Author: grabe

Not so funny when it is your data??

I have struggled with the copyright issue in several past posts. In my opinion, part of the problem seems to be to get people to examine the issue of “rights”. What is it they have a right to do? Why do people who have the free choice to ignore a resource if they disagree with the expectations of the creators, feel they have a “right” to ignore the expectations of those who created the resource.In my own strange way, I find the resentment of those who feel enraged because of the liberties MySpace and Facebook have taken when their personal data an interesting reaction to a very similar situation.

I wonder if they see the similarities themselves. You felt you made available information under certain conditions and now you find others have a different interpretation and have used your information for purposes other than what you intended. It is a frustrating position to be in – isn’t it?

The participatory web now or soon will need an infusion of resources. The transport system (e.g., Google) will be able to survive on ad revenue, but Google and other participatory web enablers only pass information around. Someone has to create the information and mechanisms to support the labor required have yet to emerge. The writers have already begun to strike. Now, perhaps, so have the consumers.

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Beware the Flock browser

It has been one of those days when I had plenty of time, but ended up getting little done. For some reason, I decided I should update my Flock browser. Bad mistake. I like(d) Flock because it allows easy access to my Flickr account and to this blog. I have had some difficulty with Flock and Firefox on my home Mac, but not on my laptop or office machine. My office machine runs an older version of the Mac OS – the U has a way of ignoring software updates that cost money.

The newer version of Flock does not launch with 10.3.9. I tried the standard routine – throw away all files associated with Flock, but nothing worked. I don’t blame myself for this one – I didn’t download a program my outdated operating system could not run. The online documentation claims Flock works with 10.3.9 and beyond, but the many complaints on the web indicate this is not the case. I believed the company.

I have been searching for older versions of Flock, but they do not appear to be available from Flock and when I think I have located a previous version the download defaults to 1.0 or 1.0.1. Anyway, if anyone knows how to return to an earlier version, I would appreciate an email or comment.

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Waiting for the turkey

Happy Thanksiving Day to all.

I am enjoying a little down time. One of my children is home today and another is coming tomorrow with her family for leftovers. Family gatherings in Grand Forks are becoming rare and we typically are on the road for holidays so this is a nice change.

I was looking for a post topic and noticed that my last.fm account has now been active for a year. Last.fm is a social music site that among other features keeps track of the music you listen to (iTunes, last.fm radio, pandorafm, etc.). According to my stats I listened to a little over 27,000 songs last year. The data, most popular artist, song, etc., are interesting to examine. Most popular artists from last week appear at the end of this post.While not directly relevant to my professional interests, my experience with lastfm has influenced how I understand social network applications. I don’t spend any time interacting with other music fans, but I do enjoy examining the overlap in our musical interests and exploring the work of new artists who are unfamiliar to me. I suppose this is how tapping into the collective intelligence is supposed to work.

 Kim (daughter) and I had a chance to walk along the river and take a few pictures.

red river ice

While we were driving back from the river to see if the turkey was done, Alice’s Restaurant was played as a special selection on the campus radio station. It gave me an opportunity to tell my youngest daughter about the old days when dad was in college.

Remember – you can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant. Enjoy your turkey and your friends. Happy Thanksgiving.

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The World Is Changing Around You!!

 Rupert Murdoch, the rich guy from Omaha, plans to offer free online access to the Wall Street Journal. This on the heels of the NYTimes decision to do the same thing. Hard to believe such “profit above all” businessmen are willing to give the rest of us such a gift. Perhaps altruism is setting in with age.

Wait! The media moguls may not be nice after all. Ad revenue from the sale of hardcopy papers continues to drop.  It may still be about the money.

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When will learners teach themselves?

I have long been troubled by the instructivist vs. constructivist debate. I find constructivist theoretical positions appealing, but struggle with the lack of data supporting such theories. I do understand there are those willing to explain why my pessimism is unwarranted, but my training limits what must be offered as justification. Perhaps, one critical issue is what we are willing recognize as tests of our ideas. If we find ourselves stuck with conventional contexts, factors which may generate change may be difficult to implement and evaluate. I ran across an interesting Ted Talk that tested the power of exploratory learning in a very different context. This presentation concerns students learning about and with technology in an extremely “informal” setting. What is at issue in this demonstration (I am not sure research would be the proper term) is what are learners capable of learning on their own. I find this demonstration more persuasive that those who use children’s mastery of complex video games as evidence that exploratory learning can be successful, but again the connection with identifiable classroom content is evident.

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Why Johnny Can’t Read

I think I read Flesch’s Why Johnny Can’t Read back in graduate school. For one reason or another, this problem seemed to disappear. Perhaps math and science issues became greater concerns.

Problems with reading proficiency are about to receive more attention. A recent study by the National Endowment for the Arts urges attention to the lack of reading activity once students hit middle school.

“We are doing a better job of teaching kids to read in elementary school. But once they enter adolescence, they fall victim to a general culture which does not encourage or reinforce reading. Because these people then read less, they read less well. Because they read less well, they do more poorly in school, in the job market and in civic life.”

Among the possible causes is the “profileration of electronic media”. The news article I have linked does include statements contending that the research does not include online reading and students may be reading, but reading different types of material.

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Amazon eBook Reader

This morning, many of the blogs I read echo the Amazon news about its new eBook Reader (e.g., R/Wweb). The Kindle offers e-ink technology (high quality display with low power consumption) and wireless (think cellphone and not wifi hotspot) Internet connectivity. The price point for popular books (from Amazon) is supposed to be $10. The cost for the device will initially be $400. Somebody is going to find a way to offer text/image content at a reasonable price point in a way that provides adequate compensation to authors. We all probably have features we would like to see in such a device – high on my priority list is the opportunity to highlight and annotate. There was no mention of these capabilities in the posts I read.

I will have to wait until I have an opportunity to try this technology, but it does sound promising.

(Newsweek Article)

P.S. – It is intriguing that my two posts for today comment on a new way to read books and the decline in reading proficiency among adolescents.

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