The Story of Firefox OS

4 responses on “ The Story of Firefox OS”

1. Martin Weller looks back at twenty years of EdTech, highlighting the various moments that have stood out across the journey. This brings together many of the pieces that he has written for his 25 years of EdTech series that he has written to celebrate 25 years of ALT. As he points out in his introduction, we are not very good at looking back. This post then offers an opportunity to stop and do so in a structured manner. Another interesting take on history is Ben Francis’ post on the Firefox OS.

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2. My Month of July
   LinkedIn recently reminded me that it has been two years in my current position. I was shocked, time has flown. As I touched on recently, it has been a whirlwind of an experience as is the nature I imagine of working within a transformational project. The biggest lesson learnt is that in a lean environment (or at least an attempt at a lean environment) you sometimes get stuck doing what needs to be done, rather than what you may prefer to be doing, which in my case is working with teachers and schools. I am currently working on refining a scale-able implementation process associated with student reporting.
   At home, the common cold came back, again. I swear we had overcome it for this season, but no. Also, new term and new song for my daughter’s school. So I think I am up to 20+ listens of Try Everything from Zootopia. Another great growth mindset anthem. Might also say something about the algorithms at play.
   I am learning through practice that the easiest way to learn something is to watch and copy somebody else. Scary how quickly our youngest picks everything up. Understanding Mal Lee and Roger Broadie’s point about the young being digitally proficient by the age of three.
   I attended DigiCon18. Although I went to some interesting sessions and sparktalks, what was great were the conversations in-between. This included discussing the Ultranet with Rachel Crellin, the pedagogy associated to ongoing reporting with Chris Harte, connected learning with Jenny Ashby, parenting and partnerships with Lucas Johnson, implementing the Digital Technologies curriculum with Darrel Branson, purpose and leadership with Riss Leung and direct instruction with Richard Olsen.
   In other areas, I have been listening to Amy Shark, Florence and the Machine, DJ Shadow, The National and Guy Pearce. I started reading Adam Greenfield’s Radical Technologies. I also updated my site, moving back to ZenPress and adding in a new series of header images developed by JustLego101.
   In regards to my writing, here was my month in posts:

   REVIEW: New Dark Age – Technology and the End of the Future

   My Life in Black and White

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

   Teaching Game Design with Bill Cohen (TER Podcast): Cameron Malcher interviews Bill Cohen about game-design through play-based learning. Cohen goes beyond the usual coding and computer-aided approaches to focusing on ‘low-tech’ games. This included engaging with board games and outdoor games. This play-based approach focuses on developing clear metalanguage, feedback for mastery and working with an iterative design process. This reminds me in part of Amy Burvall’s notion of ‘rigorous whimsy‘ and BreakoutEDU. Some resources Cohen shared include Boardgame Geek and Lady Blackbird, while in a seperate post, Clare Rafferty shared a list of games associated with History. For a different take on games, in a recent episode of the IRL Podcast, Veronica Belmont and Ashley Carman take a look at gamification in everyday life. Some examples of this include notifications on smartphones, likes and retweets on Twitter or the endorsements on Linkedin.

   If there is one thing that I have learnt as a teacher is that nothing leaches out fun more than dropping a layer of education over the top of it – Bill Cohen

   Encountering harmful discourses in the classroom: Ian O’Byrne discusses the challenges of engaging in harmful discourses. He provides some ways to responding, as well as a number of ways to be proactive. This touches on what danah boyd describes as the weaponisation of worldviews.

   Howard C. Stevenson from Penn’s Graduate School of Education indicates three steps to address these harmful discourses as they enter your classroom.

   Start with you – Process your own feelings, and address your own vulnerabilities before entering the classroom. Develop a support system with your colleagues.
   Practice – Classroom reactions usually happen in a split second. Prepare yourself for these instances by role-playing with colleagues in your building, or online with your PLN.
   After an incident – Resist the urge to condemn the action or content. First try to understand the motivation if is disseminated through your classroom or building. Allow the school’s code of conduct to address instances where students actively spread this information. Strongly explain to students that these harmful discourses and the messages being spread about individuals and groups are not accepted. You will not accept the silencing of voices.
   Keep talking – After these events, the best course of action is to keep talking. Difficult discussions will often ensue, but children and adults alike need to be able to process their feelings and reactions. This is an opportunity to shut down and be silent, or engage and promote change.

   How well do we ‘face up to’ racism?: Anna Del Conte provides some take-aways from a course on racism. Some of the activities included what racism is, a timeline of diversity in Australia and listening to stories. Another resource I am reminded of is Dan Haesler’s interview with Stan Grant. In part this stemmed from Grant’s speech addressing racism.

