Mindmaps: The Connections Between Us

Teaching with Google+ Hangouts (with extras)

 Google Tools for Online  Synchronous Classes!

Google+ "Hangout" provides a effective meeting place for teaching synchronous "online" classes.  The visual presense of the students helps all of us develop a sense of community as we build our knowledge collaboratively. But, until recently,  it was missing a way to keep track of group ideas.  We used other tools, such as etherpads or google docs, which let all user modify and see changes as they are added to the document in "real" time. These interactive writing technologies are game-changers for collaboration. The use of these tools opens up channel of communication as everyone has the ability use the written mode to augment what is being heard in the verbal channel. This multichannel interaction also helps keeps multitasking students focused on the learning goal-- hopefully decreasing the pairing of classtime with facebook scanning. But finding a video, text and auditory channel that works well has been a challenge. 

So when I went to teach this week, I was very happy to see Google+ Hangouts had extras.  And knowing the Google owns the etherpad technology, I was pretty sure it would be something like an etherpad.  I was impressed.  There is file-sharing, whiteboard and notepads (google docs).  The notes open up  and are saved in your google document folder.  This full word-processing environment that can be exported to word or other formats and any document can be added to the Hangout. 

So in Google Hangout, you can open up any document or show anyting on the screen.  I have added a screencast (made with JING- also free) to illustate the environment and talk a bit about how we use it to support learning online. 

How to start a Hangout... 

 

 

The second screencasts shows you around the interface and the tools that you can use. 

 

With any beta version of applications, there have been some small problems but mostly it has worked well.  I have had up to 10 students in class  at the same time with minimal sound problems.  It has a noise concellation feature that reduces echoes. 

There is a feature we discovered during the screencast that did not make it in the demo.  If you click on the name of the notepad or sketchpad on the left, it opens up in the center space which was what did in the video.  But if you push the arrow, it opens up in the browser.  This makes it possible to have the notes open on one part of the screen as you use the window as a sketchpad or powerpoint projector. 

My wish list if any Google designers make it this way, is to make it possible for people to write in different colors and then have the option to selectively change the text to a single color.  This would be great for seeing who contributed which ideas (as in etherpads)  and for reviewing and commenting on text at a later point (the only left reason to use MSWord rather than google docs).   What would make it better would be a way to integrate it with google sites (wiki-web sites).  It would be great to be creating a web environment collaboratively. It has to be coming as it seems as if Google is working on finding the right integration of tools. 

What I liked best about the environment is that it was NOT teacher-centered.  There is moderator who gets to decide who gets to talk.  No handraising or other markers of control. And while only one person can screen share at a time, when a new person starts, it ends the last person--similar to the verbal challenge. We have years of experience in the art of turn taking.  I find that Google+ Hangout is shaping up as the right kind of tool for a meeting of learning circles-- a place where everyone leads and everyone listens.  

 

Google + Social Networking

I have been using a number of new tools  the in the last few months, but the one I am most excited about is google+ .  I hope it will become a valuable tool for online teaching.  Here is what it look likes: 

This unclutterd look is what one expects from Google.  When they introduced the Google Wave (see Dec 10 blog) -it crashed because it was even more cluttered then facebook.    Goolge+ is social networking with a clean, clear and intuitive appearance that is consistent with the way Google Search first appeared. Dropping  people in circles was straightforward and the representation was pleasing as the faces fell into a circle formation.  

With Google+, I could understand the site within a very short time.  The markers for what is public and private made sense both in writing and reading messages in the stream.  Messages  can be sent to everyone or to one or more circles.  They are marked as public or limited, and if limited, a click on "limited"  shows who, exactly,  the message was shared with.  Messages format themselves with pictures, videos, links and location easily inserted. (Despite years of facebooking, I still couldn't tell you who sees what and which things are found on my profile, home, walls or messages. The metaphors don't work for me.)

The four icons at the top of the site (house, picture, person and circles) are easy to decifer into  home, photos, profile and circles. When I selected  the photos, I found my  picasso albums had migrated  to google+ without any effort on my part.  While the social networking is not all that different from Facebook, it feels clean and sleek--no ads, no things blinking and or screaming for attention.  My circles are clear,  and I can tell who sees the messages. If I click on a name, the number of circles I have place them in show up so I know where they are in my social network.

