TLDR 135

Too Long; Didn't Read Issue 135

Published: 2018-02-02 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome to Issue 135. Generosity between strangers.

This week I posted the following:

Assessing students as they read, research, & respond in Hypothesis - A very granular look at how I assess student use of Hypothesis in two different classes. This is a supplement to this video post.
Developing resilience & preparing for adversity - This post discusses grit, mental toughness, and growth mindsets...and lessons learned from Stoic philosophies.
Cold brew coffee - An update to my earlier post about cold brew. Mmmm...coffee.
Shape of a story - This post is the fifth learning event for my slam poetry class. We're studying the general shape involved in storytelling before we focus on telling our stories.
Video: A tale of two wikis to think through instructional design of an LMS

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Say hey with a note at hello@wiobyrne.com or on the socials at wiobyrne.

🔖 Key Takeaways

Computer Science Education Accessible: Code.Org's playlist features six short videos (5-6 minutes each) explaining how computers work from data to circuits, logic, and hardware/software—providing accessible resource for classrooms, makerspaces, and personal learning that demystifies computing fundamentals for all ages.
Black Market for Social Validation: NY Times exposes follower factory where success and reach measured by follower counts drives black market for buying followers online—smart people in and out of social networks can track fake entities yet they persist because platforms treat algorithms and infrastructure like special sauce, with interactive scrolling post demonstrating incredible digital storytelling.
Reading Papers Must Evolve: Nature article argues informed readers need ability to draw own conclusions with Erez Lieberman Aiden stating "act of reading paper in 1974 and act of reading paper in 2017 shouldn't be same act"—new tools for building interactive figures and software make scientific data more accessible and reproducible beyond black and white static images that don't allow pinch and zoom.
Education Websites Fail Privacy Standards: EdTech Strategies' automated and manual review of every state education department website plus 159 school districts revealed most don't support secure browsing, virtually all have partnered with ad companies for sophisticated user tracking and surveillance, and many make misleading or demonstrably false privacy disclosures.
Google Docs Enable Whistleblowing: Google-Doc Activism emerging as anonymous collaborative spaces for collecting and distributing sensitive information underground fashion—open shared documents documenting salary disparities and harassment episodes provide valuable whistleblowing tool allowing people to make themselves heard without traditional gatekeepers.
Stoics Provide Anger Management Framework: Stoic philosophy offers practical guidance for curbing anger as "temporary madness" through preemptive meditation, checking symptoms immediately, associating with serene people, seeking pleasing environments, avoiding discussions when tired or hungry, deploying self-deprecating humor, practicing cognitive distancing, and deliberately changing body to change mind.

📺 Watch

Introducing how computers work (playlist)

Great new series of six short videos that teach How Computers Work from Code.Org. Each video in the playlist is between 5 and 6 minutes long, and explains everything from data to circuits, logic, and hardware/software.

A great resource for your classroom, makerspace, or own personal learning practices.

📚 Read

Everyone wants to be popular online. We also evaluate the success or reach of individuals through the number of followers they have. This piece in the NY Times takes you deep inside the black market for buying followers online.

One of the bigger questions in all of this is why this is allowed to continue, along with all of the bots and other fake entities that inundate these networks. We have a lot of smart people in (and out) of these organizations that can see and track these fake entities, yet they are allowed to persist.

Sadly, one of the challenges is that the way that these social networks and platforms operate is largely a black box. That is, that they treat their algorithms and infrastructure like a special sauce that only they may know.

As a side note, I'm always out looking for incredible new digital content to show us what these online spaces might look like. This interactive post from the NY Times is great...click through and scroll through.

Data visualization tools drive interactivity and reproducibility in online publishing

This piece in Nature shares a common sentiment that I've heard from research colleagues over the last couple of years. Sometimes our work includes video, animations, color graphics, and other interactive content. Yet, in publications, the persistent source of information, other than text, is the black & white static image.

This type of content does not allow the reader to understand the full impact of the materials. I does not allow you to pinch and zoom on a print document and get a better view of the figure.

This post discusses new tools for building interactive figures and software to make scientific data more accessible and reproducible.

The piece closes with a quote from Erez Lieberman Aiden from the Baylor College of Medicine:

"Informed readers need the ability to draw their own conclusions. The act of reading a paper in 1974 and the act of reading a paper in 2017 shouldn't be the same act."

Tracking: EDU - Education agency website security and privacy practices

A six part research project that examines the websites from state department of education and select school districts. Specifically, they were looking at the security and privacy practices of these organizations.

Doug Levin and the group behind EdTech Strategies conducted an automated and manual review of every state department of education website and a nationwide sample of 159 school district websites. The study revealed that:

Most state and local education agency websites do not support secure browsing, putting both schools and website visitors at risk;
Virtually every state and local education agency has partnered with online advertising companies to deploy sophisticated user tracking and surveillance on their websites, quite extensively in some cases; and
Many state - and the vast majority of local education agency websites - do not disclose the presence and nature of this ad tracking and user surveillance, or the mechanisms for how users can opt out of these data collections. Those few that do make such disclosures often do so in misleading ways, including by making demonstrably false statements about their privacy practices.