   Multiculturalism is not an outcome but a process. Racism may not be deliberate BUT anti-racism is always deliberate.

   Can Reading Make You Happier?: Ceridewn Dovey takes a look at bibliotherapy and the act of reading as a cure. Some argue that readers are more empathetic, while others suggest that it provides pleasure, whatever the particular outcome maybe, reading has shown to provide many health benefits. As Kin Lane suggests, when in doubt, read a book. Zat Rana suggests that this reading is not about being right or wrong, but rather about being open new ideas and lessons.

   So even if you don’t agree that reading fiction makes us treat others better, it is a way of treating ourselves better. Reading has been shown to put our brains into a pleasurable trance-like state, similar to meditation, and it brings the same health benefits of deep relaxation and inner calm. Regular readers sleep better, have lower stress levels, higher self-esteem, and lower rates of depression than non-readers. “Fiction and poetry are doses, medicines,” the author Jeanette Winterson has written. “What they heal is the rupture reality makes on the imagination.”

   Historic Tale Construction Kit – Bayeux: This site allows users to recreate the Bayeux Tapestry. Clearly this is a great resource for history students, but it is also an interesting approach to storytelling.

   Two German students originally wrote the Historic Tale Construction Kit, with Flash. Sadly, their work isn’t available anymore, only remembered. This new application is a tribute, but also an attempt to revive the old medieval meme, with code and availability that won’t get lost.

   Edtech

   Webmentions: Enabling Better Communication on the Internet: Chris Aldrich provides an introduction to webmentions. This includes unpacking the specification, the notion of mentions, the idea of kinds and way in which sites are potentially able to connect two-ways. This continues Aldrich’s efforts to document the IndieWeb, which has included a thorough overview of the IndieWeb, the future of feed readers and reimagining academic research. This introduction is different to Aaron Parecki’s guide to sending your first webmentions or breakdown of the oAuth standard.

   Breaking down the walls between the internet’s many social silos, Webmentions offer a new level of freedom for web interactions.

   Twenty Years of Edtech: Martin Weller looks back at twenty years of EdTech, highlighting the various moments that have stood out across the journey. This brings together many of the pieces that he has written for his 25 years of EdTech series that he has written to celebrate 25 years of ALT. As he points out in his introduction, we are not very good at looking back. This post then offers an opportunity to stop and do so in a structured manner. Another interesting take on history is Ben Francis’ post on the Firefox OS.

   What has changed, what remains the same, and what general patterns can be discerned from the past twenty years in the fast-changing field of edtech?

   Learning To Code By Writing Code Poems: Murat Kemaldar discusses the connections between coding and poetry. He re-imagines the various rules and constructs in a more human form. This continues a conversation started between Darrel Branson, Tony Richards and Ian Guest on Episode 234 of the Ed Tech Team Podcast about whether everyone should learn poetry and coding. This is also something Royan Lee shares.

   In all languages, there is probably a word for love. You kinda know what it means, but not really, because it is so subjective. But still, there is a word for it. But in JavaScript, there is no “love,” until you say there is. It can be whatever you want it to be.

   18 best practices for working with data in Google Sheets: Ben Collins provides a guide for working with data in Google Sheets. Some of the useful steps that stood out were documenting the steps you take, adding an index column for sorting and referencing, creating named ranges for your datasets and telling the story of one row to check the data. This is all in preparation for his new course on data analysis. Another tip I picked up from Jay Atwood has been to import data, if moving from Excel to Sheets, rather than simply copying and pasting.

   This article describes 18 best practices for working with data in Google Sheets, including examples and screenshots to illustrate each concept in action.

   Zuck’s Empire of Oily Rags: Cory Doctorow provides a commentary on the current state of affairs involving Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. Rather than blame the citizens of the web, he argues that the fault exists with the mechanics in the garage and the corruption that they have engaged with. The question that seems to remain is if this is so and we still want our car fixed, where do we go? Doctorow has also recorded a reading of the article.

   It’s fashionable to treat the dysfunctions of social media as the result of the naivete of early technologists, who failed to foresee these outcomes. The truth is that the ability to build Facebook-like services is relatively common. What was rare was the moral recklessness necessary to go through with it.

   How the Blog Broke the Web: Amy Hoy reflects on the early days of publishing on the web, where people would handcraft pages and connect them using a contents page. This was superseded by Moveable Type and the chronological blog, subsequently killing off the non-diariest. I was not really engaged in the web back then so it is hard to comment as Jeremey Keith, Duncan Stephen and Kicks Condor have, but it does remind me of the current debates around blogging. I think that all these spaces are forever changing and developing. Sometimes this is based on wholesale changes, but usually people have their own particular reason. Maybe some people will drop off with Gutenberg, but then again sometimes these things have their day.

