Creations | Read Write Collect

📰 Read Write Respond #033

My Month of September (and August)

There are times when the mind says go and the body says no. Last month was one of those times. The whole family was struck down. This meant skipping the August newsletter. I am subsequently late getting this month out as we have just returned from a week away with the family in Fiji to celebrate ten years of marriage.

On the work front, I have been spending time speaking with different schools about reporting. It is always good to test out the solution. However, it always raises further questions, which I have been progressively working through.

In regards to my learning, I was lucky enough to attend the Google Innovator Energizer, exploring the cultures of change. I also presented at K-12 Digital Classroom Practice Conference 2018 on blogging and ongoing reporting.

In other areas, I have been listening to Dreams, Emma Louise, Darren Middleton and Troye Sivan. I also managed to get the IndieWeb Reader working. I have used Granary to add in my Twitter feed as a means of responding from my own site. It still is not perfect, but definitely shows a potential for a future where we all own our own data.

In regards to my writing, here was my month in posts:

Reporting on Reporting – Innovation, People and the Process of Change

Thoughts on Presentations and Professional Development

Here then are some of the thoughts that have also left me thinking …

Learning and Teaching

Twenty Two Projects to Challenge, Inspire and Engage Your Students: Bianca Hewes collects together a number of her project outlines that she has created with Canva. As with Kath Murdoch’s inquiry journeys, Hewes provides some great provocations. Although some of them could easily be translated, their strength lies in thinking differently. In addition, I too like Canva and use it to create the covers for this newsletter. For a different take, check out Benjamin Doxtdator’s investigation of the history of PBL.

These project outlines are all based on my PBL model, which is explained in my two books Are Humans Wild At Heart? and Why Do We Tell Stories? Both of these are published through Hawker Brownlow Education and are full of projects for English teachers to run with their students. Please, please if you use these projects OR if you use my model of PBL (discover, create, share), it would mean SOOO much to me if you credited my work. Many of the Praxis projects below were co-created with my very creative colleagues James Blanch and Kate Munro. Please respect our hard work by being thoughtful in your acknowledgement of your sources.

Teaching Boys: Deborah Netolicky reflects on her experience of teaching boys. She highlights three aspects: boys need a safe and trusting environment with high support and high challenge, boys respond to engaging curriculum content and boys benefit from regular, tangible feedback, a mixture of role-models, as well as hope and persistence. As I think about my own experiences teaching and parenting, I am left wondering why these approaches do not apply for girls too? Another interesting read on the topic is Adam Boxer’s question of boys and competition.

Schools and teachers can play a part in what kinds of behaviours and successes are normalised and rewarded within the school environment. Those working in schools can ask themselves questions about how gender is normalised. Are boys encouraged to be alpha competitors or are quieter achievement and ways of being also noticed and rewarded? Is the catchphrase ‘boys will be boys’ or ‘he was just joking’ used to dismiss put-downs of others or the objectification of women? Is strength and success measured by sporting prowess and outward expressions of courage or by a range of possible successes in multiple arenas? What does ‘courage’ mean to the school community? Are multiple ways of ‘being a man’ celebrated and held up as exemplars?

The Game of Quotes: Heather Marshall adapts the game Bring Your Own Book for the classroom. This involves a series of prompts to help think differently about what you are reading. Marshall also discusses creating your own prompts. This activity reminds me of the Hot Seat activity, where students are challenged to think more deeply about the text. I really like the idea of the Game of Quotes as a revision activity.

I created a presentation in Google slides with a couple of prompts. I used animations so that the students wouldn’t see the prompt until it was time, and silent reading instantly became a fun game! The room was filled with laughing, and page turning, and whispers of “I want to read that!” When was the last time a reading log or an online quiz caused a stir of echoes in the classroom?

The “Always Check” Approach to Online Literacy: Mike Caulfield continues his work on fact checking arguing that we need to develop the habit of doing a check every time we engage with a new link. He makes the comparison with checking your rear view mirrors when driving. Caulfield focuses on two steps: what is the site and is this new report correct/true. In a world where abundance is only a click away, maybe we are at a point where it is time to reassess what that actually means.

Now imagine a world where checking your mirrors before switching lanes was rare, three standard-deviations-out behavior. What would the roads look like?

Toolographies — the new essential ingredient of student research?: Matt Esterman proposes extending the idea of a bibliography to include the tools used. This is an interesting idea in the evolving place of research and libraries.

Perhaps we need to have students include a toolography, a list — perhaps annotated — of the tools they used to source, to organise and to present their information.

Responding to Challenging Behaviours with Elizabeth Saunders: Cameron Malcher speaks with Elizabeth Saunders about her work on challenging behaviour in the classroom. This comes back to the right to learn and be safe. What this looks like differs based on classroom and context. Saunders points out that this often comes back to differentiation and other proctive measures, rather than having students removed and isolated. It is interesting to listen to this interview alongside those from Katherine Birbalsingh and Paul Dix.

Elizabeth Saunders discusses the issue of students with challenging behaviours and how to respond to and engage with such students in order to overcome obstacles and maintain focus on learning in the classroom.

Edtech

“Seeing New Worlds” danah boyd on Team Human: In a conversation between danah boyd and Doug Rushkoff, she explains that at the heart of our current problems with media, facts and trust is capitalism. By design, capitalism gives you what you want. The problem though is that capitalism and democracy are no longer constrained within nation states as they may have been in the past. There is neither the opportunity for ‘nationalistic paternalism’ to moderate wants nor a means of managing different groups. Media in a multi-national environment has become confusing. We are now in a world of networks and social graphs. All media companies are in the business for amplification, the problem has therefore become what is amplified, which as so many have pointed out is often at the extremes. danah boyd says that we need an intervention, but to achieve that we firstly need t appreciate all the micro-decisions that got us to here. How do we deal with these well intended decisions when they have negative implications? One of the challenges is filling the data voids, rather than blocking various search terms we need to develop the content that maybe missing. For those who may not have kept up with boyd’s work since It’s Complicated, this is a really good introduction.

If we don’t support young people in building out a strategically rich graph, they will reinforce the worst segments of our society.

Leave No Dark Corner: Matthew Carney provides an insight into the digital dictatorship that China is exerting over its citizens through the use of “social credit”. This is a part of the wider global push of surveillance to use facial recognition in schools, universities and shopping centres. Yu Hua provides a different perspective on China’s rise, looking at the changes in generations. Foreign Correspondence also reported on the topic.

Social credit will be affected by more than just internet browsing and shopping decisions. Who your friends and family are will affect your score. If your best friend or your dad says something negative about the government, you’ll lose points too. Who you date and ultimately partner with will also affect social credit.

Are All Voices Equal?: Dean Shareski reflects on the place of voice in education. Whether it be students in the classroom or educators online, he argues that there are times when some voices are more important than others. This continues the argument that Thomas Guskey recently made about merely searching the web. I wonder where this leaves participatory culture, comments and blogging? Is it a reminder that such acts are first and fore-mostly selfish? Nick Jackson argues that it all depends on context.

I’m grateful for the advent of the web and social media by providing me with a voice. I’ve been able to publish many ideas over that last 12 years that previously would have only lived in my head. Through that publishing, I’ve been able to think through some things and had the benefit of others to add their thoughts as well. However, as much as this has democratized knowledge, it has also diluted the importance of expertise. The barriers of the previous publishing world lacked the ability to include all voices but it did help identify expertise. As adults and educators, I think we have to work harder to identify the smart people and allow their ideas to be heard over the din of social media. Expertise is not found in followers but on the quality and evidence of ideas that have proven the test of time.

Big Tech’s problem is Big, not Tech: Cory Doctorow provides a snapshot of the world of Big Tech we are in. He asks the question, why would we ask people to code if as it is becoming so it is illegal to do so? Doctorow puts forward the plea that human dignity and flourishing are bound up in the ability to act rather than be acted upon. If technology monopolies lock us away, this is clearly restricted. For more on Big Tech, read how Facebook is tackling moderation or how Google is controlling Android.

In this keynote address, author and advocate, Cory Doctorow, argues that Big Tech is a problem, but the problem isn’t “Tech,” it’s “BIG.” Giants get to bend policy to suit their ends, they get to strangle potential competitors in their infancy, they are the only game in town, so they can put the squeeze on users and suppliers alike.

The New York Times Fired My Doppelgänger: Quinn Norton discusses the complexities of online identity and the associated context collapse. She shares her experience of being hired and fired by the New York Times after a Twitter account was created that retweeted the past out of context. This is a fascinating insight into the world we are now in when, right or wrong, the past never sleeps.

