Catherine Cronin
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catherinecronin.bsky.social
Catherine Cronin
@catherinecronin.bsky.social
2.2K followers 1K following 230 posts
open & higher education | social justice | co-editor, Higher Education for Good: Teaching and Learning Futures #HE4Good | Bronxite who now calls Ireland home | she/her | http://catherinecronin.net/
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catherinecronin.bsky.social
Catherine Cronin @catherinecronin.bsky.social · Nov 13
The audio version of Higher Education for Good is now available. To access the audio, please visit the book web page www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.116..., scroll down to any chapter, and click Download (for MP3 version).
#HE4Good @czernie.bsky.social @openbookpublish.bsky.social
Image shows a book cover for the book 'Higher Education for Good' and text alongside reading 'Audio version now available'
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
robinderosa.net
"This work is not easy, it is risky, and there’s no guarantee that those who do it will see its benefits. But it is essential."

I am grateful for those in #HigherEd who stand alongside me. In the work. And now, when the work is trying to leave me behind.
catherinecronin.net/reflecting/p...
Postscript to Open Access Week 2025
Two years ago this week Higher Education for Good: Teaching and Learning Futures, edited by Laura Czerniewicz and myself, was published openly by Open Book Publishers. To our amazement, the publica…
catherinecronin.net
October 29, 2025 at 5:38 PM
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
sheilmcn.bsky.social
So lovely to see images of the #femedtech quilt peppered through @gabiwitthaus.bsky.social keynote this morning - here's a post about it from a previous conference howsheilaseesit.net/oer/transcen.... #altc25 - @lornamcampbell.bsky.social @francesbell.bsky.social @catherinecronin.bsky.social
Transcending the digital and physical at #altc22 – the #femedtechquilt
It’s always tricky to try and summarize a conference experience in one post, so this post like so many other of my past conference posts is not going to try to do that. Instead I want to take…
howsheilaseesit.net
October 24, 2025 at 9:23 AM
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
14prinsp.bsky.social
Two days to go for submissions (closing 22 October) - please consider submitting a proposal - #Springer #OpenAccess

On-Demand Learning in a Changing World: Philosophical, Technological, and Practical Perspectives on Workforce and Vocational Education

iasle.net/call-for-cha...
CALL FOR CHAPTERS – International Association of Smart Learning Environments
iasle.net
October 20, 2025 at 7:16 AM
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
edifiedlistener.bsky.social
I resent having to learn so much about a cabal of ridiculously wealthy mostly, but not exclusively, white tech dudes who believe they should inherit the earth. They really will be the death of us all.
October 20, 2025 at 8:52 AM
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
robin.berjon.com
Can't work because AWS?

It's a good time to read this piece if you haven't! www.noemamag.com/we-need-to-r...
We Need To Rewild The Internet  | NOEMA
The internet has become an extractive and fragile monoculture. But we can revitalize it using lessons learned by ecologists.
www.noemamag.com
October 20, 2025 at 9:40 AM
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
edifiedlistener.bsky.social
What an honor to be featured in this series! Shout out to @brennacgray.bsky.social for making this a reality. 🙏🏾
wlupress.bsky.social Wilfrid Laurier University Press @wlupress.bsky.social · Oct 9
In this episode of Community of Praxis Brenna interviews Sherri Spelic about her book Care at the Core and what reciprocal learning can happen between post-secondary and K-12 educators. @brennacgray.bsky.social @edifiedlistener.bsky.social
On your favourite platform or at www.wlupress.wlu.ca/...
An image of a Black woman with short hair holding a microphone within the Community of Praxis multicoloured abstract image. The text reads New Episode! Care at the Core with guest Sherri Spelic, found and publishing editor of Identity, Education, and Power
October 9, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
unabridgedopinions.com
The nomination is absolutely lovely and so, so true:
“In a world of overwhelming content and increasing educational precarity, MYFest offers something different: a space of possibility. It is a deeply human, thoroughly open practice—responsive to community, designed for care, and grounded in equity
October 10, 2025 at 11:41 AM
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
olivia.science
Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece, we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to relevant work to further inform our colleagues. Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI (black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf. Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al. 2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA). Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe. Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles
September 6, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
alondra.bsky.social
We explore these dynamics in our workshop report: www.ias.edu/sites/defaul...

