We’ve been asked to write about a contributor to the field whose work is at the intersection of learning and technology and consider looking at the writing and scholarship of those who may not occupy an ‘obvious’ or dominant space in the literature.
I was pleased to come across Dr. Maha Bali, who was one of the guest narrators for the audiobook version of this textbook. She is a Professor of Practice in the Centre for Learning and Teaching at the American University of Cairo. Her areas of focus include digital literacies and intercultural learning.
One of the concepts that Bali writes and speaks of, is “intentionally equitable hospitality” in learning design (Bali and Zamora, 2022). This is a notion that teachers, or workshop facilitators, are hosts of a learning space, and to practice intentionally equitable hospitality means to be cognizant of who that space is hospitable for, and who it is not.
A related idea, which is Bali expands on in this keynote presentation about an equitable, community-oriented approach to AI in education, is that of the “equity care matrix”. The origins of this concept was a question which Bali posed at a talk she presented at the OpenEd20 conference, which was: “What is equity without care, and what is care without equity?” (Bali and Zamora, 2022). Here, with a lens on educational technology, she demonstrates with examples how there cannot be one without the other.
References:
Bali, M., & Zamora, M. (2022). Intentionally Equitable Hospitality as critical instructional design. Designing for Care.
Bali, M. Towards an Equitable Community-Oriented Approach to AI in Education, YouTube, July 14, 2023.
Bali, M., & Zamora, M. (2022). The equity-care matrix: Theory and practice. Italian journal of educational technology, 30(1), 92-115.
Thank you for introducing me to Dr. Bali, Tracy! I hadn’t heard of them, and as someone who is passionate about inclusivity in learning it sounds like I can learn a lot from them. Adding this keynote to my watch list now!