QUANTUM ONTOLOGIES: BEYOND EFFICIENCY IN DIGITAL LEARNING SPACES by MANUEL PIÑA

WEBTEXT DESIGN & NAVIGATION

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"The body multiple is not fragmented. Even if it is multiple, it also hangs together." ~Annemarie Mol (2002), The Body Multiple, p. 55

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In terms of both form and function, this webtext is designed to resist the type of singular enactment typically associated with for-print scholarship, such as the Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion (IMRAD) format. One of the central claims that I work to develop in this webtext is that digital learning spaces are ontologically multiple. The same digital space can be experienced and enacted as site/s of: disconnection, social justice, and rote instructional expediency. Put differently, digital learning spaces are deeply entangled sites of single–multiplicity—places that are more than one but less than many (Piña, 2023). The design of this webtext likewise works to embody and enact this same argument by distributing portions of text into discrete but interdependent (or, entangled) sections. Another example of layered meaning is through the use of pop-up footnotes that open when hovered over in place of more traditional endnotes. As a single–multiple collective, the design of this webtext is such that each subsection can stand alone, but each also draws meaning from its engagement with all of the other subsections of the webtext. Therefore, this webtext is designed as a single page constituted by a multiplicity of entangled interior entities (e.g., images, text, subsections, and hidden footnotes) that hang together.

Such a design is predicated on nonlinear navigation since there is no one correct way to engage with this webtext and the textual argument/s contained therein. Indeed, I would argue that much more may be gained if a reader proceeds through the text in unpredictable and unexpected ways. I view the complexity of this nonlinearity in terms similar to that of Karen Barad (2012), as the welcoming of "infinite alterity...a racial openness, an infinity of possibilities" (p. 213). Therefore, as a single–multiple collective, there are no embedded navigational aids between the webtexts subsections. By selecting a given subsection, the reader has chosen a discrete path; they have created a particular reality. Similar to Schrodinger’s now-famous thought experiment, the reader has decided to peek into the box by selecting a given subsection of the webtext. To reset the experiment, the reader must return to the single home page and choose another (new) path.

All this said, if the complexity/alterity created by nonlinear navigation proves overwhelming and overly taxing, as I acknowledge it may well, I've also provided the reader with a more traditional, linear path through the webtext. Readers may experience something close to an IMRAD version of this webtext by selecting the hamburger icon on the bottom left of the webtext. This linear navigation aid will remain open as long as the reader desires to help guide them through the text. This navigation aid will not, however, allow readers to navigate directly to each subsection (because to do so would subvert the single–multiple design of the webtext). Still, it does provide a structure for readers to follow if they so desire. Alternatively, the linear navigation aid may be closed anytime, re/turning the text to its original nonlinear, quantum configuration.

A note on visual design: A reader's first encounter with this webtext is decidedly visual. However, the use of images is not (only) a matter of aesthetics, nor do the images serve (just) as static entry points to subsections of the webtext. The images are a part of—not apart from—the larger single–multiple collective. Thus, the images have both representational value and rhetorical consequence. Following Laurie Gries (2015), I want to invite the reader to understand the "image as event—as a dynamic network of distributed, unfolding, and unforeseeable becomings" (p. 27). As a distributed event, an image is nonlinear, equally giving meaning to and taking meaning from the text. At times, an image’s rhetorical consequence might be readily accessible before a reader selects into a subsection of the webtext; at other times, it might emerge through its association with text. There is, again, no correct reading of the image–text consequentiality because, "as images materialize in different versions and enter into divergent associations, they become rhetorically diverse as they work alongside other entities, human and nonhuman, abstract and concrete, to alter collective life" (Gries, 2015, pp. 27–28). To further facilitate these image–text becomings (and as an added layer of rhetorical complexity), each subsection of the webtext begins with an epigraph meant to deepen and intensify the webtext’s single–multiplicity.

SPACE–TIME MATTERING

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"Material conditions matter, not because they 'support' particular discourses that are the actual generative factors in the formation of bodies but rather because matter comes to matter through the iterative intra-activity of the world in its becoming." ~Karen Barad (2003), "Posthumanist Performativity," p. 823

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How you are viewing this webtext matters. It matters in the sense that technology, whether analog or digital, necessarily mediates experience; and, so, the ways that you are able to interface with the text hinges on technology [1]. Mobile, desktop, and print-based experiences are each unique material configurations of this text, and each offer a nuanced, but also mutually dependent, enactment of this scholarship. But this text and its various iterations are also a matter of temporality because, as special relativity reminds us, space and time can never really be discussed independently. By this I mean to suggest, in a very literal sense, that the various matterings of this text each enact time in unique ways. Space–time matterings are not stable nor singular, but rather emergent and iterative. A brief, and admittedly reductive, set of examples should help begin to elucidate this point:

• Scenario 1

  Perhaps this webtext is being read on the web browser application on a mobile smart phone; and, perhaps that phone is located at a coffee shop, people bustling about and music piped gently in overhead. The device is connected to the public wifi and various applications are running in the background causing email, news, and message notifications to flash across the top of the screen, momentarily interrupting this text. The world closes in here; time accelerates and vast geographic distance is spanned at the rate of 200,000 km/second (depending on the quality of network cable).

  



• Scenario 2

  Now consider that this webtext is being displayed on a laptop, but this time the device is in a quiet study room at the university's library. The laptop, similar to the phone at the coffee shop, is connected to the internet, but the "Do Not Disturb" function is enabled. The same music from the coffee shop is playing, but this time it's delivered through headphones. The global network is still at your fingertips, yet it nevertheless seems somewhat removed, held at arms distance. Time ticks slower here.

  



• Scenario 3

  Now suppose this webtext isn't being displayed on a laptop at all, instead it's coming across on a PDF that's been printed and is sitting on a dining room table. Perhaps there are a variety of hardcopy articles on similar topics stacked next to this one, a situation seemingly analogous but not substantially equivalent to multiple browser tabs being open on a wifi connected laptop. Here the world spreads out and the flow of time grinds, at least relative to the first scenario presented above.

  

Two key points to remember: (1) It's not (just) that the technological medium of delivery affects the content, and (2) I am not suggesting that the digital–material configuring permanently fixes how time and space are experienced. Quite the opposite, in fact. Space–time can be, and frequently is, done differently with/in each configuration. I want to drive toward the idea that time and space are entangled phenomena in digital learning environments. That is, space and time do not exist as pre-existing, discrete entities. "Time," Karen Barad (2007) argued, "is not a success of evenly spaced intervals available as a referent for all bodies and space is not a collection of pre-existing points set out as a container for matter to inhabit" (p. 234). Instead, space–times are better conceived of as "differential patterns of mattering ('diffraction patterns') produced through complex agential intra-actions of multiple material-discursive practices or apparatuses of bodily production" (p. 140). Space–time is being done—is becoming—in a variety of ways. One of the ways that space–time is frequently enacted, especially with/in digital learning technologies, is in terms of efficiency, a compression of time and space that allows instruction to quickly reach across vast geographic distances and temporal differences (See: Chronotopes). As a matter of efficiency, digital technologies become subsumed under an ethic of neoliberal austerity, thereby obscuring how these technologies can work in service to social justice efforts in higher education.

I want to posit a way past such a singular space–time enactment of digital learning technologies by arguing for what I term quantum ontologies wherein many value-laden chronotopes can occupy the same techno–material space in a state of superposition (See: Quantum Ontologies — Digital Technologies). In this webtext, I turn to the quantum as a theoretical framework for understanding the chronotopic consequence of digital technologies in higher education. Thus, my employment of the quantum is less a matter of physics qua physics and is more accurately described as an overarching quantum philosophy that is not only useful for rhetorical studies, but I argue is necessary to apprehend the complexity of technological space–time matterings. Barad (2017) affirmed the importance of the quantum, and argued that "Quantum theory, despite tales to the contrary, is not restricted to some alleged micro-realm...Nor does quantum theory live in the realm of rarified ideas that now and again has applications for the real world" (p. 62). Quantum theory, then, bears direct value on issues such as "war, militarism, racism, colonialism, capitalism, and imperialism" (p. 62).

Importantly, a foundational aspect of quantum superposition is that measurement is key to resolving indeterminacy. In other words, it is only when we actually look for (or, measure) enactments of technologies beyond that of efficiency that we create the possibility for their existence (See: [Resolving] Indeterminacy). One of the findings from this research project is that for many instructors in online learning spaces there is a vague sense that digital teaching technologies can indeed be enacted to meet social justice needs, but they are unsure, though, of how to bring this about in their online courses. Quantum ontologies, then, offer a way forward for understanding and enacting digital technologies' chronotopic complexity in ways beyond just efficiency. This work is vitally important at a time when social justice efforts in higher education are under increasing legislative threat and continue to face rollbacks nationwide.

