Participating and Streaming #ICA17 Closing Plenary

A few months ago, I was invited to participate in #ICA17 Closing Plenary. It was an honor to be invited, but I couldn’t take them up on the offer because I had already planned my trips this year (also based on invitations) and I couldn’t imagine adding the stress of one more trip to my already complicated family dynamic. I also wasn’t sure I would manage to get the US visa in time (also because of other trips requiring visas and passport availability). Thankfully, they accepted my offer to participate virtually, and thankfully, the timing works well for me given the crazy Ramadan schedule here. The session takes place at 12.30 Pacific, i.e. 9.30pm my time and I will livestream the Google hangout here inshallah 

Which all seems appropriate as my plan is to speak mostly about Virtually Connecting at this event inshallah. Which is of course all about that: how to have a presence and a voice at academic events if one cannot travel. There is so much privilege in the way academic social capital is built around conference attendance.

Thanks to Anne-Cong Huyen, we had a Vconnecting session the other day with micha cárdenas and Leah Komen, so I got a favor of the conference from them. We talked about borders as algorithms, micha’s Instagram project #holdyourboundaries, Leah’s work with mobile learning in Kenya, and Anne’s work with FemTechNet and establishing digital learning/scholarship at Whittier.

I am really excited about this conference because it seems to have a critical focus, and they seem to have been intentional about including diverse and marginalized voices, and my understanding from speaking to Paula and JP is that they are also being hospitable to folks who couldn’t travel in person because of the recent upheaval and bans in the US.

The closing plenary has the title “Pedagogical Interventions: Transforming the Academy via New Media, Mobile Technologies & Gaming”

Here is the panel abstract

    This closing roundtable explores the potentials for new and mobile media, emerging technologies, and gaming to disrupt learning in academic environments from the classroom to the conference. From Cairo to Florida, Nairobi to Texas, these scholars explore their efforts to employ locally available technologies to interrogate common practices of teaching, and learning, and to initiate innovative forms of collaboration within and beyond academic walls. The #ICAplay development team joins the panel to reflect on their strategy to disrupt participant flows in our first ever ICA Conference Game.