📰 Read Write Respond #027

My Month of March

At work we took another step with the reporting solution that we have been working on. This involved setting up two schools. There was a bit of a rush to have all the testing and documentation completed beforehand. However, the relative smoothness made it all worthwhile.

In regards to the family, our eldest daughter was playing a game on the iPad recently and I said that maybe one day she might code her own such game. She said she could, but she had already decided that she was going to be a performer. I feel challenged everyday by my role as a parent. Do I step in and suggest that maybe she does not sound as good as Sia as she belts out her rendition of Chandelier or do I just support her in dreaming big? At the moment, it is the later. Our youngest on the other hand must have found my copy of A More Beautiful Question as she has taken to asking the Five Whys about absolutely everything. I answer and answer again. My wife says that I will lose, but I don’t see it like that. It is about the conversation, right?

On a personal level, I find myself diving deeper into reflections these days, especially with my second blog providing a means of ongoing engagement. One of the side-effects has been my lack of engagement in spaces like Twitter. I still write extended responses when challenged, but I do not trawl through conversations or conference hashtags as much as I used to. I am left wondering what am I missing in my move more and more to RSS and curated feeds?

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

• Automation Generation – Although many talk about the power and potential of automation to aid us, sometimes we need to step back and ask ourselves what this means and where the limits lay.
• Managing Content Through Canonical Links – One of the challenges with the web can be managing content across multiple sites, one answer, create canonical links and share from there.
• Paying for the Privilege: The Collective Move to Patreon – With the move to platforms like Patreon, it leaves me wondering about the impact on the wider community.

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

Learning and Teaching

12 ‘Lesson Hacks’ to Nurture Inquiry – Kath Murdoch provides a number of simple changes to consider in every classroom. They include letting students try first before providing instruction, turning learning intentions into questions, co-constructing success criterias, standing up rather than sitting down and changING your position in the classroom. Steve Mouldey also shared some thoughts on supporting learners with being more engaged and active within the learning, while Jon Corippo and Marlena Hebern shared ideas for how to create dynamic learning environments on the Ask the Tech Coach Podcast.

Inquiry classrooms (and inquiry teachers) are constructed day by day, session by session. Being conscious of the choreography of our teaching and the degree to which it amplifies or diminishes inquiry is a powerful way to build culture over time. These ‘hacks’ are simple but by making one change, we can gain insights to which we have been previously blind.

The Library of the Future – Deborah Netolicky reflects on her recent investigation into libraries. This include the history of libraries, as well as how they and those who work within them are defined. Her review of the literature found that libraries are: neutral and democratising; participatory and connected locally and globally; centred around learning, literacy, research, and knowledge; and, facilitators of interdisciplinarity. I have written about the future of libraries before, however Netolicky’s deep dive takes it a step further.

School libraries have been called instructional media centres, media centres, information centres, information commons, iCentres, learning labs, learning commons, digital libraries, and cybraries (Farmer, 2017). These terms are in some ways faddish and transitory. ‘Library’, however, has a deep and long tradition associated with it, although the spaces and tools of libraries change over time. Librarians in schools have also had many names, such as teacher librarian, library teacher, library media specialist, library media teacher, cybrarian, information navigator, information specialist, information professional, informationist, and information scientist (Farmer, 2017; Lankes, 2011). Lankes (2011) argues that the terms ‘library’ and ‘librarian’ are entwined with the concept of knowledge and learning. I have said before that those claiming disruption should embrace interrogation of their ideas. Does ‘library’ need to be disrupted, in what ways, and why (or why not)?

My Learning – It has been fascinating following Greg Miller’s thinking in regards to the construct of learning. There are many assumptions that go unquestioned in schools, I am finding that as I discuss reporting with more people. This move towards self-directed learning reminds me of the work going on at Geelong College and Templestowe College. My wonder is how we manage to marry these changes with various expectations, such as timetables.