GROUP VIDEO CONFERENCING -- for free!

What makes Google+ unique in the crowded social networking field is the hangout feature.  You can video conference with up to nine people.  That will make my teaching much easier-- but only for the small group meetings. Our hangout test seemed to work well although I have only had this one session--(connecting from Taiwan while I was travelin)g.  I am looking forward to using this feature for learning circles meetings in my online classes.  

Margaret Riel  -  Jul 24, 2011 (edited)  -  Hangout-  Limited 

Margaret Riel hung out with 8 people.

 

If you are not overwhelmed by reading things from people you know, you can use  "sparks" to connect to whatever people out there are talking about.  If you type "newsweek," you well get more than you might want to read about the current cover pictures of Bachmann. Or "stock market" will give you everyone's thinking about why the market is jumping up and down. 

One thing I like is that it is easy to open Google+.   +Margaret sites on the top left of my gmail.  So I am more likely to shift over without waiting for that email message from facebook or linked that reminds me that the social world is steaming by without me.  I think that google+ might slowly pull people away from the more chaotic, ad covered, facebook world (well maybe only people like me...my kids are not bothered by clutter).  And maybe with circles, it will be easier to manage the spheres of contacts. However, I have to feel sympathetic with those  who ask-- who needs another way to connect to friends... I am personally overwhelmed by email alone and I find myself longing for a less connected space and time.

 

 
Google reported 10 million users signed up in the first two weeks in July.  I am not sure how many there now.  And I was hard to sign up as you had to be invited.  I guess that is part of creating the buzz. Everyone wanted to be invited. 

Web2.0 Con Artists at the BigDeal (bigdeal.com)

Con Artists intentionally mislead people to get their money. And on the web, as on any context, their are "snake oil" salesmen, and con artists who will come up with any number of schemes make money off of the unsuspecting.  

Web1.0 (the early "broadcast" notion of the web) had plenty of hucksters...

 

These include con artists who

• wrote convincing hard luck story and asked people to send them money and share their story
• sent you email about the millions you have won...but you just need to pay the relatively small customs duty on your prize.
• need your help moving money and if you help, they  share their millions with you.   
• use your email address to send "help" messages to people you know telling them you are in trouble need money quickly.  

All of these scams are still looking for losers.  I recently was told by a friend that her mail list was scammed and all of friends were written to and asked to send money to help her get out of a difficult situation overseas. And surprisingly, without as much as a phone call or an email to check on her safety, one of her friends, distressed by the message, sent over a thousand dollars overseas.

 

NOW WE HAVE WEB 2.0

What does web 2.0 mean?... it means we get to be a part of the action. It is the interactive web where we can produce, respond and develop.   And, we can, without paying enough attention, be party to con artistry. 

BIG DEAL is just such a scam...

And the people at BigDeal eagerly invite you to help them get rich.  How does it work? Well read their page and see what you understand.  http://bigdeal.com/about/learn  It is written in such a way to encourages misunderstanding. The average person brings a set of experience with auctions to help them understand.  Ordinarily, one doesn't pay for a bid unless one wins.  Here it is clear that you pay to bid.  That is the message that they emphasize. But it is reasonable to think that you are paying the cost of the bid--which is clearly listed as 1Cent.  That fact that these penny bids are far more expensive is not so clearly identified. 

You have to buy a bid package. The system assures you there is no trouble moving money into your account because you can always get it back but you have to buy "bid packages." The minimum is $22.50 but they encourage you to add more to cover the cost of the item you hope to buy. Then, you start bidding "pennies" on objects with the clock winding down to zero... but every time a person bids, after time is over, the clock moves back 30 seconds to allow other losers to more time to bid. Most people will keep bidding their pennies and understanding that the countdown of seconds takes hours. When the person can no longer bid, and after trying to figure out why, he or she is likely to discover that these "pennies" each cost 75 cents and whatever money was in the Big Deal Bank, it is gone. 

Now if one is a less impulsive, and carefully read and understood everything, is there is a way for the person to get a big deal?   First, a person should be willing to buy an item at full price (plus a generous shipping charge) before they bid on it.  If they invest a few hours,  and they are very lucky, they might save a small bit of money--while helping to scam others out of their money for Big Deal.  Let's see how it works.... 