We're beginning to see an influx in examples of "Google-Doc Activism" as anonymous Google Docs or Sheets are being distributed online. This is an open, shared, collaborative space in which sensitive materials are collected in an underground fashion. These materials may document who is making what amount of money, or episodes of harassment.

These open, anonymous documents allow for collecting and distributing information seem to be a valuable tool that will whistle blowers an opportunity to make themselves heard.

Anger is temporary madness: The stoics knew how to curb it

There are number of reasons why you get angry. But, the key is to identify healthy ways to reduce this "temporary madness."

As guided by Stoic philosophies, this post provides some guidance for anger management:

Engage in preemptive meditation: think about what situations trigger your anger, and decide ahead of time how to deal with them.
Check anger as soon as you feel its symptoms. Don't wait, or it will get out of control.
Associate with serene people, as much as possible; avoid irritable or angry ones. Moods are infective.
Play a musical instrument, or purposefully engage in whatever activity relaxes your mind. A relaxed mind does not get angry.
Seek environments with pleasing, not irritating, colours. Manipulating external circumstances actually has an effect on our moods.
Don't engage in discussions when you are tired, you will be more prone to irritation, which can then escalate into anger.
Don't start discussions when you are thirsty or hungry, for the same reason.
Deploy self-deprecating humour, our main weapon against the unpredictability of the Universe, and the predictable nastiness of some of our fellow human beings.
Practise cognitive distancing – what Seneca calls 'delaying' your response – by going for a walk, or retire to the bathroom, anything that will allow you a breather from a tense situation.
Change your body to change your mind: deliberately slow down your steps, lower the tone of your voice, impose on your body the demeanour of a calm person.

🔨 Do

Screencast-o-matic comes to Chromebooks

As far as I'm concerned, creating screen captures and screencasts is a necessary skill for educators and instructors from Pre-K up through higher ed. As I teach screencasting, I focus on my tool of choice, Screencast-o-matic. One of the problems is that Screencast-o-matic did not work on Chromebooks. I also had to provide other options for tablets & mobile devices.

That all changes as a recent update to the product offers free screen recording on Chromebooks.

Keep in mind that there is a free and "pro" version of Screencast-o-matic. The Pro version will let you capture videos over 15 minutes in length, and remove the watermark, as well as adding a couple other features. If you would like to try out the Pro version for a year, you can use my affiliate link to get 20% off the Pro Recorder.

I think it's worth it. It is one of the tools I use weekly in my workflow.

🤔 Consider

"At this very moment enormous numbers of intelligent men and women of goodwill are trying to build a better world. But problems are born faster than they can be solved." — B. F. Skinner

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🌱 Connected Concepts:

Computer Science Education — Code.Org's six short videos (5-6 minutes each) teach how computers work explaining everything from data to circuits, logic, and hardware/software—providing accessible resource for classrooms, makerspaces, and personal learning that demystifies computing fundamentals for all ages without requiring prior technical knowledge.
Social Media Bot Economy — NY Times exposes black market follower factory where success and reach measured by follower counts drives buying fake followers online—despite smart people in and out of social networks able to track fake entities, platforms allow persistence because they treat algorithms and infrastructure like special sauce only they know, with interactive scrolling post demonstrating incredible digital storytelling capabilities.
Interactive Data Visualization — Nature article argues black and white static images in publications don't allow readers to understand full impact of materials or pinch and zoom for better view—new tools for building interactive figures and software make scientific data more accessible and reproducible, with Erez Lieberman Aiden stating "act of reading paper in 1974 and act of reading paper in 2017 shouldn't be same act" as informed readers need ability to draw own conclusions.
Education Website Privacy — Doug Levin and EdTech Strategies' automated and manual review of every state education department website plus nationwide sample of 159 school districts revealed most don't support secure browsing putting schools and visitors at risk, virtually every agency has partnered with ad companies for sophisticated user tracking and surveillance extensively deployed, and many make misleading disclosures or demonstrably false statements about privacy practices without opt-out mechanisms.
Google Doc Activism — Influx of Google-Doc Activism emerging as anonymous Google Docs or Sheets distributed online provide open shared collaborative space for collecting and distributing sensitive information in underground fashion—materials document salary disparities and harassment episodes, with open anonymous documents offering valuable whistleblowing tool allowing people to make themselves heard without traditional gatekeepers controlling flow of information.
Stoic Anger Management — Stoic philosophy provides practical framework for curbing anger as "temporary madness" through preemptive meditation (thinking ahead about triggers and responses), checking symptoms immediately before escalation, associating with serene people (moods are infective), playing instruments or relaxing activities, seeking pleasing environments, avoiding discussions when tired or hungry, deploying self-deprecating humor as weapon against unpredictability and nastiness, practicing cognitive distancing (Seneca's "delaying" through walks or breathers), and changing body to change mind by deliberately slowing steps and lowering voice tone.

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