As students progress through Years 8, 9 & 10 in the coming years, there will increasingly be more and more time for students to self direct their Personalised Curriculum. This may include, but is not limited to: Acceleration of core curriculum subjects leading to early commencement of HSC in one or two subjects. If required, intervention strategies for those students who do not meet minimum national benchmark standards for literacy and numeracy. Early commencement of VET (Vocational and Educational Training) subjects either at school or through TAFE. Participation in Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs), completion of digital badge courses or informal internships with local industry experts and ‘start ups’. Self-directed electives and collaborative projects as a result of students working with teachers with the following provocation: Knowing my Strengths, Motivations and Interests (SIM), how can I use my identified talents and affirmed capabilities to ensure a better world?

How to Write an Edu-book – Alex Quigley discusses his six steps to writing a book. In addition to the reflections from Mary Myatt, Tom Sherrington and Ryan Holiday, they offer a useful insight into the writing process. It is interesting to compare these with the process often taught in schools. Students often get straight into writing without being given initial planning time.

I wanted to share my own edu-bookery. It is important to state that for me, regular blogging and writing separate to a book is an excellent mental work-bench for writing a book, offering me the discipline needed to write habitually and at length. Still, my book writing process is really quite specific and I have fell upon a helpful habit in writing my latest book.

Assessing Assessment for Digital Making – Oliver Quinlan discusses the challenges associated with Black and Wiliam’s work on feedback and digital technologies. In the absence of defined criteria, he suggests using comparative judgement where feedback is gained by comparing with a similar object.

Comparative Judgement is a field relatively new to education practice that offers huge potential for this problem. It’s based on well established research that humans are relatively poor at making objective judgements about individual objects, but very good at making comparisons. Play a musical note to most people and ask them what it is and they will struggle. Play them two notes and ask them which is higher and they are likely to be successful. Repeat this several times, with a clever algorithm to keep track and present them with the right combinations and you can come up with a ranking. These rankings have been shown to be very reliable, even more so if you involve several people as ‘judges’.

Edtech

You Think You Want Media Literacy… Do You? – danah boyd discusses concerns about the weaponising of media literacy through denalism and says that there is a need for cognitive strengthening. Benjamin Doxtdator raises the concern that focusing on the individual. Instead he suggests considering the technical infrastructure. Maha Bali argues that we need aspects of both. In a response to the various criticisms, boyd admits that she is not completely sold on the solution, but we need to start somewhere.

One of the things that is funny is that these technologies get designed for a very particular idea of what they could be used for and then they twist in different ways.

Typing Tips: The How and Why of Teaching Students Keyboarding Skills – Kathleen Morris reflects on the place of typing in schools. She collects together a number of sites used to teach typing. It feels like we spend so much time debating handwriting sometimes that we forget about typing. Airelle Pardes suggests that the lack of a keyboard (and therefore typing) is one of the major reasons for the demise of the iPad in education. The discussion of typing also reminds me of a post from Catherine Gatt from a few years ago associated with assessing typing.

There are so many great games and online tools designed for younger students. Once students begin recognising the alphabet, I think they can begin learning to type. This can complement your teaching of traditional writing and literacy.

On the Need for Phone Free Classrooms – Pernille Ripp shares why her class will become phone free. A part of this problem is that the compulsive behaviour of social media and smart phones is by design. Douglas Rushkoff’s argues that other than teaching media, social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc) should never be used by schools. Mike Niehoff’s concern is what happens in the future when people have not learnt independance and moderation?

I know that I have pushed the use of phones in our classrooms before on this blog, how I have written about using them purposefully, but I will no longer subscribe to the notion that when kids use their phones it is only because they are bored. It is too easy to say that if teachers just created relevant and engaging lessons then no child would use their phones improperly in our rooms. That’s not it, all of us with devices have had our attention spans rewired to constantly seek stimulus. To instantly seek something other than what we are doing. To constantly seek something different even if what we are doing is actually interesting. And not because what we seek out is so much better, look at most people’s Snapchat streaks and you will see irrelevant images of tables and floors and half faces simply to keep a streak alive. It is not that our students are leaving our teaching behind at all times because they are bored, it is more because many of us, adults and children alike, have lost the ability to focus on anything for a longer period of time.

