicly or anonymously on Talis Elevate ; they can also be added in the ‘ class comments ’ section for everyone to view and engage with or in the ‘ private notes ’ section . Educators have access to analytics for each module and document on Talis Elevate , allowing us to monitor active engagement with resources . For example , educators can view who has interacted with the resources , for how long , and which parts of the document gained the most – and least – engagement , helping us to check student understanding and identify areas of uncertainty that would benefit from further teaching .
I will discuss the implications of these features later in the article , but it is worth noting at this point that Talis Elevate has the potential to make ‘ the hidden aspects of students ’ academic reading visible through collaborative annotation ’ ( Wood et al . 2021 , 68 ), in the process ‘ validating student perspectives and opening up new interpretative possibilities ’ ( 67 ). Understanding and discussing these ‘ hidden ’ elements of academic reading is of critical importance for students and educators . As Angela Rhead observes , this knowledge and dialogue ‘ helps students better understand the relationship between reading and enquiry ’ ( 2019 , 1 ), shifting ‘ their attention away from the strategic assignment passing and towards the pursuit of deeper understanding ’ ( 10 ). At the same time , greater awareness of students ’ reading practices ‘ helps academics better understand their students ’ reading challenges ’ ( 1 ), encouraging them to incorporate teaching on academic reading into module design and thus support students in reading critically ( 9 ). The aforementioned features of Talis Elevate help to create more democratic , dialogic , and critically engaged learning communities that are integral to critical digital pedagogies and the success of collaborative reading activities in the first-year core module into which Talis Elevate was embedded .
10