RE/TURNING TO CHRONOTOPES

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"But in many Indigenous ways of knowing, time is not a river, but a lake in which the past, the present, and the future exist." ~Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013), Braiding Sweetgrass, p. 343

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After Jordynn Jack (2006) initially theorized chronotopes as forms of argument (See: Chronotopes) she re/turned [1] to chronotopes as a means for examining the relationship between subject matter expertise and water ontologies (2022; see Table 2 below). This further exploration of chronotopes again drew on a public policy debate (this time over water rights) but was decidedly less interested in the discursive forms of rhetorical argument possible in a given spacetime configuration. Instead, Jack tied ethos (expressed as expertise) to materiality vis–à–vis the chronotope. She argued that "we can understand these different enactments of water not simply as discursive frames that all represent the same thing but as ontologies arising from diverse enactments of water present in different communities and institutions" (p. 328, emphasis added). Yes, chronotopes are discursive; but they are also deeply ontological, entangled with and in matter.

Toward this end, Jack offered three different chronotopic enactments of "water-as," each with a unique spatiotemporal relationship that authorizes unique types of expertise. The naming of multiple (and, per Jack, competing) ontologies represents a crucial advancement in theorizing the rhetorical import of chronotopes (See "Re/Turning" Table below). In Jack’s initial work, chronotopes remained largely abstractions, discursive frameworks that dis/allowed certain arguments in relation to a given technology. As a rhetorical actant, therefore, GMFs were relatively stable and singular—the argument itself took on different spatiotemporal characteristics. Conversely, as an ontology, water itself, not the arguments it authorizes, is an iterative and emergent rhetorical agent. What's more, similar to times as multiple (See: (A Brief History) of Space–Time & Rhetoric), water ontologies too emerge as chronotopically multiple: water located in a lab (water-as-chemical-entity) is not the same as water located in a private well (water-as-resource). Even more important, by tethering expertise to spatio-temporality, Jack also invoked an ethical component to chronotopes that previously was lacking. For example, as the table below indicates, the water-as-chemical-entity operates under an oppressive, settler-colonial chronotope while the water-as-lifeblood configuration works in service to social justice efforts. Thus, various chronotopes (space–time configurations) are not just a matter of expertise but also ethics. Some chronotopes are oriented toward justice, while others reinforce existing, hegemonic systems of power. Therefore, to discuss chronotopes is to discuss matters of in/equity.

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ONTOLOGY	CHARACTERISTICS	SPACE–TIME LOCATIONS & CHRONOTOPE	EXPERTISE AUTHORIZED
water-as-chemical-entity	configures water in molecular terms, subjected to the scientific method and yields quantifiable data (such as alkalinity and hardness levels)	laboratory; test tube. operates under a settler-colonial chronotope that "disconnects water from its embeddedness in an ecosystem or in the lives of people who use it" (p. 333)	testing companies; public health officials and agencies
water-as-resource	configures water in terms of human use; water is done in terms of quotidian and daily usage (e.g., drinking, cooking, bathing, etc.)	houses; water wells; farmland. operates under a settler-colonial chronotope that ties water to the legal rights landowners, specifically those in rural areas; present-focused and elides future consequences	land and homeowners; rural community members; select members of the scientific/technical community (e.g., geologists)
water-as-lifeblood	configures water in ecological and interconnected terms; water itself becomes vibrant and agential; "humans...are responsible to water, not owners of it" (p. 335)	aquifers; groundwater. operates on a decolonial, sustainability–minded chronotope that "assumes a long timescale and a broad spatial scale" (p. 335); inclusive of ancient past, the present, as well as distant futures	Indigenous peoples and "knowledges that stretch over a longer history and extend into the future" (p. 335)

"Re/Turning" Table: This table presents Jack’s (2022) most recent re-theorization that situated chronotopes as multiple ontologies. Important to note is that each chronotope is restricted to discrete material sites; chronotopes do not flow between or within localities.

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Importantly, for Jack, chronotopes are indeed multiple and simultaneous, but they arise from discrete space–time configurings [2]. For example, the water-as-lifeblood ontology could not result from a space–time configuring wherein water is located in a lab. According to multiple ontologies, it is the limited space–time of the laboratory itself that allows water to be enacted as water-as-chemical-entity; conversely, it is the deep time scale and a broad ecosystem that enables the performance of water-as-lifeblood. And as multiple, these two ontologies could not occupy the same topological space and therefore necessarily exist, at least partially, in contradistinction to one another. However, this is not to say that these ontologies are wholly separate; they are not. As Annemarie Mol (1999) has argued, "what 'multiplicity' entails instead is that, while realities may clash at some points, elsewhere the various performances of an object may collaborate and even depend on one another" (p. 83). It might therefore be more accurate to say that chronotopes can be enacted as a mutually inclusive single–multiple: as "more than one but less than many" (Law, 1999, p. 10). But despite this hanging-together of chronotopic ontologies, we are still confronted with the problem that multiple enactments of chronotopes remain separate enough such that they cannot simultaneously occupy the same space–time locality. The time–space configuration seems to limit and fix what chronotopes may arise from it.

But in technologically mediated space–times, multiple chronotopes frequently inhabit the same material configuration—a contradiction that multiple ontologies seemingly cannot resolve. Learning technologies, like Learning Management Systems (LMSs) or Zoom, can simultaneously be enacted as a matter of efficiency and social justice in the same space–time configuration. What I am proposing, therefore, is a model of quantum ontologies that builds on Jack’s theorization of chronotopes and is better able to account for a variety of value-oriented chronotopic enactments existing within the same material configuring. Whereas Mol (2002) argued for flow between sites of becoming, I posit the existence of flow within a site. Such a re-rendering of chronotopes is important because technological spaces are frequently underwritten by what Steven Katz (1992) has previously termed an ethic of expediency wherein efficiency for efficiency’s sake becomes the driving ethical force, and so "subsume all other ethics under it, making all ethics expedients and thus replacing them" (p. 270). However, even though quantum ontologies creates the potential for enactments of digital technology beyond that of efficiency, it is vitally important to note that the realization of such enactments hinges on instructors and institutions to observe and enact digital learning spaces in socially just ways (See: [Resolving] Indeterminacy and Toward Praxis). What is needed is, in Barad's (2007) terms, a politics of possibilities: "ways of responsibly imagining and intervening in the configurations of power, that is, intra-actively configuring spacetimematter" (p. 246).

BLACKBOARD-AS-SOCIAL-JUSTICE

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"Technology is both one of those sites of struggle and a possible means of liberation, something we can not only survive but transform in our own interests." ~Adam Banks (2006), Race, Rhetoric, and Technology, p. 43

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Digital learning technologies have frequently been associated with efforts to democratize higher education (Blair & Monske, 2003; Brady, 2001; Sano-Franchini et al., 2023). Perhaps ironically, this is an argument that can be, and often is, authorized by the Blackboard-as-Flexibility chronotope even though this space–time configuration is underwritten by a neoliberal ideology that works counter to social justice efforts. For example, when asked how digital technologies specifically benefit minority-identifying students at an institution designated as both an HSI and MSI (See: Apparatus: Study Design), instructors often deferred back to a bootstrap understanding of flexibility, offering responses such as "If they [minority-identifying students] are experiencing hardships for whatever reason, I feel like Blackboard gives them some more flexibility to deal with that and go to school" and "it [Blackboard] creates opportunities toward finishing their degree that they wouldn’t have otherwise."" Such a reading allows the institution to absolve itself from actually attending to the lived realities that inform students' daily lives—realities that infrequently, if ever, can be resolved through flexible access to instructional material. It would be a mistake to equate opportunity with equity.

Another frequent response to the relationship between digital technologies and minority-identifying student populations was to, in well-meaning ways, sidestep the issue of culture and race altogether in favor of discussing how digital technologies affect all students. One participant noted, "It's not just our minority [-identifying] students. It could be a student who perhaps works three part-time jobs to pay their bills. And so, regardless if they're a minority [-identifying] student...I mean, I grew up poor too, but online learning allows them to work and still 'come to class.'" Another participant responded similarly, "I don't know if I have enough information to answer that. I don't want to make assumptions about folks who are LGBTQIA or people of color...I have diverse classes and I haven't seen any real differences between the way that minority [-identifying] student other students are affected by digital technology. Responses such as those above indicate that social justice enactments of digital learning spaces can be rather obscure and difficult to ascertain. However, this isn't to say that such enactments are not possible, only that their realization requires acute and intentional energy applied thereto.

