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TLDR 94

Too Long; Didn't Read Issue 94

Published: 2017-04-21 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome to TL;DR Newsletter #94. TL;DR is a weekly synthesis of things you need to know about the intersection between education, technology, and literacy. Feel free to share this with someone that you believe would benefit. Please subscribe to this newsletter if you haven't already.

In this week's episode we consider open tolerance of ideas.

This week I received a great note from friend, and TL;DR reader Tim Flanagan. Tim is an educator I met years ago while facilitating the IT&DML program at UNH. I recommend following his recent travels as he teaches, travels, and learns around the globe.

Please get in touch with me at hello@wiobyrne.com. You can review archives of the newsletter or on Medium. I also share the quotes at the bottom of the newsletter on Instagram.

🔖 Key Takeaways

📺 Watch

F. James Sensenbrenner, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin was holding a townhall with his constituents when an attendee voiced concern about the recent votes to eliminate online privacy protections with our Internet service providers (ISPs).

This response is not only tone deaf, but it also an indicator of the spin that has been provided by the lobbyists for the ISPs to elected officials in the U.S. The audio is a bit hard to hear, but Sensenbrenner's response was the following:

"Nobody's got to use the Internet. … And the thing is that if you start regulating the Internet like a utility, if we did that right at the beginning, we would have no Internet. … Internet companies have invested an awful lot of money in having almost universal service now. The fact is is that, you know, I don't think it's my job to tell you that you cannot get advertising for your information being sold. My job, I think, is to tell you that you have the opportunity to do it, and then you take it upon yourself to make that choice. … That's what the law has been, and I think we ought to have more choices rather than fewer choices with the government controlling our everyday lives."

The Internet is the dominant text of our generation. It is a fundamental right and requirement to be literate in current and future times.

📚 Read

Steve Ballmer, former chief executive of Microsoft, and current owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, has been busy. Armed with a group of economists, professors, and associated professionals, they've been assembling a database in stealth over the past three years.

The resultant project, USAFacts, is a nonpartisan effort to create a fully integrated look at revenue and spending across federal, state, and local governments.

This powerful, open resource gives you the power to search and find real facts about real problems in the U.S.

Costs are continuing to rise in higher education. Recent initiatives in Maryland and New York are attempting to curb these costs by adopting open-source, copyright free textbooks.

Following the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) of 2008, a number of states have already started to utilize open educational resources (OER) in courses. These recent actions have caused many to wonder if OER are finally making a breakthrough in adoption and use.

A fascinating editorial from Kory Stamper in The New York Times. This piece begins with the recent challenges in the American social and political landscape as it relates to "facts" and definitions of words. Stamper shares how the Merriam-Webster has entered the fray by simply tweeting definitions of words that tend to be misused in the news cycle. Stamper uses this as a jumping off point to head into an examination of the work of Noah Webster and lexicography.

The ending of the piece hammers this point home:

"The English language is a direct democracy, sustained by each person who uses it; the dictionary is its enduring record. It is one of the mirrors we as Americans can look into and see who we were and who we are."

Does financial literacy betray racial bias?

A wide ranging discussion from Jack Stripling in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Striping begins with the setting in which financial literacy is based on the notion that you might be "less broke" if you understood how to better manage your money.

The piece then shares insight from a recent paper titled The Political Economy of Education, Financial Literacy, and the Racial Wealth Gap. The paper argues that basic financial training perpetuates a false narrative that students of modest means have run up debts not because they are poor, but rather because they are irresponsible.

The piece extends from this point to discuss the recent debate about free college tuition.

This summer I'll work with some of my undergraduate and graduate students to complete some research we've conducted over the past year.

As we engage in this work, there is often a steep learning curve as students make sense of research and study design. If you cannot attend a series of courses to develop your research expertise, this list of texts is an excellent place to begin and end your journey.

🔨 Do

I've been catching up on some back episodes of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. In the recent episode, Bourdain was in London during the Brexit vote.

He was a bit hungover one morning, and this recipe was made for him by Nigella Lawson. The recipe looks so good, that it has to be bad. And, as the recipe indicates, you don't need to be hungover, or it to be breakfast to enjoy this dish. It's definitely on my radar for dinner one night.

🤔 Consider

"Tolerance of intolerance is cowardice." — Ayaan Hirisi Ali

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