Let's suppose a person plans to  buy a $500 ipad. 

Here is one that sold for only $319-- 

Big deal collected 31,900 bids (from some unknown number of people) and each of these bid earned them .75.  So now Big DEAL has collected $23,925 for a $500 IPAD. Now some of these "losers" might chose to make up the difference between their bid loses and actually buy the ipad.  Say 25 did this and each of these people averaged 300 bids at a cost of ($225). So 25X225 = 5,625 is subtracted from the total (The people can pay the difference between their bids and the product).  This still leaves a profit of $17,675 to Big Deal on one action. And they have about 10 past-time actions active auctions and 100 other auctions. While some of the auctions come in at much less, even their best posted deal on a ipad, $67.32  still nets them a possible profit of $5,049 on a $500 product (minus the bids of anyone who uses the buy option).   

Now suppose a person understood the process and only started bidding when the price of the ipad was at maximum level, say $315. This is only $4 for the end, but it represents 400 bets which take hours as the clock resets for 30 secs after every bid. Say a person bid every other time bidding 200 times (each costing .75) for a total cost of $150 and wins the bid.  This person would then pay pay the $319 plus their bids and the total cost would be $469 saving only $30 after a hour or more of intense bidding. However with free shipping from Apple, the saving is now only a handful of dollars. 

But I would wager that most of the people bidding think that the 1C means they are betting one cent. And most of the people will lose their money.  And the amount of money most people lose is  equal to the shipping cost charged in buying the item at full retail from Big Deals.  So there is no redemption. Big Deal offers loyalty bucks (in return for your cash) that can be used for small discounts on products that are readily available on the web for the discounted price with no loyalty bucks. This is is no big deal.  

The worst part of this con job is you help others to be losers.  As you bet, you encourage others to do so and it is reasonable to assume that most of those people were pulled in by the urgency of a good bargain about to happen... a big deal. And most of them will be people who have not yet learned that a penny spent is not a just a penny earned. 

I would like to say that (like other scams that I have warned many of you about), I was too smart to fall for this.  But, alas, I was not.  I believed the "only two ipads a day" note and saw an ipad was on the board.  So I didn't do what I always tell others to do--read carefully and understand everything before you take action.   And once my money was gone, and I realized my error, I wrote to them and explained how I was mislead by their postings. I did not ask for my money back, but only to have a fair chance to bid more carefully with penny bids that I understood cost .75.  If they were in good faith, they would let me try again. There was no loss to them and in fact, I had helped scam others. But they told me sorry, the money is theirs. I suspect that most of their money is made this way.  I have since learned about another service, quidbid which has a similar process but they are more transparent about the process.  The amounts of bids on their site are much lower, suggesting that people understand the process. 

So my penance for being so impulsively foolish is to write this post so that I might, at the least, help someone else not to be scammed by the allusive promise of a ...Big Deal. 

 

Action Research

A Possible link between Research and Practice

I spent the last week at the American Educational Research Association  (AERA) meetings listening to researchers describe their work and once again I am struck with the disconnect between research and practice.  I listened to researchers describing their work on teaching and learning to other researchers.  Teachers were not present, were not listening, and, most importantly, will not be consuming much of the research presented.  Generally research is summarized and translated a number of times  before it reaches the classroom, often in the form of "research supported" practices with little tie to evidence. Part of my interest in action research is that it encourages teachers to be active consumers of research as they engage in a data-informed process of sharing their insights.  A greater acceptance of action research into the families of research strategies might provide the missing bridge between research and practice.

My discussions suggest that AERA researchers’ reservations about action research stems from two sources.  First, the defining characteristics of action research are unclear. And, second, admitting action researchers into the “club” of research undervalues the many years of developing expertise in the methods and skills that are essential for advancing  knowledge by a research community. This blog reflects on both these issues.

Understanding Action Research

It is not surprising that AERA attendees had a vague notion of action research. A multiplicity of definitions could be abstracted from different sessions sponsored by the Action Research Special Interest Group (AR-SIG).  To address this the AR-SIG is engaged in a collective process of defining action research with results presented at AERA next year.  But for the sake of this blog, I will define action research on three levels—personal, organizational and scholarly. 