Don’t internet angry. If you’re angry, internet later.

Your DNA Is Not Your Culture: Sarah Zhang discusses Spotify’s move to team up with AncestryDNA to provide richer results. To me, the strength of Spotify is big data, whether it be in choice or collections. Through the use of algorithms this data can uncover some interesting and sometimes novel patterns, but the move to inject ancestory into the mix surely is stretching it too far?

It’s a nice message. But it elides history. Mixed ancestry does not necessarily mean a harmonious coexistence, past or future. African Americans have, on average, 24 percent European ancestry. To take a genetic-ancestry test is to confront a legacy of rape and slavery—perhaps to even recognize one’s own existence as the direct result of it. There is a way to use genetics and genealogy to uncover injustices and properly account for them. The 23andMe-sponsored podcast Spit, for instance, has featured some nuanced conversations about race. But it’s not through feel-good ads that paper over the past.

Storytelling and Reflection

Virginia Trioli on being a difficult woman in a difficult world: In a speech at the Women In Media Conference, Virginia Trioli reflects on the challenges of being a women in the media. She shares a number of anecdotes that remind us that even with the #metoo movement, that we still have some way to go in regards to gender equality. Some of the advice Trioli recommends are to learn from your mistakes, own who you are and regularly take stock of where you are at. These lessons are useful for anybody (man or woman.) This post and Emma Watkin’s story are also reminders that so often there is more at play that goes unrecognised.

Much like the principles of building muscle mass — the way your body repairs or replaces damaged muscle fibres after a workout by forming strong, new protein strands — your mistakes do not you weaken you, they build you up. They solidify you. They give you emotional and mental muscle. Or at least they should. Because you have to own your mistakes. You have to claim them and allow that destruction/reconstruction process to take place. It’s incredibly empowering.

Our Daily Bread | Eat This Podcast: Jeremy Cherfas explores how an ordinary grass became the main source of sustenance for most of the people alive on Earth. Through this month long series, Cherfas assembles a narrative combining history, biology, definition, technology, sociology, politics, religion and innovation. Some of the questions I was left wondering were the place of Indigenous Australians in this story. Maybe these ideas and more will be unpacked in a longer book version of the series?

A history of wheat and bread in very short episodes

5 thoughts on self-help: Austin Kleon shares a handful of thoughts about the self-help genre. This includes being skeptical of the genre, the association with individualism, often such books are accidents and advice is autobiographical. This reminds me in part of the idea of bibliotherapy.

The joy and luck, for me, of writing my books, is that I’ve stumbled my way into a form (specifically: the illustrated gift book) that is not only commercial and popular, but also allows me to be as weird and as visual as I want to be. (I really do think of the books as fancy zines.) If they are shelved in self-help, so be it!

Hope Stands Tall: Kate O’Halloran breaks down the incident which involved Moana Hope walking off the stage during a panel discussing women’s football. The problem, as O’Halloran explains, relates to control and power of bodies. For me, I have concern about the expectations placed on AFLW. Like many forms of change and innovation, people often want their cake and to eat it too. It would seem that there is an expectation of parity on the field when I doubt there is parity off the field. O’Halloran wonders if the answer is breaking free from the AFL’s shackles?

It should go without saying that men who participate in Australian rules football (or rugby league, or any other sport for that matter) also put their own bodies at such risk. Those choices, however, are not questioned in the same way women’s are, because men are seen as having autonomy over their bodies and their decisions, while women’s bodies – in the minds of dinosaurs like Malthouse at least – are still subject to men’s control.

Reclaiming Educational Reform: Benjamin Doxtdator continues his critique of Ted Dintersmith. Picking up where he finished last time, he explains that Dintersmith and Tony Wagner are not the alternative to the personalized education movement that we may be hoping for. I always feel conflicted by such conversations wondering if I am trying to have my cake and eat it too?

You might think I’m overly critical of Ted Dintersmith, who probably really cares about education and the future of young people. When you watch Bill Gates tour High Tech High which he invested in years before it featured in Dintersmith and Wagner’s film, you get the sense that he probably really cares about young people, too. But we must not base policy on personality. Hoping that Dintersmith may be the anti-Gates we’ve been waiting for confines us such a superficial analysis of personality. When billionaires like Dintersmith get behind efforts led by private schools to reshape admissions to colleges, we need to put these education reform agendas through a rigorous, historical analysis. Maybe you will enjoy Dintersmith’s book for the tour he takes you on of schools across the U.S., but you’ll need to look elsewhere to understand what’s really at stake in the movement to ‘disrupt’ ‘obsolete’ schools.

Why Did America Give Up on Mass Transit? (Don’t Blame Cars): Jonathan English reflects on the demise of public transport in America. Although it can be easy to blame cars, the real issue is the lack of investment. Build it and they will come. It would be interesting to take a similar look at transport in Australia.

Service drives demand. When riders started to switch to the car in the early postwar years, American transit systems almost universally cut service to restore their financial viability. But this drove more people away, producing a vicious cycle until just about everybody who could drive, drove. In the fastest-growing areas, little or no transit was provided at all, because it was deemed to be not economically viable. Therefore, new suburbs had to be entirely auto-oriented. As poverty suburbanizes, and as more jobs are located in suburban areas, the inaccessibility of transit on a regional scale is becoming a crisis.

FOCUS ON the Modern Learning Canvas

The Modern Learning Canvas has been developed to support schools and teachers to design and implement innovative, evidence based learning and teaching. Influenced by the Business Model Canvas, it is designed to paint a picture of context. Here then are a collection of resources and examples associated with the Modern Learning Canvas and Richard Olsen’s Inquiry Oriented Innovation process:

- The Modern Learning Canvas: Creating a Canvas: In this hangout, Richard Olsen walks through the creation of a Modern Learning Canvas with a team. This includes investigating what if schools were a hospital, as well as iPads in Years P-2.
- The Modern Learning Canvas (Ed Tech Crew Episode 246): Tony Richards and Darrel Branson talk to Richard Olsen about where the Modern Learning Canvas came from, what it’s about and how to use it to drive professional learning and dialogue about what we do in classrooms.
- IOI Weekend Website: A collection of posts from Richard Olsen unpacking the Modern Learning Canvas and the whole IOI Process.
- Canvasing Towards Pedagogical Intelligence: Steve Brophy discusses his use of the Modern Learning Canvas as a way to work with staff to develop pedagogical capacity and intelligence through a common language.
- Innovation, Context and Language – A Reflection on #IOIWeekend: Notes from a session unpacking the IOI Process the structure to map context and plan a path for change and innovation.
- Seven Approaches to Learning Mathematics: Richard Olsen uses uses the Modern Learning Canvas to visualise and understand the teaching of mathematics.
- How does your school innovate?: Steve Brophy reflects on using the Modern Learning Canvas and lean methodologies to innovate and adapt in schools.
- What is pedagogical innovation?: Steve Brophy explains how the Modern Learning Canvas provides a means of highlighting learning and areas of need, which can then be used to start pinpointing metrics needed to measure change.
- Implementing Hapara: A post I wrote introducing Hapara, including a canvas to explain its role in the classroom.
- Defining a Community of Practice: A post exploring the idea of a community of practice, including the creating of a canvas to map out some of the nuances
- A Reading Canvas: Pernille Ripp addressed which reading program to choose. Rather than listing a range of programs, she provided a list of what should be included. I used this to map out a canvas.
READ WRITE RESPOND #033

So that is September for me, how about you? As always, interested to hear.

Also, feel free to forward this on to others if you found anything of interest or maybe you want to subscribe or buy me a coffee? Otherwise, archives can be found here.

Cover image via JustLego101.

Replied to

reply w/ tag #tdc2411 #ds106 Landscape Letters https://t.co/QlDvXbMKb8 pic.twitter.com/sQ4iSP4x7b

— ds106 Daily Create (@ds106dc) August 18, 2018

The news of your closure for six months came as a shock. There is something about habit and the familiar. Each morning I am greeted by your neon sign – rain, hail or shine. I am going to have to find a new path to tread, but I will return.

Replied to

Day 4 of 7: 7 black and white photos of your life. No humans, no explanations. Challenge someone new every day. Challenged by @IaninSheffield I now challenge @JTGrant81 (https://t.co/nlrYgeeDai) pic.twitter.com/htkLFwXJi1

— Aaron Davis 🏘️ (@mrkrndvs) July 12, 2018

Day 5 of 7: 7 black and white photos of your life. No humans, no explanations. Challenge someone new every day. Challenged by @IaninSheffield I now challenge @jcorippo

Replied to

Day 1 of 7: 7 black and white photos of your life. No humans, no explanations. Challenge someone new every day. Challenged by @johnjohnston I now challenge @mrkrndvs

(Unless @johnjohnston has already stitched him up!) pic.twitter.com/mVNxGT4Ral

— Ian Guest (@IaninSheffield) July 8, 2018

Thanks Ian for the challenge.

