Blurts

I have written several posts on the opportunities in the use of the microblogging platform Mastodon. I see Mastodon as more than a Twitter clone. A recent post from Seth Kenton provides an extensive review and description of Mastodon.

I was never a fan of the Prensky distinction between digital natives and immigrants. I suppose it was because the natives were supposed to be the cool folks and by definition, I was an immigrant. Being an adult working with technology before and during the earliest days of public access to the Internet, I was put off by the advantages attributed to the natives. Those young folks usually had little idea how things actually worked and were limited by a mechanical approach to the use of some tools most adults had yet to discover. The native/immigrant distinction seemed mostly to be a way for adults working with younger people (e.g., many educators) to excuse their lack of experience AND interest.

I hope we are past the use of the natives/immigrants labels. Everyone has now had ample opportunity to learn. The adult Facebook-only users are the equivalent of the teen Snapchat users – neither knows much beyond their tools of choice.

While the “I am not a native” excuse lingers, I am pleased to see some more helpful descriptions have emerged. I like the visitors/residents distinction being promoted by White and Cornu. This simple model is based on patterns of use rather than quantity of knowledge.

A few months ago I wrote a post explaining why I thought Twitter chats were not productive and proposing that those wanting to have collaborative, text-based discussions should look for a better platform. Among the limitations I identified in that post was the capacity of a Twitter tweet (140 characters) and how so many tweets contained so little information. I recommended the search for a more versatile online service and I used a new open-source service I had been exploring called Mastodon as an example. Mastodon is a “microblog” similar to Twitter, but has an expanded 500 character limit.

Mastodon takes me back to the good old days when online services were innovative and open. I ran blogger and b2 on my own server before blogger became a Google service and B2 morphed into WordPress. I still like the idea of freedom and independence online and Mastodon has this feel. You can host an “instance” of Mastodon yourself if you have the tech chops. I am afraid that my PHP and MySQL skills don’t provide the necessary skill set or I would be tempted.

If you are a Twitter user or an edchatter willing to innovate a little, I would recommend that you take a look at Mastodon. Wired has written a more recent and complete description than my own so you might want to read it and then give Mastodon a try.

The cost of textbooks in higher ed receives a lot of attention. For the record, I have written college textbooks and I have written about the misrepresentation of the cost of such textbooks (most textbooks are resold so the actual cost to the student is typically one-half the cost of a new book). I have taken calling this deception as the “beer money ploy” as college students may not always tell their parents they have sold their textbooks back to the bookstore.

I came across a blogger writing on this same topic and he argues that OER (open educational resource) textbooks may be less costly, but nearly all are simply an online version of a traditional textbook. He argues that innovation will come when commercial providers augment their content with personalized study systems and personalization is what will actually make higher ed cost effective. He takes a broad view and notes that a large proportion of college students do not graduate and innovations that increase this percentage will improve the cost effectiveness of the total process. He has hit on a position I agree with and focused on as a research focus during my professional career. It is only the commercial content providers who have the resources (because of the economy of scale) to provide systems that allow students to progress at their individual rates of understanding.

With the political news concerning health care and “collaboration” with Russia, you may have missed this story. The Senate, voting along party lines, has decided that is OK for you ISP (Internet Service Provider) to sell your data. That means your browsing history is not as private as you thought or hoped. Since you likely know who holds the majority in the Senate, you know who voted to sell you out.

I cannot imagine as a consumer who would think this was OK. Even if you did not care who knew what you viewed online, why would you want to allow the ISP to sell this information. You already pay the ISP for online access. At best, I would think it appropriate that “sell my data” would be an opt in that would compensate you against your monthly bill. Since, your browsing preferences would be a great way to feed you ads, I would think $5-10 a month would be appropriate.

Here is the thing that irks me about Republicans. Why is it that business interests are given priority over the interests of individuals? Yes, I do know the answer to my own question.

As to why senators would want to overturn privacy rules, Vocativ (via TNW) reported earlier this week that the 22 Republican senators behind the resolution had received more than $1.7 million in campaign contributions from the telecoms industry in recent years.

There is still time to contact your representative, but I suppose most of them are on the payroll too.

The question of online privacy has been prominent recently. For example, I have written on several occasions about the rights of creators to allow ads on their content and against those who feel it a right to block such ads. Yes, ads and cookies are a way to annoy users and collect information, BUT when you get content for free the ads provide a form of compensation for the free content received. If you don’t like the ads, don’t visit the content generated by creators. This is not an issue with ISPs – you have no choice. You use the service and they have your data.

There are related issues that may be involved and to my knowledge have been overlooked. If you work in education, you may be familiar with COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act). This law makes it illegal collect without parental approval the online data generated by the activities of children under the age of 13. Since I see no opt in or opt out provisions for the Senate pronouncement, I am unclear on how COPPA requirements would be met.