   Movable Type didn’t just kill off blog customization. It (and its competitors) actively killed other forms of web production.

   Are We Listening?: Jose Picardo argues that the question about whether we should have more or less technology in schools misses the point. What matters is how it is used. For example, those who argue for more knowledge often fail to put the effort into actually understanding how technology is used in education. This comes back to the importance of why and having a framework to guide you. For a different perspective on technology in the classroom, read David Perry’s thread.

   The very teachers who read William and nod vigorously about the need to know stuff before you can understand or do stuff in the context of curriculum are unable to draw parallels between their dismissal of digital technology and their own lack of knowledge about it. Rather than finding virtuosity and pride in learning about how what technology works best and in what context—so as to be able to discern the best tool for particular tasks—we seem happy to eschew whole new toolkits on the dodgy grounds of ignorance and misconception.

   Storytelling and Reflection

   Throwing Our Own Ideas Under the Bus: Ross Cooper discusses the idea of putting your worst foot forward taken from Adam Grant’s book Originals. This involves trusting the idea at hand and starting with reasons why it might fail. Cooper suggests that this can be useful as it disarms the audience, critique involves effort, helps to build trust and leaves audience with a more favourable assessment. He also looks at this alongside Simon Sinek’s concept of ‘start with why’, highlighting the reason why and the challenges that might be faced. I wonder if the challenge in focusing on the why and why not is about finding balance? This reminds me of Malcolm Gladwell’s discussion of Generous Orthodoxy.

   As an elementary school principal, here’s the approach I’ve been taking with change: “Here’s what we’re doing, here’s why we’re doing it, and here are some of the ways I will support you!” Now I’ll be toying around with the idea of also proactively addressing the elephants in the room. Furthermore, we should allow for teachers and staff to respectfully and honestly discuss these obstacles, as opposed to us trying to sweep them under the rug. After all, flaws will be talked about in one way or another, and critical conversation that gives everyone a voice is preferred to potential venting in the faculty room.

   The future will be dockless: could a city really run on ‘floating transport’?: Alex Hern discusses the rise of floating transport, something that I touched on recently with the demise of oBike in Melbourne. Hern captures a number of stories from around the world of hope for efficiency, but also issues associated with shared spaces. I am taken by Hern’s closing remarks concerning reliability over flexibility. This leaves me thinking that sometimes what is required is community and sometimes that involves patience. What is the cost to the public/private transport industry when everyone relies on private personal transport models like Bird or Uber?

   Ultimately, floating transport is going to have to learn another lesson that conventional transportation bodies have taken to heart: flexible may be fun, but cities run on reliable.

   i am sorry: Pernille Ripe reflects on life as a connected educator. She discusses the stress, anxieties and perceived responsibilities that come with being an educelebrity. Although we often talk about the technicalities associated with being (digitally) literate, what is sometimes overlooked are the social consequences. This is something that Austin Kleon also recently reflected upon.

   So it is time for me to step back a bit. To do less work publicly, to share less, to not be so immediately available. To be just Pernille, the person who doesn’t have all of the answers necessarily. That only creates something because she cannot help it. That gives all of her when she is in a public space, but then steps back when she is private.

   Facebook’s Push for Facial Recognition Prompts Privacy Alarms: Natasha Singer discusses Facebook’s continual push for facial recognition. She traces some of the history associated with Facebook’s push into this area, including various roadblocks such as GDPR. She also looks at some of the patent applications. This made me wonder how many patents actually come to fruition and how many are a form of indirect marketing? Elsewhere, Doug Levin explains why facial recognition has no place in schools, especially the way Curtin University is using it.

   Cameras near checkout counters could capture shoppers’ faces, match them with their social networking profiles and then send purchase confirmation messages to their phones.

   The anti-cottonwool schools where kids stare down risk in favour of nature play: This article from the ABC discusses a couple of schools in Western Australia that have reduced the rules on outdoor play. This reminds me of Narissa Leung’s use of old bricks and Adrian Camm’s use of odd material to engage with play.

   Mr Smith said whereas students would previously come to the office complaining of injury, they are now too busy to make a fuss. “Students are becoming more resilient and getting on with it.” The school has just three rules — no stacking milk creates, no walking on the large wooden spools and no tying rope to yourself.

   The Dangers of Distracted Parenting: Erika Christakis discusses the challenges of parenting in a digital age. This all comes down to distractions and as I have touched on before, this is not always digital. I really like danah boyd’s strategy for dealing with this, that is to say why you are using a device. This openness offers a useful point of reflection. I think that the conclusion to this article says it all though, “put down your damned phone.”