  (From Riel and Lepori, 2011)

At the personal level it is a systematic set of methods for interpreting and evaluating one’s actions with the goal of improving practice. Action research is often located in schools or done by teachers, but it can also be carried out in museums, medical organizations, corporations, churches and clubs—any setting where people are engaged in collective, goal directed activity.  Equally important, not all teacher research is action research.  Teachers can do ethnographic, evaluative or experimental research that is NOT action research.   The process of doing action research involves progressive problem solving, balancing efficiency with innovation developing what has been called an “adaptive” form of expertise.

At the organizational level, Action research is about understanding the system of interactions that define a social context.  Kurt Lewin proposed action research as a method of understanding social systems or organizational learning.   Action research goes beyond self-study because actions, outcomes, goals and assumptions are located in complex social systems. The action researcher begins with a theory of action focused on the intentional introduction of change into a social system with assumptions about the outcomes.  This theory testing requires a careful attention to data, and skill in interpretation and analysis.  Activity theory, social network theory, system theories, and tools of evaluation such as surveys, interviews and focus group can help the action researcher acquire a deep understanding of change in social contexts within organizations

At the scholarly level, the action researcher produces validated findings and assumes a responsibility to share these findings with those in their setting and with the larger research community.   Many people acquire expertise in their workplace, but researchers value the process of building knowledge through ongoing dialogue about the nature of their findings. Engaging in this dialogue through writing or presenting at conferences is part of the process of action research.

Are Action Researchers Members of the Research Community?

Meetings of researchers involve sharing findings, methods and values.  So it is not surprising that they should be working on who is and is not a researcher in good standing.  Underlying such meetings is a concern about group consensus about quality.  And it is in this process, that some AERA researchers will want to close ranks and close doors to practitioner action researchers.  Why? Because action researchers are not steeped in the traditions of research and often have only rudimentary knowledge about research methods, design and tools of analysis.  They do not bring years of research experience to the table. Their status as “mere” participants without rigorous training in research methods is sometimes seen as denigrating the quality of research in the social sciences—which is often under attack from the natural sciences.

However, participants in organizations do bring years of experience engaging in inquiry into practice and they have made the important gains in understanding how research can inform their plans, and how data analysis can provide deeper insights into the mechanism of change.  These insights have value to the research community.  They present a way to start from assumptions of complexity and use theories of action to create and study organizational, interpersonal change.

Thus, action researchers can provide a valued entry point for AERA researchers who often enter a context without a deep enough understanding to frame a useful study.  Action researchers become engaged consumers of the research literature and often look for ideas for action from the studies that AERA researchers have conducted. In this way they can validate (or refute) the findings that these professional researchers offer in a variety of complex settings.

 Building a Bridge to the Research Community

Action researchers can provide a bridge to connect research and practice.  This bridge has a better chance of being traversed if practitioners who are crossing it are welcomed by the research community at the other side.  This does not mean that the research community has to give up its traditions of research or methods of building knowledge.  But it would be more productive if there was an openness in the process of understanding the varieties of research experience and a willingness to accept multiple methods of analysis.  If families of researchers continue to feud over which group has the best methods and who is, and is not, a researcher, the discord will undermine the possibility of advancing frames of knowledge.   Just as action researchers are moving from practice to research, AERA researchers might find it productive to use methods of action research to improve their practice.  This would help create a respect for continuous learning through data-tested reflections.

The Age of the Neworked Community

From the Information Age to the Community Age

In the last year of the 20th Century, I was invited to give the keynote talk at the National Education Computer Conference.   I used that opportunity to look back at the history of technology. My purpose here is not to reconstruct the talk. But, instead, I wanted to share  an insight that I made as I did the research.  I think it helps us think about the changes that are taking place with technology.

The expression "the information age" is commonly used to describe the later part of the 20th century when  computers were connected and made it possible for us to store, share and represent multimedia information.  However looking back in time, I argue that the information age is a term that might better be applied to the 19th century.  It was during this century that inventors worked at finding new ways to capture and store information from their world.   Begining with the invention of the lithograph in 1798 which made it possible to copy and reproduce original art work, the 19th century gave us many new inventions to store, preserve and represent information--the photograph, mimeograph, typewriter,  the phonograph, the telegraph, and tools for the cinematography and radiography.  Communication tools include the micorphone, telegraph and telephone.   This century was the era of recording and representing  information- art, light, text, speech, music, motion, and even images of the internal bone structure  of human bodies.  The number inventions using the suffix "graph" or "graphy" suggests a communal focus on writing down or recording multimedia information.

