Blogs

Later today (January 30, 2010), I'll be running my session on portfolios.

From the session description:

The promise of the portfolio is that the demonstration of learning remains as close as possible to the process of learning, while allowing individual elements of the learning process to be highlighted and discussed as part of evaluation. This type of assessment creates a nuanced picture of how a person is developing as a learner.

Portfolios have been around for a while, yet they are still largely viewed as an "alternative" means of assessment. What are some of the barriers for adoption that exist? What are the arguments against using portfolios?

Also, as part of our work with portfolios, we have built out a system that can be used to support collaboratively authoring curriculum within and between organizations. This also has some uses for schools interested in creating curriculum maps.

With the exception of the theme, the code that runs this system is already available on Drupal.org; in the upcoming weeks, we'll be writing up how we built this site so others can replicate it. The theme will also be released as part of our work for the Knight-Drupal Initiative.

All of the recent discussion about Facebook's change to its privacy policy obscures one frequently minimized point: privacy doesn't really exist on Facebook. While there is minimal control over what appears onscreen, this should not be confused with real, actual privacy, or the ability to control what is known about you. Facebook has your information, and by virtue of using their site, you have provided them a degree of control over your personal information.

This becomes particularly apparent when looking at Third Party Application developers. These external applications can access data in ways that are not immediately obvious to the end user, and in some cases this seems to work against people's obvious desires. In short: third party applications get the same access as the account that installed them, so if your privacy settings are set to friends only, and a third party app installed by a friend requests your information, it can get it. So, your privacy is as good as your least discrete friend's judgment.

But issues around abusing privacy aren't new for Facebook. They have these types of issues a few times a year, every year. Flash back to the launch of Beacon:

"Facebook still collects your data. Whether or not they show it onscreen or not is only marginally relevant. They have records of how you have used their site, and that information is valuable to people who want to sell you things."

Facebook has a well worn track record of disastrous handling of user data. In the beginning of 2009, Facebook pre-emptively changed their ToS. People were not happy, but people should not be surprised, as this is normal behavior for Facebook.

And Facebook's current "privacy policy" has some gems -- really, there are too many to list, but my favorite is probably from Section 3: Information You Share With Third Parties: "We take steps to ensure that others use information that you share on Facebook in a manner consistent with your privacy settings, but we cannot guarantee that they will follow our rules." Translation: People will get your information through our site, and we don't really have much/any control over what they do with your information.

And, of course, Facebook can change their privacy settings at will, thus eliminating the illusory value of these settings in the first place, as illustrated by this very conversation.

Some other good reads on this:

• The Facebook Blog: http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=197943902130
• Electronic Frontier Foundation: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/facebooks-new-privacy-changes-good-...
• From ReadWriteWeb: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebooks_privacy_move_violates_con...

Earlier this fall, Mayor Sam Adams and the City of Portland made some strides toward more open data and transparency in government. One step in this direction is the site at http://publicalerts.org

I found the site via Justin Houk; shortly thereafter, Mayor Adams asked for any suggestions. At first glance, the site looks incredibly useful, and I'm glad to see the city moving in this direction. Here are some ideas that could be implemented on the platform.

Suggestions

• Each alert should be its own entity, with a unique linkable url.
• Alerts should be exposed via RSS feeds, and these feeds should be categorized by type of advisory, and zipcode (where it's relevant)
• Events that can be mapped should contain geodata -- I'm specifically thinking about alerts and advisories about power outages, road construction, accidents, or other events that can tied to a specific place.
• Alerts should be browsable by date.
• Individual alerts could be pushed to Twitter (or any other external microblogging platform) with a standard format: [type of alert]: [headline]: [link]. Using this format, a traffic advisory would look like: Traffic alert: Construction on I5 SB starting Dec 12, 8:00 PM : http://some.url

Most of this data is already being published, but it is not being generated in a format that contains this additional metadata. For example, see the Trimet Alert page. The type of structured data I describe would be very easily achieved using a variety of freely available open source tools, such as Drupal. Unfortunately, it appears that the city of Portland's web presence runs (at least partially) on a Cold Fusion based monstrosity (look for the tell-tale .cfm at the end of some urls. The stench of a Cold Fusion-based site is unmistakeable; it reeks of decaying technology ;) ).

But using the formats I describe above, you could create a searchable map of construction data and see what roads are under construction during specific times of day. Or, you could take a look at Trimet bus routes in NE Portland and see if there were any service interruptions before your trip. The city of Portland is already putting the time into creating this data, but changing the format in which they published it would make it more reusable, and, ultimately, more useful to more people.

The NY Times has a "news story" on a new reader called the eDGe.