In fact, even though Blackboard-as-Social-Justice chronotopic enactments were a minority, there were multiple instances where instructors discussed, in pointed detail, how this digital technology works to serve issues of diversity and justice in their online classes. To begin, while many instructors did invoke Blackboard-as-Flexibility, they were equally quick to point to the tacit inequity in this chronotope by drawing attention to the persistence of the digital divide. For instance, the same instructor who previously indicated that Blackboard creates opportunities for minority–identifying students immediately contextualized that comment, saying,

"We like to think of technology as colorblind and an equalizing force, but that's an easy assumption for a middle-aged, white person like me to make. The truth is that it does create opportunities, but those opportunities aren't evenly distributed across demographics like income and race. Like, can I reasonably assume that my minority [-identifying] students have the same access to high-speed internet that I do?

Online instructors, in other words, are acutely aware that differential access impacts the social justice potential afforded by this space–time configuring. In this chronotopic enactment, space, again, is expanded beyond the traditional boundaries of the institution. However, this expansion of space is not just about connection; instead, it nuances the concept of connection by also considering how access is more than mere availability. Expanded access in this chronotope is a deeply networked as well as social and material phenomena inclusive of considerations like quality (e.g., reliable internet access, a dedicated space at home for doing school work, not having to share technology with other family members, etc.) and even types of connection across space. Again, as the participant above notes, despite the prevalent view that technology is (or can be) a democratizing force, the benefits of digital technologies are not even distributed.

Just as the quality of access is unevenly distributed across demographics, the type of connection is also highly consequential for social justice enactments of this technology: "Desktop–Blackboard" is distinctly separate from "Mobile–Blackboard." And even though students are, with increasing regularity, accessing instructional materials via their mobile devices, Blackboard's user experience is still optimized for a desktop interface. This, again, causes uneven access to instruction. As one instructor noted, "It seems like the way education is moving, students need access to something with a big enough screen that can actually do things. And a keyboard. Like, I know students are trying to submit these long blog post assignments that were written with their thumbs. You can't write an essay with your thumbs. So, I question if those assignments are an unfair ask." Another instructor recalled how a student had purchased a Chromebook only to discover that it wasn't capable of doing the technological work required for the course. Thus, the material means of connection across wider geographic space are not, or should not be, a given; they are highly consequential. And in order to enact these technological spaces for equity and justice rather than rote efficiency, instructors must be attuned to the wider, more inclusive aspects of access.

Another important spatial aspect of the Blackboard-as-Social-Justice chronotope is that precisely because this technology broadens the traditional geographic reach of the institution, it creates instructional spaces that are more culturally responsive and, in many cases, more welcoming for students with minoritized identities. As one participant explained, "When students go into a physical space on campus, they know very quickly what the dominant cultural narrative is there—it's a white space. Whereas, in an online learning environment, you don't have those traditional white-dominant optics...we can create a space that is free from hegemonic optics." Again, contra Blackboard-as-Flexibility, in this enactment of Blackboard, it's not that instruction can be anywhere, a spacetimemattering that is underwritten by neoliberal ethics; instead, the specific locations—technologically, materially, and culturally—matter, particularly for minority-identifying students. An example of how the specificity of space matters was indicated by a participant who noted that "One characteristic of our student population [as an HSI] is that, and this is anecdotal but it's a fair point, but I've seen in my students a strong connection to place and family. So, online tech allows students the opportunity to stay connected to the cultural places that matter to them while still going to school." In this instance, Blackboard is still a matter of connection, but that connection comes to matter through social justice concerns rather than simply being able to access the institution anywhere and anytime.

APPARATUS: STUDY DESIGN

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"[A]pparatuses are specific material reconfiguring of the world that do not merely emerge in time but iteratively reconfigure spacetimematter as part of the ongoing dynamism of becoming." ~Karen Barad (2007), Meeting the Universe Halfway, p. 142

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INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT

This research project utilized an IRB-approved, qualitative research design that worked to gather data at multiple levels. More specifically, the methodological frameworks for this study was informed by a set of interrelated questions:

• What value-oriented enactments of digital technologies do instructors employ in their online courses; and
• What are the [potential] material–temporal consequences of such enactments?

Since this research project specifically aimed to understand instructional valuations and enactments of digital learning technologies, as opposed to student or administrative, the target population for participants was instructors who were assigned to teach at least one course designated as either fully online or hybrid course delivery. Data was gathered at a regional, public institution designed as an R2 Doctoral University, Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), and Minority Serving Institution (MSI) during the fall of 2022. In total, 29 instructors completed the online survey, and 23 agreed to the follow-up interview. Participants for this study represented a broad range of disciplinary affiliation and included faculty from all five different colleges across the university: Liberal Arts (the majority of participants), Science, Business, Nursing and Health Science, and Education and Human Development [1].

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DATA COLLECTION

Eligible participants were first invited to complete a digital survey that consisted of four, open-ended questions about their instructional valuations of online learning technologies. In this study, participants most frequently discussed Blackboard as a digital learning technology since this was the learning management system (LMS) that was institutionally mandated for instructional use. Despite the tendency for participants in this research study to discuss Blackboard specifically, it is not my intention to assign special status to Blackboard as an LMS. While it is true that various online learning platforms, like Canvas and Teams, are each nuanced in the ways that they configure digital learning environments, they are, I believe, similar enough for them to be considered substantially equivalent. It's my intention, therefore, not to draw attention to the affordances and constraints of Blackboard itself, but rather to theorize about digital learning environments writ large. Subsequently, those subsections of this webtext that discuss "Blackboard-As" could easily be read as "Canvas-As" or "Microsoft-Teams-As" depending on whichever LMS is locally mandated.

Then, upon completion of the survey, participants were asked to participate in an optional follow-up interview (also conducted digitally) that would allow them to expand on and provide added depth to their initial survey responses. The follow-up interviews employed a phenomenological approach (Bevan, 2014) that used participants' initial responses as springboards for structuring the interview. Participants were prompted to contextualize, apprehend, and finally clarify their initial survey responses. Importantly, this method of interviewing "enables a researcher to examine a person’s experience both actively and methodically" and "provides a sound basis for interpreting experience grounded in the origin of the material" (Bevan, 2014, pp. 138–143). These multiple avenues for data collection allowed for the elicitation of multi-point, rich descriptions of participant enactments and valuations of digital learning technologies. For instance, even though social justice concerns were not an explicit part of the study design, they emerged as a consequential aspect of instructors' enactments of digital learning environments via the follow-up interviews. In other words, even though participants were not asked outright how they might employ a social justice orientation in their online learning environments, the phenomenological interview approach allowed them an avenue to discuss such matters on their own accord.

(A BRIEF HISTORY OF) SPACE–TIME & RHETORIC

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"Temporality is produced through the iterative enfoldings of phenomena marking the sedimenting historiality of differential patterns of mattering...Time has a history." ~Karen Barad (2007), Meeting the Universe Halfway, p. 180

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Time has long been a touchstone of both rhetorical theory and practice, even if it has never fully been afforded canonical status within the discipline. As Collin Bjork and Frida Buhre (2021b, "Resisting") noted, even though temporal rhetorics may not be an officially named subfield of research within rhetoric, there is no shortage of scholarship that centers temporal concerns. To name only a few examples, time has been central to investigations of social justice (Bjork & Buhre, "Braiding" 2021a; Gomez, 2021), gender studies (Aronson, 1999; Jack, 2007, 2009; McBean, 2015), disability studies (Gallop, 2019; Samuels, 2017), and social responsibility (Vivian, 2014). In fact, such attention has been afforded to time that Doug Downs (2022) has recently called for it to be named a threshold concept proper in writing studies. Such a wide disciplinary engagement evinces the fact that the very idea of temporality is rather complex as it has been conceptualized and operationalized in a multiplicity of divergent ways. Therefore, it might do better to conceive of time as multiple—as mutually-informing but nevertheless multiple rhetorical times. In this webtext, I work to trace some of the larger contours of time/s extant in the field's scholarship. It is not my intention to provide an exhaustive history of time/s in rhetoric; rather, I want to briefly elucidate three rhetorical frameworks underwriting time/s in rhetoric, namely chronos, kairos, and chronotopes.

