Month: August 2019

Liked

Replied to My personal data sharing policy – Colin Devroe

Here are the main points of my personal data policy as it stands today:

  • Never share my current location publicly. I’m going to be certain my habits do not share my current location in a public way. I’m also going to audit any app or service that attempts to use my location data to be certain it does not share my current location publicly.
  • Download and remove all of my data from services that I haven’t used in over a year. I’ve got quiet an online trail that I’ve blazed over the last several decades. While I’m nostalgic for many of these services, and I hate dead URLs, I think it is best if I remove any of that data if I’m no longer using the service.
  • Evaluate each app on my mobile devices that use location data and read their privacy policies. In other words, make a more informed decision about what apps I share my location data with.
  • Delete any app that I do not use on my mobile devices that could use location or audio data. Believe it or not, many of the small utility apps that exist for free (like, doing fun image editing) have tons of third-party ad network code in them. I have dozens of these but I rarely use them.
I really like your approach Colin. I must admit that I have become more mindful of late, however I have a lot of work to do in making some of my practices more rigid.
Liked

Liked Keynote: Key coaching concepts from the perspective of a pracademic (the édu flâneuse)

My presentation explored key concepts that, in my experience, underpin the use of coaching in schools. I drew together insights from my reading, research, practical and personal experience of coaching in schools, with a particular focus on the organisational conditions necessary for coaching, and the effects of coaching on individuals and schools. I interrogated the complex interlocking elements that schools need to balance when working to build a coaching culture, including context, trust, rapport, way of being, differentiation, holonomy and semantic space.

Bookmarked

Zeynep Tufekci provides a thread documenting her experience of the Hong Kong Protests. Not only does she include various observations, but she also curates a number of other resources.
Liked Facebook launches ‘clear history’ tool – but it won’t delete anything (the Guardian)

The new feature, part of a wider set of tools covering “off-Facebook activity”, will not delete anything from Facebook’s servers, instead simply “disconnecting” data from an individual user’s account.

Bookmarked Artificial intelligence in Schools: An Ethical Storm is Brewing (EduResearch Matters)

We want to avoid teachers and students using AI-systems that ‘feel more and more like magic’ and where educators are unable to explain why a machine made a decision that it did in relation to student learning. The very basis of education is being able to make ‘fair calls’ and to transparently explain educational action and, importantly, to be accountable for these decisions.

Erica Southgate discusses a new report and project produced for the Australian Government Department of Education to support the analysis of artificial intelligence in education. It touches on some of the concerns around AI, including:

  • Bias
  • Black box nature
  • Digital human rights issues
  • Deep fakes
  • The potential for a lack of independent advice for educational leaders

 

Bookmarked Audiobooks or Reading? To Our Brains, It Doesn’t Matter – D-brief (D-brief)

The most recent study, which compared brains when they were listening and reading, showed that words tend to activate the same brain regions with the same intensity, regardless of input.

It was a finding that surprised Fatma Deniz, a postdoctoral researcher at the Gallant Lab and lead author of the study. The subject’s brains were creating meaning from the words in the same way, regardless if they were listening or reading. In fact, the brain maps for both auditory and visual input they created from the data looked nearly identical.

Jennifer Walter finds that listening to a book is just as productive as reading a book. I wonder if what matters more is the context of reading or listening more than the mode itself? Stephen Downes suggests that much of the finding in this report are left to interpretation.

via Ian O’Byrne

Liked Why Joi Ito needs to resign | The Tech (The Tech)

MIT’s president, L. Rafael Reif, recently released an apology for the Institution’s ties to Epstein. I’m happy that the Institution acknowledges its role in the scandal. However, I find it ironic that the Institution took money that hurt these women, and their response is to throw money back. Money to non-profits is useful, but what will truly make change is a change of leadership and a strict precedent set for this to never happen again. Taking money from Epstein once is a mistake. Taking it over many years is not.

Bookmarked Time to Rejoin Tumblr? Thoughts on a Social Media “Reunion Tour” (Tedium: The Dull Side of the Internet.)