Day 1 of 7: 7 black and white photos of your life. No humans, no explanations. Challenge someone new every day. Challenged by @IaninSheffield I now challenge @robert_schuetz.

https://collect.readwriterespond.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Microcast-014.mp3

A reflection on the question as to what makes me happy. An interesting question in regards to stoicism.

https://collect.readwriterespond.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Microcast-013.mp3

The good news for both advertising and publishing is that neither needs adtech. What’s more, people can signal what they want out of the sites they visit—and from the whole marketplace. In fact the Internet itself was designed for exactly that. The GDPR just made the market a lot more willing to start hearing clues from customers that have been laying in plain sight for almost twenty years.

Doc Searls

A reflection on looking at cars and sharing data.

https://collect.readwriterespond.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Microcast-012.mp3

I myself, have taught a class of 230 children and I had to teach under a tree because there was no classroom.
Esnart Chapomba

I was recently challenged on the place of space in regards to learning.

It can sometimes be hard to see the possibility of blogging and the web. For me it is about continually joining the dots and making the connections. As Amy Burvall highlights,

In order to connect dots, one must first have the dots

That is the power of Webmentions. My little callout to say, “Hey, interesting idea(s)”. Sharing is where it starts.

Real.Openers

I love when advertisements can take on double meanings. In light of the actions in South Africa, not sure Australia has real openers right now either.

📰 eLearn Update (March 2018)

Here is a collection of links and resources associated with GSuite and Hapara for March 2018.

Updates

Inbox types now supported in the Gmail app for Android – If you’ve selected a specific inbox type for your Gmail account on the web, you’ll see that same email configuration in your Android app.
Menu and toolbar updates in Google Docs editors – Google are making more updates to the menus in Docs and Slides around text formatting, table menu and splitting of text and highlight colours.
Improve collaboration in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides with Activity dashboard – To help inform collaboration, Google are introducing an activity dashboard in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. It’s a feature that lets users with edit access see who has viewed the file and when they viewed it.
Bringing new languages from around the world to Gboard for Android – Google are bringing Chinese (both traditional and simplified Chinese) and Korean—plus twenty additional languages—to Gboard for Android.
It’s Street View after all: Disney Parks come to Google Maps – Street View is going the distance, from California to Florida, to make Disney part of your world.
Find shared content with new file organization in Google Drive – Google are going to start intelligently organizing this section so you may also see people listed, along with files they’ve shared with you. The predictions will improve as the system learns how it’s used.
New ways to secure businesses in the cloud – Google announce a number of enhancements to better manage your data.
Quickly flip through papers on your phone – Google are making it easier to use your phone to find, scan and star scholarly articles.
Cloud Identity: Manage users, devices and apps in one location – With Cloud Identity, employees get simple, secure access to their business-critical apps and devices, while administrators get the tools they need to manage it all in one unified location.
Introducing Subscribe with Google – Subscribe with Google lets you buy a subscription, using your Google account, on participating news sites.
Elevating quality journalism on the open web – Google are partnering with the Credibility Coalition to drive the development of technical markers that can enable third party assessments of online content.
The Google News Initiative: Building a stronger future for news – Google are launching the Google News Initiative (GNI), our effort to help journalism thrive in the digital age. It’s focused on three objectives: Elevate and strengthen quality journalism; Evolve business models to drive sustainable growth; and Empower news organizations through technological innovation
Chromebook tablets for versatile learning – Google announce the first education tablet made for Chrome OS, and gives schools the easy management and shareability of Chromebook laptops.
Subscribe to Highlights notifications for Google+ communities and collections – Google are adding more options for how often you’re notified about new posts in the Google+ communities and collections to which you subscribe. Instead of getting all or no notifications, you can now opt to get “highlights” only.
Control session length for Google services on the web – Google are giving G Suite Business, Enterprise, and Education admins the ability to specify the duration of web sessions for Google services.
YouTube Studio: Better Insights, New Metrics & Faster Access to News – Google announce features for YouTube Studio including three new metrics that will give you better understanding of how your videos perform, and an all new Dashboard that shows you personalized news and information for your channel.
Inbox types now supported in the Gmail app for Android – Going forward, if you’ve selected a specific inbox type for your Gmail account on the web, you’ll see that same email configuration in your Android app.
Get more useful information with captions on Google Images – Google share new changes to Google Images to provide even better visual discovery with more context on the image results page.
Add a custom favicon in the new Google Sites – To help your site stand out, Google now allows you to customize your favicon—the icon which appears in a browser tab or bookmark list—to match your site.
Google Home and Bluetooth speakers make the perfect pair – Google announces the ability to connect Google Home with bluetooth speakers, therefore extending the reach of the device.
Transitioning Google URL Shortener to Firebase Dynamic Links – To refocus Google’s efforts, they are turning down support for goo.gl over the coming weeks and replacing it with Firebase Dynamic Links (FDL). FDLs are smart URLs that allow you to send existing and potential users to any location within an iOS, Android or web app.
New ways to read more with audiobooks from Google Play – Two months ago Google launched audiobooks from Google Play. They have a few updates to make it even easier, whether you like to listen on the go with your phone or at home with the Google Assistant on Google Home.

Resources

Drive

3 Ways Google Drive and MS Office Can Live Together in Harmony – Eric Curts explains how to get the most out of working with both Google Drive and Microsoft Office.
Deep Dive into Google Drive – GTT047 – Matt Miller and Kasey Bell take a look at Google Drive, including the various shortcuts and syncing documents.

Chrome

Got Chromebooks? Student Help Desk Support – Austin Houp discusses how he set up a student help desk as a part of the district-wide Chromebook rollout.
Previewing Android P – Google has releaseed the first developer preview of Android P, the newest version of Android.
3 Website Tricks Using Chrome’s Developer Tools – Chrome’s Developer Tools are great for diagnosing or fixing problems with websites, Logan Booker unpacks three: reveal form passwords, delete obtrusive elements, as well as inspect cookies and local storage variables. — even if you’re not a web developer
Moving Your Passwords From Google Chrome To A Dedicated App Just Got A Lot Easier – Patrick Lucas Austin explains how to download a CSV of all your logins that can then be used to upload to a third-party password manager.
The first Chrome OS tablet is here – Jacob Kastrenakes suggests at $329, the Tab 10 is somewhat more expensive than other Chromebooks, which often start below $300. But if schools are looking for something like an iPad, Acer has just given them an option.
Mute YouTube – Alice Keeler explains how to mute tabs in Google Chrome to stop audio from automatically playing.
A Cool Kaizena Update – Kaizena have updated the way they handle voice comments, by improving the speed and providing the ability to record ever if your wi-fi drops out.
GSFE Admin Podcast #20 featuring Cyrus Mistry – In this episode featuring Cyrus Mistry from Google, the panel discuss the development of Chromebooks over time and the steps involved in bringing a new feature to market.
Goo.gl Is Being Shut Down – 5 Alternatives – Richard Byrne discusses five options to goo.gl which is being shutdown.

Research

Find out how journalists across the world use technology today – A new interactive explorer produced by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and Google News Lab makes it easy to dig into a wealth of new survey data from hundreds of newsrooms worldwide.
Making it easier to find and share GIFs with Google – Google announce the acquisition of Tenor to support access to GIFs across Chrome.

Docs

How to Add Voice Comments to PDFs and Word Documents – Richard Byrne explains how Kaizena, originally just a tool for voice commenting on Google Docs, can also be used to add voice comments to PDFs and Word documents.

Slides

Make progress (bars) in presentations with Slides Add-ons – Wesley Chun and Grant Timmerman show how to create a progress bar in Google Slides using Google Apps Script.
The Worst Presentation Ever! – Tracey Poelzer shares the worst presentation possible to highlight aspects to consider when designing a slidedeck.
11 tips for creating stop motion in Google Slides – Jake Miller demonstrates how to use Google Slides to create a stop motion video. This is a good way of introducing students to all the different affordances assocaited with Slides.
Google Slides: Add Slide Numbers – Alice Keeler explains how to add numbers to Google Slides, as well as how to customise them using the master.

Forms

Google Forms: Pre-Fill an Answer – Alice Keeler demonstrates how to combine pre-filled links in Forms with Sheets to generate multiple sheets using variables.
Quizzes, Quizzes, Google Forms Quizzes – GTT048 – In Episode 48 of Google Teacher Tribe, Matt Miller and Kasey Bell unpack some of the different ways that Google Forms is used in the classroom.