With the shift to the 20th century, the naming of inventions shifted.  It was not so much about "graphing" information but what sparked the imagination of the 20th century inventors was how to move information across distance and through time.  This was the communication age.   The use of the prefix "tele"-- meaning distance -- before so many of the new forms of technology suggests that the 20th century was focused on moving information across distances.  This century gave us information technology that included the  television, the telephoto lens, telerobotics, telecourses, teleconferencing, teletype as well computers, video tools, and the world wide web of information. While any separation of information and communication technology is difficult at best, during this century placing inventions on the two sides of the timeline became way more challenging.  The radio, arpanet, the internet,  telecommunications, telecommunity development and cell phones were all developments that shifted the way we were connected to others.   Many of the names for new activities that people engaged in also indexed our extensions across distance  including telecommuting, telecomputing, telementoring and  telemarketing. Spiritual direction was provided by tele-evangelists. Even children's programming featured Tele-tubbies.  These inventions, practices, and processes focused on our ability to transcend distance as we shared information.  

It is interesting to note that the names of communication tools of the 19th century suggest the shift to a focus on distance technology.  Similarly in the 20th century the the communication tools suggest the focus of the 21st century.  Telecommunications and the community terms applied to online networks, professional learning communities, communities of practice, virtual communities herald the focus on neworked communities of the begining of this century.             

As we complete the first decade of the 21st Century, we can see more clearly the move to the Age of  Community--the age of us. Our newer information tools carry odd names like facebook,  wikis, blogs, and youtube, twitter  and  flickr  but they share in common a focus on building social networks around multimedia and mining social capital in our organizations.  We have moved past version 1.0 of the web of the 20th century where leaders with access to the web broadcasted their valued  information over distances.  The current reincarnation of the web -- web 2.0 -- represents a shift  to communal production.  The 21st century web invites the communal participation in the creation, production, distribution, discussion, and valuing of multimedia information.  While definitions of community are debated, the youth are in constant contact with their social networks  challenging what it means to be present.  People use twitter to record and share their activities in real time with ever widening circles of friends.  With everyone broadcasting, issues of audience, quality and privacy and responsibility are becoming essential.   We are connected by our technology,  but we have very little experience, knowledge, and skills for how to work together productively.  At a much slower rate, we are developing the social skills and structures that help coordinate group work.  Online Learning circles  is one such structure for organizing small group collaboration.  Flash mobs provide a sense of collective street theater that can be used to entertain as well as provide social commentary.   Political groups on both the left and the right are rapidly learning now to use large groups of interconnected "followers" to achieve their ideologically driven goals.   Organizing massive groups of citizens with technology  contributed to bringing down the ruling government in Egypt a few weeks ago.  But can that same technology be used to form new patterns to govern ourselves?  What will be the outcome of the work to dismantle unions in the midwest?  Are new forms of collective bargaining emerging in the wake?  Will communities change government or will government control communities?  This is the question on the world stage.   Where are WE going?

 

 

Data Visualization--The Role of Feedback in Learning

In this post... I ask you to watch a video, think about some gaming for health and put these two systems together to think about what is missing in schooling. 

Watching Rosling's video reminded me of the Al Gore being elevated on a forklift to dramatically  illustrate the speed at which the climate dimensions are shifting.  These displays are very effective at helping us learn.  Take a few minutes...watch the video and come back...

 

Did you see the same optimistic trend as he did--countries coming closer together?  Seems to me that they were much closer in the past.  But the medium is the message here. What other information could you visualize? What about our personal data, our trends?  What effect does rapid feedback have on learning? What if you could see a graph of your learning in real time?  Hold that thought while I give you the second data point. 

