Month: March 2006

Let me tell you where I am going with this in hopes that you will stick with me. Those in the midst of innovations tend to focus on how what they are doing is drastically different and better than what came before. The lens of history often reveals it was the generation before that was actually responsible for the change. In addition, a preoccupation with what is new may limit learning from what came before and it may actually be the third generation that is able to tie things together.

Back to sex (in case your mind has started to wander) – I am a product of the 60s and I was in college during the “sexual revolution”. It was a time of many changes and many challenges and an age group was labeled as if this group were somehow responsible. As participants, we thought so. However, from what I have read of historical analyses of such matters, the greatest change actually occured among those in the generation preceding the generation associated with the phenomenon.

The focus on the distinction between digital natives and digital immigrants (not my favorite terms) has elements of the same misperceptions. Mixed within the generation of digital immigrants is a group that might be called the digital discoverers. These individuals created the applications and enabled the trends responsible for the activities of the digital natives. In contrast to digital natives, the discoverers actually understand how the applications work and understand the social and technological contexts out of which these applications emerged. While it is true that an understanding of technological or sociological context are not necessary to use the present applications, I tend to believe that adapting applications occurs more productively when connections with the past are appreciated. This is true of those programmers creating new tools and also of those who use such tools. Concepts such as metadata are hardly new. Database design and relational database structure use techniques that include attaching descriptors to records and systems for linking existing databases. Perhaps the same is true for those focusing on tool applications.

Adaptation is what many are really interested in. Educators are not using blogs, wikis as they tend to be used at present – the intent is to adapt common use to classroom use. “Native” bloggers did not take up blogging within the context of “blogging to learn.” The interest in social software applications could have roots in existing experience. Researchers have been struggling with how to productively engage students in online discussion for some time. The research on “writing to learn” has a longer history. Back in the ’60s when I was told I was part of that “other revolution” there was a lot of interest in productive “face to face” discussion. What should be done to engage ALL learners? What should be done to encourage deep rather than shallow thought?
So, what has changed?

I don’t know about you, but there is a limit on the number of conferences I can attend. I have a limited budget, I live a long way from most places, and I have other obligations in terms of time. I value the opportunity to access conference content from my desktop. Pocasts from the 2006 CUE conference make a great example. I would not make the trip to California for such an event, but I welcome the opportunity to listen and watch.

I started to think about this situation from the perspective of the presenter. The individuals I have in mind are those professional presenters who seem to move from conference to conference as invited presenters or keynotes. I do see some of these individuals often enough to recognize that some of them have one or two interesting ideas and others think more broadly and tend to consistently have new things to say. It is the individuals with a specific focus I wonder about. They become less interesting when I have listened to the same idea a couple of times. Do you think they object to the recording and dissemination of their “canned” presentation? Perhaps if you accept a fee, expectations change.

What about those presenters who pay a conference registration fee and present for free? Some of the podcast advocates I listened to by way of the CUE link noted the increasing frequency with which they see individuals with ipods and mikes recording sessions. Under what situations might this be inappropriate? I would think that podcasting a presentation without consent would be inappropriate. While often the presenter would probaby not object, if you intend to share a recording, I would think the proper thing to do would be to ask.

eSchool News describes the effort to develop a new information source called the Digital Universe. The resource appears to aspire to be a higher quality version of something like wikipedia. Individuals will have the opportunity to contribute, but provisions have been built in from the beginning for greater supervision of resource development provided by “stewards.” It appears some, but not all resources will be available at no cost. I see that Dr. Lawrence Lessig, Chairman of the Creative Commons Project, is a member of the board of advisors.

Presently, the Digital Universe exists as a grand plan, a general structure, and a few examples. It will be interesting to contrast this venture with wikipedia and perhaps to see how Google responds to both should these ventures take off. Not certain I understand the funding model at this point, but corporate and individual donations are a part.

Apple announced that a patch has been issued for the recently discovered security vulnerabilities. The majority of the acknowledged problems concerned the failure of iChat and Safari to properly validate downloads.

One of my favorite “sources” on all things digital is Leo Laporte (of TechTV fame). I listen to his TWIT podcast whenever possible.

In support of his preference for FireFox in comparison to IE, Leo described a University of Washington study on spyware. I searched Google for the University of Washington and spyware and found descriptions of the study. The “executive summary” (the link I provide) outlines how frequent spyware seems to be based on the research and describes the types of sites that seem most likely to distribute spyware. The full study (available in pdf form) gets into the issue of browsers.