Roberto de Roock
University of California, Santa Cruz, Education, Faculty Member
- Multiliteracies, Digital Media & Learning, Video Games and Learning, Learning Sciences, Computer Supported Collaborative Learning CSCL, Actor-Network-Theory, and 20 moreDialogism, Linguistic Anthropology, Ethnography of Communication, Multimodality, Conversation Analysis, Talk-in-interaction, Latino students, Actor Network Theory, Ethnomethodology, New literacy studies, Indigenous Language Revitalization, Ethnography, Sociomateriality, Digital Literacy, Bruno Latour, Linguistic ethnography, Digital Literacies, Multimodal Interaction, Relational Ontology, Non-representational theories, and Critical Language Awarenessedit
- A former secondary school literature and digital literacy teacher, I am Assistant Professor of Learning Sciences & Te... moreA former secondary school literature and digital literacy teacher, I am Assistant Professor of Learning Sciences & Technology at University of California, Santa Cruz. My interdisciplinary work examines the relationships between learning, technology, and social justice. I primarily do this through ethnographic design work, but also in pioneering critical digital discourse analysis and participatory methods.
I am committed to harnessing technology for positive and collaborative social transformation, especially in collaborating with marginalized communities.edit
Analysis of social action has increasingly considered the place of ‘things’ in recent years, including seeing objects (both physical and digital) as coparticipants in social interaction, systems, and the research process. This article... more
Analysis of social action has increasingly considered the place of ‘things’ in recent years, including seeing objects (both physical and digital) as coparticipants in social interaction, systems, and the research process. This article argues that video ethnography is well positioned to address such considerations including, with some methodological shifts, digital activity.
Drawing on the methodology and findings of an 8-month video
ethnography in a US classroom, I discuss a material semiotic approach to examining digital practices, including methods that followed interaction across the online and offline, approached laptops themselves as interlocutors, and examined participant interaction with research instruments as part of student meaning-making practices.
Drawing on the methodology and findings of an 8-month video
ethnography in a US classroom, I discuss a material semiotic approach to examining digital practices, including methods that followed interaction across the online and offline, approached laptops themselves as interlocutors, and examined participant interaction with research instruments as part of student meaning-making practices.
Research Interests:
This article argues that digital writing pedagogy needs to prepare students to deal with underlying oppressive realities within the range of everyday digital writing practices as opposed to simply focusing ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 2 on... more
This article argues that digital writing pedagogy needs to prepare students to deal with underlying
oppressive realities within the range of everyday digital writing practices as opposed to simply focusing
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on affordances as unfettered opportunities. In particular, digital writing is increasingly mediated through
digital apps and other interactive platforms whose designs enroll us into the social arrangements of racial
capitalism, including through corporate interests, societal and language ideologies, social control, and
other oppressive factors. As researchers and educators, we should especially be mindful of the
participation of complex software such as algorithms. Machines are our coauthors, and machines are not
neutral. Digital writing experiences, shaped as they are by design around idealized users and hegemonic
social forces, are differentiated along intersectional lines. I discuss pedagogic implications for this as the
context for understanding writing under contemporary racial technocapitalism, arguing for critical design
literacy as a way forward.
oppressive realities within the range of everyday digital writing practices as opposed to simply focusing
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
2
on affordances as unfettered opportunities. In particular, digital writing is increasingly mediated through
digital apps and other interactive platforms whose designs enroll us into the social arrangements of racial
capitalism, including through corporate interests, societal and language ideologies, social control, and
other oppressive factors. As researchers and educators, we should especially be mindful of the
participation of complex software such as algorithms. Machines are our coauthors, and machines are not
neutral. Digital writing experiences, shaped as they are by design around idealized users and hegemonic
social forces, are differentiated along intersectional lines. I discuss pedagogic implications for this as the
context for understanding writing under contemporary racial technocapitalism, arguing for critical design
literacy as a way forward.
Research Interests:
Literacy has long been tied to enslavement and domination, but also the abolition of institutions and systems of domination. This chapter surveys literacy theory and practice connected to carceral logics and the carceral continuum, with... more
Literacy has long been tied to enslavement and domination, but also the abolition of institutions and systems of domination. This chapter surveys literacy theory and practice connected to carceral logics and the carceral continuum, with antiblackness and white supremacy as the contemporary underlying ideologies, and abolitionist literacies working against them. Recognizing that abolition is not a singular movement or approach, we cover writing from a number of areas including intersectionality and Black feminism; literacy praxis with the incarcerated and against racist policing; policing and discipline in schools; and around punitive school testing and sorting with their roots in eugenics. We maintain that literacy praxis not directly supporting abolition and collective liberation works in the service of captivity and domination, and close offering an abolitionist imaginary as a way forward for critical literacy. "The same people who control the school system Control the prison system, And the whole social system Ever since slavery, know what I'm sayin'?"-Dead Prez, "They Schools", 2003
Research Interests:
With a teachable agent system and a set of linguistically diverse comparison prototypes, we explore questions of proficiency with and preference for local language agents in two sites in the Philippines. We found that students in a... more
With a teachable agent system and a set of linguistically diverse comparison prototypes, we explore questions of proficiency with and preference for local language agents in two sites in the Philippines. We found that students in a higher-performing school produce more English-language math explanations at a faster rate than students in a lower-performing school, who were more proficient in their local language. However, these students preferred the English-language agent, while students in the higher-performing school had equal preference for agents who communicates in the local language. These findings demonstrate the complex interactions between language and engagement in AIED systems.
Research Interests:
"de Roock, Bhatt, and Adams seek to bridge the gap between changing literacy practices and research methodologies in the field of Literacy Studies. Expanding the discussion of ‘digital methods’, they detail and discuss approaches to the... more
"de Roock, Bhatt, and Adams seek to bridge the gap between changing literacy practices and research methodologies in the field of Literacy Studies. Expanding the discussion of ‘digital methods’, they detail and discuss approaches to the collection, management, and analysis of their multimodal data of classroom literacy activities." [from the abstract]
Forthcoming (2015) chapter in Snee, H., Hine, C., Morley, Y., Roberts, S. & Watson, H. (eds.) 'Digital Methods for Social Sciences: An Interdisciplinary guide to research innovation', Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan.
Forthcoming (2015) chapter in Snee, H., Hine, C., Morley, Y., Roberts, S. & Watson, H. (eds.) 'Digital Methods for Social Sciences: An Interdisciplinary guide to research innovation', Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Handout for AERA 2015 paper presentation