And we invite you to watch the public event which preceded the workshop: “RARE/EARTH: The Geopolitics of Critical Minerals and the AI Supply Chain” held at IAS on June 2, 2025 www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxVM...
RARE/EARTH: The Geopolitics of Critical Minerals and the AI Supply Chain
YouTube video by Institute for Advanced Study
www.youtube.com
August 27, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
biblioracle.bsky.social
I wrote this thread because I sat at my desk and thought, "Fuck it, we're cooked." But then I remembered something I say in my book that "writing is feeling" and I managed to rekindle just enough spirit to get going on the work and that work will continue to stoke the fire. I want that for students.
biblioracle.bsky.social John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · Aug 8
My philosophy for getting students writing is that writing needs to be a desirable alternative to outsourcing to the automated syntax generation machine. There's lots of hurdles to clear, but the start is to convey that writing is about more than words. www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/john-...
More Than Words
A veteran writing teacher makes a “moving” (Rick Wormeli) argument that writing is a form of thinking and feeling and shows why it can’t be replaced by...
www.hachettebookgroup.com
August 8, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
eam0.bsky.social
Doing DEI when you can't use the D word, the E word, or the I word:

www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/doing...
Doing DEI when you can’t use the ‘D’, the ‘E’ or the ‘I’ word
‘DEI is dead, long live DEI!’ How to resist attacks on DEI, develop deep resilience and reimagine and reform your practice with kindness
www.timeshighereducation.com
August 8, 2025 at 1:21 PM
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
eff.org
Sharing your location is a personal choice, “but when you do it through a platform owned by Meta, you should understand that information will also be used to target you with ads” & could be demanded by the government, EFF’s @mariotrujillo.bsky.social told @huffpost.com.
This 1 New Instagram Feature Is A Privacy Nightmare. Here's What You Need To Consider Before You Activate It.
Sharing this information can be fun, but experts warn it's also a gift to stalkers.
www.huffpost.com
August 8, 2025 at 4:10 PM
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
the-citizens.bsky.social
Tomorrow: Carole Cadwalladr meets author of 'Empire of AI' Karen Hao

12pm BST, Live on Substack

@carolecadwalla.bsky.social @karenhao.bsky.social

More here: citizensreunited.substack.com/p/next-week-...
Tomorrow: Carole Cadwalladr meets author of 'Empire of AI' Karen Hao
Tune in to find out how OpenAI became an empire, and what that means for the rest of us
citizensreunited.substack.com
July 29, 2025 at 1:33 PM
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
alondra.bsky.social
Read this interview with a personal hero, Professor @daniellecitron.bsky.social: "we have essentially presumed that data collection is a good...We have long ignored this important inclination that collection itself is endangering our privacy and civil liberties" www.politico.com/newsletters/...
5 questions for Danielle Citron
www.politico.com
July 26, 2025 at 11:12 AM
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
bonstewart.bsky.social
this came out this week. :)

my sabbatical research project on belonging. what an absolute privilege to spend a year focused on culture, place, & the intentional, relational use of digital tools...especially in the midst of the current force-fed AI speculation bubble.
www.uhi.ac.uk/en/media/new...
Belonging, place and digital practice – institutional insights from visiting fellow’s study at UHI
The University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) is pleased to share the findings of a year-long sabbatical project led by Dr Bonnie Stewart, Visiting Fellow from the University of Windsor, Canada.
www.uhi.ac.uk
July 11, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
hypervisible.blacksky.app
Good interview with @abeba.bsky.social
AI for good, with caveats: How a keynote speaker was censored during an international artificial intelligence summit
Q&A with Abeba Birhane on how she was censored during the AI for Good summit and how the industry can do better.
thebulletin.org
July 10, 2025 at 12:06 PM
catherinecronin.bsky.social
Enjoyed this conversation very much... @karenhao.bsky.social (author of Empire of AI) and @emilymbender.bsky.social & @alexhanna.bsky.social (co-authors of The AI Con) discuss how to challenge AI hype and tech industry power –– via @datasociety.bsky.social