Sheets

Creating custom branching in Google Forms with Google Apps Script – Martin Hawksey creates a starting point for generating custom Forms with Apps Script.
Weather API + Google Sheets – Tom Woodward shares a script for saving weather data to Google Sheets.
Google Script – Plain Text – Tom Woodward shares a script for adjusting the data formatting in a Google Sheet produced from Google Forms.
Learn the QUERY function in Google Sheets – Ben Collins provides a walkthrough of the QUERY function in Google Sheets.
Google Forms: Pre-Fill an Answer – Alice Keeler demonstrates how to combine pre-filled links in Forms with Sheets to generate multiple sheets using variables.
GroupDocs: Randomly Assign Groups With a Template – Alice Keeler provides a guide to her add-on for allocating students to random groups.
Slow Google Sheets? – Ben Collins provides 27 ideas to speed up slow sheets.
Recording .mp3 audio in Google Add-ons/Google Apps Script to Google Drive – Martin Hawksey provides a boilerplate for recording audio to Google Drive with Google Apps Script.
Coding with Conditional Formatting by @bmossholder – Beth Mossholder explains that conditional formatting uses If/then statements to code the spreadsheet. To introduce If/Then statements, have students try paint by numbers.

Sites

Google Sites: Copy Site Link – Alice Keeler explains which link to share when it comes to the New Google Sites.
How to Add an Image Search Box to Google Sites – Richard Byrne demonstrates how to add a search widget to the New Sites.
How to add a blog or comments box in New #GoogleSites using @Padlet – Jeffrey Bradbury suggests embedding a Padlet into Google Sites to make it more dynamic.

Classroom

Google Classroom: Email a Summary of Student Work – Alice Keeler explains how to send parents a summary of student work within Google Classroom.

Geo Tools

Google Maps learns 39 new languages – Google are making Google Maps even more useful by adding 39 new languages—spoken by an estimated 1.25 billion people worldwide: Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bosnian, Burmese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, Georgian, Hebrew, Icelandic, Indonesian, Kazakh, Khmer, Kyrgyz, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Mongolian, Norwegian, Persian, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Swahili, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Vietnamese, and Zulu.

Connecting Classrooms

Machine learning meets culture – Art Palette lets you choose a color palette, and using a combination of computer vision algorithms, it matches artworks from cultural institutions from around the world with your selected hues.
Develop bot integrations with the Hangouts Chat platform and API – Google have added the ability to craft your own bot integrations using the Hangouts Chat developer platform and API.
10 Practical Uses of VR in the Classroom – Bob Hand provides a range of possibilities associated with VR, such as visualising maths and assist students with disabilities.

Keep

Write Notes and Save Bookmarks to Sync With Google Docs & Slides – Richard Byrne discusses how to use Google Keep to takes notes and keep bookmarks that are accessable in a number of applications.

YouTube

ViewPure Now Offers Curated Playlists – Richard Bryne discusses some recent additions to ViewPure of curated playlists.
YouTube, the Great Radicalizer – Zeynep Tufekci highlights the problems with YouTube’s algorithm and the way that it supports the extremes.
Mute YouTube – Alice Keeler explains how to mute tabs in Google Chrome to stop audio from automatically playing.
One of the Biggest Violators of YouTube’s TOS Changes Its Tune – Richard Byrne announces that KeepVid are now respecting the terms of service and no longer allowing people to download all videos.

General

How to BE a Better Leader – Jay Atwood provides a number of leadership tips and where technology can fit,
Machine Learning Crash Course – Google has created a Machine Learning Crash Course.
The Building Blocks of Interpretability – Google has published “The Building Blocks of Interpretability,” a new article exploring how feature visualization can combine together with other interpretability techniques to understand aspects of how networks make decisions.
Classroom Hacks: Google Edition – GTT045 – Matt Miller and Kasey Bell share seem simple strategies for getting more out of instruction and interaction in the classroom, such as using Hangouts as a document camera or changing the url for different purposes.
Your G Suite Helpline – GTT046 – Matt Miller and Kasey Bell provide a guide to keeping up with Google.
Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you – Dylan Curran shows how much of your information the likes of Facebook and Google store about you without you even realising it.

📰 Read Write Respond #026

My Month of February

Wow, it’s March already. At work, I have been supporting schools getting attendance and reporting up and running. I was also lucky enough to attend another session of a collective looking at ongoing reporting. As far as possible, I feel it is important to have a wider perspective as to how all the parts are working together as a system.

On the family front, our eldest has started the year well. We were unsure how she would respond to a teacher whose every step involves Star Wars. Prizes. Class pet. Table ‘systems’. I have therefore answered endless questions about characters and various storylines. Why is Anakin also Darth Vader? Who is the nicest character? Why does Yoda die? If Yoda is the leader, why does he live alone on Dagobah? Why does Kylo Ren have to be bad, because if he wasn’t so bad I think I would like him more. This is taking classroom themes to a whole new level!

For my focus on ‘intent’, I have been writing less longer posts, instead focusing on my exploration of microcasts. This included a response to Tom Barrett on blogging initiatives and a reflection on #engageMOOC. I lurked in the MOOC, spending more time reflecting on the readings, rather than actively responding. In part, because I am not sure I have much to add. I also continued developing my ‘collect’ blog, bringing together various responses and reviews.

In regards to my writing, here was my month in posts:

Know Thy Limit – A Reflection on Myths and Solutions – This post is a reflection on the wolves introduced into Yellowstone National Park and the problems associated with focusing on supposed simple solutions
Googling Libraries – A collection of ways Google G Suite for Education can be used in the library, including the creation of digital spaces, supporting research, organising thinking and making connections beyond the classroom.
Toca Boca and Digital Toys – Toca Boca is a suite of applications that provides spaces within which to explore and play.

Here then are some things that have also left me thinking this month …

Learning and Teaching

Mulling Time – Emily Fintelman reflects on the need to find time to mull over things. To do this, she suggests scheduling time, finding a challenge partner and recording your thoughts. Coming from the perspective of comprehension, Julie Beck argues that unless we do something with what we have read within 24-hours then we often forget it. She recommends slow reading to provide time to take things in. This builds on Ryan Halliday’s point to do something with what you read. I am left wondering about the place of digital literacies to support all of this.

To mull, we need to think deeply, and at length. This can be difficult if we don’t set aside time or make a plan for it. Perhaps your school or organisation isn’t able to provide you with this extra time to mull but it is integral you find a way to process what you have experienced. With schools doing so much, we need to avoid going ‘an inch deep and a mile wide’. We need to make space to think deeply and at length.

Assessing students as they read, research, & respond in Hypothesis – Ian O’Byrne explains why Hypothes.is is different to usual social bookmarking sites. He also provides a demonstration for how he uses it teaching his university courses. I think that Jon Udell’s demonstration of Hypothes.is with Wikipedia is a good example of a use case, while Kris Shaffer has created a WordPress plugin that allows users to curate annotations in their blogs. I have written in the past about Hypothes.is as a modern form of commenting, I just get frustrated that there is no form of notification or webmentions associated with the platform. Another potential annotation tool associated with WordPress is Fragmentions and the ability to save segments of the text. Interestingly, Diigo includes many of the features too.

An annotation service like Hypothesis allows you to highlight, save, and (possibly) share individual lines from a text. This allows for saving this content across a page, and across multiple pages for themes. Used in discussion, this allows for collaborative reading exercises, or group annotations. This also allows for conducting research while you write and annotate. Since Hypothesis will import PDFs, you can annotate in the tool, it will give you a digital trail of breadcrumbs as you’re reading online to see what you found to be important. After you are finished reading and researching, you can go back and see what texts you’ve read, and the important elements from these pieces. Furthermore, if you effectively tag your annotations, you can look for larger themes across your readings.

Comments For Kids Still Count: Teaching And Promoting Quality Commenting – Kathleen Morris wonders about the changes to blog comments over time. Thinking about the classroom, she provides some tips, including setting guidelines, being consistent, using explicit lessons and involve parents. A recent innovation that I think has potential for supporting comments is Micro.blog. As a platform, it allows users to share a feed from their blog in a central space and converse there.

While we can’t control what goes on in the larger blogging community too much, we have much more control over our classroom blogging programs. The comment section is an excellent place to connect, learn, and grow. Who wouldn’t want to tap into that?