Five social networks that offer ripe opportunities for a “reunion tour” of your own

  1. Flickr. Owned and acquired, and later sold in a fashion very similar to Tumblr itself, the photo-sharing service (now owned by SmugMug) has moved to a pay model, but it could still be a great tool for folks that are looking for a more low-key version of photo sharing.
  2. DeviantArt. Going back to a vintage site doesn’t necessarily mean that the site will look like it did 15 years ago—something that can definitely be said of DeviantArt, which just released an ambitious redesign that was so out of character for the old-school platform that it recently trended on Twitter. It’s an opportunity to go back just after a snazzy renovation.
  3. LiveJournal/Dreamwidth. Technically, the old-school LiveJournal is still around, and the one you definitely don’t feel like sharing might still be online. But its ownership has changed dramatically over the years, in keeping in tune with its Russian user base, and it has led to moves that you might not be cool with. Fortunately, there’s an alternative in the form of DreamWidth, a fork of the original LiveJournal that’s been around for a decade.
  4. Internet Relay Chat or Usenet. If you’re a bit older, you may have gotten your first taste of a social internet through either of these digital protocols. They’re still around, though their focuses have changed dramatically, and you may find yourself most at home if you’re a developer. (IRC will be easier to get back into, just an FYI.)
  5. Blogging. As I wrote at the beginning of the year, the blogosphere is a culture worth defending, and if you can add something to it, you should! If you’re looking for the most retro-seeming blogging experience possible, Blogger is a good choice because Google hasn’t updated it in years.
Ernie Smith reflects on Automattic’s purchase of Tumblr and uses this as an opportunity to review and revisit some social media spaces that have seen better days, but still might be worth our revisiting. Personally speaking, I am an advocate for blogging and possibly POSSEing to some of these other places. Therefore, hedging your bets both ways.
Replied to Required watching: Fiona Hardy’s favourite childhood films by Em, Author at Affirm Press (Affirm Press)

Fiona Hardy’s brilliant debut novel How to Make a Movie in 12 Days is, in part, an homage to her long-held love of all things film. (If you couldn’t tell by the title, just check out the 20-page school holidays movie guide at the back of the book.) Here, Fiona shares five films that kick-started her movie madness.

Fiona, I forgot about the ‘Hire ten for $xxx’ deal while growing up. It was always so serendipitous. There would be those few films that had just transferred from Overnight to Weekly that you wanted to rent, but then you would be left grabbing all sorts of random flicks to get up to the given total.

On a side note, you might be interested in Reclaim Video and the effort to reclaim lost memories and technology.

Bookmarked

Marten Koomen responds to the suggestion of having Year 9 NAPLAN test linked to future job applications.

Liked Bronze age meals in the marshes – seasoned with parasitic worms (the Guardian)

“This is really interesting for us. It’s one of the very few chances we’ve had to look for evidence of parasitic infection in the bronze age,” said Marissa Ledger, a biological anthropologist on the Cambridge team. “It’s possible that a lot of these eggs were passing through the system, but a lot of people would have been infected. In a single coprolite we’re finding eggs from multiple different species.”

Bookmarked Shame Cycles and Twitter Rage (edifiedlistener)

How do I engage someone whose viewpoint differs significantly from mine without necessarily triggering the shame-defensiveness-anger cycle?

I don’t have definitive answers but I’m thinking of ways I can help myself wrestle with these situations more effectively – which means in a way that I consider my own care and safety first before trying to save the world that’s already on fire.

Reflecting on the recent furore that has arisen around Tom Rogers’ post sharing who to follow on Twitter, Sherri Spelic share some tips and questions to consider when dealing with the toxic side of Twitter.

– Is my engagement here necessary or essential?
– Will this conversation be helped by my intervention? In what way?
– Use a side commentary by quote-tweeting the original source of conflict.
– Use questions or invite the person to elaborate on a point of confusion.
– What is this involvement calling forth in me?
– Is this time I have to dedicate to this cause right now?

This always has me coming back to Ian Guest’s PhD about Twitter and wondering about all the possibilities, as well as what part Twitter itself plays with all this.

Marginalia

The next time we feel drawn into a rage-inducing exchange, we can perhaps first ask ourselves how the platform benefits and if that’s where our energies are really best spent. Twitter loves our rage. Our individual and public health do not.