Select a result to preview

TLDR 52

Too Long; Didn't Read Issue 52

Published: 2016-07-01 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome to issue 52 of the TL;DR Newsletter. This week we are cognizant of all possible futures.

You can review archives of the newsletter. Alternatively you can also check out TL;DR on Medium.

This week I worked on the following:

🔖 Key Takeaways

📺 Watch

Futurist Alvin Toffler passed away this week at the age of 87. Alvin wrote and spoke about modern technologies, the digital revolution, and effects on culture.

His book Future Shock distills these challenges into an examination of the psychological states of individuals and societies.

The video above is from the "Big Thinkers" series on ZDTV (later named TechTV) and provides an interesting look at the future.

📚 Read

Teaching students to be public intellectuals

I often talk with my colleagues about the need for "us" to publicly engage online. This is one of the reasons I shared the post about being digitally agile up above. The latest round of these talks was held the night before I gave a recent keynote at NIU. My thinking is that educators could (and should) think, write, and share openly in digital spaces.

This post in The Chronicle of Higher Education details a program at Stony Brook University in which the focus is not only on academics, but also undergraduate and graduate students. As the post indicates, our students are already engaging publicly...hopefully we can provide meaningful guidance. Perhaps they might offer us some insight. :)

I applaud this work and hope we see more opportunities for individuals to build and test these literacies and skills. Part of the challenge is in building, breaking, and iterating publicly online. I don't (usually) have problems with this. I think we need a safe, perhaps private space to allow learners to think, test, and obtain critical feedback on their work. Hopefully I can offer some of this soon with some of my colleagues.

Collapsed Publics: Orality, literacy, and vulnerability in academic Twitter

Research publication (part of her dissertation) from Bonnie Stewart examining identities and connections between networked scholars on open networked platforms (Twitter). Follow Bonnie's blog.

The research examines "academic Twitter" and the challenges and opportunities that exist as scholars build network ties. These relationships may provide opportunities and affinities that may not be available at the local institution. The research presents a portrait of the experiences of networked scholars and considers the tensions these practices raise within the contemporary academy.

A great post by Aaron Davis examining the different spaces that he uses to write and share online. Aaron is responding to the idea presented by Doug Belshaw about having one canonical URL for our digital identity.

I really enjoy Aaron's work, and specifically his identification of his multiple spaces online and their purposes. Most people get anxious about building one website and one unified digital identity. I'm in the same mindset as Aaron as I have multiple spaces online that I maintain.

I recommend checking out Aaron's post and his various online spaces. I really like the way that Aaron uses his own "art" as headers for his posts. While you're there, you should subscribe to his monthly newsletter.

Great post by Andrew Marcinek creating parallels between Lego and IKEA hacks and the opportunity to hack together open educational resources (OER) for your instructional purposes.

This past week I was editing the front page of my website and I added the work "hacker" to the list of descriptors for my identity. I started thinking about how others would respond to me labeling myself a hacker. I Googled hacker and tried to understand what other definitions of hacker exist. I thought about watering it down and using the term "tinkerer" but instead stuck with hacker.

Andrew's post resonated with me not only for his focus on hacking, playing, and tinkering with Legos and IKEA products...but the connections to using OER bits and pieces in your classroom. The open and OER landscape is very much in the hobby stage at this point (as Amazon tries to force their way in). I think Andrew's framing was empowering, and I'll continue to use it as I work with colleagues, students, and clients.

Insightful post from danah boyd discussing the "digital duct tape" that creates the technological world in which we live. danah indicates the challenges that exist as we (sometimes) fail to consider the power that exists in the code and what we use it for.

She posits:

Code is key to civic life, but we need to start looking under the hood and thinking about the externalities of our coding practices, especially as we're building code as fast as possible with few checks and balances.

Thanks to Aaron Davis and his newsletter for sharing this post. :)

🔨 Do

Google did not waste any time making big news while at ISTE 2016. The Expeditions app looks like it would be of use for most classrooms.

I'm most excited about Google Cast for Education and Google Forms that self-assess without add-ons. Google Apps for Education just gets better and better every day.

🤔 Consider

"Whether you think you can, or think you can't...you're right." — Henry Ford

This week: cognizant of all possible futures.

Three steps to digitally agile educator, upcoming chapter on digitally agile researcher. Kerri Lemoie and Patrick Mockridge 4Q4 podcasts on computer science and blockchain credentials. Alvin Toffler passed - Future Shock provides interesting look at psychological states. Teaching students to be public intellectuals - I applaud this work building and testing literacies. Bonnie Stewart on academic Twitter collapsed publics and networked scholar tensions. Aaron Davis on multiple digital spaces - I really enjoy his work and identification of purposes. Andrew Marcinek Lego bin hacking OER - framing was empowering. danah boyd on be careful what you code for - thanks to Aaron's newsletter. Google ISTE 2016 updates getting better every day.

Whether you think you can, or think you can't...you're right.

Previous: TLDR 51 • Next: TLDR 53 • Archive: 📧 Newsletter

🌱 Connected Concepts:

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