Problem Finding – Based on the methods of Design Kit, Tom Barrett breaks the process of framing a problem into eight steps: describe the problem, list the stakeholders, re-frame the problem as a ‘How Might We’ statement,
describe the impact you are attempting to have, who needs your help the most, what the possible solutions are, describe the constraints associated with your idea and rewrite the original HMW question. I remember when I ran Genius Hour, I used how might we questions with students, however I struggled with a process supporting students in developing these. I think Barrett’s steps would have helped with that.

The framing and re-framing process forces us to loop back into the process of defining the problem a little longer. It slows us a little and checks our enthusiasm to rush ahead and ensures we have carefully crafted our problem statement and it is an accurate reflection of a worthwhile issue.

Edtech

The #1 reason Facebook won’t ever change – Om Malik explains why Facebook will not be changing, as it is not in its DNA to do so. This is epitomised by recent spamming of two-factor authentication users and the skimming of VPN data only adds to this. Even with the personal adjustments to the feed in response to issues with fake news and manipulation, this is akin to the spin by the tobacco industry to hide the effect of smoking. On a side note, Douglas Rushkoff made the case in a recent episode of Team Human that other than teaching media, social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc) should never be used by schools. Use blogs or a space you manage yourself and your story – something that I have touched upon in the past – but to feed the ad algorithms as a way of ‘connecting’ is the wrong approach according to Rushkoff.

Facebook is about making money by keeping us addicted to Facebook. It always has been — and that’s why all of our angst and headlines are not going to change a damn thing.

The Case Against Google – Charles Duhigg takes a look at the history of Anti-Trust laws and the breaking up of monopolies. From oil to IBM, he explains why it is important for large companies to be broken up. Not for the consumer, but rather for the sake of development and innovation. He uses the case of the vertical search site, Foundem.com, to demonstrate the way in which Google kills competition by removing them from searches. Rather than living off their innovation, Adam and Shivaun Raff have spent the last twelve years campaigning against Google. Supported by Gary Reback, they took their case to European Commission in Brussels. If such changes and challenges are dependent on individuals like the Raff’s standing up, it makes you wondering how many just throw it all in? Cory Doctorow captures this scenario in his novel, The Makers.

Antitrust has never been just about costs and benefits or fairness. It’s never been about whether we love the monopolist. People loved Standard Oil a century ago, and Microsoft in the 1990s, just as they love Google today. Rather, antitrust has always been about progress. Antitrust prosecutions are part of how technology grows. Antitrust laws ultimately aren’t about justice, as if success were something to be condemned; instead, they are a tool that society uses to help start-ups build on a monopolist’s breakthroughs without, in the process, being crushed by the monopolist. And then, if those start-ups prosper and make discoveries of their own, they eventually become monopolies themselves, and the cycle starts anew. If Microsoft had crushed Google two decades ago, no one would have noticed. Today we would happily be using Bing, unaware that a better alternative once existed. Instead, we’re lucky a quixotic antitrust lawsuit helped to stop that from happening. We’re lucky that antitrust lawyers unintentionally guaranteed that Google would thrive.

Small b Blogging – Tom Critchlow provides a case for network blogging where your focus is on a particular audience. For me, I often have at least one person in mind when writing, whether it be a reply to another idea or something to share. This approach however seems to stand in contrast to the suggestion that blogging is first and foremostly personal.

Small b blogging is learning to write and think with the network. Small b blogging is writing content designed for small deliberate audiences and showing it to them. Small b blogging is deliberately chasing interesting ideas over pageviews and scale. An attempt at genuine connection vs the gloss and polish and mass market of most “content marketing”. And remember that you are your own audience! Small b blogging is writing things that you link back to and reference time and time again. Ideas that can evolve and grow as your thinking and audience grows.

The Tyranny of Convenience – Tim Wu plots a convenient history, with the first revolution being of the household (Oven, Vacuum etc) and then the personal (Walkman, Facebook etc). He argues that the irony of this individualisation is the creation of ‘templated selfs’. Wu argues that struggling and working things out is about identity. I recently reflected on the impact of convenience on learning. I am wondering how this relates to mental and physical automation?

All the personal tasks in our lives are being made easier. But at what cost?

Many More Webs Bite The Dust – Alan Levine added to his list of web sites that have shut down. Only a day after publishing, another site was added, Wikispaces.

Three years after publishing the first version of Another Web Bites The Dust (35 corpses), it was time to update, and add 24 more dead web sites to the video.

Storytelling and Reflection

Building Staff Culture: The Importance of Gratitude – Chris Wejr reflects on his efforts to be more grateful and embed opportunities for his staff to do the same. He provides a list of possible activities to use. I have written about improving staff morale in the past. Wejr’s list provides some new ideas to explore.

I am retraining my brain to see the positives (which I used to be so good at). Looking for the positives does not mean we ignore the challenges… but embracing the good things in life sure give us more energy to deal with the ‘not-so-good’ things when they happen!

China’s Dystopian Tech Could Be Contagious – Adam Greenfield discusses China’s move to measure ‘social credit’. He explains that there is nothing within the context that would stop the trend spreading globally. This is a position supported by Bruce Sterling. One of the consequences that Greenfield shares is the stifling impact such changes would have on urban environments. I am reminded of Steven Johnson’s discussion of where good ideas come from. This is one of many measures that states are using to gain control.

As private enterprise takes an increasingly prominent role in the creation and management of ostensibly public urban space, as neo-authoritarianism spreads unchecked, and as pervasive technology weaves itself ever more intimately into all the sites and relations of contemporary life, all of the material conditions are right for Chinese-style social credit to spread on other ground. Consider what Sidewalk Labs’ neighborhood-scale intervention in Toronto implies—or the start-up Citymapper’s experiments with privatized mass transit in London, or even Tinder’s control over access to the pool of potential romantic partners in cities around the world—and it’s easy to imagine a network of commercial partners commanding all the choke points of urban life. The freedoms that were once figured as a matter of “the right to the city” would become contingent on algorithmically determined certification of good conduct.

The Cost of Reporting while Female – Anne Helen Petersen documents a number of examples where women have been threatened while working in journalism. This includes a series of historical cases. This reminded me of Lindy West’s confrontation of troll and why he chose to do what he did. I am always left wondering what the answer is, sometimes fearing that such thinking creates more problems than solutions. Maybe there is something in Sherri Spelic’s suggestion to ‘think small’.

Over the course of nearly 200 years, female journalists have been under threat because of their gender, race, beat, views, and coverage.

CM 097: Sam Walker on Creating Outstanding Teams – In an interview with Gayle Allen, Sam Walker argues that successful ‘captains’ are not what we usually think. In his research, he identified seven key behaviours: they are relentless, aggressive, willing to do thankless jobs, shy away from the limelight, excel at quiet communication, are difficult to manage and have excellent resilience and emotional control. Moving forward, he suggests dropping your preconceptions about leadership, looking for those who deflect praise onto others and are focused on team goals, even if this is critical of current practices. This has many correlations with the work of Leading Teams.

Sam Walker lays out his findings in his latest book, The Captain Class: The Hidden Force that Creates the World’s Greatest Teams. Initially, he expected to find a magical combination of factors such as exceptional skill, brilliant coaching and remarkable strategy. Instead, he discovered something completely different: the 16 teams with the longest winning streaks across 37 elite sports succeeded because of a single player — the captain of the team. These captains were not only not the best player, but also possessed all or most of seven characteristics rarely associated with great leaders.