As I show across the webtext, these three frameworks for engaging temporal concerns are not mutually exclusive, independent categories but instead are entangled—weaving deeply in and through each other. I want to elucidate how the very concept of time is itself a "coordinating mechanism" (Mol, 2002, p. 117) that holds together a distributed collective of mutually informing types of time. Some configurations of time, as Bjork and Buhre (2021a, 2021b) demonstrated, are oriented toward social justice, and some (like chronos) obscure the relationship between spatio–temporality and matters of equity. One of my goals in entangling the various types of time is to locate the temporal with/in the material, to demonstrate how times are not just discursive but also–always ontological. I also want to draw attention to how various configurations of space–time (otherwise known as chronotopes) can be productive for understanding value-oriented enactments of digital learning technologies. Finally, I want to push against the concept of multiple ontologies and instead argue for what I call quantum ontologies wherein chronotopic enactments of technologies do not [necessarily] arise from discrete sites of becoming, but instead exist in a quantum state of superposition. Such a topos allows for many chronotopes to occupy the same techno-material space. This extension of chronotopes is important because it helps demonstrate how digital technologies, especially in online learning environments, can work in service to ethics other than that of expediency.

TOWARD PRAXIS

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"Technology refers equally to knowledge, actions and tools: it is (for example) a network of constructed waterways, the knowledge of when and how to irrigate fields, and the entire set of human actions that comprise this method for farming." ~Katherine Durack (1997), "Gender, Technology, and the History of Technical Communication," p. 258

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"Transformation is not accomplished by tentative wading at the edge." ~Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013), Braiding Sweetgrass, p. 89

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The touchpoint for enacting technologies that are more socially just in higher education is the resolution of indeterminacy—the direct application of pedagogical energy away from concerns of efficiency and toward matters, such as inclusivity and cultural responsiveness such as are found in the Blackboard-as-Social-Justice chronotope. Toward this end, I want to go beyond simply theorizing about the quantum and engage [potential] ways to apply this theory by providing practical pathways that move beyond efficiency in digital learning technologies. At the same time, however, I want to avoid any prescriptive approach to the resolution of indeterminacy because social justice work, much like the quantum, is inherently iterative, emergent, and highly localized (Agboka, 2013; Enriquez-Loya & Léon, 2020). Instead, I believe there is more value in applying a rhetorical lens for resolving indeterminacy.

Casey Boyle's (2018) characterization of rhetoric as an "embodied study in the problems and potentials of mediation" (p. 11) is particularly useful here precisely because it prompts us to think through the localized ways that digital technologies mediate our students' experiences in ways that create the potential for social justice (as well as ways that these technologies are potentially problematic, especially for students who have traditionally been marginalized within and by the academy). Therefore, this webtext also includes moments of praxis that provide a more in–depth story of the potentials and problems of technological mediation in online learning spaces.

Praxis moments begin with a rhetorically-minded, open-ended question intended to prompt readers to think through how their enactments of digital learning technologies might work toward various, competing ends. In this way, these moments of praxis are descriptive and illustrative of what teaching online could be rather than prescriptive invocations about how online instructors should employ digital learning technologies. These rhetorically-minded questions are followed by stories from participants about the complexities of teaching and learning with/in digital technologies. At times, these stories show where social justice was possible but not actualized; they also show instances where instructors were able to move beyond expediency. These moments of praxis also show examples of how, concretely, instructors were able to move toward social justice in their configurations of online learning spaces. Again, these praxis stories are intended to prompt us to think about how we might continue to work toward social justice in a localized way, within the unique constraints of our institutional and pedagogical contexts.

PRAXIS: HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS & TECHNOLOGIES

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"Technology is that which ensures and continually refines the ongoing negotiations between bodies and things, that deepening investment of the one, the body, in the other, the thing." ~Elizabeth Grosz (2001), Architecture from the Outside, p. 182

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How can I leverage digital technologies to foster connection not as a matter of compressing geographic space and time—but between people? (Or: How can I enact a digital space–time that works to create meaningful interpersonal relationships?)

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Despite the frequency with which Blackboard functions as a site of disconnection between persons (See: Blackboard-as-Disconnection), it is indeed possible for this same technology to become a site that helps create meaningful human-to-human connections in ways that do not necessarily have an analog antecedent. However, such a becoming is only possible through the direct application of instructional energy toward such ends (See: [Resolving] Indeterminacy. For example, many instructors lament the degree of separation and stiff inauthenticity that often accompany discussion board posts in asynchronous classes, an assignment that, ostensibly, attempts to reproduce the learning that happens through in-class discourse. One participant, Elliot, conversely, discussed how they work to transform features like the discussion board into places of "critical play" between students—places that intentionally subvert the rigid hierarchy that often manifests in digital technologies.

Elliot admitted that it's typically difficult for both them, as an instructor, and for students to have a "sense of personality and click with other people as people" in Blackboard's discussion board feature. Therefore, rather than use the discussion board feature (or the chat feature in Zoom) as a place to replicate institutional language, a place where "writing and composition that gets turn[ed] in for a grade," Elliot turns these into places where students can be "comfortable being silly and share jokes, and drop emojis...a place where they [students] can play, be more authentically themselves and have their classmates see them as such." Instead of demonstrating learning through highly impersonal (and often cursory) discussion posts, Elliot has students engage with digital technologies in ways more attuned to creating interpersonal connections across the class. Elliot encourages students to creatively integrate technologies by using Zoom's record feature to create videos of themselves, which can then be shared with the class in a public forum. Such an assignment allows students to combine form and content by "using things like modified backgrounds to help get their point across. Like, if they're discussing a comic we read, they can have a panel of the comic as the background and they can point to it like they're Vanna White, you know? They can play with the technology in ways that are both engaging and built on forming more authentic relationships.""

For Elliot, Blackboard's discussion posts can be transformed into places of multimodal, creative play between people as people—a place where students can more fully show their authentic selves and experience their classmates in the same way. Again, it bears repeating that such a becoming of Blackboard is only because Elliot has (re)imagined the discussion board as such and worked to create this collaborative playscape into their online instruction.

BLACKBOARD-AS-DISCONNECTION

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"If technologies play a key role in the kinds of ethical hexeis we develop, considering the human-technology relationship in rhetorical studies is now more vital than ever." ~Jared Colton & Steve Holmes (2018), Rhetoric, Technology, and the Virtues, p. 44

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While Blackboard is often enacted as a matter of flexibility and efficient connection across time and space, it is simultaneously decried for being a techno-material space that is both prescriptively rigid and socially isolating. As one participant expressed, "Even if you have discussion boards or public journals that have asynchronous contributions [in Blackboard], it's all still pretty rigid, pretty hierarchical. And it's hard to have a sense of personality and to click with other people in class [1]." Whereas Blackboard-as-Flexibility spreads the university out across geographic space, this enactment draws the institution decidedly in and locates instruction in more narrow terms, as existing within the confines of a "limiting" and "rigid" software program. In fact, another participant noted that Blackboard is far less flexible than their in–person teaching, and that inflexibility is highly limiting. They note,

"The structure of the course has to be the same week to week [in an online class] to set students up for success. Whereas when I'm teaching in–person, I have more freedom...I can have a topic I want to cover, but if there is something interesting happening in the world, I could incorporate that into the lecture or throw out my original lesson plan and build one on that new topic."

Therefore, not only does the enactment of Blackboard-as-Disconnection constrict the material space of instruction, it also seems to fix temporality by its inability to address kairotic events in a timely fashion. Another participant echoes this same limitation, noting that "I'll be scrolling through Facebook or AppleNews and see an article that I really think would apply well to my students, but I really have no way [in Blackboard] to, you know, easily and spontaneously share this relevant and recent content with them." Time in this ontology, then, is slowed considerably as seen when instructors describe the techno–material space as "inefficient," "cumbersome," or "not at all user friendly." Accordingly, the chronotopic flow of time in this space interrupts the accelerated, fast-paced experience of time typically enacted in digitally-mediated environments.

Furthermore, because this enactment of Blackboard is highly disconnected, both spatially and temporally, it is also an ontology that can create social distance between users. When asked what challenges Blackboard presents, instructors frequently referenced the prevalent separation from students in these spaces. As one participant notes, "Teaching online, I feel like it's hard to...I feel like I have a hard time getting to know students, getting to engage with students as people." But more than just a matter of getting to know students on a personal level, Blackboard-as-Disconnection is also an ontology that is capable of obfuscating users' identity and cultural markers in the name of anonymity, thereby working in opposition to social justice efforts. Even if this stripping away is not intentional or a matter of purposeful design, it nevertheless has the potential to whitewash this instructional space (Banks, 2006; Kolko, 2000). For this very reason, one instructor noted that "It [Blackboard] can erase a lot of students' cultural identity...so, one of the reasons I like Slack is that it's easier for them [students] to create a digital presence (e.g., the use of animated and custom emojis, profile pictures, etc.) that reflects those pieces of themselves."