Every morning I look forward to waking up my mind and body with Wii fit and/or Wii Sports.  It is my virtual cup of coffee-the surge that propels me forward to face the work of the day.  Why do I persist at this--(now almost  2 years of almost daily play)?  Even more perplexing to me, why do I enjoy it?  I don't really enjoy a workout at the gym in the same way (And  while I often manage to visit the gym 4x a week, I can count on one hand the times I have worked out first thing in the morning).  I think that biofeedback and advancing levels are responsible for this strangely addictive pattern.  I want to get better.  I want to see the line graph of my performance go up.  I can know I can get faster, more accurate, more agile, more balanced.  And I want to see one graph go down...my age.  If the Wii tells me I am in my 20's, it makes the day more fun, and it I tells me I am  older... well I know I might be younger tomorrow which makes me grin.  

So what am I learning?  The WiiFit, and sports in general, are a form of mindful exercise.  It is not just running or jumping or lifting, it is setting a mental AND physical goal and trying to reach it.  And, once you reach it, wanting to advance to  the next level.

So now let's put these two displays together for school learning.  Suppose there are some virtual, floating bubbles or dynamic graphs in the room and they bounce around as the students do their work.  As a student reads, his or her fluency and accuracy lines move and vibrate.   When the student responds well to comprehension questions the  bubble floats up.  This is not an extrinsic reward...

 a gold star... that teachers give for compliant  behavior or being good at something.  It is the visualization of the effort and performance. It is a subtle but important difference.  The student, not the teacher,  has the power to change the display. It would make learning into a game.   You can get mad at the computer (and I sometimes do when the computer doesn't play fair (smile).  But ultimately, one comes to accept that that progress is determined by play.  And games are designed so you will make it to the next level-- by embedding the skills you need for advancement in the current level.  Game designers know that you have to do this or people will stop playing.  They understand and exploit the addictive behaviors.  Teachers need to become game designers. 

We have the technology and we are close to being able to make systems that are smart enough to be able to be use by learners to evaluate themselves.  Schools could  places where we can see and feel what we learn.  Skills can be mastered and students can have some say in when they are ready for the next level of changes.  And as they understand the technology, they can make the games and that is when they will really master the content. 

 
Meanwhile... I am moving my hips to select the numbers that when added and subtracted in the right way will add up to exactly 15-- and trying to be quick about it. 

 

Two movies, and a Rally (or two)

I am going to contrast an unlikely pair of movies...Social Network and Waiting for Superman, and then use them to reflect on my participation in the largest gathering of people I have ever joined-- The Rally to Restore Sanity (and/or Fear) in Washington, DC on October 30, 2010.

THE MOVIES 

Social Network is a cautionary tale of privilege, revenge, greed and malice. It is a fictionalized tale
shadowing the real life of Mark Zuckerberg.  Zuckerberg is portrayed as an arrogant Harvard student with minimal social graces.  In an act of revenge against women, Zuckerberg hacks into Harvard servers and creates the sexist “facemash“ which almost gets him suspended.  As others recognized his programming skill, they try to partner with him to create a new product-- a visual listing of university contacts.   All of the people who crossed Mark's path in the movie were double crossed in his search for fame and wealth.   The movie tale is one of free enterprise coupled with unbridled greed where one person climbs to the top stomping on all who helped him.   The irony in the movie account is that the creator of the most powerful social networking tool Facebook, seems unable to friend anyone.  Putting aside the issue of truth (or truthiness) of the movie account, I use it here to raise the fears that some have of unregulated capitalism.  When one is driven by greed and wealth, what are the checks and balances that prevent these individuals from stealing, using, and abusing people as they get ahead?  What is the damage to society that these fast lanes to the top cause? 

Waiting for Superman provides a view into a different sector of society.  Here we see heart-grabbing stories of the working poor rather than the carefree lives of privileged programmers.  This is story of life's lotteries and those who lose out ---right from the beginning.   Some schools with "quality" teachers can jumpstart kids to success.  Other schools, the movie asserts are fatally damaged by TnT--tenure and teacher unions.  The analysis of education in the movie is so simplistic that it strains reality.  There is no discussion of how some teachers get to be talented and others are hopelessly incompetent holding on to jobs because they cannot be fired.  The internal mechanics of quality education is a black box, unexplored by the movie.   But for the sake of argument, I am going to accept the truthiness of the premise: A very limited number of schools have achieved high success with children from poverty, and for many hundreds of concerned parents, their only hope for their children is to win the education lottery. If they don't, then everyone loses. In this case, government is the both the promise and problem, but one is left with the sense of why is that if we know how to create some successful schools, there are not more of them?  Why doesn’t government deliver?