From the second paragraph:

"Now there is a new approach that may adapt well to textbook pages: two-screen e-book readers with a traditional e-paper display on one screen and a liquid-crystal display on the other to render graphics like science animations in color."

This piece is interesting for a couple reasons. First, it's interesting to see this as news, as the piece is really just a PR announcement. Except that it's published in the Times, which I guess makes advertisements news.

But second, it's interesting to see another foray into the world where people attempt to define what textbooks will become. At the risk of oversimplifying things, publishers want to put the next generation of textbooks into a device or format they control, because controlling the device translates into controlling access, and access can be bought and sold. Think the iPhone, but with textbooks.

People, however, want textbooks that they can use when they want, how they want, on whatever device they want. Think the internet.

My money's on the internet.

Over at TechCrunch, Paul Carr is taking an individual to task for her role in broadcasting information about the Fort Hood shootings. At the outset, I agree with a central point of Carr's argument: a person at the scene of a tragedy has an obligation to do what they can to make the situation better. Our first obligation is to the people in the world around us.

And with that said, I don't know enough about the specifics of her situation to render anything that approaches judgment. Also, the twitter account in question has been locked, so I have not been able to read the accounts Carr references. So, my only source of this information is secondhand, via Carr's post.

However, Carr states:

"And yet, the first news and analysis out of the base didn’t come from the experts. Nor did it come from the 24-hour news media, or even from dedicated military blogs – but rather from the Twitter account of one Tearah Moore, a soldier from Linden, Michigan who is based at Fort Hood, having recently returned from Iraq."

While the analysis that comes from mainstream media outlets (aka, the people who used to be known as professional journalists) often resembles something as sloppy as a twitter stream, the two should not be confused. A twitter stream is raw, unverified information, where we assume (often erroneously) that "analysis" coming from "professionals" has undergone more thorough vetting. This is a failing of traditional media, and while it is convenient to lay this at the blame of social media, this blame is misplaced. Initial accounts will by nature be inaccurate. With complex events, an accurate accounting can only be created through synthesizing multiple perspectives of the event. You just won't get this from a single source. Carr's point also begs the question as to why the mainstream media would elevate hearsay into news.

I will also admit a certain amount of skepticism about cautionary tales on social media coming from a writer on Techcrunch, which has breathlessly celebrated "news" of social media startups for more years than I care to remember.

In an earlier article on Techcrunch, Carr describes his experience at an invite-only event put on by MySpace. In this earlier post, he takes his experience (a bunch of people at a social media event) and generalizes it to the world at large. His argument is that social media has converted the general population into voyeurs and narcissists. Just for the record, many of us who have the excellent fortune to work in/with technology outside the Hype/Bullshit Bubble that envelops parts of Silicon Valley can actually use social media when we want to, without an obsessive need to tweet every detail. We can both talk and live; experiences without an audience are just as significant.

Case in point (and this is anecdotal, so take it for what it's worth): last week, the house across the street from mine experienced a fire. The inhabitant of the house -- an elderly woman -- was saved by a neighbor who kicked in the back door and pulled her to safety. His wife called 911. No one died, the house was saved, and no one tweeted about it. To the world of social media, this event never happened. To those of us in the neighborhood, our neighbor is a hero.

And that's exactly the point. Unless something gets dropped on Twitter (or any other social media app), it remains below the radar of social media, and therefore outside of the conversation within social media. Social media can only concern itself with what is visible within the world of social media -- this is normal, as you can't see what you can't see (duh). But the nearly unforgivable conceit of many people who write about social media is that human nature can be defined by what you see on social media. I don't know whether this is cluelessness, arrogance, lack of life experience, or just plain oversight, but the reality is that much of life transpires beyond the view of social media. Video clips that go viral offer us a deep, often terrifying glimpse of corners of human nature that are frequently left unexplored, but these deep glimpses should not be confused with balanced, broad insights. Good social media resembles, more than anything, a great piece of microfiction: a snapshot that encapsulates a truth about a larger whole, told from an individual viewpoint.

At the risk of stating the obvious, details coming from social media should be regarded as suspect, just as any unverified information coming from a single source should be regarded as suspect. To blame this on social media, however, misses the larger point: people who are paid to report the news should verify what they report, or indicate how reliable(or unreliable) it is. Be transparent. Be honest. And if you happen to be at a situation where you can help, don't video the event rather than make it better.

But that's also just common sense. Before social media, these were the types of people who ran away from an emergency without doing anything. Now, ironically, they broadcast their inactivity, often using one of the many social media startups celebrated on the pages of Techcrunch.

PS: To find out about the latest and greatest mobile hardware, just browse Techcrunch's mobile section: http://www.mobilecrunch.com Then, in a few months, they can complain about how you use the technology they cover.