FOCUS ON … Polarisation

There was a short pop-up MOOC, Engagement in a Time of Polarisation,running over the last few weeks. When it was announced, I had every inclination to participate, yet it just has not happened. There are a range of reasons, some of which are captured in my short microcast. However, I have been engrossed in the various texts shared throughout. I have therefore collected some of them here:

Antigonish 2.0: A Way for Higher Ed to Help Save the Web – This is Bonnie Stewart’s call to action. She outlines a way to develop the local and global literacies needed to foster functional democratic participation. This model involves three layers: a distributed international network, institutional capacity-building and local study clubs. This post is supported by the opening webinar in which a range of guests explore the question of enagagement.
Recognition Is Futile: Why Checklist Approaches to Information Literacy Fail and What To Do About It – Mike Caulfield provides context to his work with web literacy, four moves and the need for info-environmentalism. This post was supported by a webinar, in which he elaborated on a number of points, including why web literacy is different and how we can better understand Google search.
Power, Polarization, and Tech – Chris Gillard explains that polarisation is always about power. It is a means of garnering engagement and attention. In many respects, social media and silicon valley promotes polarisation for its own good. This is best understood by considering who is protected by these spaces. This is often a reflection on the inequality within these organisations.
It’s the (Democracy-Poisoning) Golden Age of Free Speech – Zeynep Tufekei explains that just because we can all create a social media account in seconds this supposed ‘democracy’ is a phantom public. Although it may seem that we can all ‘connect the world’, each of the platforms is controlled by algorithms designed to keep the prosumer engaged and advertised. This is something that Tufekei also discusses in her TEDTalk. The change needed is systemic.
Education in the (Dis)Information Age – Kris Shaffer reflects on the abundance of information on the web. He suggests that the hyperlink maybe ‘our most potent weapon’ against disinformation.
The Problem with Facts – Tim Harford explains that the solution for fake news is not simply more facts, rather we need to foster a culture of curiousity.
Inclusion Again – Sherri Spelic discusses staying quite or taking a small step in an effort to include others.
The Digital Poorhouse – Virginia Eubanks compares the restrictive nature of the poorhouses of the nineteenth century with the digital spaces of today. In conclusion, she says that we need to work together to solve this crisis.
Why we need to understand misinformation through visuals – Hannah Guy discusses the impact of images on misinformation. This is not just about fake photographs, but graphics and memes too.
Why Less News on Facebook Is Good News for Everyone – Will Oremus reports on Facebook’s flip to prioritise the personal over corporation. This move isn’t to repair the damage done to democracy, but rather to limit the damage done to its users.
That Doesn’t Mean Dumbing It Down – Anne Helen Petersen explains how to work with and in journalism to extend the reach of academic ideas.
Academic Outrage: When The Culture Wars Go Digital – Tressie McMillan Cottom discusses the challenges of being critical in online spaces. She suggests learning how to organise before getting out there to organise.

READ WRITE RESPOND #026

So that is February for me, how about you? As always, interested to hear.

Also, feel free to forward this on to others if you found anything of interest or maybe you want to subscribe? Otherwise, archives can be found here and information relating to the images can be found on Flickr.

Read Write Respond Newsletter

Cover image via JustLego101.

📓 Technology is a System

Responding to yet another school shooting, Audrey Watters pushes back on those who argue that guns are not ‘ed-tech’. Instead she argues that what we define as ‘technology’ is the problem. She provides a quote from Ursula Franklin’s 1989 CBC Massey Lectures that captures this thinking:

Technology is not the sum of the artefacts, of the wheels and gears, of the rails and electronic transmitters. Technology is a system. It entails far more than its individual material components. Technology involves organization, procedures, symbols, new words, equations, and, most of all, a mindset.

Watters explains that this includes many elements within schools and should not be merely reduced to ‘computers’. In a second post, she explains that:

“Hardening schools” is an education technology endeavor, whether or not we take seriously anyone’s suggestions about giving teachers guns. For now, “hardening schools” explicitly calls for hardware like those items listed by Governor Scott: metal detectors and bulletproof windows, as well as surveillance cameras and various sensors that can detect gunfire. It also implies software – social media monitoring and predictive analytics tools, for example, that claim they can identify students “at risk” of violence or political extremism.

Coming at this problem from a different perspective, Genevieve Bell responded to questions of data and ‘neutrality’ in the Q&A associated with her Boyer Lectures. Given the example of the supposed innocence of a train timetable, she explained how Amazon use variables such as timetables to continually adjust the price of goods.

Discussing Game of Thrones, Zeynep Tufekci explains how technology is more than a story about a group of individuals:

That’s a story much bigger than Zuckerberg, Dorsey, Schmidt, Sandberg, Brin who-have-you. It’s also a story of Wall Street and increasing financialization of the world; it’s a story of what people are calling neoliberalism that’s been underway for decades. It is also a technical story: of machine learning and data surveillance, and our current inability deal with the implications of the whole technological stack as it is composed: hardware firmware mostly manufactured in China. Software everywhere that I’ve previously compared to building skyscrapers on swampy land. Our fundamentally insecure designs. Perhaps, more importantly our lack of functioning, sustainable alternatives that respect us, rather than act as extensions of their true owners.source

Inspired by Neil Postman, David Truss argues that technology changes everything.

Technology doesn’t just change our relationship to the tool, it changes the relationship to our environment.

Responding to the The Social Dilemma, Niall Docherty argues that we will never understand the problem until we understand technology as a set of relations.

it is necessary to re-frame social media as something more than a mere “tool”. Rather than simply leave it to former tech industry insiders to spell out the ills of social media in documentaries like The Social Dilemma, we must engage with thinkers from a diverse range of backgrounds to look to the historical conditions of social media’s origins, while always questioning the economics and cultural politics of its global dissemination. We must personally examine how our own thoughts and actions are subtly shaped by social media’s design, while taking time to listen to marginalized individuals and communities who are impacted the most by the violence produced through social media today. And by seeing technology as a relation, by sharing responsibility in this way, we lift the burden of fixing the problem from the individual user alone, and discard the moralizing discourses such a burden brings.

Niall Docherty https://socialmediacollective.org/2020/10/05/more-than-tools-who-is-responsible-for-the-social-dilemma/

Yuk Hui suggests that rather than technology is a system that we are in a system which technology is a part of.

The unilateral globalization that has come to an end is being succeeded by the competition of technological acceleration and the allures of war, technological singularity, and transhumanist (pipe) dreams. The Anthropocene is a global axis of time and synchronization that is sustained by this view of technological progress towards the singularity. To reopen the question of technology is to refuse this homogeneous technological future that is presented to us as the only option.

Yuk Hui https://www.e-flux.com/journal/86/161887/cosmotechnics-as-cosmopolitics/

Microcast #008 Limits of Automation(3 minutes 23 seconds)

Confident – the connecting of the dots and capitalising on different possibilities.

Essential Elements of Digital Literacies

In this microcast, I reflect on automating technology and wonder if there is a limit to how far we should go.

📰 Read Write Respond #025

A lego busker out the front of 711 — Background image via JustLego101.com
Made with Canva

My Month of January

I have been back at work for few weeks now. No extended summer holidays in my current role. My work this month has involved reviewing our reporting solution in light of recent changes, as well as supporting schools with their start of the year setup.

With the move from ten weeks of holidays to four, I have learnt to appreciate every minute. Whether it be going away for a few days to explore Bendigo or building endless flat pack furniture, my time was occupied. Looking back at my few weeks at home, we managed to get so much done, even in the insipid hot and humid weather.

Personally, I have spent the month head down in the world of the #IndieWeb. In particular, I have continued to craft my second space: collect.readwriterespond.com. This effort to better control my existence on the web fits with my focus of ‘intent’ this year. I sometimes find myself using the word deliberate, but it all feels far too adhoc for that. With all this in mind, I contributed to a collective podcast that Benjamin Doxtdator put together. I also got to catch up with Richard Olsen for lunch, which was nice as well.

In regards to my writing, here was my month in posts:

Read Write Review – Voices from the Village in 2017 – A curation of my year and keeping a monthly newsletter.
My One Word for 2018 is Intent – My ‘one word’ for 2018 is intent. For me, this is about many things.
Reflecting on the Voices in the Village 2017 – A collection of comments from my blog(s) that have pushed my thinking this year.
Reclaiming My Bookmarks – A reflection on using my own blog to reclaim my bookmarks and then syndicate them to other sites, such as Twitter and Diigo.
A Kind of Emoji – A reflection on using emojis as a way to provide visual information about blog posts.
Hidden in the Code – A collection of short codes that I often turn to when working with WordPress
Microcast #005 – A Day in the Life of a Blogger – A recorded response to Richard Byrne on blogging, which he kindly responded to.

Here then are some of the thoughts that have also left me thinking this month …

Learning and Teaching

Quote from My Favourite Inquiry Journeys of 2017 — Image via https://www.flickr.com/photos/33263856@N02/5157195892
Quote via Kath Murdoch ‘My Favourite Inquiry Journeys of 2017’

My Favourite Inquiry Journeys of 2017…. – Kath Murdoch stops and reflects on twelve projects she has helped with in 2017. In summary, she pulls out some of the key aspects that went across all the different inquiries, such as authenticity, integrative, involves experts, learning is shared and emergent. This post is not necessarily a list of driving questions and/or units to roll out, but rather a source of ideas and inspiration. Along with her post on ten practices of an inquiry teacher and AJ Juliani’s reflection on choice-based learning, they provide some guidance going into the new year.

Using an inquiry based approach to teaching and learning is multi-faceted. At its heart, inquiry is a stance – it’s about how we talk to kids and how we think about learning. It is also about how we plan and the contexts we both recognise and create in which powerful inquiry can thrive. These contexts can be highly personal (one child’s investigation into their passion) and they can also be shared contexts that bring learners together under a common question. These shared inquiries form a powerful ‘backbone’ of the primary classroom.

