Month: January 2021

Joplin – Impressive

I have tried many note-taking and note-keeping systems and I pay for Evernote which I think is assumed to be the best. I use such systems to collect content I eventually want to turn into blog posts. The way this works – search, notes, review and annotate, write – is described as a work flow by many.

Taking text notes is not that much of a challenge and most operating systems come with tools that allow the entry (keyboard or cut and paste) of content. It would be easy enough to keep a note file in Google Drive to take and access notes across devices. The feature I really want is often called a web clipper. This is an extension that allows one to collect content to be stored in the note system while viewing with a browser. Not all note-taking systems have a web clipper that works really well. This has probably been the primary reason I like Evernote – multiple notebooks, cross-platform, web clipper, highlighting and annotation.

I just became aware of an open source note taking and web clipper that comes very close to Evernote in functionality (everything I mention above without the highlighting and annotation). This is a great option for those on a budget (not cost, but a donation would be nice.

Joplin is described in this web page. Follow the instructions for downloading the app and for adding the web clipper.

Joplin is a stand-alone application you run on your computer or device. It consists of multiple panels allowing access to multiple notebooks, titles for items stored within a notebook, and the full item.

This image should offer insight into what the installed web clipper looks like. When you have access a web page you want to store, you select the menubar Joplin icon which activates a drop-down menu. You select the options want to use – everything from the complete page to just the URL and then clip.

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Paradox of abundance

Essayist David Perrell has written a post arguing that the abundance of information offers a great opportunity for a few, but a significant problem for many. He calls this position the paradox of abundance and uses the metaphor of abundant food as a parallel providing possible insights.

As I understand the logic of this parallel (starting from the challenges of abundant food), human evolution has lagged significantly beyond the technology of modern agriculture and prepared foods. Biologically, we are not “programmed” to deal with an abundance of food especially the great variety of food not necessarily ideal for consumption. The more primitive drive encouraging consume when you can have not yet adapted to abundance. He also references a finance argument called Greshman’s Law familiar to many which suggests that bad money drives out good. I interpret this to mean, in this case, that cheap poor quality food that tastes good will be particularly attractive. For those who are discriminant consumers and Perrell suggests who prepare their own food from scratch, the abundance of quantity and quality is of great benefit. For the greater number who pay less attention to food quality and rely on purchased and at least partly prepared food, the abundance of low-quality food has led to many problems.

The essayist sees a similar situation with information. We clearly have an abundance of information varying greatly in quality including content purposefully generated to mislead and confuse. Free access allows discriminating consumers to benefit greatly, but those with less skill or those making less effort will likely encounter poor quality content. The poor quality drives out good is used to explain the penchant to consume simplistic explanations for complex things and to be drawn to emotion-inducing content. The author proposes the benefits of focusing efforts to assist through curation. He also argues the benefits of writing much in the same way to sees benefits in cooking from scratch.

I encourage reading of this essay as an interesting way to think about an obvious issue. In general, reasoning from metaphor is not a strong approach, but I can see the logic in the comparison. Describing a problem in an interesting and innovative way does not necessarily mean the core causes have now been identified and can be addressed. What about the recommendations – make use of the recommendations of trusted curators and write yourself are consistent with my own biases, but I would be challenged to offer data in support. At a more general level, writing forces extended processing and requires metacognition evaluation through translation that provides some advantages.

I don’t think it likely we will escape from the abundance of food or content. This is a consequence of the capitalism we endorse and once opportunities exist it becomes difficult to go back.

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eSports in schools

I am not a gamer although I have tried. At first, the notion of school to school competitive gaming seemed strange. Things have certainly changed. But, I understand there are schools that fish for bass as a competitive activity, and of course there are chess, robotics, debate, and music competitions. North Dakota (the western part) had rodeo competitions.

The question about any school-related activity is what purpose does it serve. What purpose is there for football given all of the injuries that can result? Whatever reason comes to your mind, you can make the same argument for eSports. You learn life-long skills such as the value of teamwork, commitment, and winning or losing gracefully. Students find a way to connect with the school culture they may not find in the classroom or in traditional sports or art. Professional opportunities, scholarships, and career opportunities are there for the very best. Gaming can be a life-long recreational activity. The arguments used to justify any school activity seem to apply. I played the tuba probably because I am not pitch-perfect limiting my future as a trombonist and the band needed someone who would. This was not glamorous and there are featured notes rather than solos, but you are a necessary part of the group.

So, while not a participant, I am trying to understand new initiatives of this type. I recommend the eSports Playbook as a resource for any educator, school board member, or parent trying to understand the role eSports can play. The book does a nice job of addressing misconceptions about gaming (gaming leads to violence, screen time), identifying the skill set developed by gaming and the multiple roles students can take on related to an eSports team, coaching techniques, and sources for organizations promoting and supporting eSports. The one section of the book I admit I find pushing things a bit far promotes gaming across the curriculum. I see eSports as a meaningful extracurricular activity. You can probably take many academic or traditional extracurricular activities and expand the activity as the focus for broad topics of instruction, but that seems more a magnet school concept (e.g., schools for the arts, science) and not a practical direction for most schools.