   Parents should give themselves permission to back off from the suffocating pressure to be all things to all people. Put your kid in a playpen, already! Ditch that soccer-game appearance if you feel like it. Your kid will be fine. But when you are with your child, put down your damned phone.

   FOCUS ON … SPACE

   I was recently challenged on the place of space in regards to learning. I recorded a microcast on the topic, but I haven’t had the chance to put all my thoughts together. In the interim, I have collected together a number of posts on the topic. If you have any others to add to the mix, I would love to read them.

   Imagining Different Learning Spaces: Jon Corripo provided his suggestions for redesigning a classroom space which again sparked my imagination.

   Flexible Seating: What’s the Point?: Chris Wejr reflects on his experiences in reviewing flexible learning spaces. This includes the reasons to re-design, as well as a series of thoughts associated with the process of re-imagining.

   Why I Hate Classroom Themes: Emily Fintelman reflects on classroom themes and wonders what impact they are really having on learning. She suggests that our focus should be on how spaces are structured and strategies that can be used to give students more voice.

   Flexible Classrooms: Research Is Scarce, But Promising: What is interesting about this report is that rather than discussing furniture in isolation, it is considered as a part of a wider conversation about learning and environment. The impact of flexible spaces though can be almost incidental at times, as is with the case of Maths. This speaks of agency as much as it does of the chairs in the classroom.

   Adding the Learning Back to Space: A reflection on an outdoor learning space and the potential of technology to increase learning and engagement.

   Benefits of Flexible Learning Spaces #1 Teaching in Teams: Stephen Rowe explains that teachers working in teams is a significant benefit that arises from teaching in an open learning space.

   Designing Learning Spaces – putting the cart before the horse: June Wall and Jonathon Mascorella define learning environments as a set of physical and digital locations, context and cultures in which students learn.

   Learning Space Design Inspiration: Steve Brophy collects together a number of ideas and inspirations associated with learning spaces.

   Beanbags in Space: Matt Esterman suggests that what most teachers want is a more shiny version of what they have, because they are not trained as designers (usually) and are so often hemmed in by the expectations of current reality.

   Inquiry, noticing and the changing seasons… A tribute to the late Frank Ryan: Kath Murdoch reflects on the potential of the environment associated with inquiry.

   Coalescent Spaces: Dave White considers the impact of digital technologies on the creation of coalescent learning spaces.

   Seeing Spaces: Bret Victor reimagines the makerspace built around tinkering and argues that it is in ‘seeing’ that we are able to make this a science.

   Communities, Networks and Connected Learning with Google: Technology enables us to easily develop digital communities and networks inside and outside of the classroom. The reality though is that connected learning is as much about creating spaces for learning and building on that.

   READ WRITE RESPOND #031
   So that is July 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, maybe you want to subscribe or buy me a coffee? Archives can be found here.

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3. The team at Verge look back on 10 years of the Android operating system. With a focus on the stock open sourced code it is interesting to consider what has been developed outside of this. It is also interesting to compare this with Mozilla’s efforts to enter the mobile market with Firefox OS.

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4. My Month of October
   I remember a few years ago participating in ATC21s project exploring collaborative problem solving. They defined it as follows:

   It is easy to think of Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) as a highfalutin euphemism for what is commonly known as group work. However, they are not the same. The major difference is that CPS focuses on the skills and attributes people bring, rather than the jobs people do. In a traditional classroom, group work usually involves splitting a task between members in order to do something more efficiently or simply to share responsibilities. These contributions are then usually assessed at the end of the outcome. With CPS, the focus is not so much about product, but what that process can bring to bear.

   I think that the project I am currently engaged with is the first time I personally have truly engaged within a project involving so many moving parts that no matter how skilled you are it would not be possible to be over every aspect. This was brought to the fore this month when one of the pieces associated with development was temporarily offline. No matter what I did, all I could do was wait. I think that this is the real 21st century, one of complexity, communication and moving parts.
   On the family front, my wife and I took our two girls to see Small Foot at Village Junior. In the days of digital downloads and dwindling numbers, it was a reminder that sometimes the opportunity is to be different. With various activities for children beforehand, a built in intermission and lower seating, it was a great experience. The film was also interesting. A fun loving deep philosophical romp. We were all winners.
   Personally, I have been participating in the 9x9x25 challenge. What I have enjoyed most is finding new voices to converse with. I have also started reading Zeynep Tufekci’s Twitter and Tear Gas as a part of Bryan Alexander’s next book club. New music that has grabbed me this month has been St.Vincent’s reworking of Masseduction, the soundtrack for A Star is Born, Honey by Robyn and Kimbra’s reimagining of Primal Heart.
   In regards to my writing, here was my month in posts:

   Reflections on Fijian Education: Using the Modern Learning Canvas as a lens, here are some of my observations on the resources, policies and purpose of school in Fiji.

