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TLDR 109

Too Long; Didn't Read Issue 109

Published: 2017-08-04 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome to issue #109 of TL;DR. This is a reminder that you have a fire down in genius, subtlety...and you slip through the fingers of ambiguity.

This week I shared the following:

🔖 Key Takeaways

📺 Watch

This video shares a story about young love in a Pixar-esque style. The main difference between this story and many other stories about young love is that this one focuses on LGBT contexts.

You can read more commentary about this short in this post from Nerdist.

📚 Read

Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement

This piece of research from David White and Alison Le Cornu in First Monday is a followup to their 2011 piece on the same topic. The earlier piece posits this typology of online engagement as being a continuum that exists between acting as a visitor and a resident in the ways in which we interact online. This newest piece shares a mapping process used to help visualize and reflect on our roles in these interactions.

I've often had a huge problem with the "digital natives" label as presented by Marc Prensky. I talk a bit about this in an interview I had in 2013. I prefer this look at a potential continuum that exists as we look at different practices and the tools that we utilize across these spaces. I think this provides a better heuristic as we examine our own practices and those of others to discuss ways to improve skill sets.

In my field of research, we often have regular discussions about whether the Internet, or "Google" is making us "dumber." It appears that this discussion is recently changing to be a focus on devices and social media.

This post from Jean Twenge on The Atlantic shares insight from her upcoming book. In this, Twenge unpacks the challenges of life as a super-connected kid.

When this discussion pops up in my classrooms, I typically indicate that we don't fully understand what the ultimate effect will be on individuals as we adjust to these new technologies, texts, and tools. As a parent of two little ones, I'm very aware of the role of these devices in their lives. I strive for balance in their use of these tools, and also try to remain cognizant of the messages that I send. At the end of the day, I'm aware that I'm ultimately experimenting with them and the effect this will have on their lives. I don't think we'll truly understand the impact after a generation has grown up in this soup.

My youngest child will start up pre-school next week. As a parent and educator, I'm very aware of the importance that pre-school and grades K, 1, 2, and 3 will play in her future. As an educator and researcher, I think I know that the work force when she gets to that future will be vastly different than what my Wife has encountered, or our daughter's grandmothers.

This piece from the NY Times shares some research and anecdotes from educational programs and summer camps aimed at preparing youth for their futures.

I think the focus needs to be on play, exploration, and folding in elements of computational thinking or participation in learning activities. These elements should be embedded in teaching and learning from Pre-K up through higher ed, but I think there is a need for early childhood and elementary educators to re-examine goals as they prepare our youth.

On my website, I have a scrollbar that indicates the various ways in which I view myself and my work. One of those labels changes quite often, even though no one on the planet probably cares. That is the label that often changes from hacker, to tinkerer, to maker. To me, they're all somewhat related. Lately I've been more closely aligning my positioning to making, as hacker always has some negative connotations.

This piece from Kevin Roose confronts the question about hackers being dangerous people. He questions whether this might be the wrong narrative to spread. He asks:

What if we're ignoring a different group of hackers who aren't lawless renegades, who are in fact patriotic, public-spirited Americans who want to use their technical skills to protect our country from cyberattacks, but are being held back by outdated rules and overly protective institutions?

Roose goes on to ask about the possibilities of developing cadres of "good" hackers and instilling these learning opportunities in our classrooms. This post once again has me questioning the ways in which I position myself.

Stephen Sawchuk in Education Week looks at the research in digital reading, online reading, and everything in between. The results pull heavily from a recent research review from Lauren Singer and Patricia Alexander.

I'll let you scroll through the findings detailed by Sawchuk and definitely recommend reading the pub by Singer and Alexander.

The overall themes are nothing new to regular readers of TL;DR. We still do not know much about the intersections between education, technology, and literacy. We need to continually problematize our thinking about these texts and tools...and the ways in which they use them. Finally, we need to utilize something that good friend Doug Belshaw impressed upon me in the past. We need a certain amount of ambiguity, or "wiggle room" as we consider these constructs and concepts.

🔨 Do

We moved last week and I finally have a proper home office. I can create webinars and videos with proper lighting. I can also close the door and keep background noise to a minimum.

As I'm continuing to set up my home office, one thing I'm revisiting is the desk I built myself years ago. It's nothing great, but it gets the job done and I built it.

I'm thinking about refinishing the top using white board, or dry erase paint to give myself a surface that I can use to sketch out ideas. I'll share more info as things proceed.

What elements have you built into your workspace?

🤔 Consider

"The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open." — Gunter Grass

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Part of the 📧 Newsletter archive documenting digital literacy and technology.