Should authority matter on Twitter

Posted on October 15, 2019 by admin

This brief comment is in response to a lengthy blog post by Daniel Willingham regarding the believability of educational experts based on Twitter tweets. I will leave it to you to identify just what you think is the core argument in this post, but my take would be that Willingham argues educators should not take too seriously the arguments of experts on Twitter.

The two supporting arguments seem to be that expertise in the field of education is more difficult to assess than in other fields that require certification (e.g., a license) and the area addressed by educational research is messier than other fields.

It is not my intent here to get into a detailed analysis. I agree that educational research is challenging, but so are certain fields of medicine. I am not certain I buy the certification argument as it seemingly suyggests that the skills of a physician are more uniform than those of educational researches with a Ph.D.

I do agree with the general concern that Twitter is not a good source for recommended practice. At best, it is a starting point. The brief comments probably shift the interpretation of expertise to variables such as past exposure to the author or the inclusion of degree level as part of the name associated with tweet. Blog posts offer more evidence of logic and place a heavier burden on the writer to communicate. In both cases, it is important to recognize that the posted work has not been vetted through editorial review as would be the case with journal publications.

However, here is the reality. The students I work with at the graduate level are mostly not focused on careers as researchers. They would not likely read the vetted journal articles I assign even though they are generally motivated learners. What happens when they are no longer in situations requiring they spend time on formal and reviewed research? I hope that they at least read longer-form content and have the background to be sensitive to logic, a link to evidence, and cross-referencing of suggestions with external sources. I also hope that educational researchers make the effort to provide resources with these qualities in addition to the work they publish in the research journals.

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Digital citizenship week

Posted on October 12, 2019 by admin

Next week is digital citizenship week. While there are weeks for so many different things, certainly it is a useful way to bring attention to important topics. Donut week is probably an exception, but it certainly has its own following.

Common Sense Media is a nonprofit with a mission to prepare and educate citizens for the productive use of online media. The organization has made an effort to organize some of its resources by grade level that are suited to the general goals of this week. There are lots of useful resources here.

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Brave ecosystem update

Posted on October 7, 2019 by admin

I continue as an advocate for the Brave browser and ecosystem. Brave is a browser based on Chrome so most of the extension you aleady used in Chrome will work. Brave is attempting to solve the interrelated problems of personal privacy and support for content creators. Here is the perspective of another writer on what Brave provides.

The Brave ecosystem is as important as the browser itself. This ecosystem allows users to experience ads that do not result in the sharing of personal information with 3rd parties, allows users to be compensated small amounts for viewing these ads, and allows users to donate these small amounts to content providers in proportion to the time spent on content providers sites. It is more complicated than this, but these are the core components. For me, this system satisfies the fairness test that is often lacking in the Internet as most of us experience it.

Brave is easy to download and setup. If you want to put in your own money or take out money based on your usage, you would have to setup a cryptocurrency account and this involves multiple steps I see as putting off most users. For the amount of revenue you would generate through personal use, this is not worth the effort. I like the simple approach as a way to protect privacy and compensate providers.

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Court offers mixed neutrality ruling

Posted on October 3, 2019 by admin

I have a long history of supporting net neutrality. I was a stronger backer of the Obama era FCC ruling that ISPs must treat all content and services equally and upset when the Trump changes to the FCC ruled that ISPs could prioritize some content over others. Complaints related to the most recent FCC ruling have now generated some court rulings and the findings seem to me to be a mixed bag.

First, the court concluded the FCC did have the authority to reverse the previous administrations ruling. The court concluded that:

But judges did not dispute the FCC’s decision to classify broadband as an information service instead of a telecommunications service. Classifying broadband as an information service essentially deregulated the industry and helped the FCC repeal the core net neutrality rules. (Arstechnica)

I disagree, but I have no official standing. By this argument, I see problems everywhere. Most U.S. citizens have limited access to alternatives for this information access. To me, this argument is equivalent to suggesting that it would be OK if the only information source you had access to was Fox News. If the provider can manipulate what the only reasonably available channel of input provides, this is potentially a serious problem. Of course, there is an advantage to the provider of selling priority input to the highest bidder or a provider suiting the interests of the provider (e.g., one interested in degrading access to online video sources if it owns its own video service), but self-serving opportunities combined with limited consumer options is potentially a serious problem for consumers. Note also, that this ruling is not about consumer price controls. Neutrality is about an ISP treating all transmitted bits equally. The anti-neutrality position is about what can be expected of information sources which has a more indirect impact on consumers.

Is there an agency responsible for the oversight of information providers. To me, the information providers are the businesses and individuals creating and serving the information. The FCC position would seem to argue that the U.S. mail bringing my magazines is an information provider.

The mixed component of the ruling involved rejecting the FCCs position that simply has the authority to reject all state level rules.

The ruling does not prevent the FCC from trying to preempt state laws on a case-by-case basis. But the FCC can’t preempt all state net neutrality laws in one fell swoop, judges ruled. (Washington Post)

So, the FCC must consider the situation in each state individually. This may make more work for the FCC, but it does not suggest that each state can establish the rules that make sense for that state.

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Fall Leaves

Posted on October 2, 2019 by admin

I live in the north and spend some time at a house in woods of northern Wisconsin. Every fall I watch the leaves turn and take some pictures. Some of these pictures end up posted on social media sites. There is a science to what we see, but the beauty is there whether we consider the science or not. Learning a little allows a little deeper appreciation.

I have the opportunity to view the same trees year after year. I find it fascinating that the color and even whether the leaves reveal much color varies from year to year.

Here are a few resources for learning about fall color. It is time to get to it if you want to connect this background with what is happening.

Tne basics from Science Made Simple

EEK – environmental education for kids

An experiment to explain the color changes in some leaves

A few photos:

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Personalization is ambiguous

Posted on October 1, 2019 by admin

I am preparing to teach “mastery learning” next week. Teaching this topic is not particularly difficult for me because I have been interested in the topic since I first became interested in the early 1970s. The underlying principles made so much sense to me, but at that time, the classroom implementations struggled as expectations for “tutoring” associated with these principles were often impractical. As my own interests migrated to how technology might be helpful to learners, I found new opportunities for how these principles might be implemented.

The popularity of the “personalization” of learning is a recent trend that suffers from ambiguity. Some, who have connections with the principles I have just mentioned, have used the term to describe the pacing of learning. The background and aptitude of different learners dictate what might be considered the optimal pace for learning a given topic. Some can move faster than others. I don’t see how this reality can be disputed. Unfortunately, the way we educate (note the distinction here between how we educate and how we learn) involves one teacher working with a group of learners. It is often impractical for this one individual to pace learning experiences that are optimal for each leaner. This is where technology can be helpful. You can search my blog using the term “mastery” to locate other posts on this topic.

The other way of thinking about personalization might be thought of as learner interests. Obviously, we have different personal interests and we are likely more motivated to study the topics that interest us than the topics that do not. Again, technology offers a way to allow individual learners to study different topics (so does a trip to the library).

These two ways of understanding personalization have ended up at odds with each other. It is more than just using the term in different ways. In some cases, it involves a negative reaction to the other way of using the term. More clearly, this difference argues that the other perspective may lead to negative educational outcomes.

I don’t see the world this way. I see opportunities for combining opportunities to explore personal interests (think 20% time projects) and opportunities to learn required content at a pace suited to the needs of the individuals (mastery learning). To me, this is life. We have expectations we must address and we have freedom to explore what interests us. Personalization can make both expectations more productive.

I recommend this NPR “All things considered” program as recognizing the ideas I describe here.

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