Something as innocuous as being able to manipulate/alter your profile picture (a capability that is not afforded to students at our institution) might appear to be a relatively mundane feature; however, Rebecca Walton, Kristen Moore, and Natasha Jones (2019) reminded us that "designing for inclusion challenges us to consider the ways the mundane work we do might be exclusionary and, in being exclusionary, contribute to systems of oppression" (p. 138). In this scenario, structuring a digital technology so that it allows students the ability to manipulate their digital presence via a profile picture can be an act of identity-making/marking that is, in fact, highly consequential. Thus, as a matter of disconnection, Blackboard can, in many instances, be both socially and culturally isolating in seemingly inconsequential ways—thereby stifling social justice efforts by disallowing students from representing their cultural identities and instead transforming them into faceless names on a class roster.

PRAXIS: EXPEDIENCY IN ACTION

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"Engaging with spaces means being more than a spectator." ~Jeff Rice (2012), Digital Detroit, p. 9

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How might instances of expediency continue to inform my enactments of digital learning technolgies? (Or: What social justice minded configurations of digital technologies might lie below the surface?)

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As I was interviewing one participant, Peyton, it became quickly clear that many of their enactments of Blackboard and other digital learning technologies were underwritten by efficiency. When discussing the benefits of Blackboard, Peyton noted that "what it really comes down to is efficiency and ease of use for me, the instructor. It's wonderful for setting things up where I'm easily able to find people's work and grade it and get it back to them in a shorter time frame." Peyton also shared how Blackboard negatively affected the efficiency of their pedagogy, saying, "In person, we can have class discussions really easily. But in Blackboard, you know, using the discussion board, I'm having to go through and read 150-word responses from, you know, 30 or 50 students, and trying to give substantive feedback to them is just impossible." Peyton also made multiple references to how Blackboard, YouTube, and Zoom give students the ability to access instruction while off campus. "There's no real substitute for live, in-person meetings," they noted, "but at least they have the option to access that content when it's convenient for them." I want to be clear that in offering this extended example from Peyton's interview, I am not intending to criticize these efficiency-minded enactments of Blackboard; rather, I am wanting to show that, with near ubiquity, Peyton's enactments closely resembled the Blackboard-as-Disconnection chronotope.

However, as the interview drew to a close, I asked Peyton if there was anything else about their enactments of digital teaching technologies that they wanted to share with me. And something unexpected happened. Peyton shared how their child, who is hearing disabled and enrolled at a different university, performs better in online courses, like courses delivered via Zoom, because of the closed captioning capabilities that this technology offers that are not available in traditional, in-person courses. Peyton relayed specifically that online courses and supplemental instruction through YouTube "creates much higher quality instruction for them [their child]. The closed captioning is really a needed thing." Such a response was indicative of a social justice enactment of digital learning technologies on the part of the instructor delivering the course via Zoom. Yet, Peyton was unable to see such possibilities in their own enactments of digital technology in their online classes. I do not want to wander into conjecture about why Peyton might not have been able to see social justice potential in their own classes; rather the vitally important implication that I am driving toward is that such an enactment is only possible if purposeful and concerted energy is applied so as to resolve the indeterminacy of chronotopic superposition and make social justice a reality through digital technologies. Put differently, Peyton's responses are demonstrative for how "injustices often live in the mundane choices that [we] make" (Walton, Moore & Jones, 2019, p. 163), which include seemingly "mundane" choices about how to enact digital learning technologies. It's not that Peyton is purposefully avoiding thinking about social justice in their online classes. Instead, at least for Peyton, it seems that Blackboard-as-Social-Justice continues to exist only as an adjacent possibility, within reach if only they would apply direct energy to enact it as such.

CHRONOTOPES

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"Corporeal space is lived spatiality, oriented to a situation where in the lived/living/lively body embarks on an architectural dance that actively spatializes (and temporalizes) through its movements, activities, and gestures." ~Diana Coole (2010), "The Inertia of Matter and the Generativity of Flesh," p. 102

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One framework for understanding time in rhetorical studies (in addition to chronos and kairos) is that of chronotopes. While I hesitate to assign a singular starting point for theorizing chronotopes, perhaps the most relevant place to begin is with Mikhail Bakhtin’s (1981) The Dialogic Imagination. For Bakhtin, a chronotope refers to the "intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships expressed in literature" (p. 84). As in Einstein's theory of special relativity, the chronotope, as it manifests in literature, fuses time and space inseparably together. "Time, as it were" Bakhtin wrote, "thickens, takes on flesh, becomes artistically visible; likewise, space becomes charged and responsive to movements of time, plot and history" (p. 84). Bakhtin used this entangling of time and space (or, spacetime) to demonstrate how many different forms of spacetime configurations existed in literature, such as adventure time, folkloric time, and idyllic time. Spacetime, following special relativity, is not a fixed absolute but rather is iterative and emergent. Even though Bakhtin employed the concept of chronotopes as a way to theorize literature, he did not preclude the possibility of its utility beyond the novel, especially since the very idea of chronotopes was derived from Einsteinian mathematics and had enjoyed application elsewhere in the natural sciences (Bemong & Borghart, 2008). In other words, as a model for understanding the consequence of spacetime configurations, chronotopes are not just restricted to literature nor, importantly, are they simply an abstraction or literary device. Chronotopes were derived from and remain grounded in "the real" and even more explicitly than kairos, chronotopes draw tightly together the emergent relationships between temporality and materiality.

In composition–rhetoric, the concept of the chronotope has not necessarily been an area of intense disciplinary focus; however, it has been employed as a framework for analyzing the relationships between: genre and power (Schryer, 1999), writers' process and literate activity (Prior & Shipka, 2003), argumentation and deliberative rhetorics (Jack, 2006), and subject-matter expertise and ontologies (Jack, 2022). Of these unquestionably important figures, Jordynn Jack stands apart given her sustained and extensive efforts to draw disciplinary attention to the rhetorical consequence of spacetime configurations. In this webtext, I both draw upon and work to extend Jack's theorization of chronotopes by arguing for the ethical valuations that accompany various spacetime configurations, particularly those enacted in digital learning spaces. Put differently, I want to suggest that chronotopes are a matter of, per Karen Barad (2007), ethico-onto-epistem-ology, which denotes "an appreciation of the intertwining of ethics, knowing, and being" (p. 185). Furthermore, I want to push against the notion of multiple, competing (ethico)ontologies and instead argue that chronotopes exist in a quantum state of superposition wherein many different ethical valuations, often contradictory, exist simultaneously in the same chronotopic spacetime configuration.

Jack (2006) initially attended to chronotopes in largely representational terms, as "a way to understand not only how such [ideological] arguments depend on specific configurations of space and time, but also the implications of those space–time configurations for argument and decision making" (p. 52–53). More specifically, Jack used the concept of chronotopes to analyze the ideological underpinnings of policy arguments associated with genetically modified foods (GMFs). In total, Jack identified four distinct chronotopes related to GMFs (See "Chronotope" Table below). While Jack's work in "Chronotopes" was foundational for many reasons, I want to draw attention to two insights of particular importance. First, chronotopes not only create meaning, but they also are performative in that they coordinate action. "The relationship between space and time," Jack argued, "is always value-oriented, reflecting societal assumptions about the place of human individuals in space and time and the type of action allowed within that space and time" (p. 67). Thus, chronotopes are more deliberative than they are descriptive.

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CHRONOTOPE	CHARACTERISTICS	SPATIOTEMPORAL CONSTRUCTS	IDEOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS AUTHORIZED
Time–Space Compression	"refers to technologies that seem to accelerate or elide spatial and temporal distances" (p. 57)	present and immediate future; global marketplace	regulatory practices hinder growth; rapid proliferation of technologies is desirable so as to avoid falling behind
Substantial Equivalence	suggests that [new] technologies can be evaluated in comparison to existing analogs (p. 59).	present; narrowly defined contexts of use	new regulations are unnecessary; dismissive of ethical concerns related to technologies because of equivalence
Precautionary Principle	argues against the release or wide-spread use of technologies until their long-term safety is proven (p. 61).	long-term future; broadly drawn conception of space and time	regulations are an ethical imperative; emphasizes the contingent and evolving nature of technologies
Life Cycle	focuses on the cyclical, developmental, and continually changing aspects of technologies (p. 63).	past, present, and future; ecosystems	ambiguous about regulatory practices; ideologically ambidextrous and can serve other chronotopic arguments

"Chronotope Table": An adaptation of Jack's (2006) initial description of the four dominant chronotopes used to support policy arguments related to genetically modified foods.