   Digital Mindfulness, Can It Exist?: Building on my thoughts of ‘being analogue’, I unpack what it might mean to be ‘digitally mindful’ and does such a thing exist?

   Would the World Be Better without Mobile Devices?: This is a response to my reading of James Bridle’s book The New Dark Age and the place of the smartphones in the future.

   In addition to all this, here then are some of the thoughts that have also left me thinking:

   Learning and Teaching
   Flip the System Australia: Jon Andrews discusses the work of some of the school leaders pushing back on the accountability agenda to respond to the questions and concersn of their own contexts. Along with posts from Deborah Netolicky and Cameron Paterson, the editors of Flip the System Australia provide an overview of the various pieces included in the book designed to provide an alternative voices within the educational debate. An interview from the ACEL Conference was also featured on the TER Podcast.

   Suggesting that there is a clear scientific or evidence-based approach that can overcome Australia’s vast geographic separations, considerable inequality and conflicting system stances on the purpose of education, is troubling. That is not to say that evidence cannot tell us useful things. Creating a sense of how we can move to overcome these burdens, achieve purposeful outcomes for students and create the conditions to support effective teacher working, requires consensus. The book notes a desire for coalition and networked knowledge sharing to achieve these things, but also solidarity with solidity, a commitment to overcome political and ideological motivations that hinder progress. Clarity and coherence sit at the core of this. When we are divided on key matters, it can create opportunities for constructive debate, but debate must lead somewhere.

   Getting personal: conferring with learners as they inquire: Kath Murdoch discusses the importance of conferring during the inquiry process. These conversations can contribute to formative assessment, getting to know students building trust, providing feedback and learning about learning. To support all this, Murdoch provides a list of tips and questions, such as providing multiple ideas if suggesting solutions or articulating what the child has taught you. I have found one of the biggest challenges with conferencing is to support students in owning this. In a different post, Tom Whitby discusses the power associated with communicating and conferring with parents and explains how this can influence our knowledge of students and the way they learn.

   Critical to the success of our experience with personal inquiry is the role of the teacher in conferring with learners. Far from being a routine that allows learners to simply “go off on their own” , teachers are working the room as coaches, guides, observers and co-researchers. Scheduled and spontaneous conferences are the mainstay of the teachers’ role during iTime.

   Video in Situ: John Stewart reflects on the way in which the La Blogothèque website / YouTube channel redefines the video experience, creating new and unique possibilities. He wonders if the same changes could be incorporated into the filming of educational videos for blended and online courses, in particular, the possibilities for capturing field work. I have written about the Take Away Shows before, discussing the possibility of redefining the whole pedagogical experience. The reference to capturing field work reminds me of an early Google Glass exercise capturing CERN.

   There are a few programs playing with instructional video in really interesting ways. At OU, we have moved away from back-of-the-class lecture capture, producing instead sets of short videos where the instructor explains the key concepts. We have built a light screen so instructors can write like the would on a white board while looking into the camera and talking to the students. I think this takes us passed the poor substitution standard and into augmentation.

   VFX Artist Reveals the True Scale of the Universe: The team at Corridor Crew, how big the universe would be if the Earth were shrunk down to the size of a tennis ball. There are sometimes questions about the limits of the next best thing to being there. However, this video visualises something that you would be unable to imagine otherwise. Another resource associated with the universe is Alice Leung’s use of Ozobots to represent the eclipse and the nitrogen cycle.
   [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCTuirkcRwo?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent&w=840&h=473%5D
   Edtech
   Silicon Valley’s Saudi Arabia Problem: Anand Giridharadas explores Saudi Arabia’s growing involvement with Silicon Valley. Through their investment in SoftBank, they have invested in a long list of startups including Wag, DoorDash, WeWork, Plenty, Cruise, Katerra, Nvidia and Slack. The question is at what cost? Silence? Support? With the recent disappearance of a Saudi Journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, these are compromises that need to be considered. Listen to the recent episode of the Have You Heard podcast for more on Anand Giridharadas’ work. Also read the work of Audrey Watters and Benjamin Doxtdator for more discussion on investment in Silicon Valley (and subsequently EdTech).

   As Saudi Arabia establishes its new role as one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent investors, the risk grows that its investments will purchase silence. Companies that pride themselves on openness and freedom may find themselves unable to speak ill of one of their largest investors.