datasociety.net/events/chall...
Challenging AI Hype and Tech Industry Power
Authors Emily M. Bender, Alex Hanna, and Karen Hao discuss how AI serves as a powerful marketing tool for tech giants who have a product to sell and profits to rake in.
datasociety.net
July 10, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
joecar80.bsky.social
Great summary of #oer25 what a great get together - will post when I get back from leave
catherinecronin.bsky.social Catherine Cronin @catherinecronin.bsky.social · Jul 3
difficult to sum up #OER25, but I have tried my best. it was a joy to meet friends and colleagues, old and new, as well as sobering to truly face the challenges for open and higher education. warm thanks to all for the opportunity to think/talk/plan/be together.

catherinecronin.net/conferences/...
#OER25: Speaking truth to power
A later timing this year (June instead of April) for ALT’s Open Education Conference meant that for a few months last year, some wondered whether the conference would be held at all. Most ha…
catherinecronin.net
July 8, 2025 at 11:21 AM
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
charleswlogan.bsky.social
If you thought the free, online @civicsoftech.bsky.social conference keynotes - Audrey Watters and Chris Gilliard - were 🔥🔥🔥, you should look at the incredible sessions occurring on July 31 and August 1. Love to see all the ways folks embraced the theme "Communal Resistance to Artificial Systems".
2025 Conference — Civics of Technology
www.civicsoftechnology.org
July 6, 2025 at 10:54 PM
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
abeba.bsky.social
a couple of hours before my keynote, I went through an intense negotiation with the organisers (for over a hour) where we went through my slides and had to remove anything that mentions 'Palestine' 'Israel' and replace 'genocide' with 'war crimes'

1/
abeba.bsky.social Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · Jul 8
my keynote happening in a few mins. registration here to stream it

aiforgood.itu.int/summit25/reg...
July 8, 2025 at 9:58 AM
catherinecronin.bsky.social
so important – thank you @archive.org

sustaining the availability of cultural materials that "only memory institutions preserve without regard to commercial viability"

#OurFutureMemory
archive.org Internet Archive @archive.org · Jul 7
From @internetarchive.eu: "Internet Archive Europe proudly announces the launch of Our Future Memory, a global campaign dedicated to safeguarding the digital rights of libraries, archives, and museums worldwide." www.internetarchive.eu/protecting-t...
www.internetarchive.eu
July 7, 2025 at 3:22 PM
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
clarajeffery.bsky.social
“The stunning reversal of ocean circulation in the Southern Hemisphere confirms the global climate system has entered a catastrophic phase>'

This is very very bad news: www.intellinews.com/southern-oce...
Southern Ocean current reverses for first time, signalling risk of climate system collapse
A major ocean current in the Southern Hemisphere has reversed direction for the first time in recorded history, in what climatologists are calling a ...
www.intellinews.com
July 7, 2025 at 4:08 AM
catherinecronin.bsky.social
difficult to sum up #OER25, but I have tried my best. it was a joy to meet friends and colleagues, old and new, as well as sobering to truly face the challenges for open and higher education. warm thanks to all for the opportunity to think/talk/plan/be together.

catherinecronin.net/conferences/...
#OER25: Speaking truth to power
A later timing this year (June instead of April) for ALT’s Open Education Conference meant that for a few months last year, some wondered whether the conference would be held at all. Most ha…
catherinecronin.net
July 3, 2025 at 9:51 AM
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
altuk.bsky.social
Following the conclusion of #OER25 this week, we are pleased to invite submissions for our upcoming online conference, “Speaking Truth to Power: Open Education and AI in the Age of Populism”, continuing the critical conversations sparked at the Conference. Learn more: buff.ly/nwHNPHY #altc #OER
June 27, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Reposted by Catherine Cronin
altuk.bsky.social
Helen Beetham’s #OER25 keynote, “When speaking truth is not enough: repurpose, rebuild, refuse”, explores the deep links between the AI industry and the politics of populism. Learn More: buff.ly/E4uAGpq #OER #altc
Helen Beetham
June 6, 2025 at 4:03 PM