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Second, Jack's early work positions the technological as also material. GMFs, for Jack, are both a material thing and a technology. This point is key because technology, especially digital technology, is frequently read in non-material ways. For example, digital LMSs are typically positioned as inert vessels through which instruction passes—as non-places that lack, or at best inhibit, relationships (Rice, 2012, p. 8). That is, the technological interface is often designed to obfuscate its presence—we are not supposed to notice the work of the interface, it is only when a "glitch" occurs that "disrupt[s] the seamlessness and intuitiveness of our electronic environments" (Boyle, 2018, p. 116) that the interface becomes perceptible or rises to the level of consciousness. Importantly, this implies that the technological is more than a backdrop for rhetorical work (Boyle et al., 2018, p. 256). The technological is material and rhetorically consequential. Angela Haas (2012) argued just this point when she defines technology as a techné, "not as transparent things but as cultural artifacts imbued with histories and values that shape the ways in which people see themselves and others in relation to technology" (p. 288). Digital technologies, such as LMSs or GMFs, then, are not virtual spaces through which information passes devoid of relationship; they are highly consequential techno-material places: places with spacetime configurations that have the potential to control and coordinate users' values and actions therein.

QUANTUM ONTOLOGIES & DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES

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"Quantum superpositions radically undo classical notions of identity and being…Quantum superpositions (at least on Bohr's account) tell us that being/becoming is an indeterminate matter..." ~Karen Barad (2010), "Quantum Entanglements and Hauntological Relations of Inheritance," p. 251

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Classic Euclidean geometry holds that two objects cannot simultaneously occupy the same spacetime location. This is a relatively intuitive topology that informs how the world is typically experienced, both physically and digitally. For example, my coffee mug may rest on top of my desk, but it cannot occupy the same space as the desk at the same time. Likewise, in conventional computing technology, a binary digit may have a value of either zero or one, but not both. And, as Jordynn Jack (2006; 2022) has shown, this also extends to chronotopes since they are typically understood to arise from discrete material configurations. But a quantum approach turns conventional thinking on its head and introduces a strange new topology wherein two (or more) objects can, and indeed frequently do, occupy the same spacetime locality at once—a core feature of the quantum world known as superposition.

Superposition isn't a theoretical construct that is as counterintuitive or complex as it might initially seem; after all, we see evidence of overlap in the oscillations of a medium like water which results in the crests and troughs of waves. A crest is simply the amplification of energy that occurs when two or more waves occupy the same point in space at the same time. All this makes perfect sense when talking about waves, not particles. However, precisely because energy and matter are relational, not oppositional, it is possible for matter, too, to likewise exist in a state of superposition. Ontologies, concomitantly, can be thought of as quantum rather than multiple. Quantum superposition is therefore not only a useful but also a necessary construct for extending our understanding of chronotopes and how they operate with/in techno-material spaces.

It's important to note that in turning to a quantum perspective, my intention is not to try to build a mathematical proof, nor am I attempting to construct a physics argument. Instead, I am claiming that quantum superposition is a necessary theoretical framework for explaining a rhetorical phenomenon—namely, the simultaneous enactment of many chronotopes in a given techno-material space—that conventional thinking holds to be intractable. Across this webtext, I discuss the results of a research study that examined instructors enactments of digital learning technologies (such as Blackboard) and I show how multiple chronotopes exist in a state of superposition with/in a given technological learning space, thereby creating the potential for these technologies to avoid being subsumed under an ethic of expediency. This analysis focuses on the ontological enactments of Blackboard as this was the most frequently invoked digital learning technology, but equally applies to other digital learning technologies such as Canvas, Slack, YouTube, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom, to name only a few.

A key argument I want to make is that the potential to enact digital technologies as a matter of social justice cannot be actualized until instructional and technological energy is directly applied so as to bring social justice into reality (otherwise termed the resolution of indeterminacy). Social justice in digital spaces is thus intra-active and emergent because "quantum superpositions...tell us that being/becoming is an indeterminate matter" (Barad, 2010, p. 251). There is no determinate fact of the matter concerning how these spaces will be enacted, either as matters of efficiency or as matters of social justice. Put differently, while superposition does open up the potential for technologies to be enacted in ways beyond that of efficiency, they nevertheless remain in a state of indeterminacy until they are manifested as such. What is required, therefore, is for institutions and instructors to actively bring matters of social justice to the forefront of their enactments of digital technologies. Failure to do so necessitates that they will remain in a state of indeterminacy, which thus increases the potential for them to [continue to] give way to models of efficiency, given Steven Katz's (1992) assertion that an ethic of expediency tends to obscure even the possibility of alternative enactments of digital technologies. More succinctly, institutional structures (including faculty) tend to enact digital learning technologies first as a matter of efficiency.

A failure to apply directed and intentional enactments of online learning technologies beyond that of efficiency necessitates that expediency will continue to be the dominant valuation and have deleterious effects on these learning spaces—particularly for minority-identifying students. For instance, Lisa Phillips and Raquel DeLeon (2022) have shown how feelings of isolation and shame are common among minority-identifying students even in in-person settings when institutions fail to cultivate (or are not attuned to the need to create) a sense of belonging for students. If these feelings are prevalent for minority-identifying students in synchronous environments, then, as Blackboard-as-Disconnection demonstrates, these feelings of isolation are further exacerbated in asynchronous online settings. As Phillips and DeLeon asserted, then, "universities act irresponsibly by continuing to enroll Latina first-generation students, among other under–represented minorities, without truly listening to the students' needs and trying to address what they need to be successful" (p. 205). The point bears repeating that quantum ontologies necessitate that direct and purposeful energies be applied toward the enactment of socially just digital learning spaces that address the needs of all students, but particular attention should be paid to those students who have been historically marginalized in higher education.

CHRONOS

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"In timescapes of many industrialized, capitalist societies, time is perceived as durational and linear—a succession of instant moments in which events unfold into an irreversible future." ~Laurie Gries (2015), Still Life with Rhetoric, p. 30

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The most common framework for understanding time in rhetoric is chronos, or time as broken into discrete, quantifiable, and linear units of measurement. On its surface, such a rendering of time might appear to be outside rhetoric's purview. For instance, Michelle Ballif (1992) argued, rightly, that the reclamation of women's histories hinges, in part, on time being "experienced kairotically not chronologically" (96). Here, Ballif seemed to downplay the rhetorical aspects of time-as-chronos. However, as John Gallagher (2021) countered (also rightly), more overtly rhetorical forms of time, such as kairos, are only possible because of the organizational structures provided by chronological time. Echoing theorists such as Philip Sipiora (2002) and John Smith (1969), Gallagher contended that "chronos frames and circumscribes kairos" (p. 533), thereby more closely relating these two temporal frameworks and, in the process, highlighting the distinctly rhetorical consequence of chronos. Further, I would argue that it is rather reductive to characterize chronos in such descriptive, arhetorical terms as "mere chronology" might suggest on its surface. The very conceptualization of clock time, after all, involves the imposition of a linear organization of events which, in turn, implies at least some level of rhetoricity, however subtle and naturalized. Despite the rhetorical aspects of chronos, this framework for temporality does admittedly elide the relationship between time, matter, and in/justice, an aspect of temporality better attended to in kairotic and chronotopic conceptions of (space and) time.

PRAXIS: REALITIES & TECHNOLOGIES

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"If reality is done, if it is historically, culturally and materially located, then it is also multiple. Realities have become multiple. Not plural: multiple." ~Annemarie Mol (1999), "Ontological Politics: A Word and Some Questions," p. 75

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What are the emergent and ongoing technological and material realities of the students in my online classes, particularly students who identify as minorities? (Or: How can I continually attune my configurations of technologically-mediated instruction to be more inclusive?)