   My URL Is: Eddie Hinkle has started a new fortnightly podcast interviewing different people within the IndieWeb community about their websites. Although the conversations can become rather technical, they do provide an insight into why people make some of the choices that they do. So far Hinkle has interviewed Aaron Parecki and Rosemary Orchard. In some ways this is similar to Uses This, a site dedicated to the workflows people use, David Hopkins’ curated book #EdTechRations and Alan Levine’s #WhyDomains project.

   My Url Is features a new guest every two weeks to talk about how they got involved with the IndieWeb and what hopes, goals and aspirations they have for the community and for their website. The guests are a combination of those both new to the IndieWeb and those who have helped build it from the beginning.

   Stupid Qubit – Quantum Computing for the Clueless/001: Jim Mortleman and Stuart Houghton begin their exploration of quantum computing. This is humorous look at such a dry and difficult concept. Along with the Crash Course Computer Science series</a>, these resources provide a different perspective to technology. Mortleman and Houghton are also open to questions.

   In this episode, we answer all these questions and more with the help of top quantum physicists including Dr Jerry Chow of IBM, Professor John Martinis of Google and Professor Simon Benjamin of Oxford University.

   Android: a 10-year visual history: The team at Verge look back on 10 years of the Android operating system. With a focus on the stock open sourced code it is interesting to consider what has been developed outside of this. It is also interesting to compare this with Mozilla’s efforts to enter the mobile market with Firefox OS.

   After 10 years of being the world’s most dominant OS, we wanted to take a look back at how Andy Rubin’s brainchild has evolved into the industry titan that it is today. What’s changed? What has (sometimes stubbornly) stayed the same? What new updates came with every version? Because Android is an open sourced OS, different manufacturers have applied their own skins — i.e. Samsung’s TouchWiz, OnePlus’ OxygenOS — so we’re focusing on stock Android for this visual history. The Android we know today — with all its machine learning capabilities and digital voice assistant — wasn’t without its fair share of clunkiness before getting to where it is now. Its many innovations would inspire, borrow, or improve upon other features seen on its main rival, Apple’s iOS.

   Friction-Free Racism: Chris Gilliard unpacks the inherent racism encoded into the operations of the surveillance state. See for example Spotify’s recent announcement to add genealogy data to their algorithm. As a part of this investigation, Gilliard provides a number of questions to consider when thinking about such data.

   The end game of a surveillance society, from the perspective of those being watched, is to be subjected to whims of black-boxed code extended to the navigation of spaces, which are systematically stripped of important social and cultural clues. The personalized surveillance tech, meanwhile, will not make people less racist; it will make them more comfortable and protected in their racism.

   Storytelling and Reflection
   The Comforting Fictions of Dementia Care: This lengthy read provides an interesting insight into the life and times of those with dementia. It reflects on the changes in care, with the move away from drugs and creating the conditions to support memory. Associated with this is the problem of lying and memory. It is interesting to consider this alongside Clive Thompson’s book Smarter Than You Think, especially in regards to his discussion of memory and technology. This also reminds me of the episode ‘San Junipero’ from Season Three of Black Mirror.

   Fifty years ago, it was common in nursing homes to use physical restraints to tie a resident to a chair or a bed, to prevent them from causing trouble or coming to harm. Then, in 1987, a federal law was passed that limited the use of physical restraints to situations where the safety of the resident or someone else was at stake—they were not to be used for punishment or for the convenience of the staff. The physical restraints were then often replaced by chemical ones, and residents were tranquillized with powerful antipsychotics such as Haldol. Many people thought the use of such drugs was a terrible thing, so they began searching for non-pharmaceutical alternatives to quelling troublesome behaviors, and psychological placebos such as fake bus stops proved to be quite effective. One patient who had been given Haldol every night to stop him from screaming was so calmed by Simulated Presence Therapy that he no longer had to be tranquillized at all.

   Chilly Gonzales breaks down the essence of music: Whether it be his version of Daft Punk’s Too Long or contribution to Jamie Lidell’s work, I have always been fascinated with the work of Chilly Gonzales, long before I even knew who Chilly Gonzales was. This article from Cian Traynor provides an insight into the thoughts and actions behind the bravado. If you have not experienced the ‘genius’ before, I highly recommend his masterclasses, especially his breakdown of Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off. Another interesting look at the history of music was provided by Vox’s look at the influence of the Fairlight CMI.

