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TLDR 111

Too Long; Didn't Read Issue 111

Published: 2017-08-19 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome to issue 111 of TLDR. We can act like we come from out of this world...Leave the real one far behind.

Each week we investigate the intersection between education, technology, and literacy. This is often a turbulent space to map out, and the only constant is change. We also need to remain cognizant that these tools and literacies in digital spaces can used for good or evil. This week was especially hard to make sense of these elements, while still trying to maintain a sense of perspective. I hope you'll peruse the following materials, and make up your own mind. Thank you in advance.

This week I shared the following:

🔖 Key Takeaways

📺 Watch

This week we're preparing for a total solar eclipse that will pass across the U.S. in a couple of days. The path will leave the continental U.S. here in Charleston and we're busy getting ready for this event.

Please watch the video above to learn more...and if you're in the path...please be safe.

📚 Read

Members of white nationalist and neo-nazi groups brought a deadly weekend of rage-fueled street battles and violent demonstrations to the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia.

In the aftermath of these events, one of the ways that I've been trying to make sense of possible next steps is to look at teaching, learning, and tech to think about what could have been done different...and how to best move forward.

This post by Xian Franzinger Barrett on AlterNet is an excellent place to begin as we think about the ways in which we frame our educational perspectives. Barrett is also one of the founders of EduColor, another excellent resource to follow.

I can also recommend the following resources as you reconsider pedagogy in your classroom:

As we examine, and hopefully address these issues of overt racism and bias in our public discourse, there is a need to remember that teaching is a political act.

This post from NCTE's Committee Against Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English reminds us of the power educators have in forming the lives of youth around the globe. The authors also do not pull any punches in identifying the need for educators stand up and do something about these recent trends and violent acts. The post shares a number of excellent readings to use in your classrooms, and for your own education.

They frame this work with a quote from Elie Wiesel on the acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize:

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

This research report from the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University examines the mainstream and social media coverage of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.

Results suggest that Trump was widely successful in shaping the narrative of the election using social media and digital tools. The results also suggest that the primary poles, or centers of the media landscape are the "center left" and "far right" in terms of political affiliation.

Of the most interest to me from the results are the indication of the ways in which media has been disrupted, and the manipulation of these different streams. Definitely take some time to dig through these results.

As we examine the recent trends in online information, we've started to use terms like fake news, post fact, and propaganda. This report titled Lexicon of Lies by Caroline Jack from the Data & Society Project does a great job of making sense of this evolving landscape.

The report is available in PDF form here.

Teaching resources associated with the report are available in PDF form here.

A series of reports flared up at the beginning of this past week as this link went live from DreamHost, a website hosting company. The post alleges that the U.S. Department of Justice is seeking to unmask every person who visited an anti-Trump website hosted by Dreamhost.

Specifically, DreamHost was served with a search warrant for every piece of information it possessed that was related to a website that was used to coordinate protests during Donald Trump's inauguration. The warrant covers the people who own and operate the site, but also seeks to get the IP addresses of 1.3 million people who visited it, as well as the date and time of their visit and information about what browser or operating system they used. The website, www.disruptj20.org, was used to coordinate protests and civil disobedience at Trump's inauguration.

DreamHost is fighting this request from the Dept. of Justice by citing that it violates the Constitution.

I believe that this is an overreach on the part of the government to request the address of all individuals that have viewed this page. Please note, if you clicked on the link above...you're on that list. This request also raises First Amendment issues as individuals should have the right to keep their identities private as they read, search, and sift online.

🔨 Do

Google Apps released a lot of new features this past week that should help with your use of these tools. They added new templates to Docs and Sheets, as well as optimizing the search in the add-ons.

One of the key elements that I'm most interested in is versioning of a document. I frequently will make a copy of a gDoc so that we don't lose edits and writing in an older version. This might make it much easier to write, revise, and collaborate.

🤔 Consider

"The palace is not safe when the cottage is not happy." — Benjamin Disraeli

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