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An ethic of expediency holds that technologies are colorblind—that technologies evenly distribute the benefits across class, gender, and cultural lines. But all students, including those who identify as minorities, are uniquely situated regarding their technological histories, needs, and contexts. In order to enact more socially just technologies we need to move away from the perhaps well-intentioned but nevertheless inequitable colorblind approach to online learning. We should work to develop localized online learning spaces that understand and speak directly to the intersections of culture, matter, and technologies. I want to tread carefully here so as not to draw essentializing generalities about various populations of students and their unique situatedness. The point is not that all members of a given population have similar needs; rather, the point is that access to and experiences with technologies are unevenly distributed in higher education, and these differences matter. Digital pedagogy, therefore, must be accountable to the iterative (and often oppressive) realities pressing down on students' lives. For instance, it might be natural to assume that a student enrolled in an online class has reasonable access to digital technologies (after all, the class is online).

But, as one participant, Kyle, noted, access is a complex phenomenon, one not synonymous with opportunity. "My own son," they shared, "was enrolled in a digital media course in their high school, and this course required students to use Adobe suite. Well, he quickly found out that not every computer was capable of running Photoshop. He was okay because we had access via my connection with the university, which, you know, shows how access to resources can often be a privileged thing. And so my son's experiences," they continued, "kinda prompted me to come to a reckoning with my own teaching. I had this one student, a Latino, who come to find out is the oldest of five and they all have to share this one laptop. And further complicating matters was that they live out where there's unreliable internet, and he has to use his cellphone to connect, which, you know, just made me mindful of requiring students to complete projects that might require a lot of bandwidth or specialized tech." Again, this is not to suggest that all minority-identifying students experience these same issues. Instead, what matters most here is that the instructor intentionally made themselves aware of and responsive to the localized realities that shaped their students' online learning. Such work is admittedly labor-intensive for instructors but absolutely necessary if digital technologies are to function as democratizing forces in higher education.

KAIROS

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"Kairos reminds us of how time flows through and around us—how the past, present, and future intersect to affect us. Additionally, we experience a type of displacement in kairotic moments because we feel time as its own entity—both connected and yet separate from us." ~Rosanne Carlo (2020), Transforming Ethos, p. 45

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More frequently than chronos, time has also been framed in more overtly rhetorical terms via the Aristotelian notion of kairos, or the importance of timeliness for persuasive discourse. If chronos represents time quantitatively, kairos introduces a qualitative and more distinctly rhetorical perspective of time. This is not to suggest, though, that kairos, as just one iteration of time, can itself even be limited to just opportune timing and appropriate measure. On the contrary, following James Kinneavy and Catherine Eskin’s (2000) call to consider a more expansive definition of kairos, this temporal framework has experienced rich, multidimensional engagement across the field including its theorization as mindfulness (Peary, 2016), a rhetoric of revelation or divine time (Crosby, 2009), ambient dwelling (Rickert, 2004, 2013), and as a spatio-temporal analytic tool for image events (Stephenson, 2009). This is to say, then, that much like chronos, kairos too exists as an entangled multiplicity of time/s in and of itself; to say nothing, again, about the ways in which it is always–already entangled with chronos.

An important aspect of kairos as a rhetorical framework is that it is not limited to (just) the discursive but is also includes material concerns. While many rhetorical theorists have engaged kairos as a matter of (also) matter, arguably none have been as forceful or thorough as Thomas Rickert in mattering time, particularly in his pivotal work Ambient Rhetoric (2013). Importantly, for Rickert, an acknowledgement that kairos and place are enmeshed is not a novel or even recent advancement in the field. For both ancient and contemporary rhetorical theorists, Rickert argued that,

"kairos itself, as something ontological, is inseparable from new forms of becoming, new forms of disclosure. The kairos of a situation is a moment placed not as something between a subject and exterior situation but as mutually involved and evolving vectors of material and discursive force....[p]lace on this account is not a neutral, material stage for the emergence of a kairotic situation but itself a complex of relations vitally enmeshed in what comes forth to take place as kairos" (p. 90).

The place-based, situatedness of time is not meant to contradict the more traditional discursive approaches to understanding kairos; rather, it extends them by recognizing that some discursive possibilities are foreclosed and others created precisely because of the material affordances of time-as-emplaced. To invoke time as rhetorical, then, is likewise to invoke place. That is, the environment, to include the material and the temporal, is not merely a backdrop for rhetorical action but is itself agential. This coupling of matter to time is largely commonplace in lay terms: we never ask someone to meet us at a particular time without also specifying where to meet. But the entangling of temporality and materiality is significant for rhetorical theory because it opens up the possibility for time to be both enacted and experienced differently in relation to material (and, I argue, technological) configurations. Subsequently, if spacetime is rhetorical, it can also attend to, or obscure, matters of social justice (See: Re/Turning to Chronotopes).

BLACKBOARD-AS-FLEXIBILITY

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"The past is not closed (it never was), but erasure (of all traces) is not what is at issue. The past is not present. 'Past' and 'future' are iteratively reconfigured and enfolded through the world's ongoing intra–activity." ~Karen Barad (2010), "Quantum Entanglements and Hauntological Relations of Inheritance," p. 261

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Despite (or perhaps because of) their near ubiquity in online learning environments, the very mention of learning management systems (LMSs), like Blackboard, tends to elicit derisive sighs and remarks about how the software’s interface is "clunky" or "not exactly the most user-friendly." Yet, the instructional impact of LMSs is multifaceted, as much a matter of local implementation as it is of generalized design (Boettcher, 2003; Posey & Lyons, 2011), and there are a variety of ways that Blackboard iterates as a techno-material space. Flexibility is one of the most common ways that Blackboard is materially configured and instructionally enacted. For example, when queried about what they value most about Blackboard, instructors most frequently cited the flexibility this technology affords students and instructors—where flexibility specifically refers to Blackboard's ability to distribute instruction both geographically and temporally beyond the traditional boundaries of the university. As one instructor explains:

"I think the first time I realized how beneficial flexibility was [in Blackboard] was when I was pregnant. I was a single mother and was able to continue working...I like being able to work when I want to, and I think that need for flexibility also extends to my students. A vast majority of them [students] work, and so they're not having to try and fit a class into their work schedule and worry about missing a class."

This enactment of Blackboard-as-Flexibility bears resemblance to Jordynn Jack's (2006) time–space compression chronotope in that it reconfigures the spatiotemporal boundaries that normally mark instruction (See: Chronotopes). Under this chronotope, the institutional reach is global, and it's presumed that teachers can teach and students can learn from anywhere (notwithstanding considerations of who actually has digital access). Flexibility, then, becomes closely associated with efficiency—not social justice—and takes the form of geographic and temporal connection. This affirms Lauren Salisbury's (2018) observation that many instructors see LMSs primarily as "just a tool" in service to instructional efficiency (p. 11). Indeed, many participants affirmed that Blackboard is valuable precisely because of its ability to efficiently deliver instruction across time and space. As one participant noted, "I can record lectures from almost anywhere...like if I have to travel for a conference or something; I don't have to miss a class. And likewise students can access those materials from anywhere at a time that's convenient for them."[1]

On the one hand, it is possible to read such a construction as operating under the auspices of an exploitive, neoliberal ethic of austerity (Welch & Scott, 2016) wherein the ability to work flexibly can easily be co-opted by the expectation to do so—to be available to answer emails at all hours, to work while on family vacation, to set aside caregiving responsibilities to attend to instructional matters. As another participant described: "It [Blackboard] is one of those things where it's like 7 or 8 o’clock at night, and I've been up and working since literally 7 a.m., and I'm exhausted. But I'm doing it to meet my students' needs "[2]. Another participant described this phenomenon as "teacher immediacy." Another instantiation of this chronotope is the idea that online learning provides students with flexibility toward completing their degree and "improved time-to-graduation," arguments made by several instructors in this study. Again, it is the techno-material configuration of Blackboard itself that gives rise to this chronotopic enactment of efficiency that compresses geographic distance and elides traditional temporal boundaries associated with the university; but, this compression of spacetime works primarily in service to expediency and not, for example, attending to unique needs of minority-identifying students (See: Blackboard-As-Social-Justice).

PRAXIS: NON–EFFICIENCY & TECHNOLOGIES

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"Rather, the point is that these entangled practices are productive, and who and what are excluded though these entangled practices matter: different intra–actions produce different phenomena." ~Karen Barad (2007), Meeting the Universe Halfway, p. 58

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How might I focus on matters of non-efficiency in my online learning spaces? (Or: How can I think beyond matters of rote flexibility in my enactments of digital learning technologies?)