PressED – A WordPress and Education, Pedagogy and Research Conference on Twitter – This online conference involves 45 presenters across 12 hours posting 10 to 20 tweets each at a scheduled time. Although many have also shared posts corresponding with their presentations (Alan Levine, Tom Woodward, Jim Groom and John Johnston), you can also go back through the tweets. One of the things that stands out is the use of the different addordances, such as graphics and GIFs.

I’ve been to conferences that used a hashtag, but this is my first conference that is a hashtag (Jim Groom)

Dear IndieWeb, it may be time to start considering the user, not just the technical spec – Eli Mellen wonders if the answer to extending the #IndieWeb is in considering the user. I think that this is part of the challenge. Mark Pospesel discusses about reducing friction, while Cory Doctorow suggests that we need to reconsider which technologies we use. Whatever the particulars, it will take a collective response to move the #IndieWeb from the hipster-web to a “demonstratably better web”

Whereas “[e]ach generation is expected to lower barriers for adoption successively for the next generation” I wonder if it is maybe time to update some of the tooling from generation 1 and 2 to be more compatible with generations 3 and 4?

Why the PDF Is Secretly the World’s Most Important File Format – Along with David Brock’s investigation into Powerpoint, this article is important in reminding us of two things, that things have not always been the way that they are and the way we got to now. Maybe we should demand better? Or maybe we need to spend more time reflecting on the past.

The story of the invention of the PDF may not have a legal battle at the center of it or a hook like a Suzanne Vega song to push its story forward, but it does have this scandal. And love it or hate it, Manafort’s awkward use of a tool used by basically everyone really highlights how prevalent the PDF really is.

Storytelling and Reflection

How to Keep Going – Austin Kleon reflects on the life of an artist and outlines ten things to consider in order to keep on going. Some of his suggestions include treating everyday like Groundhog day, building a bliss station and going for a walk to scar of the demons. Some other tips for staying focused include Jenny Mackness’ reflection that the last step does not matter, Jeff Haden’s suggestions that planning for a holiday is more beneficial than the holiday or Seth Godin’s reminder that the goal is change, not credit.

Maybe I’m a weirdo, but I actually feel better when I accept the fact that there’s a good chance it’s not going to get easier. Then I can focus on this question: “How to keep going?” Whether you’ve burned out, just starting out, starting over, or even if you’ve had success beyond your wildest dreams, that question always remains: “How do you keep going?”

Excellent teachers in an age of fads – Mark Esner suggests that many teachers will often make anything work to a degree. What is really needed is time for teachers to study how students learn, as well as time to reflect on their processes together. John Spencer describes this as a food truck mindset. Some similar approaches designed to support teachers with structures, rather than solutions, include Modern Learning Canvas, Agile Leadership and Disciplined Collaboration.

Many things that get labelled as “fads” might work for an individual teacher (although many things might work better) but they only become fads when divorced from their original meaning and then are spread around and are imposed on other teachers. Teachers, being brilliant, are able to make these things work as best they can, or at least to minimise harm, but they still have an opportunity cost. Worst still they add to our workload and drive teachers out of teaching.

Metrics, Thy Name is Vanity – Harold Jarche reflects on turning Google Analytics off. He instead suggests that the metric that matters (for him) is how many books he sells and how many people sign up to his courses. He gives the example of a course that had hundreds of likes and reposts, yet only one person actually registered. This has me thinking about which metric matters to me and the way in which I engage with others. Maybe Doug Belshaw is right in creating a committed group of supporters?

About a year ago I deleted Google Analytics from this website. I no longer know where visitors come from, what they find interesting, or what they click on. This has liberated my thinking and I believe has made my writing a bit better. I always wrote for myself but I would regularly peak at my statistics. Was my viewership going up? What did people read? How did they get there? What search terms were people using? — Who cares? There are a lot of numbers that ‘social media experts’ will tell you to maximize. But there are few that make any difference.

TER #109 – How large-scale tests affect school management with Marten Koomen – 04 March 2018 – In this interview, Marten Koomen addresses the question of how Victoria went from a state that was a leader in content knowledge and democratic values to the launch of a content-free platform driven by the terror of performativity? (My attempt at notes here.) This continues a conversation started last year. For me, this touches on Audrey Watter’s point about technology as a system.

