During my conference years I would often enjoy following the shoe tweets shared on Twitter by Sheila MacNeill, indeed they were instrumental in my finding her in person and connecting in real life. We have both since moved away from Musk’s now corrupted version of that social media channel, now AKA X. However the connections I made from the early 2000s remain and even though we no longer cross paths at physical events I enjoy following and reading Sheila’s blog posts, they often resonate. A significant case in point is this post: Caught up in my own culture of silence.

Sheila is now a respected artist and I have retired from my Higher Ed teaching role. Reading her post made me want to reach out and remind her that even though everything in our tech universe has changed, the human connections we forged remain and we can still support each other as we grapple with the ever more terrifying realities facing teaching and learning in the digital post AI age. I hear you Sheila and I share your urgency mixed with guilt for silence or longer pauses between posts. Let me spell out why I value your post so much:

You point out:

The importance of humanity in our work,

The importance of trust networks in order to find safe spaces,

The human need to express emotion explicity and be heard.

You also draw on the expertise of others to underline:

The dangers we face when we don’t use critical reasoning to examine the claims of industry,

The risks we run as a society if we remain ignorant of our bias and the digital coup.

Most importantly though you threw out lifeline, probably without even realising it – you showed your irreverance in your humour (greatly appreciated!) ” but hey that’s ok because one day will have the ultimate algorithm that will solve everything . . . will that be 42?”

That little moment of gentle mockery is how we can all face the future. We will not remain silent, we will speak out when and where we choose and we will remain united in working to open eyes which others try to blind. And we will do so with humour and fun – I raise you a shoe “untweet” and can’t wait to find your riposte 🙂