Personalize literacy programs and student privacy

In response to a blog post from a couple years ago "Library records and student privacy", a reader asked:

I'd like your thoughts with regards to "Personalized Literacy Programs" (like MyOn Reader) and student privacy when it comes to book selection. If libraries are not allowed to track student book selection, why are we giving these rights to for-profit companies?

Great question.

First, if you read my post carefully, I don't think I recommended that libraries not track student book selection. I recommended they not share circulation data with those who do not have a legitimate need for this data. We should ask ourselves before sharing data...

• What are my school’s policies and state and federal laws regarding the confidentiality of student information? Have I consulted with and can I expect support from my administration regarding decisions I make regarding student privacy? Is there recourse to the school’s legal counsel regarding difficult or contentious issues?
• What is the legitimate custodial responsibility of the person or group asking for information about a student?
• How accurately and specifically can I provide that information?
• By providing such information is there a reasonable chance the information may prevent some harm to either the individual or to others in the school or community?
• Is there a legitimate pedagogical reason to share student information with a teacher? Am I sharing information about materials that students are using for curricular purposes or for personal use?
• Have I clearly stated to my students what the library guidelines are on the release of personal information? If the computers in the library are or can be remotely monitored, is there a clear statement of that fact readily posted?
• If student activity on a computer is logged, are students aware of this record, how long the log is kept, how the log may be used, and by whom?

So the question remains, how can schools justify "sharing student data" with companies like Google and MyOn Reader and a growing list of adaptive reading and math programs.

One important question that needs to be asked is if the data being shared is linked to an individual or is it gathered in the aggregate? It's one thing to share a list of books Juan has checked out this semester. It is quite a different matter to look at an analysis of the books most often checked out by EL students to help inform selection of additional library materials. It is one thing to use an individual's data from an adaptive reading program with a teacher and parents to help formulate an individualized learning plan. It is quite a different matter for the company who sells the plan to use individual data to in someway market directly to that individual.

Gather data, separating the data from the individual, and then using the aggregate data does not violate privacy (IMHO). in How does Google use student data?,

 If any ... data is associated with a student’s GAFE account — which may happen when a student is logged into their GAFE account — we consider it to be the student’s personal information. As we promise in the GAFE Privacy Notice, no K-12 student personal information is used to target ads, and in some services we show no ads at all. In Google Search, for example, we show no ads when K-12 students are logged in to their GAFE accounts

Basically, most companies collect student data to improve their products' functionality and to manage the intended service. That is not to say companies don't use student data as part of market research. But unless they target ads at individuals or in some way violate COPPA, I'd not worry too much about adaptive educational programs. They collect data for the same reason medical clinics collect data - to help analyze and improve individual's (academic) health and to improve the effectiveness of their own products.

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Housing values revisited

Over the past two weeks I've found myself choked up on a regular basis. After being on the market for nearly two years, the house on the lake in the rural Mankato area in which we've lived for 16 years finally sold and we are moving to the Minneapolis/St Paul area. Boxes fill the rooms. Bags of clothing to be donated line the garage. No longer wanted items regularly appear at the end of the driveway with a "Free" sign taped to them - and usually soon disappear. I am sad to be leaving.

In a blog post from 2009 called Housing Values, I described my love of this place:

Our house sits on one of Minnesota's 15,000 lakes and its screened-in deck provides a lovely view. Middle Jefferson's not the best lake in the state by any measure - shallow, mud-bottomed, and weedy until early July. But it is quiet and a refuge for pelicans, muskrats, ducks, leaping fish, herons, turtles, egrets, and the occasional eagle. The sunsets are glorious. Could be worse.

What got me thinking about the house was a story on public radio yesterday about how the "net worth" of so many Americans is completely tied up in their houses. And how the uncertainty in home values (your house is worth nothing if you can't sell it) is causing great unease among lots of people.

And here I naively thought we bought homes for the quality of life they provide, not simply as a financial investment tool. As a nest rather than a nest egg. Were I to sell this house at a loss, I believe I still would come out ahead considering the wonderful events it's hosted - holiday meals for the masses, fishing and boating with the grandsons, graduation parties, quiet evenings with friends, and even summer department meetings. It's a congenial place that's value lies less in land, paint, and shingles than in memories and pleasant hours spent.

So the question that keeps coming to mind is "will I ever find a place I love as much as I love this one?"

So one tenet I am trying to follow as I begin packing is minimalism. While I may never be able to pare my wardrobe down to 37 items, I am asking myself how much stuff I really do need. And I've started to look at not what do I get rid of, but what do I really want to keep. I have identified only a few things that are essential:

• Photos. These I am digitizing. I am pulling many from frames and photo albums and putting them in folders.
• Mementos from my travels. Each statue or painting or framed curio has a location and story behind it. Each time I look at the work, it evokes an experience.
• Family history. Scrapbooks, letters from relative, artwork from grandchildren are saved. One day, I hope, I can organize and make some meaning of these things.

Yes, I'll be taking some beloved books with me, but a fraction of those I moved in. What book cannot be replaced?, I ask, as I handle each one separately.

I will be moving my work office twice this summer. Should I be practicing minimalism at work as well? Having always been a big fan of weeding library collections, tossing the no longer relevant, not longer needed, no longer useful, has never been a big problem for me.

Perhaps moving is as much a psychological task as it is a physical one - or more. I will let you, my readers, figure that out.

I'm getting too choked up to write.

BFTP: Taylorism and education

As I slowly work my way throught Carr's book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, I ran across this passage from the chapter on Google: (reformatted slightly.)

In his 1993 book Technopoly, Neil Postman distilled the main tenets of Taylor’s scientific management.* Taylorsim, he wrote, is founded on six assumptions:

“that the primary, if not the only goal of human labor and thought is efficiency;

that technical calculation is in all respects superior to human judgment;

that, in fact, human judgment cannot be trusted, because it is plagued by laxity, ambiguity, and unnecessary complexity;

that subjectivity is an obstacle to clear thinking;

that what cannot be measured either does not exist or is of no value;

and that the affairs of citizens are best guided and conducted by experts.”

Fredrick Winslow Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management, 1911.

Carr uses the passage to ask if Google is trying to "Taylorize" information acquisition. But what struck me is that our current national and state school improvement efforts seemed to be based on this 1911 model of productivity.

Too bad our kids aren't just little Model Ts rolling off the assembly line. (See Why Robots Make the Best Students.)

Oh, Carr's book is one of the best I've read for awhile. He gets a little bogged down relating slugs and brain research, but overall The Shallows is a thoughtful and fascinating read.

Original post January 14, 2011