We are all part collectivist, individualists neoliberals and skeptics, so to identify in one corner is disingenuous.

The male glance: how we fail to take women’s stories seriously – podcast – Lili Loofbourow rewrites the wrong that has male art is epic, universal, and profoundly meaningful, while Women’s creations as domestic, emotional and trivial. This critique has ramifications far beyond fiction.

Consider this a rational corrective to centuries of dismissive shrugs, then: look for the gorilla. Do what we already automatically do with male art: assume there is something worthy and interesting hiding there. If you find it, admire it. And outline it, so that others will see it too. Once you point it out, we’ll never miss it again. And we will be better for seeing as obvious and inevitable something that previously – absent the instructions – we simply couldn’t perceive.

FOCUS ON … Cambridge Analytica

This month saw the revelation of the ways in which Cambridge Analytica used and abused data scraped from Facebook to nudge voters in the 2016 election. It remains to be seen whether this is the start of a new era. In part this reminds me of the changes in the way people saw things after Snowden. Thinking about Doug Belshaw’s web timeline, maybe this will mark a new era of informed consent. Here then is a collection of responses to the current crisis.

Background

• ‘A grand illusion’: seven days that shattered Facebook’s facade – Olivia Solon provides a timeline associated with the breaches stemming back to 2015. Solon suggests that privacy settings should be renamed publicity settings.

• My Cow Game Extracted Your Facebook Data – Ian Bogust discusses his experience creating a game on Facebook and explains how the Pandora’s box associated with external apps is one that they cannot be closed.

• How Calls for Privacy May Upend Business for Facebook and Google – David Streitfeld, Natasha Singer and Steven Erlanger explore the history of privacy and data collection associated with Google and Facebook. They wonder what the impact will be of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation.

• The people owned the web, tech giants stole it. This is how we take it back – Jonathon Freeland argues that Cambridge Analytica represents an attempt to reverse the internet’s push for the decentralization of power, to instead restore the traditional imbalance. The concern though is this recentralising of power is being done in such a way as if it were “the organic word of the crowd itself, spread virally from one person to another, with no traces or fingerprints left by those at the top.”

• Spy Contractor’s Idea Helped Cambridge Analytica Harvest Facebook Data – Nicholas Confessore and Matthew Rosenber report on the revelation of the informal links between Cambridge Analytica and US spy agency, Palantir.

• On The Obama Did The EXACT Same Thing Argument – Kin Lane explains that although Obama’s use of data may have been technically similar to Trump, the topics discussed in 2012 (big government, 2nd amendment, healthcare etc) were different to those pushed in 2016 (Mexicans coming for their jobs, the Muslim people coming to kills us, the community college mass shooting down the street being false flag, how queers and drug dealers should die, and how the Jews running the deep state had rigged the election.)

• Facebook scraped call, text message data for years from Android phones – Sean Gallagher reports on the way that Facebook has been collecting call data on Android phones after inadvertently being given access to contacts.

• ICE Uses Facebook Data to Find and Track Suspects, Internal Emails Show – Lee Fang explains how the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency uses backend Facebook data to locate and track suspects.

• Hero to zero in Silicon Valley: Chips with Everything podcast – Jordan Erica Webber is joined by Brad Stone of Bloomberg and Dr Bianca Wright from the University of Coventry to look at the history of Silicon Valley giants and why we’re so slow to pull back from the tech companies we are most disgusted by.

• We were warned about Cambridge Analytica. Why didn’t we listen? – Nicole Kobie lists a raft of reports involving Facebook and shady uses of data, such as Obama’s 2012 campaign and 2015 revolutions about Cambridge Analytica. She contends that this time is different as there are a number of whistleblowers who have come forward.

• Roger McNamee: “I Think You Can Make a Legitimate Case that Facebook Has Become Parasitic” – Roger McNamee shares his efforts to get Facebook to fix its business model, but has come to the realisation that the libertarian values prevent this from happening.