   If you can steal without getting caught, then you’ve pulled off the perfect crime – which is what an artist is supposed to do. You’re not meant to come up with new things as an artist; no artist would say that’s what they do. It’s all about taking your influences and hopefully filtering them through a personal viewpoint. more marginalia here

   Warm Data (Team Human): In a discussion with Douglas Rushkoff, Nora Bateson discusses the concept of ‘Warm Data’ and the interconnected nature of everything. For Bateson, it is the relationships which bring the data alive. This all stems from the notion of ‘warm ideas’, as idea that leads you into another idea of relations. In this circumstance it is about going beyond departments and instead focusing on context. I was left wondering where this might fit with Pasi Salsberg’s push for ‘small data’ in education.

   The underlying premise of the IBI is to address and experiment with how we perceive. Our mandate is to look in other ways so that we might find other species of information and new patterns of connection not visible though current methodologies. We call this information “Warm Data”.(Mission Statement)

   12 Modes of Failure: Julian Stodd attempts to identify different reasons failure may occur. This is list is a useful provocation when thinking about where something may have gone wrong and what the next iteration may be. On the flipside, Stodd wrote a second post exploring 12 modes of innovation. This is what Eric Ries would describe as opportunities to pivot and change.

   Organisations fail for a broad range of reasons, but rarely for no reason at all. I found myself thinking about a taxonomy of failure: unless we deem failure to be the action of idiots and fools, we must be open to the idea that we too may fail. Paralysed or deceived by the same forces that have levelled so many other seemingly unassailable entities. So understanding modes of failure could prove to be a useful exercise in both innovation, and change: to provide the impetus to start, and the insight to succeed.

   In light of the release of Bruno Latour’s book Down to Earth in English, Ava Kofman unpacks some of the legacies of his ideas and the impact that they have had on science today. I was initially introduced to Latour and Actor-Network Theory (ANT) through Ian Guest. Bruno Latour, the Post-Truth Philosopher, Mounts a Defense of Science – Along with the concept of assemblages and rhizomatic learning, Latour’s work interests me in regards to better appreciating the connected nature of things.

   As soon as their propositions were turned into indisputable statements and peer-reviewed papers — what Latour called ready-made science — they claimed that such facts had always spoken for themselves. That is, only once the scientific community accepted something as true were the all-too-human processes behind it effectively erased or, as Latour put it, black-boxed.

   FOCUS ON … Twitter

   I have been thinking quite a bit about Twitter lately, however I have been unable to properly clarify my concerns. Having started a post a number of weeks ago, I cannot work out what my concerns are. I therefore decided in the interim to collect together all my pieces in one spot.

   Guides
   Overviews

   The Ultimate Guide to Twitter: As the name suggests, this guide written by Sue Waters and Kathleen Morris covers just about everything that you need to know from a technical perspective. I attempted such a guide before, but obviously missed a few features.

   Twitter EDU: David Truss’ one-stop-all-you-need-to-know-guide to Twitter.

   Taming Twitter for Time-strapped Teachers and Techies: Eric Curts guide to getting going with Twitter.

   The Complete Guide to Twitter Lingo: A complete glossary of terms you may come across in tweets.

   The Other Chat on Twitter: A discussion of asynchronous slow-chats as an alternative to the usual Twitter chats.

   Meeting People is Easy – on Connecting to People on Twitter: Some of the strategies that I have used to broaden my network, such as lists and chats.

   Paper Twitter: Why and How to Teach Digital Technologies with Paper: Royan Lee discusses the use of paper tweets to provide a safe and simple entry point for learners when it comes to digital technologies.

   EduTwitter

   Is there value in tweeting?: Aviva summarises some of the benefits associated with sharing student learning online.

   Twitter In My Classroom: Bec Spink share some ways that she use(d) Twitter in her classroom.

   The #TweetingAztecs Project: Jacques du Toit discusses his project involving students creating accounts for historical figures and role-playing their various interactions on Twitter.

   Professional Development: Got a Twitter Minute?: Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano shares a number of one minutes reflections to support teacher professional development.

   Add-ons

   TAGS Explorer: Martin Hawksey’s Twitter visualisation tool.

   Keeping your Twitter Archive fresh and freely hosted on Github Pages: Martin Hawksey’s guide to keeping your downloaded Twitter archive fresh on Github Pages using Google Apps Script.

   Build an instant Twitter dashboard, with just a little code: Kris Shaffer discusses tweetmineR, a suite of tools to collect, analyze, and visualize large quantities of tweets.
   Unfollowing Everybody: Anil Dash discusses the steps he took to unfollow everyone on Twitter and start again. There are some interesting ideas in this piece, such as archiving a list of people you are following.

   Reflections
   General

   A Personal Twitter Tour: Riffing on Ian Guest’s post unpacking how he uses Twitter, here are some of the ways I use(d) the platform. As a note, here are some of these habits have since changed.