So I am going to use the Social network story to represent unbridled greed of capitalism and the damage that is done to the social fabric, and  Waiting for Superman to point to government ineptitude and the crime of wasting both human capital and of taxpayers' money. 

AND NOW THE RALLY (or two)

The Rally to Keep Fear Alive, was the ironic challenge to Rally to restore sanity held at the same time and lead by the persona of Stephan Colbert. Fear-- promoted by the exaggeration of problems we face-- has been driving people to extreme actions.   The more one group sells fear, the more uneasy we all get.  The attack on the America by Al Queada was the beginning of a shift to life in a state of constant fear.  We attacked another country because we were afraid of weapons that were not there.    And now we find ourselves in a place where government no longer works because our two party system is paralyzed by opposing fears. 

Polarized Fears

Half of Americans fears the greed and destruction to our environment, and social well-being which they see caused by a new breed of robber barons. These mavericks like Mark Zuckerberg in the film, take from others and leave a trail of destruction as they pursue wealth at all costs. The fear is that these corporate giants focus on amassing wealth and power by siphoning off resources in massive bonuses rather then investing in jobs, put collective safety at risk by taking less costly options, and find move operations offshore to avoid paying their share of taxes.  

The other half fears the government. They see the government like the schools  portrayed in the movie—not accomplishing what we expect. When government solves problems, the solutions are viewed as flawed and expensive marked with inefficiencies.   They fear that solutions that are designed to work for everyone, will work for no one. Government is seen as the enemy of the economy. If these services were privatized, they would work better for those who could pay for them.

Each side seeks to "keep fear alive" with statements like...  we will have death squads or a depression, our environment is on the edge of disaster or government regulations are destroying the economy, -- we can't decide if we will implode or explode.  

And that brings us to the second face of the Rally—The Rally to Restore Sanity—lead by the host of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart.  Hundreds of thousands of Americans filled our capitol's mall with an urgent plea.  We need to restore sanity.  For hundreds of years we have been able to work in a two party system.  We have put our trust in compromise.  When intelligent people with different perspectives come together and work to minimize fear, we are able to find compromises that can move us forward.  We know how to solve problems by listening, weighing and then working at a solution that recognizes the differences.  We need to create moderate civil discourse moving the extremists to the their corners where they serve a role. In the center respectful people with different ideas, a will to compromise, and a belief in a two-party system need to come together to solve problems without demonizing the problem solvers.  No party should be the party of “no.”  We need to be the people of one great nation who value diversity and believe in sane, open, honest dialogue around issues with the goal of solving problems.

TECHNOLOGY?

And now...technology...how does that figure in this post?  It is media technology that is at the heart of our new world.  We are connected in ways that make half-truths circle around us creating fires of fears.  An unidentified  person in India says Obama's trip cost millions of dollars and within hours some broadcasters spread this exaggeration as if it was the truth, fanning outrage.  An airplane creates an unusual tail and hours of broadcast time is focused on ferreting out the truth about this mysterious secret missile.  Almost everyone is Hitler. This form of media is, as Jon Stewart, said  “hurting America.”  We have moved from exploring different perspectives to simply promoting malicious statements or fanning fears.  This past election was not about how to make American great; it was about how to disrupt and destroy people. The role of media is crucial in setting public discourse.  I end with a quote from Stewart’s message at the rally using humor to help us think about the role of the media:

"The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems and bring them into focus illumining issues heretofore unseen or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected flaming ant epidemic. If we amplify everything we hear nothing. "

 

 

Help for mail overload...coming soon

I don't know about you, but I am downing in email.  I have to unsubscribe to things that keep starting up each day and I just can't get to things that I would like to read.  And I waste time trying to figure out which I need to read immediately.

Google wave was a bust but google magic is turning into gmail priority mail and I hope this will be as good as those who have used it say it is. Should be here in the next week or so.   So watch your gmail account for this new option.

Check out tech crunch for a longer story...

http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/30/gmail-priority-inbox/

Wealth and Happiness

Let's assume that being wealthy means being able to buy whatever you want without concern.  Are you wealthy?Well there are two ways to fix that.  One is to figure out how to get more money and the other is to think hard about what you really want.  If your wants are modest, you can be wealthy without much income. So here is a great video to help you think about consumerism...