Google Maps Moat – Justin O’Beirne discusses the addition of ‘areas of interests’ to Google Maps. He wonders if others, such as Apple, can possibly keep up? The challenge is that these AOIs are not collected — rather they are created. Added to this, Apple appears to be missing the ingredients to develop their own AOIs to the same quality, coverage, and scale as Google. Google is in fact making data out of data. For a different take on Google 3D imagery, watch this video from the Nat and Friends.

Google’s buildings are byproducts of its Satellite/Aerial imagery. And some of Google’s places are byproducts of its Street View imagery. So this makes AOIs a byproduct of byproducts. Google is creating data out of data.

Four Moves – Mike Caulfield has released a new site containing a series of activities to support the development of web literacy and fact checking. It focuses on the four moves: check for previous work, go upstream to the source, read laterally and circle back.

The Four Moves blog is based on research conducted by Sam Wineburg and Sarah McGrew, which found that students lack knowledge of basic web techniques for verification and source assessment, which puts them at the mercy of misinformation. Instructions are written for students using the Chrome browser due to the popularity of that platform in schools and among students. However, the features we are using are in general not browser-specific; faculty and students using different browsers should translate actions where appropriate by looking at your own browser’s documentation.

Explainer: the evidence for the Tasmanian genocide – Kristyn Harman provides some background to the extermination of indigenous people in Tasmania. Along with the map of genocide, resources like these are central to a call to change Australia Day. In another post on remembering, Louise Raw highlights why Winston Churchill was and is not the saviour of democracy he is sometimes portrayed as.

Whereas the master narrative framed this state of affairs as proof of a benign government caring for unfortunate victims of circumstance, the colony’s archives reveal that Aboriginal people were removed from their ancient homelands by means fair and foul. This was the intent of the government, revealed by its actions and instructions and obfuscations. In the language of the day the Aboriginal Tasmanians had been deliberately, knowingly and wilfully extirpated. Today we could call it genocide.

How To Digest Books Above Your “Level” And Increase Your Intelligence – Ryan Halliday says to read above your level you need to ‘read to lead’. This involves ignoring the facts and storyline to focus on the key messages. Reading all of the introductions, prefaces and translators notes as they often provide context to the book. Make notes in books and write out quotes, physically. Apply what you learn. I am not sure I completely agree with everything Halliday suggests, but it does provide a useful provocation to think about the art of reading. For some just reading is what matters.

In short, you know the books where the words blur together and you can’t understand what’s happening? Those are the books a leader needs to read. Reading to lead or learn requires that you treat your brain like the muscle that it is–lifting the subjects with the most tension and weight.

Edtech

Quote from Panicked about Kids Addiction to Tech? — Image via https://www.flickr.com/photos/kwl/4555399660
Quote via danah boyd ‘Panicked about Kids Addiction to Tech?’

Panicked about Kids Addiction to Tech? – danah boyd suggests that there is a lot of hype associated with kids addiction. Some of the problems may be associated with parents themselves. In response, she provides two activities for parents: verbalize what you’re doing with your phone and create a household contract. Mitchel Resnick’s provides a different perspective, suggesting time on task is not the problem, it is rather what is done with that time, for Cory Doctorow it is all an arms race focused on control, while Audrey Watters paints her own complicated picture of addiction. Each of these pieces add to a wider dialogue around moderation and other such technical answers currently being suggested as soutions to our digital overload.

Many people have unhealthy habits and dynamics in their life. Some are rooted in physical addiction. Others are habitual or psychological crutches. But across that spectrum, most people are aware of when something that they’re doing isn’t healthy. They may not be able to stop. Or they may not want to stop. Untangling that is part of the challenge. When you feel as though your child has an unhealthy relationship with technology (or anything else in their life), you need to start by asking if they see this the same way you do. When parents feel as though what their child is doing is unhealthy for them, but the child does not, the intervention has to be quite different than when the child is also concerned about the issue.

Arguing with the Digital Natives guy in four vexations – David White reflects on a debate with Marc Prensky in which they discussed the future of our digital world. White shares four vexations from the conversation, but the one that stands out to me is his concern about ideas associated with ‘effective and successful’ being separated from a discussion of equality. This links with Alvin Chang’s post looking at school borders and segregation, a topic also discussed on the Have You Heard podcast. It is also interesting to think about this alongside Simon Longstaff’s discussion about the technology and the design of a more ethical future.

My concern is that we rush to ‘make the world a better place’ without reflecting on who we might be doing that for and why. Action without reflection (or thinking) is of little value

The human solution to Facebook’s machine-produced problems also won’t work – Responding to Mark Zuckerberg’s ambitious pledge to fix the statistical behaviour-modification machine that is Facebook, Doc Searls explains why Zuckerberg will fail. He suggests that changing facebook is like turning a cruise ship into an aircraft carrier, Searls argues that what has been gained though is a realisation that we all live in the digital world now. It is for this reason that it is important to support children with their online presence and making sense of social media. Alternatively, Dave Winer believes that Zuckerberg’s year will be complete once he lets Facebook rejoin the open web. We can only dream.

The best thing for Zuck to do is get the hell out, let it finish failing, and start over with something new and better, based on what he and others have learned from the experience. (Which tends to be the best teacher. And hell, he’s still young.) It should help him—and all of us—to know that all companies fail; they just fail faster in Silicon Valley.

EdTech Factotum #12 – Clint Lalonde reflects on blockchain. Rather than focusing on whether or not everyone should embrace it, he instead suggests that it is something that we need to be aware of. This is a similar point that Audrey Watters made during Episode 74 of the Contrafabulists podcasts, that it is not necessarily about which technology to choose, but asking why and how things actually work. For more on the blockchain, watch this attempt to explain it to a five year old, read Alex Hern’s analysis of Bitcoin or reflect on Leda Glyptis’ unpopular opinions.

Asking why is important and does often get lost in the rush to something new and shiny. But let’s keep asking how as well. In my mind, these are companion questions because, even though you or I may never use blockchain in our day-to-day life, there is a very good chance that it will be used on our behalf in the future. And there is already more than enough unknown technologies running our life right now.

Should Your Class Or Student Blogs Be Public Or Private? – Kathleen Morris unpacks the benefits of both private and public blogs. She provides a number of arguments with clear points evidence to clarify her points of view. This is particularly pertinent to schools and educators at the start of the school year. Personally, when I supported classroom blogs they were closed as I was not comfortable everyone who needed to be fully aware of the consequences was. I think though that Kin Lane’s advice on APIs can also be applied, that is, approach everything as if it is public even if it is not. On blogging in general, Chris Aldrich wrote a reply on the potential of blogging as a commonplace book, while Jim Groom suggests that it is an investment in your soul.

A dilemma that faces many educators new blogging is the question of whether they should be publishing their students’ information and work online. They might wonder if their class or student blogs should be public for anyone to see, or private for a limited audience (or no one) to view.

IRL Podcast – Bot or Not – This episode of In Real Life is dedicated to bots. Along with Crofton Black and Abigail Fielding-Smith’s investigation into the influence of Twitter bots, Kris Shaffer and Bill Fitzgerald’s guide on how to spot a bot, Kin Lane’s reflections on the waves of bots and Nicholas Confessore’s exposé into the follower factory, these resources provide a useful starting point for understanding bots and there implication on society today.

From politics to poetry, bots are playing an increasingly visible role in culture. Veronica Belmont investigates the rise of social media bots with Lauren Kunze and Jenn Schiffer. Butter.ai’s Jack Hirsch talks about what happens when your profile is stolen by a political bot. Lisa-Maria Neudert measures how bots influence politics. Ben Nimmo teaches us how to spot and take down bot armies. And Tim Hwang explores how bots can connect us in surprising, and meaningful, new ways.

Storytelling and Reflection

Quote via Social Media Has Hijacked Our Brains and Threatens Global Democracy — Image via https://pixabay.com/en/crowd-lego-staff-choice-selector-1699137/
Quote via David Golumbia ‘Social Media Has Hijacked Our Brains and Threatens Global Democracy’

Social Media Has Hijacked Our Brains and Threatens Global Democracy – David Golumbia discusses some of the changes to democracy associated with social media. He argues that we have lost the ability to think slowly, therefore making us more susceptible to irrational decisions. This touches on some of Peter Skillen’s points from a few years ago. Along with Zeynep Tufekei’s concern about free speech and Jordan Erica Webber’s look into micro-targetting, these posts paint a grim view of the future.