• Growth At Any Cost: Top Facebook Executive Defended Data Collection In 2016 Memo — And Warned That Facebook Could Get People Killed – Ryan Mac reports that an internal memo sent by Andrew Bosworth in 2016 shared fears that Facebook’s quest for ‘growth at all costs’ could cost the lives of users through bullying or terrorism.

• ‘Utterly horrifying’: ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine – Paul Lewis reports the concerns of Sandy Parakilas, the former platform operations manager at Facebook responsible for policing data breaches by third-party software developers. Parakilas says that his warnings associated with possible bad actors were ignored due to concerns around public relations.

• Leaked: Cambridge Analytica’s blueprint for Trump victory – Brittany Kaiser, the second former Cambridge Analytica employee to come out, discusses a presentation documenting the Trump campaign. This includes an insight into a number of strategies used.

• Mozilla ‘presses pause’ on Facebook ads over data-mining claims – Alex Hern reports that Mozilla has paused its ads on Facebook due to concerns around the privacy of users.

• Gold Coast council dumps plan to mine Facebook data from Commonwealth Games visitors using free wi-fi – Elise Kinsella reports that the Gold Coast Councils decided to dump a move to mine Facebook data gained by forcing visitors to sign in with Facebook to use the ‘free’ wifi.

Responses

• Facebook’s Surveillance Machine – Zeynep Tufekei explains that what Cambridge Analytica did may not have been a breach, in the technical sense, but it was a breach of trust. Facebook failed to gain informed consent, leading to the exploitation of users and their data.

• Fish that swim upstream & shipwrecks – Borrowing from the work of Paul Virilio, Benjamin Doxtdator explains that when we created social media, we also created the shipwreck that is Cambridge Analytica at the same time.

• Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica problems are nothing compared to what’s coming for all of online publishing – Doc Searls asks the question, “What will happen when the Times, the New Yorker and other pubs own up to the simple fact that they are just as guilty as Facebook of leaking its readers’ data to other parties, for—in many if not most cases—God knows what purposes besides “interest-based” advertising?”

• Facebook: is it time we all deleted our accounts? – Arwa Mahdawl explains that the issues associated with Cambridge Analytica are only the tip of the iceberg, as Facebook is only one of many platforms engaged in surveillance capitalism. The alternative though is not necessarily clear.

• Big data is watching you – and it wants your vote – Jamie Bartlett argues that blaming Nix and Cambridge Analytica is missing the point that every platform uses some form of A/B testing, micro-targeting, neural nudges and data analytics.

• Why education is embracing Facebook-style personality profiling for schoolchildren – Ben Williamson explains that it is not only politics drifting to behavioural government, but education policy and practice too are beginning to embrace a behavioural science of algorithm-based triggers and nudges which are tuned to personality and mood. Whether it be through applications like ClassDojo or PISA’s move into psychometrics, education is mining beneath the surface to capture more and more details about personality, character and emotions.

• Cambridge Analytica: the data analytics industry is already in full swing – David Beer says we need to realise that the analysis of data is deeply embedded in all the structures of our lives in which we live.

• If You’re Pissed About Facebook’s Privacy Abuses, You Should Be Four Times As Angry At The Broadband Industry – Karl Bode points out that if we are really worried about privacy and the misuse of data then our attention should be on the internet service providers who have been caught out on numerous occasions helping governments spy on customers, as well as selling records of websites clicked.

• Cambridge Analytica is bad, but Palantir is fucking terrifying – Drew Millard uses a blueprint of a patent submitted by Palentir to provide insight into the sort of reach their surveillance solutions have.

• Why I deleted Facebook – Derek Sivers explains why he has quit Facebook. There are a host of others recorded on the #IndieWeb wiki, including Elon Musk.

• For Some Students, #DeleteFacebook Is Not Really an Option – Tina Nazerian discusses some of the challenges for students associated with deleting Facebook. In particular, she highlights the dependency developed as a consequence for using it as a learning space.

• Facebooked, Googled And Recovering Imagination – Sherri Spelic returns to two books written about Google and Facebook, highlighting that many of the current concerns around regulation were identified then. In response, Spelic calls more more imagination, look up, pay attention and pause.