If, like me, you are not involved as a gamer and you think eSports is some strange anomaly here is a little exercise I propose. Do a search for a past college you attended or maybe even a K12 school and see if they have an eSports program. I worked at the University of North Dakota and I retired only a few years ago. I had no idea there was an esports program.

University of North Dakota esports

Iowa State University

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Topics and resources for argumentation

A task I have promoted multiple times for middle school and high school classrooms is argumentation. If you use the hashtag for this post, you will find the previous posts in which I describe what argumentation is (think debate) and explain the content area and high thinking skill development opportunities providing students opportunities to engage in formal argumentation offers. 

One of the challenges for implementing class argumentation is the identification of issues that lend themselves to debate and the efficient access to the reasoning and evidence providing the background for such interactions. I have previously recommended the work of Kuhn (see the link above) because her book and the proven topics she offers as examples are one concrete way to get started with tested topics. However, you may want to find different topics that are better suited to integration with the topics you prioritize. 

One point of departure could be some consideration of what your purpose is. How much do you want to emphasize finding factual information to emphasize positions students take (search and content evaluation), how much are you emphasizing respectful argumentation and the development of higher order skills, or are both important goals. Related to this consideration is the amount of time you want to spend. An argumentation exercise that begins or incorporates online search will simply require more time.

Here are two sources one of which I would suggest is heavily weighted toward a focus on argumentation and the other more weighted toward information evaluation related to argument reasoning and position.

ProCon

ProCon is my example of a site suited to provide the background for an efficient focus on argumentation,  I think about the site as being useful to educators in three stages – what are some topics suited to argumentation, what is the background for a specific argument, and what are pro and con points important to this issue. The following three images were selected to exemplify these three stages.

All Sides

All Sides identifies current controversial topics and focuses on offering content sources that have been identified as providing a conservative or liberal bias on the controversy as well as a more centrist source. AllSides offers resources for educators related to how such content could be used. The following images offer an idea of how the content is organized.

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A video playlist to understand the challenges of social media

I have been interested in the problems of social media for some time. I feel somewhat responsible because I was very excited by what was once called Web 2.0 or the participatory web. There seemed like so many opportunities for engagement and learning at that time for so many areas – politics, education, human interaction on a global scale. With cell phones being so ubiquitous, it seemed a reasonable way for nearly everyone to learn and communicate. I did my best to spread the glad tidings and offer suggestions for the use of technology in classroom settings. If you are reading this, you can assume I tried to influence you. Things have certainly not worked out in the positive way I anticipated. Social media and the Internet have obviously impacted us in many ways and have generated great amounts of revenue for some. However, there are serious problems that need to be recognized and addressed. 

My wife and I meet online with a group from our college days every two weeks. As part of these meetings after socialization and catching up, we have a topic for discussion led by one of the participants. It was our turn and I wanted to talk about surveillance capitalism. Several of the participants work in economics and finance with one being a college prof. By definition, we are all social media users as we are meeting with each other via Zoom. Issues with social media seemed to me to be an issue most should find interesting – the Pew Research Center in 2018 found that 68% of U.S. adults use Facebook, 35% use Instagram, and 24% report using Twitter. Even old folks like us are involved. I searched about for a short video I could offer to the group and I intended to generate a shortlist of questions that might guide a discussion. I found it difficult to find a single source that would include the multiple issues I see combining to produce the challenges I see so I picked one of the components I thought might offer a good activation. I was talked out of the idea as something that many folks may not think about and a kind of heavy talk ill-suited to casual conversation. 

However, once started I kept thinking about a way to offer others some insight into what might seem a troubling but opaque topic. I had decided I could not identify a single source that would accomplish what I wanted to accomplish so I tried to identify key elements of the online environment that are involved in determining what I think is our present situation. I decided to focus on video resources.

What follows is a list of videos that explain individual components that combine to produce the challenges and complexity of our present online social world. In an effort to identify what I see as the individual components, I have designated a term or phrase and you will find that term or phrase highlighted in the following list. In many cases, I came to these topics and individuals based on individual books that I read. My bias for exploring what I consider personally important topics is to read rather than watch, but I understand others don’t consume information in this way. Most of the names identified below are also authors and be could search for more detailed presentations. 

Components of the social media mess explained for those who don’t like to read

  • Filter bubble – what we want to see and not what we need to see – Pariser – TED talk 
  • Surveillance capitalism – Zuboff – Triangulation 
  • Section 230 – Wall Street Journal
  • Radicalization – austav Mukherjee – TED talk 
  • Confirmation and other biases – Shepard – TED talk
  • Spread of misinformation – Aral – TED talk  

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Solar power continued

This is an update on my personal solar energy exploration. When the weather was warmer I have used a solar panel to power much of the writing I did in a gazebo located next to our house. I explain the project in previous posts (description, power saved).

While it is now too cold for me to work outside without running a space heater. I decided that I could continue to use the solar panel and just transfer power to my devices using a portable battery pack. This is not a very efficient system, but it works and keeps the project going.

I have always wondered how those with solar power deal with the accumulation of snow on their roof panels. I can’t say I know, but the sun does penetrate a thin layer of ice. Laptops and tablets don’t use much power. There must be some variant of this setup that would make a great classroom project.

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