TLDR 44

Too Long; Didn't Read Issue 44

Published: 2016-05-06 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome to issue 44 of the TL;DR Newsletter. In TL;DR I'm synthesizing news and events from the past week in literacy, technology, and education.

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. In fact, I received two messages this week from Todd Finley and Doug Belshaw expressing their support and gratitude for TL;DR. This made my week as I value and respect their work. Thanks again for your support. :)

This week we focus on the theme of unlearning the future.

This week I worked on the following:

Educating Digital Natives: Possible and prospective futures of students in learning contexts - With my colleague Nenad Radakovic, we submitted this draft of our chapter for the upcoming book on "Gaming and Learning Futures." We were really intrigued by the focus of the text, and the opportunity to write up a "future study." Feel free to share comments on the draft, we'll fold these in to the revisions of the chapter.
Episode 49 of Today in Digital Education: Controversial Abstinence - I sat in on the TIDE podcast with Greg McVerry and hosts Dai Barnes and Doug Belshaw. This was an honor for several reasons. First, I listen to TIDE each week and it helps me think through some of my thinking in tech. Second, I think that Dai and Doug do podcasts "right." I have been writing and thinking a lot about podcasts recently. They're one of the archetypes that I'm studying.
Dialogue with Peggy Semingson on the State of Digital Literacies and Preparing Teachers - I spent some time (15:00) chatting with the incredible Peggy Semingson this week chatting about possible futures in education and how do we get educators there. I definitely recommend following Peggy's YouTube channel to stay on top of her work as she experiments with YouTube and now podcasting.

🔖 Key Takeaways

This Made My Week: I received two messages this week from Todd Finley and Doug Belshaw expressing their support and gratitude for TL;DR. This made my week as I value and respect their work.
This Was an Honor: I sat in on the TIDE podcast with Greg McVerry and hosts Dai Barnes and Doug Belshaw. This was an honor for several reasons.
One of Those Individuals: Amy is one of those individuals that is always creating and making me think about what we could/should be doing as we create digitally.
We May See What We Want to See: Findings suggest that stereotypes that we hold may be mapped to our brain's visual system. We may see what we want to see.
There Are More of Us: The individual citizen is the ultimate check on government power. And there are more of us than there are of them.

📺 Watch

Tilt Brush: Painting from a new perspective (1:04)

Google released this video showing the use of the HTC Vive, Steam, and Tilt Brush to use together to create new forms of art.

I'm sharing this here because we often have a difficult time imagining what augmented and virtual reality might "look" like...and why anyone would care. This video encapsulates all of this and gives us perspectives on what might be possible. Take a look, show your students and colleagues, discuss the possibilities.

📚 Read

Unlearning and Other Jedi Mind Tricks - Finding the (Creative) Force

Another great post from the incredible Amy Burvall. I'm lucky that I have a couple thoughtful, imaginative people that are building and breaking things online that I can use as reference points. Amy is one of those individuals that is always creating and making me think about what we could/should be doing as we create digitally.

In the "what I worked on this week" I shared a post about future studies and education. Amy discusses this in this posts and uses some great GIFs to make her points. Specifically she highlights the forces of creativity, self-expression, and wonderlust while avoiding self-doubt. Block off some time to read, digest, and enjoy this post.

Why understanding these four types of mistakes can help us learn

As we continue this theme of "unlearning" and the future, this post from Mind/Shift discusses four types of "mistakes" and how they can provide insight on our work process and product.

Too often in our classrooms, failure and mistakes are frowned upon. Using a schematic such as the one provided in this post may help discuss the possibilities with our students.

They discuss:

Stretch mistakes - Positive mistakes that occur when we're trying to expand our current abilities.
Aha-moment mistakes - Positive mistakes that occur when we achieve our goals, but do so by learning something "just in time."
Sloppy mistakes - A generally "negative" mistake that occurs when loose focus, concentration, or are distracted.
High-stakes mistakes - Mistakes in which the outcomes or circumstances may be dire or catastrophic. For example, driving a school bus while fixing a nuclear reactor and trying to figure out what Radiohead is up to.

Brain warps the faces that we see to fit stereotypes

Research shared by a research group at NYU that used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and mouse-tracking technology that asked participants to quickly sort images into fields about gender, race and emotion of displayed faces.

Findings suggest that stereotypes that we hold may be mapped to our brain's visual system and prompt us to see others' faces in ways that conform to these stereotypes. We may see what we want to see.

Academia is quietly and systematically keeping its women from succeeding

This piece by Marcie Bianco in Quartz discusses the war on women in academia. She connects the dots between pay, the rising role of the adjunct, and issues with the tenure process for mothers.

Edward Snowden: "Governments can reduce our dignity to that of tagged animals"

The Guardian published a foreword from Edward Snowden that is included in the upcoming text, The Assassination Complex, by Jeremy Scahill and the staff of The Intercept.

The piece closes with: The individual citizen is the ultimate check on government power. And there are more of us than there are of them.

🔨 Do

Use CSS to build your own Star Wars crawl intro

I'm always looking for quick and interesting ways to play with (and have students play with) coding and programming in many forms. I have a couple games and editors for HTML and CSS coding that I'll use to have students quickly (5 to 10 minutes) play with code and then move on.

This tool uses CSS and some HTML to create a Star Wars crawl of your own. I plan on using this with students after using some of the easier tools to build up their skillset and self-efficacy.

🤔 Consider

"It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to." — Jean-Luc Godard

This week: unlearning the future.

Todd Finley and Doug Belshaw's messages made my week. VR art with Tilt Brush shows what's possible. Amy Burvall on creativity, self-expression, wonderlust - one of those individuals always creating. Four types of mistakes help us learn - stretch, aha-moment, sloppy, high-stakes. Stereotypes warp our visual perception - we may see what we want to see. Academia systematically keeps women from succeeding. Snowden on whistleblowing as political resistance - there are more of us than there are of them.

It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to.

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🌱 Connected Concepts:

Virtual Reality — Tilt Brush painting in VR shows what augmented and virtual reality might look like.
Amy Burvall — Unlearning and Jedi mind tricks, forces of creativity self-expression wonderlust.
Mistakes — Four types stretch aha-moment sloppy high-stakes provide insight on learning.
Stereotypes — Brain warps faces we see to fit stereotypes mapped to visual system.
Women in Academia — Systematically kept from succeeding through pay adjuncts tenure process.
Edward Snowden — Whistleblowing as political resistance, individual citizen ultimate check on power.

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