• Facebook – to delete, or not to delete? – The Luddbrarian suggests that what makes the current #DeleteFacebook campaign different is that the data breaches allowed Trump to win. The problem with this is that it overlooks the problem at the base of such automated solutions. What we need is to widen our technological imagination and consider how Facebook could be better.

• Don’t Delete Facebook. Do Something About It – Siva Vaidhyanathan suggests that it will take more than a few users leaving to impact Facebook, instead we need to turn our attention to activism and supporting collective groups, such as scientific organizations, universities, libraries, museums, newspapers and civic organizations.

• Silicon Valley Has Failed to Protect Our Data. Here’s How to Fix It – Paul Ford proposes the creation of a Digital Protection Agency to clean up the toxic data spill. This touches on what Mike Caulfield calls Info-Environmentalism.

• It’s Time to Regulate the Internet – Franklin Foer says that the time has arrived for the United States to create its own regulatory infrastructure, designed to accord with our own values and traditions.

• Why have we given up our privacy to Facebook and other sites so willingly? – Alex Hern suggests that we are not always aware with social media what we are giving up. He argues that where change is needed is around informed consent.

• OAuth Has Many Flaws But It is The Best We Have At The Moment – Kin Lane argues that there is nothing stopping businesses from providing informed consent associated with OAuth, referring to Slack as an example, rather it is a choice. Therefore the answer is policy and regulation.

• Facebook Is Screwed, And It’s Taking Us With It – Anthony Caruana contends that like Microsoft in the early 2000’s, Facebook needs to stop worrying about features and instead focus on securing personal data.

• Don’t waste the Cambridge Analytica scandal: it’s a chance to take control of our data – Scott Ludlam argues that we are at a crossroads, with one path leading to data sovereignty and the other extending the grip of surveillance capitalism.

• The Cambridge Analytica-Facebook Debacle: A Legal Primer – Andrew Woods provides a legal breakdown as to how Cambridge Analytica maybe prosecuted. One of the interesting points is that although they may have broken developer policies, it did so through the front door.

• Platform Literacy in a Time of Mass Gaslighting – Or – That Time I Asked Cambridge Analytica for My Data – Autumn Caines documents the steps she took to try and get an insight into the data held by Cambridge Analytica.

• Personality Tests and the Downfall of Democracy – Ben Werdmuller explains how the use of personality quizzes on Facebook have been used to develop detailed profiles of users. The problem is that this is how the platform was designed.

• Facebook’s about-face and what it means for the future of news – Antony Funnell speaks with Mathew Ingram, Gabriele Boland and Gautum Mishra about the recent changes to Facebook’s algorithms to deprioritse the sharing of serious news to prioritise the personal.

Alternative Solutions

• The Best Alternative For Every Facebook Feature – Mai Schotz cobbles together a group of apps and services to replace those provided by Facebook, such as Nuzzel, Signal and Nextdoor. Sadly, no mention of the #IndieWeb.

• Can Social Media Be Saved? – Kevin Roose provides three possible interventions to rescue social media: give power to the users, create a federated network and put expiration dates on social graphs.

• Freeing Myself from Facebook – Jonathon Lacour documents how he reclaimed his Facebook (and Instagram) data on his own site before deleting his account.

• All the URLs you need to block to actually stop using Facebook – Nikhil Sonnad provides a long list of entries to add to your host file in order to completely block Facebook.

• Back to the Blog – Dan Cohen suggests it is psychological gravity, not technical inertia, that is the bigger antagonist of the open web. His answer is to write more under our own banner as a model for those who are to come.

• Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you – Dylan Curran shows how much of your information platforms likes of Facebook and Google store about you without you even realising it, as well as some ways to take action.

• Beware the smart toaster: 18 tips for surviving the surveillance age – Alex Hern and Arwa Mahdawi provide a number of tips to survive in a world of surveillance. They include securing old accounts, turning off notifications and retraining the brain to focus.

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READ WRITE RESPOND #027

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

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Cover image via JustLego101.