Description

Talking Circles offer an opportunity to meet other delegates with similar interests and concerns. Delegates self-select into groups based on broad thematic areas and then engage in extended discussion about the issues and concerns they feel are of utmost importance to that segment of the Research Network. Participation is open, encouraged, and supported.

How Do They Work?

The Talking Circles are grouped around each of the conference themes so discussions can focus on the specific areas of interest represented by each theme. 

How to Begin:

Allow members of the group to briefly introduce themselves. 

The facilitator should encourage open dialogue and ensure a collegial and respectful conversation. 

Starting Questions to Assist Discussion

Talking Circle: Who are we?

What is the territory, or scope, or landscape of this thematic area?

What are the burning issues, the key questions for this theme?

What are the forces or drivers that will affect us as professionals, thinkers, citizens, and aware and concerned people whose focus is this particular theme?

What are the future directions (in research, in theory-building, in practice) for this thematic area?

Histories of Technology

How do societies produce, become determined, and are seen as technologies themselves?

Living Tensions:

• Long Histories – undersigning continuity and change
• Humans and Machines – interfaces, mediation, and usability
• Public or Private – considering social infrastructure
• Ethics, Human Values and Technology – inputs or outputs
• Open or Closed Systems – framing social architectures

Knowledge Makers

What are the epistemological foundations that shape technological epochs?

Living Tensions

• Digital Meanings – multimodal communications and multiliteracies
• Artificial Intelligence, Intelligent Systems, Intelligent Agents – the human and the machine
• Data and Metadata – boundaries, functions and ownership of knowledge
• Ubiquitous Learning – nurturing personal and common knowledge
• -Digital Divides – access, participation, capacity development

Social Realities

What is the role of technologies in community formation, maintenance, and change?

Living Tensions

• Diversity and Meanings: cultural sustainability and sustainable heritage development
• Reconfiguring the economic equation: contesting “financial years” and “instant gratification”
• The Global Village – a place inclusion or privilege
• Framing Consensus – who do we include in our social considerations
• The Virtual and the Real – the speculative capacity of social imaginaries
• Sustainable Technology – media archeology as ecological roadmaps
• Privacy and Security – navigating legal and regulatory landscapes