Those who celebrated the Facebook revolution and the Twitter revolution were celebrating the replacement of (relatively) calm reflection with the politics of reactivity and passion. This domination of System 2 by System 1 thinking is the real social media “revolution.” The question that remains is whether democracies have both the will, and the means to bring considered thought back to politics, or, whether digital technology has made politics impossible.

Facial recognition’s ominous rise: are we going too far too fast? – This is a strange article documenting the rise of NEC. In it, Ben Grubb provides a range of examples, including Crown Casino tracking VIPs and Westfield estimating age, gender and mood. On the one hand, it can be read as being positive – which you would assume as the author’s expenses to iEXPO2017 were paid for by NEC – in that we can now do all these things with technology, but at the same time it asks the question as to whether we ought to? It reminds me in part of the post discussing Hitachi’s use of cameras to improve student life at Curtin University. My question is probably, “why would you?”, as Tony Longstaff warns can does not equal ought.

Already facial-recognition technology is being used at Crown Casino in Melbourne to identify VIPs and banned guests. Australian state and federal policing agencies are also deploying it, with South Australia Police using it to identify criminals and to search for missing persons.

The best thing ever written about “work-life balance” – Austin Kleon discusses work-life balance. Reflecting on Jocelyn K. Glei’s supercut on the subject, Kleon notes the difference in responses between men and women. For men it is often about creating the write conditions, while for women it is making do with whatever spare moments there are. For the late Ursula K. Le Guin it is not about spare time, but rather occupied time.

You can have it all, just not all at once – Kenneth Koch

The Line 6 DL4 Is Quietly the Most Important Guitar Pedal of the Last 20 Years – Dale Eisinger takes a look at the influence of technology on music, in particular the looping pedal. From Radiohead to Battles, Eisinger lists band after band influenced by the features and constraints of the humble pedal. There is a long history of technology influencing music. An example is the BBC documentary Synth Britannia which describes the influence of synthesiers on bands like Depeche Mode and New Order. It is also interesting to think about the DL4 as a ‘non-human’ actor and unpack what this might mean, especially for the modern busker.

As technology democratized around the turn of the century, digital audio workstations like Pro Tools revolutionized the home studio, and ultimately changed the course of music with their boundless potential. A less commonly discussed breakthrough of the era involved musicians’ outboard gear, such as guitar pedals, which moved from analog to now-inexpensive digital architectures. Chief among the hardware that benefited from this shift were delay pedals, a class of effect pedal that gives an echo or repeating effect to a sound. Delays were generally expensive, since they required either actual tape loops or expensive memory within their makeup. Digital technology changed that, introducing with it the kind of lower-priced loop pedals that encouraged experimental strains of ’00s indie rockers to recreate with live instruments a similar effect as sampling. There was one pedal in particular that emerged as a favorite: the Line 6 DL4 delay modeler.

The Victorian State Education System…from the inside out and the outside in – Former principal of Templestowe College, Peter Hutton, reflects on his connection with the Victorian Department of Education. It is a real insight into a part of education that many teachers never really experience. It will be interesting to see where his ‘EdRevolution’ goes and grows.

Unless there are parental complaints, if the school’s numbers are stable or growing and your data is tracking ok, essentially DET allow you to innovate and do as you please. I have loved this level of professional autonomy and dare I say trust shown by DET in its’ Principals. Not really the ogre that people sometimes suspect. In fact many senior staff have provided me with encouragement and professional support during the more innovative years at TC.

FOCUS ON … Digital Hygiene

Quote via Take the time to review and reinforce your digital hygiene — Quote via Ian O’Byrne ‘Take the time to review and reinforce your digital hygiene’
Image via https://www.flickr.com/photos/pasukaru76/5978434781

There are so many posts out there which support users with reviewing their digital presence online. See for example Boost your digital fitness with a data cleanse and Digital Trace Audit: A #clmooc New Year’s ‘Unmake’ Cycle. Ian O’Byrne though has spread his out across the whole month. Unsure which link to include, I have instead provided a summary of all the posts here. I think that the statistics are clear, we could all do more.

Understanding the differences between privacy and security – Ian O’Byrne explains how privacy is like closing the curtains or blinds on a window in your house, whereas security is like locking the doors and windows on your house.
Three steps to develop a system to take control of your passwords – Ian O’Byrne suggests that changing your passwords frequently is one of the simplest things you can do to protect yourself from digital threats
How to use two factor authentication to protect yourself online – Ian O’Byrne shows how two-factor authentication uses your password to log in to your accounts and services and then requires a a randomly generated (usually) six number key as well.
Backup your digital information and devices – Ian O’Byrne talks about the importance of backing up three ways: the original file on your computer, a local backup and a backup in another location.
Clean out your browser extensions – Ian O’Byrne argues that one of the best ways to mitigate risk is to regularly clear out your browser extensions that you don’t regularly use.
Review & Revoke Social Logins & Third Party App Access – Ian O’Byrne raises several concerns with social logins for new accounts, such as trusting one site with personal or private information that you gave to another site.
Protect your connection to the Internet – Ian O’Byrne says it is important to maintain an up-to-date router and consider the use of a VPN when using public wifi networks.
Encrypt your devices – Ian O’Byrne looks at the options for encryption provided by the popular devices and explains why it is important.

READ WRITE RESPOND #025

So that is MONTH for me, how about you? As always, interested to hear.

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Read Write Respond Newsletter

Cover image via JustLego101.

📰 eLearn Updates (January 2018)

Here is a collection of links and resources associated with GSuite and Hapara for January 2018.

Updates

What’s New in Google Data Studio? – There have been a number of updates to Data Studio, including the ability to coordinate colours, field reports editing and the display of images in tables.
Improved accessibility for Google Sheets, Slides, and Drawings – Google has added Braille support for Sheets and the option of magnifiers to Slides and Drawings.
New navigation menu for Admin console – Google has grouped menu options based on how customers use them to create a logical multi-layered menu. This makes the menu shorter and more scannable, helping users find things quickly.
Additional Changes to the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) to Better Protect Creators – Google has announced that new channels will need to have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time within the past 12 months to be eligible for ads. We will begin enforcing these new requirements for existing channels in YPP beginning February 20th, 2018.
Share a Copy of a Google Form – Alice Keeler has coded an Add-on for Google Forms that creates a copy of the Form you are using and asks who you want to share the copy with
Introducing the security center for G Suite—security analytics and best practices from Google – Google are introducing the security center for G Suite, a tool that brings together security analytics, actionable insights and best practice recommendations from Google to empower you to protect your organization, data and users.
More menu improvements in Google Docs and Slides – Based on usage data and your feedback, Google are making some changes to the menus and toolbars in Google Docs and Slides on the web.
Exploring art (through selfies) with Google Arts & Culture – Google has created an experiment that matches your selfie with art from the collections of museums on Google Arts & Culture
Legacy Google Drive desktop sync client now shutting down on May 12th, 2018 – Google is shutting down the legacy desktop sync application.
Google Earth Pro 7.3.1 Released – Google released a new version of the desktop version of Google Earth Pro version 7.3.1 (which is free despite the confusing “Pro” name).
Improved attachment compliance in Gmail – Gmail Data Loss Prevention (DLP) has been identified to not only check for certain attachment types, but it also checks the attachments in case they have been falsely renamed.
A new year for Chrome video – Google have begun adding support for High Dynamic Range (HDR) to get vibrant colors, darker blacks, and brighter whites from the latest HDR displays.
Tools for every school: G Suite for Education updates – Jonathan Rochelle discusses the addition of some enterprise features, such as encryption and cloud searching, to GSuite for Education.
Tailoring education for the 21st century: perspectives from educators – Google’s latest study ‘Fostering exploration and excellence in 21st century schools’ found that a holistic approach is key. This includes integrating different educational strategies and techniques, and empowering teachers with greater autonomy.
Three new ways to manage files and free up space on Files Go – Files Go is our new app for freeing up storage on your phone.
Pioneer new lessons in your classroom with Google Expeditions – Google announce a beta program that allows schools and educators to create their own expeditions.
Publish sites to a specific audience in the new Google Sites – Google have added the ability to share sites with specific audiences.
Gmail contextual gadgets going away on August 1st, 2018 – With the launch of Gmail of Add-ons, Google is closing down contextual gadgets.
A reintroduction to Google’s featured snippets – In this post—the first in a new series going behind-the-scenes on how Google Search works— Danny Sullivan explores when, where and why we provide featured snippets.
Take your Blocks models to the next level – Brittany Mennuti explains that the latest release of Blocks, available on Steam and the Oculus Store, has lots of new features that make it more powerful and even easier to use