ISTE reverses position

It appears that ISTE has reversed a recent decision on podcasting from NECC. Now, it seems podcasters may distribute presentations WITH THE PERMISSION of the presenter. This I like. As I suggested earlier, ISTE makes money from memberships and the cost to these members for attending the conference is very substantial. Many may be unable to attend. It does seem reasonable that those presenters wishing to limit access (e.g., those who are on the road giving versions of the same presentation for pay) may wish to deny free distribution.

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Has Google (and Twitter) made us stupid

Remember the idea that playing games was “rewiring” the brains of young people. As I reported this claim, at least as I understood the position of researchers and writers (e.g., Prensky), the core suggestion was that the brain adapts to the stimulus environment in which it functions. The consequence is not necessarily a more or less effective brain, but a brain adapted to the demands of the environment.

I read a recent piece in the Atlantic Monthly (Carr – Is Google Making Us Stupid?) that takes a similar position. Carr begins his article by describing insights into his own reading habits. He reports that he seems to be unable to focus for more than a few pages while he could previously read for hours and become deeply engrossed in a book. I was glad to read this description. I was beginning to worry that my own personal observations were a sign of my advancing age.

As I understand Carr’s argument, the concern is that “deep reading” is different from searching for quick answers because of the additional thinking that readers do. They struggle with complex ideas and perhaps incomplete explanations and in doing so built better personal representations. We presently seem to be seeking immediate, but specific information. The difference between deep reading and information seeking seems similar to something I have been writing about lately – knowledge telling vs. knowledge building. It might be argued that we read online as a type of “personal” knowledge telling – in this case a representation based on easy search with little building of understanding (I have always liked the distinction between information and knowledge – perhaps this is another way to represent what has happened – we have become satisfied with information). To me, there is nothing about online technology per se that requires this shallowness, but rather it is the way in which we prefer to use online resources and the format we encourage “authors” to use that prioritizes information over understanding.

I wonder if the existence and use of Twitter exemplifies further slippage. Now even blog entries are too long. Thoughts must be expressed in 140 characters or less.

Presently, the research on this topic is very sparse. Carr mentions one interesting sounding study, but the online report contained no citations. I will have to see if I can run this down.

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You knew this one was coming

ISTE just announced that the podcasting of NECC presentations will not be allowed. This is to be the case even with the permission of the presenter.

NO ONE is permitted to make a full-length audio recording for an online podcast of any NECC 2008 conference session without the explicit, written permission of BOTH the presenter and ISTE:

I have always wondered about this when I have come across “poor quality” videos from various conferences. I assumed that such material was collected by an individual with a handheld device. Did the presenter consent to have his/her material recorded and distributed?

It is an interesting issue. ISTE and presenters have a right to protect their content. The presenter because of intellectual property concerns and ISTE because of the revenue collected from registration. Still, with rapidly rising costs for just getting to a conference, what is the long term future of such events. ISTE does collect fees in other ways. Perhaps presents should be compensated and ISTE should offer “programming” to members. Fees are already paid for keynotes.

On another matter, I have discovered that I can sit in the backyard and still use my wifi. It bothers me I did not discover this until today. In ND, we average about three days between the thaw and the time when the bugs come. I wasted an entire day. 😉

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Wordle

This from my wife:

Wordle.net is a service that turns your tag cloud into an image. The following is the image generated from Cindy’s del.icio.us tags. I saw this a few days ago, but I could not figure out how to use the tags from my social bookmarking system in a way that would generate text size differences. Seems to work great with del.icio.us.

What would be cool would be an independent app that would aggregate public tags across multiple services and then could be shared. What would be REALLY cool would be such a service that allowed access from the core aggregator.

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Twitter

I guess I must admit being wrong. My initial reaction to Twitter was based on a present frame of reference without anticipating that an existing frame of reference can be changed by new experiences.

I have discovered I like to keep Twitter open in a side bar while I do other things (see image). This is a capability built into Flock (see image). I have also discovered that Twitter is down A LOT (see image) and you will not necessarily know this until after you carefully craft a message in < 140.

Man, my posts are getting short. Must be the Twitter experience. (Twitter address – so I feel the pressure to post).

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Firefox 3 – Read the fine print

I am probably too relaxed in the way I use technology. Got a few free minutes on a very busy day? Take a break and upgrade your browser. You think I would learn.

Mozilla is trying to set some kind of record for downloads with the new version of Firefox and this intent has made news. I follow the tech news. So, I thought I would join in.

I download the browser. Simple enough. I click on the icon. Nothing. I restart. I repair privileges. I download and install again. Nothing. I reread the download page seeking clues. Nothing. I sulk. I search for earlier version to get back to square one. Everything takes me back to the page for downloading the newest version.

I carefully review the support page. There it is – FireFox 3 will only work with Mac OS 10.4. Clear enough. Here I also find the link to download Firefox 2.

Just for the record.
1) Take a careful look at the Firefox download page. The download button clearly says 10.x – to my thinking this would include 10.3.9. Perhaps the reason the download count is so high is that folks like me are downloading multiple times in the hopes of receiving a working copy.


2) I do run the most recent OS ON MY OWN machines. I work for the frugal University of North Dakota. I run what the university provides in my office – it is a matter of principle. You get what the university is willing to pay for.

Back to work.

Be careful out there.

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Founding Fathers Argument

OK – the following post has little educational relevance. I will allow the following post because a) I warned you and b) this is my blog.

I was listening to the Glenn Beck show on my way to the grocery store. I blame this on my wife. She likes talk radio and I took her car. Beck was talking about the U.S. Constitution and how we presently are straying from the wisdom of the founding fathers (use the link because this seems to be a popular theme at present).

I was thinking about the wisdom of the founders and whether their logic as applied to the world as they knew it trumps our understanding of our world as we know it. Clearly, the principles of this nation have stood the test of time …. 

Wait, I take that back. It appears that that our core principles can change as our values change. Why, it turns out it is ok for women to vote. It is not ok to keep slaves. You can drink alcohol, wait you can’t drink alcohol, no – you can drink alcohol. 

 I take the part about educational relevance back (wikipedia consideration of amendments). 

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