Dubious notions

I've recently run across an abnormally high number of blog entries that I think ought to be thought twice about. Must be the summer heat cooking otherwise cool intellects.

1.  In "The Birds Will Be Singing" Ryan Bretag asks "how I could possibly make my upcoming presentations deemed as lectures more interactive?... why not use Twitter?" and suggests setting up a special account to allow attendees to electronically converse throughout his lecture. Personally, I always appreciate groups that actually listen when I am speaking. Adding one more distraction to an already overwhelmingly distractive world sends small shudders up my spine. Sorry, Ryan. I am looking for a wi-fi blocker, not another means for people to engage in side conversations. It's an ego problem, I suppose.

2. "I do see that a lot of people are very stuck on the idea of having face-to-face meetings for things that could be better accomplished online just because that’s the way they’ve always done it or because they just aren’t comfortable with the new collaborative technologies." laments Meredith Farkas in her post "No more f2f meetings… EVER!" Actually the title is the idea I dislike. In the entry itself, Meredith gives a pretty balanced look at the the pros and cons of both f2f and online meetings. The  dubious idea here seems to be the complete elimination of either format.

3. Sylvia Martinez does an outstanding job of articulating some of the big questions I've been having about Second Life in her post "Second Thoughts on Second Life." I loved her quote "Second Life is primarily a platform for adults to explore their sexual identity. Ignoring the overtly sexual nature of Second Life is like going to a strip club and then wondering why there are naked people there. The owners of Second Life, Linden Labs, have expressed their support for education, and have discussed their intent to provide more educationally appropriate worlds. However, this is a business model that has to work for them and it’s not going to be driven by education no matter the best of intentions." I've always had the same philosophy as Mrs.Campbell that it doesn't make any difference what you do in the bedroom as long as you don't do it in the street and frighten the horses. Second Life itself just plain creeps me out too much with its half-nekked vampires and programmable penises to ever see it as a viable educational venue. MUVEs, themselves, have brilliant possibilities.

4. Scott McLeod gives "technology advocates" the Vision Challenge Part 1 and Part 2, asking "Can we articulate in a few short sentences or paragraphs what the end result looks like?" and "...what if these visions aren’t compelling enough?" I will forgo the grumble about the label "technology advocate" (if I am to advocate it will be for something carbon-based, not silicon), and get to the heart of this: Who am I to be the one articulating a vision for education, the end result? To a very big degree, I am a servant of the state. I get my marching orders from the people of Minnesota via their elected officials. Is it my job to lobby for the goals of education or only to recommend in a professional capacity the means of best achieving the goals set out for me?  Now as a parent and citizen, I have every obligation to lobby for how I think education ought to be conducted. The smell of hubris hangs heavily on too many edtech blogs...

5. Scott is right now and then (surprisingly often for a college professor). He writes "... I don't like them [Internet filters] because of the message they send to students: in an information economy, we don't trust you with information." Welcome aboard, Dr. McLeod, to the intellectual freedom train. I've been hammering on this one myself for a while...

• Internet Filters: Censorship by Any Other Name?, Emergency Librarian (Teacher Librarian), May 1998
• Maintaining Intellectual Freedom in a Filtered World, Leading & Learning, May 2005.  

We need more technology advocates ;-)  like you willing to speak out against the overuse of filters. 

I hope everyone reads blogs with his/her most skeptical eye and is always alert for the dubious notion. Be especially suspicicious of any blog with Skunk in the title.

Rant signal

That rant last week felt gooooood. So good, in fact, I just might let loose a little more often.

Well, as loose as any Minnesotan can. I wouldn't want to disturb the neighbors or upset the milk cows.

Anyway, I asked my illustrator son to make a ranting skunk logo I can add to the page when I get the urge. If you see it, consider yourself warned.

Defending Wikipedia - it's our job

In a recent posting to LM_Net, continuing a conversation about the advisability of the student use of Wikipedia, school librarian Jeff Hastings writes:

Let me make it clear, though, that I'm saying that the scope [of Wikipedia] in a k-12 environment can be highly distracting to students and downright hazardous to your professional life. Personally, I work in a district where a "values" group recently took actions to attempt to convict teachers and school officials for "distributing pornography to minors" based upon their use of the book "Freedom writer's diary" in High School accelerated English. And most of us have now read about the felony conviction of a hapless substitute teacher who unwittingly "allowed" students to see pornographic images.

In that sort of climate especially, Wikipedia's scope in areas like sexuality, vernacular, and pop-culture become problematic. Again, I'd hate to explain to an antagonistic group of fundamentalists how a student learned to perform fellatio by perusing an illustrated Wikipedia article while ostensibly doing a library research project--and there's no doubt that that scenario could happen in an instant. I think educators have to take a second to think about that.

OK, let's step back and think for a minute what might happen if we used the views of every "antagonistic group of fundamentalists" to dictate our school and library selection policy. You know it just ain't the naughty bits they're worried about.

What about this subversive material?

Current evolutionary theory holds that all species evolved from a single form of life which lived more than 3 1/2 billion years ago ... Although evolution is called a "theory," this term does not mean that evolutionary biology is guesswork or is not supported by evidence. In science, a theory is a set of ideas based on observations about nature that explains many related facts. The theory of evolution is supported by evidence from many scientific fields. When a theory is supported by so much evidence, it becomes accepted as a scientific fact. Almost all scientists consider the theory of evolution to be a scientific fact.

This radical information source? World Book Online. Jeff, I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that you have parents who feel this violates their values and ought to be tossed from your library as well. I hope you got some big dumpsters!

My question is this: If we let the loudest, most politically and socially radical members of our communities frighten us into abandoning our selection principles, where does it stop?

And how do we get our technology folks to help us fight for intellectual freedom instead of unilaterally making fear-based decisions? Does any technology post-secondary program from which we draw candidates for these positions address selection policies. developmental needs of kids, or censorship issues? I doubt it. I get e-mails like this one from a Florida librarian way too often:

 In my school district, the technology department, in all its infinite wisdom,  blocks Wikipedia.  They did this without asking one media specialist his/her expert opinion. ... The media specialists met as a group and talked to the head tech guy, and his answer was, it had to be done in "real time."  Apparently there were too many students wondering how the human body works.  It seems to me that might be why we have one of the highest rates of pregnant teens.  I can't quite get them to see it my way.  And so it goes.

The fight is real and it is important.  And it requires courage and strategy. It requires an alliance between librarians and technologists.

There. It's good to let off a little steam. I guess I will need to change the blog entry category on this from "professionalism" to "rants"!