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This essay is a fictional autoethnographic sensemaking of the experience during the long lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The sensemaking mainly draws on the thought of Deleuze and Guattari and Karen Barad, with a methodology inspired by Donna Haraway’s conceptualisation of speculative fabulation. The experience is defined as multispecies migration in the multiverse. The essay is an exploration of relations between different forms of memories and associations that they produce in their interaction under the conditions of the current pandemic, as well as between the agencies involved and created in these relations. This includes childhood memories, immediate memories, readings, conversations, imaginative work, dreams, and cinematic images that form the worldview of the author. The essay experiments with the forms of exploration and its presentation to emphasize the intra-action between the content and the form of writing. The author aims to contest the linear idea of research and writing and expand the acceptable referential framework.

In this article, I examine some of the dangers that are associated with sex toys known as teledildonics. Unlike more conventional sex toys, teledildonics connect to the internet and allow their users and others to control these devices remotely and often through a Bluetooth connection. While teledildonics introduce new ways of engaging and experiencing sexual pleasure, they do so by risking the personal and sensitive data that such devices transmit and collect from their users. Moreover, I consider the risk that teledildonics pose as connected technologies that can be hacked and controlled, scrutinizing what this means in terms of consent and sexual assault in intimate relationships and on a live adult webcam platform like Chaturbate. I investigate how current legal definitions of consent and sexual assault neglect online sex workers, and especially those who work within a tip and token system like Chaturbate, and question how legal protections can be enforced amidst the jurisdictional and territorial problems that plague cyberspace more broadly. With these lack of protections in place, I build on scholarly research that identifies some of the risks that are associated with teledildonics as technologies of potential sexual assault (Nixon 2018; Sparrow and Karas 2020; Arrell 2022). In specific, I study how Canadian laws are ill-equipped to address the more obscure nature of consent and sexual assault as they pertain to Chaturbate and Lovense devices, a leading teledildonics company.

Keywords: sex toys, privacy, law, consent

Homework is an ordinary activity in teenagers’ lives and epitomises the permanence of the school form in France. To understand how digitalisation is impacting students’ homework, a sample of adolescents were surveyed to elucidate the spatial, cultural, symbolic, and cognitive dimensions of homework given by teachers. The discourse analysis carried out on the data uncovers students’ disarray and the lack of meaning of this activity which remains nevertheless at the heart of the school equation.

Keywords: Digital literacy, devoirs à la maison, School homework, littératie numérique, Geography of youth practices, spatialité des pratiques adolescentes

In the 21st century, the widespread use of information technologies has made access to technology, technology usage skills, and the quality of technology services increasingly important. However, the digital divide—defined as a lack of access to telecommunications—remains a significant issue that separates developed countries from developing countries. This study aimed to explore the digital divide in open education by comparing the digital divide levels of first term and last term or graduate students enrolled in the Anadolu University Open Education System. The study also examined how factors such as gender, age, income level, and employment status impact digital competency by comparing the digital divide scores of participants in these groups. The findings of the study suggest that first-term students have higher levels of digital competency than final-term students. The study also found that males, people aged 30–40, those with high incomes, and those working in the private sector had the highest digital competency scores. These results can be used to inform the development and implementation of open and distance learning programs to reduce the digital divide, as well as to identify specific groups that may be at a disadvantage in terms of digital competency.

Keywords: open learning, distance learning, digital divide, digital competence, open education, Turkey

Currently undergoing rapid growth due primarily to a thriving tech sector, the Waterloo Region is increasingly concerned with the attraction and retention of key labour talent. Aspects of the creative economy, such as vibrant cultural scenes, nightlife, public spaces, and leisure amenities have been specifically identified by key stakeholders as vital to the continued growth and success of the region. While creative people certainly live and work in the Waterloo Region, labour shortages linked to challenges of worker attraction and retention indicate that the current talent base is not sufficient to meet regional economic needs. In this article, we engage critically with creative economy typologies which have been taken up in local cultural planning and explore some of the gaps and oversights that such ‘one-size-fits-all’ creative city models have in medium-sized post-industrial urban centres. Analyzed through the lens of cultural mapping methodologies, the region offers a valuable case study as it works to rebrand itself, altering its cultural fortunes through concerted city-building efforts.