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As the above paired questions suggest, non-efficiency in digital learning environments should not be equated with inefficiency. Instead, these questions prompt us to consider how, as instructors, we can configure digital technologies in ways that do not begin and end with efficiency. Put differently, how can we move beyond Steven Katz's (1992) ethic of expediency in digital learning? I have elsewhere argued that non-efficiency is already a driving force in students' online learning experiences and called for further consideration into "how and why we [can better] teach with/in digital learning environments" (Piña, 2023, p. 169). Even though iterations of non–efficiency are potentially endless, several participants discussed specific ways they think and act beyond efficiency in their learning environments.

Aiden, for example, discussed how accessibility manifested in a variety of entangled ways in their online spaces, including "accessibility-as-policy." They explained that "as a dad of a kid with a chronic illness [who often requires flexible accommodations]...I've always hated the word 'deadline.'' So, as a teacher, I have to consider how due dates and late work policies are barriers to students' success, right? So, things like flexible due dates and not requiring medical documentation for missed classes and stuff like that...I try to create an experience where if you're sick it's not the end of the world." Policies such as Aiden's run, in some ways, counter to the efficiency that comes with setting and keeping hard due dates throughout a semester. For Aiden, then, due dates are flexible for socially just reasons, not reasons tied to expedience. Inclusive policies such as these can be technologically enacted, for example, by setting a window, or a range of possible submission dates, for assignments rather than a single due date.

Non-efficiency can also manifest as rethinking the very ways that we have students demonstrate understanding in digitally mediated spaces. Especially in asynchronous, online courses, which tend to have higher enrollment caps, the potential exists to default to the most expeditious ways of evaluating student work (e.g., multiple choice assessments). Kyle, for instance, noted that they can have up to 150 students in their survey course. "There's no way I can thoughtfully read and respond to weekly discussion posts in a class that big," they mentioned. This very same problem, however, prompted another participant, Taylor, to stop using standardized assessment measures in their online classes. They shared that, "The thing that the online environment, where we don't have designated 'class time' per se, got me to realize was what if we got away from a endpoint, or telos, that everyone is supposed to achieve...what if instead we just asked students to spend their time really interacting with a text and just report to me what they learned."

Taylor admitted that making this shift in assessment was "scary," and they worried that they were going to get superficial student work. To their surprise, though, "student engagement in the course and their comprehension of the material is so much better now that I've made assignments and assessments places where they [students] can converse with me and with texts." Non-efficiency, therefore, allows us to critically examine fundamental aspects of our pedagogy, like what counts—or what should count—as knowledge. Such examinations are fundamental to online courses but also serve to democratize and transform in-person instruction as well.

APPARATUS: DATA ANALYSIS

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"Method–making is the generating and gathering of ideas—across–with–outside–within–against normative disciplines—that seek out liberation within our present system of knowledge. The goal is not to find liberation but to seek it out." ~Katherine McKittrick (2021), Dear Science and Other Stories, p. 49

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Data analysis for this research project was an iterative process that included multiple rounds of coding that began in media res of data collection activities. Initial survey responses were coded openly and inductively for starter codes which provided the structure for subsequent interviews (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). For example, when asked what they valued most about online learning technologies, one participant’s survey response stated that they value Blackboard for "the flexibility [and] removal of temporal and spatial barriers to education and communication. I love interacting with students when they need it." This response was assigned two initial codes. First, it was assigned a spacetime configuration of Blackboard and coded as flexibility since this work was extant in the participant's response. In the follow-up interview the participant was asked, following a phenomenological approach to interviewing, to contextualize and clarify this valuation of digital technology [1].

A second round of coding took place following the completion of data collection, wherein initial codes were cross-checked against participants' contextualization and clarification data. This led to the creation of more precise and granular codes. For instance, based on participants' contextualization, the initial code of flexibility was able to be further distilled in three distinct ways: policy flexibility, personal flexibility, and technical flexibility. Categories of shared meaning and experience across spacetime configurations were established during this portion of data analysis. For example, multiple technologies, including Zoom and Blackboard, were identified as having a shared valuation of personal flexibility because, through Zoom, students were able to receive instruction while being geographically remote from campus and through Blackboard, students were able to access course content across a broad range of times.

During the third and final round of coding, categories of experience were read against Jordynn Jack's (2022) most recent conceptualization of chronotopes as ontological (p. 328). The granular codes established in the second round of data analysis were coded up into shared, value–laden spacetime enactments of digital technologies. A chronotopic rendering of instructors' valuations draws together the temporal and ontological consequence of various enactments of digital learning technologies. Chronotopic valuations of digital learning technologies are instructive for understanding how these technologies diffract, often in contradictory ways. Importantly, these categories emerged through the analysis of participant data. Even if social justice concerns were not explicitly addressed via the study's data collection procedures, such issues nevertheless came to fore during participant interviews and data coding.

This portion of the data analysis revealed that many chronotopes were being enacted within a given spacetime configuration, such as Blackboard-as-Disconnection or Blackboard-as-Social-Justice. To briefly illustrate, data analysis showed that some instructors see Blackboard as a spacetime configuration that is highly flexible in that it elides the temporal and geographic constraints that normally accompany instruction (Blackboard-as-Flexibility). At the same time, though, Blackboard also enacts a chronotope that is likewise frustratingly rigid, locking instruction into a narrow (and often inaccessible) material interface that obfuscates interpersonal relationships (Blackboard-as-Disconnection). Flexibility and rigidity are value–laden chronotopes that need not be seen as existing in competition or even opposition to each other; instead, I argue that they are better understood as existing in a quantum state of superposition. This, in turn, opens the possibility for enacting these technologies in more democratic ways beyond that of an ethic of efficiency.

[RESOLVING] INDETERMINACY

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"Understanding how geographies are embodied—how bodies imprint a place with identifiable or palpable characteristics—can then lead to an inquiry into why some bodies feel excluded from certain places or how the social production of space operates via keeping some bodies in and some bodies out." ~Nedra Reynolds (2004), Geographies of Writing, p. 145

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This webtext shows how chronotopic enactments of digital learning technologies are quantum—how they exist in a state of superposition with multiple ontologies existing simultaneously in the same techno-material space. I want to re/turn the importance of indeterminacy for enacting more socially just digital learning technologies. Following quantum theory, it is important to note that these various enactments of Blackboard do not exist independent of one another; instead, superposition necessitates that they are entangled with/in one another. Again, one Blackboard is not enough, but two is too many; Blackboard hangs together as a single–multiple (See: Quantum Ontologies & Digital Technologies).

But even in a state of superposition, Blackboard cannot at the same time be enacted both as a matter of efficiency and social justice. Even in the quantum world, this would present an intractable paradox. Karen Barad (2007) clarified this point using the classical Schrödinger’s cat paradox: "It is not the case that the cat is either alive or dead...or that the cat is both alive and dead simultaneously...or that the cat is in a state of being neither alive nor dead…the fate of the cat is entangled with the rate of the [radioactive] atom, and in the absence of an appropriate measuring apparatus, their fates are indeterminate" (p. 278). The only way to resolve the indeterminacy, per Barad (2007), is to measure the phenomena: "When we observe a system, it ceases to be in a superposition." It is only through the intra–action of opening the box that resolves the superposition of the cat and atom; likewise it is only by measuring Blackboard—applying direct energy to understanding how it's being enacted that we can actualize it as a matter of social justice because according to Steven Katz (1992), under an ethic of expediency, efficiency quietly and quickly becomes a de facto driving force.

Angela Haas (2012) has argued that "Technology is not just what does the work, it is the work—and that work relies on an ongoing relationship between bodies and things" (p. 291). As digital learning technologies continue to proliferate across the landscape of higher education, a trend that has only accelerated in response to the COVID–19 global pandemic, it is vital for institutions and instructors to conceptualize localized ways for enacting these technologies, and the work they do, in ways beyond that of just efficiency (See: Toward Praxis). More work that specifically examines the unique situatedness of minority-identifying students in online learning spaces needs to be done. However, quantum ontologies offer a productive way forward for understanding how these technologies can come to matter in more ethically defensible ways. Further, this theorization necessitates that we focus more direct energy, resources, and efforts toward actualizing more socially just enactments of digital technology on campuses. Such efforts are especially imperative during a socio-political climate that increasingly seeks to background—or erase altogether—such work.

VOICES

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"Many voices speak here in the interstices, a cacophony of always already iteratively intra-acting stories. These are entangled tales. Each is diffactively threaded through and enfolded in the other." ~Karen Barad (2012), "On Touching—The Inhuman That Therefore I Am," p. 206

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