   Can You Really Find Wisdom in One-line?: A response to Peter Skillen’s concern about ‘one-line wisdom’.

   Marginal Notes: Ian Guest’s blog documenting his research into professional develop in 140 characters.

   Tower of Song: Bonnie Stewart suggest that Twitter both situates users within the realm of networked scholarship, as well as enhances their sense of community and engagement in their work in general.

   What Twitter offers teachers: The evidence: Kathryn Holmes reflects on research demonstrating some of the benefits of online collaboration and communication, such as a means of connecting with like-minded teachers and control over professional learning.

   The four types of online discussion. Where are you?: Ian O’Byrne explores the four ways people generally respond when they engage online, including deliberate, dialogue, declare and debate.

   Twitter’s Past, Present and Future — Less Public Square, More Private Rooms: Preston Towers discusses Twitter and what it represents to wider society.

   Technical Twitter

   Twitter Should Eliminate the Retweet: Taylor Lorenz discusses the retweet functionality in Twitter and what it might mean to get rid of it. A number of add-ons and extensions are shared for modifying your timeline.

   “Just an Ass-Backward Tech Company”: How Twitter Lost the Internet War: Maya Kosoff looks at Twitter’s attwmpts to combat spam and abuse. One of the problem is that Twitter has never set clear guidelines for what kind of language or behavior will get somebody banned. Another challenge has been the infrastructure the platform was built on.

   Twitter is being unbundled before our eyes: Casey Newton looks at how Amazon and Reddit are breaking off various business lines from Twitter.

   Spot a Bot: Identifying Automation and Disinformation on Social Media: Bill Fitzgerald and Kris Shaffer explore the world automated disinformation (see this report from Alex Hern for an example.) They unpack the different traits assocaited with bots and how Twitter could fix this problem.

   Living In A Post Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram API World: Kin Lane discusses the current move to lock down social media APIs. He suggests that this could all have been avoided by having clearer guidelines in the beginning.

   8 Important Things You Need to Know About Twitter Hashtags: Mark Barnes helps make sense of the hashtag on Twitter and how to use them.

   Twitter Bio Generator: Use this tool to generate a Twitter bio for yourself.

   Toxic Twitter

   Justine Sacco, Internet Justice, And The Dangers Of A Righteous Mob: Tarun Wadhwa asks what would have happened if Joanne had in fact been hacked? Also makes the comparison with the Boston Bombing fiasco involving the use of social media.

   Five Tips for Twitter: Graham Brown-Martin provides a guide to what appears to the arsenal of indignant eduTwitter attack dogs and avenging angels.

   Arguing on Education Twitter: BINGO: In light of some of the sometimes unsavoury debate and derision that occurs on Twitter, Deb Netolicky collects together some of the insults and graceless disagreements in the form of a bingo board.

   The 29 Stages Of A Twitterstorm In 2018: A fictious account of how the Twitter anger factory works.

   The botnet cometh: Kris Shaffer shares his experience of the social media version of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) cyber-attack.

   Should We Tweet?

   Should Every Teacher in the World Really be on Twitter?: A collection of alternatives for cultivating connections online through aggregation, bookmarking and speaking with people.

   Is Sharing Caring? – A Reflection on Comments and Social Media: An exploration of what it mean to be caring in online spaces and how this relates to sharing. This builds upon the risks of hospitality online.

   Anyone Want To Have a Real Conversation?: Dean Shareski suggest that branding has taken a space like Twitter and turned it away from many of the casual and social interactions, to one where chats and platitudes dominate the stream.

   Twitter’s Misleading User Experience When Reporting Abuse: Bill Fitzgerald explains that when Twitter automatically hides offensive content from the people who have reported it, they create the impression that they have done something, when they have done nothing.

   Dear Twitter, It’s Not, It’s You: David Hopkins explains his waning interest in Twitter, raising concerns over the way it reflects ‘us’ and how other groups are using it.

   An Act of Heresy: Chris Betcher discusses his concerns with Twitter chats, suggesting that it wrangles Twitter to be and do something that it was not necessarily designed for.

   Why Do We Give a Tweet?: Robert Schuetz wonders if educators get “turned off” Twitter by meformer behavior that can dominate the Twitter stream?

   Is Twitter the Best Option for Online Professional Development?: Audrey Watters warns about becoming too dependent on Twitter as the solution to our professional development needs.

   Why I’m not using Twitter next month: Doug Belshaw argues that we need to replace our reliance on the likes of Facebook and Twitter before politicians think that direct digital democracy through these platforms would be a good idea.

   READ WRITE RESPOND #034
   So that is October 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. Cover image via JustLego101.

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