Keywords: cultural mapping, scenes, liveability, urban planning, vibrancy, cartographie culturelle, scènes culturelles, habitabilité, planification urbaine, dynamisme

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, principals have taken on increased responsibilities. Principals who are thriving are praised for their resilience while those who are struggling are inundated with calls to build their resilience. In this conceptual article, we problematize the overemphasis on individual responsibility that is implicit in pro-resilience narratives. We reviewed the interdisciplinary literature and used an inductive approach to examine resilience narratives across historical and disciplinary arcs, with specific attention given to the school leadership literature. We argue that, within the context of this pro-resilience movement, if attention is not given to the structural conditions of work intensification, the education system is setting K–12 principals up to experience adverse unintended consequences. These consequences can worsen existing mental health issues, such as occupational burnout, or exacerbate mental health stigma. We conclude by suggesting that structural changes could disrupt this individualization of responsibility and overreliance on the personal resiliency of school principals.

Keywords: resilience, school principals, educational leadership, COVID-19, work intensification, mental health stigma

More and more insurance companies or mutual insurance are interested in sustainabledevelopment because this topic is today an essential part in the comprehensionand prevention of insurable risks. The author tries to shortly explain what is sustainabledevelopment, its origin, its objectives, and to identify some products, servicesand initiatives developed by insurance/reinsurance companies or mutual insuranceorganizations. With their extensive risk expertise, insurance groups are in a uniqueposition to form, and help promote, effective responses linked to substainable development.

Objective – To determine whether information seeking anxieties and preferred information sources differ between first-generation college students and their continuing-generation peers. Methods – An online survey was disseminated at two public college campuses. A total of 490 respondents were included in the results. Independent variables included institution, year in college, and generational status. Instead of using a binary variable, this study used three groups for the independent variable of generational status, with two first-generation groups and one continuing-generation group based on parental experience with college. Dependent variables included 4 measures of information seeking anxiety and 22 measures of preferred information sources. Responses were analyzed using SPSS. One-way independent ANOVA tests were used to compare groups by generational status, and two- and three-way factorial ANOVA tests were conducted to explore interaction effects of generational status with institution and year in college. Results – No significant differences in overall information seeking anxiety were found between students whose parents had differing levels of experience with college. However, when exploring the specific variable of experiencing anxiety about “navigating the system in college,” a two-way interaction involving generational status and year in school was found, with first-generation students with the least direct experience with college reporting higher levels of anxiety at different years in college than their peers. Two categories of first-generation students were found to consult with their parents far less than continuing-generation peers. The study also found that institutional or generational differences may also influence whether students ask for information from their peers, librarians, tutoring centers, professors, or advisors. Conclusion – This study is one of the first to directly compare the information seeking preferences and anxieties of first-generation and continuing-generation students using a non-binary approach. While previous research suggests that first-generation students experience heightened anxiety about information seeking, this study found no significant overall differences between students based on their generational status. The study reinforced previous research about first-generation college students relying less on their parents than their continuing-generation peers. However, this study complicates previous research about first-generation students and their utilization of peers, librarians, tutoring centers, professors, or advisors as information sources, and suggests that institutional context plays an important role in shaping first-generation information seeking.

Stories provide listeners or readers a doorway to understand the storyteller’s context and live in the telling. We, as Māori Indigenous scholars (doctoral students, researchers, and academics), bring together our stories, in the forms of creative nonfiction and poetry located in Aotearoa New Zealand and Te Whenua Moemoeā Australia, to tell the ways we navigate colonial spaces while also imagining our desired future. Centring Indigenous storytelling methods and sensory ethnography, we bring together the interrelatedness that situates our stories across time and place. The next wave of Indigenous researchers will be stepping into these spaces that we now walk, so it is timely and crucial that we find creative ways to provide clearer direction for them. We tell our stories in this paper as an act of hope that our stories might spark a fire in the reader’s heart to also tell theirs.

Keywords: Indigenous, storytelling, storying, storywork, poetry, sensory ethnography, academia

The present study analysed digital literacy issues encountered by elementary school teachers in remote classrooms due to COVID-19. The study sought to derive a plan for cultivating teachers’ digital literacy to support students’ distance education. To this end, focus group interviews were conducted with five elementary school teachers in charge of upper grades, the results were analysed, and strategies to improve teacher digital literacy were derived. Specifically, three main areas of teacher digital literacy were identified for improvement. The first was providing training to use digital devices and online platforms, develop online content, and strengthen copyright understanding. The second was providing professional development programs to train digital teaching methods or pedagogies by level and by subject characteristics. The third was activating online and offline platforms for information sharing among teachers and establish a digital teaching support system. This study will be of value to teachers and school administrations in preparing for distance education in the era of digital transformation because it presents measures to foster teachers’ digital literacy required by future society.

Keywords: teachers' digital literacy, digital competency, elementary school, distance learning