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TLDR 43

Too Long; Didn't Read Issue 43

Published: 2016-04-29 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome to issue 43 of the TL;DR Newsletter. In TL;DR I'm synthesizing news and events from the past week in literacy, technology, and education.

I'm always tweaking TL;DR to better suit you. If you have feedback, questions, or concerns...please feel free to the "reply" button and send me a response. I'd love to hear from you. Thank you for the support.

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This week we examine elements of trust, toolsets, and pirates.

This week I worked on the following:

🔖 Key Takeaways

📺 Watch

As a regular reader of TL;DR, you know that I love the work shared by The School of Life and their YouTube channel.

This video discusses the power and position of children's drawings in society. This video resonates with me as my office is decorated with my son's artwork. This keeps me grounded and helps me focused on what really matters.

📚 Read

Most of my research and work involves supporting individuals as they create and curate their digital identity. You can read a recent publication about my thinking and work here.

This post is from Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept and discusses research on the chilling effects that this surveillance society have had on Wikipedia usage.

Of particular interest, there was a 20% decline in page views on Wikipedia articles related to terrorism. People may be changing their online reading habits or research of these topics because fear of doing so may put them under a cloud of suspicion.

I believe that these current events and revelations will do irreparable damage to our understandings and development of web literacies in these spaces. More research, and open discussion is needed. Educate, empower, advocate.

As an interesting contrast to the first story I shared, this post from Adriana Stan on TechCrunch details the future of the Internet and the connections between the "trust economy." The trust economy details our willingness to use Uber to get a car ride, AirBnB to rent a room, and Kickstarter to fund other people's ideas.

What I appreciate most about this piece is the detailed discussion Stan includes in the piece about the codification and commodification of trust. She unpacks the current thinking and branding that is linked to perceived trust.

I've been thinking and reading a great deal about trust over the past couple of months. I think we need to think more deeply about the permutations of trust as we read, write, and credential our work in digital spaces.

Doug Belshaw in DML Central presents a detailed overview of the three types of "baggage" that we all carry as we make our way in the world of digital texts and tools.

Specifically, Doug identifies toolsets, mindsets, and skillsets in this process. Toolsets involve the specific tools and social practices involved in their use. Mindsets attends to the dispositions and attitudes we employ in the use of these practices. Skillsets involve the specific knowledge base to utilize these tools and literacies...and switch tools when needed.

What I like about this post is that Doug parses out the different considerations we must have as we develop our own web and digital literacy practices...and build them up in others.

Last week in TL;DR (Issue #42), the top story focused on two pieces (here & here) in which we discussed the issues with current publishing model in academics and research.

This post in Science illustrates this point by examining issues of paywalls and piracy on the Sci-Hub publishing hub.

The post is informed by research obtained via secure chat with Alexandra Elbakyan, the neuroscientist that created Sci-Hub. Alexandra anonymized, and provided this dataset for others that are interested in unpacking this information and logs.

Fascinating. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the field.

Piece from Rhett Allain in Wired examining the need to not "keep it simple"....especially in the study of science.

Rhett indicates that "nothing is clear cut." We (educators) should not try and make things simple for our students.

🔨 Do

I first learned about Nuclino recently from Doug Belshaw and their launch on Product Hunt. Since that point, I've been in love with product and trying to fold it into some of my current research projects.

As I research and work with others, sometimes we'll organize a series of nested Google Drive folders, and include multiple Google Docs within each folder. We'll have a string of emails and a Slack channel to keep us all organized. I'll keep an archive of this information saved on Evernote and Pinboard. Finally, we use Trello as a team to keep track of responsibilities and deliverables.

The problem with this system is that there is no way to keep track of everything and see how it interconnects. Think about the Google Drive folders and docs. How in the world do you see links across these documents to see how they fit and interconnect?

As a possible solution, Nuclino appears to be a mix between wiki, Evernote, Slack, and Trello. Teams (or individuals) can use it to create a manual or handbook that everyone creates over time.

I'm playing with this tool and finding ways to possibly fold it into my workflow. I am very cautiously optimistic about using this more until I learn about their pricing and business model after the free preview. Until then...I'm playing and I think you should as well. :)

🤔 Consider

"To find yourself, think for yourself." — Socrates

This week: trust, toolsets, pirates.

Children's drawings keep me grounded on what really matters. Surveillance breeds self-censorship - 20% decline in terrorism Wikipedia views. Trust economy - Uber, AirBnB, Kickstarter reveal we need to think more deeply about trust's permutations. Doug Belshaw parses toolsets, mindsets, skillsets - the baggage we carry. Sci-Hub piracy shows everyone downloads paywalled papers - fascinating to watch unfold. Science professors shouldn't keep it simple - nothing is clear cut. Nuclino wiki tool - cautiously optimistic about folding into workflow.

To find yourself, think for yourself.

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