The Story of Stuff  (www.storyofstuff.com/)

And the "tech" part of this message is this way of presenting information.  The moving graphics tell the story in a way that powerpoint couldn't manage.  The talking Annie Leonard makes it clear that this is her collection of research and her point of view.  And it reminds us of the power of storytelling. (For Cadre 13 at Pepperdine,  this is an example of a type of product you might create). 

Once you have really thought about stuff that you might not want (or at least need)... take a look at this article that just appeared in the New York Time which my friend  Bill Penuel sent to me. 

                                    "But Will It Make You Happy?": http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/business/08consume.html

If we want less, want what is important, then it is possible to be one of the richest persons in the world with only a modest income. And the best way to get even wealthier,  is to give what you have to help others find their comfortable level of wealth.  For example, you could help my friend Chris with   nickels for Nepal

Clipboard and Passwords--Tools to Ward off Memory Loss

 My age is growing faster than I wished it would and with that comes the challenge of memory overload.  Seems the mind's drive does not have  infinite storage capacity and old memories are cleared to make room for new.  (Maybe they are archived in some bundled files that are just harder to unpack.) At any rate both the tools I am going to discuss help this mind function more efficiently. 

 First, one clipboard is never enough! That is what Mac OS gives you.   I can't tell you how many times I  have copied some text to the clipboard, deleting it from the source  with the intention of pasting it somewhere else--only to be foiled by  the speed at I use copy/paste to change something else.  Gone!   Chronos has made my life less frustrating.  It is one of the tools that I happily pay for upgrades as I want it to be as powerful as possible (I have no  ties other than paying customer for either of these products). 

 iclipboard "shelf"  hides at the side of my computer with just a small gray tap showing.  But it is hard  at work recording the last 50 things that I copied to my clipboard.  When I am working in a environment like this one and afraid of  losing text, I  make a copy and I know I have it. Then for bits I really want to save, I can lock them on the clipboard.  I do this for messages I send over and over.  So, for example, if I have letter I send to schedule interviews locked in the clipboard.  I address a new message and then select the tab to open Iclipboard and double click the locked message and there it is ready to modify and send.  Or if there is some text I want to put at the bottom of webpages (like the creative common license) I have it in the clipboard and with a click it is anywhere I want it. You can clip anything-- text, links, photos, videos or anything you see on your computer.  Here are is a video from chronos that explains it better than I will here.  It laso gets rid of text formatting by holding down the shift key when you copy it (handy for moving text to wikis). 

Taking Note....

Remembering passwords for all of the many programs and making them both different and difficult stretches the limit of my mind.  The second tool I want to share is Soho Notes again by Chronos.  This tool is a database and it stores notes of all kinds.  But the notes that I have the most need for are encrypted password notes.  I try to remember to store the passwords each time I create them for a site.  I can then quickly search on the site name to find them.  Also I can make anything I copy move from the clipboard to a note.  So when I buy something or get a registration number, I can copy the relevant information on screen, then I select the iclipboard and move the copied text to a note and then file it with other similar notes.  

You can open a daily note for things you planned to do,  but never got to...  or other things you need to jot down.  Also I use it as a fast notepad when I need to compose messages to a threaded discussion online (I teach online).  In programs like Blackboard, moddle or Sakai, when you push the reply option,  you often only see the last message.  By opening a note, I can scan all of the messages in the discussion and compose my message and then past it into a reply box.   

  I also use encrypted notes to save information about my parents heath issues, their doctors names and phone numbers, so I will be ready if they should need immediate help.   I don't know how good the encryption is, but at least it is better  than storing tis information in a open files.  I feel that I have taken at least some level of care in protecting information.  I know lots of people who have doc files called passwords sitting on their computers. 

Both these programs are reasonable priced ($30 and $40) and upgrades are generally a bit cheaper. Also I originally got iclipboard for free for buying Soho Notes-- so watch for offers.  I see they have an iphone version but the reviews are mixed so I am going to wait a bit till they figure out how to make it work a bit more smoothly. I will let you know when I risk the $5 AND the time it takes to set it up.