predictable

Last night one of my students sent me this screenshot with the message “You were right, Dr. Jacobs!” I’ve never used Canvas, because I despise it even when it’s working as designed. Some of my students tell me that I’m the only professor they have ever had who does not use it, which makes me sad: the ed-tech value-extraction machine deserves and should receive more hostility. But universities that deploy these big platforms should realize that our data — that of professors and students — as only as safe as the companies’ security practices are sound. And companies like Instructure are so deeply embedded in American university life now that they think they can’t be rejected — no matter how gross their failure to maintain security. An exploit like this is therefore easily predictable. But also predictable is the refusal of universities to reconsider their dependence on “services.” We use one such ed-tech tool — Lord knows how much Baylor paid for it — to record our activities for our…