Listening to learn
TL;DR #156 – 6/29/2018

This week I posted the following:

• What is IndieWeb & why should you care? – This post is a response to a post from Chris Aldrich about defining the IndieWeb, and what you would like to see in IndieWeb.

Estrellita (Little Star) (7:49)

“Estrellita“ is a very short animation about immigration, work, ICE, and loss, set in Vermont.

As Bryan Alexander points out, digital storytelling has always had the ability to speak to current issues.

A Burlington Free Press article adds more background about the work on the project.

Public attitudes toward technology companies

A new poll by the Pew Research Center suggests people in the U.S. believe that technology companies are politically biased and/or engaged in suppression of political speech. This is most evident in self-identified Republicans that say technology firms support the views of liberals over conservatives and that social media platforms censor political viewpoints.

Relatively few Americans trust major technology companies to consistently do what is right, and 51% think they should be regulated more than they are currently. Generational differences exist around some – but not all – of the questions about the role of technology companies in society. On the whole, Americans tend to feel that these firms benefit them and – to a lesser degree – society

The NSA’s hidden spy hubs in eight U.S. cities

This was a bit of a lesson for me this week in “media literacy” and reading deeper into a story. When I first saw this story linked above, I shared it out, and started talking about it with colleagues. I dug into the story, and noticed a lot of similarities with the news that came out years ago from the PRISM and Snowden leaks.

After sending this out, I received a couple of messages behind the scenes from many of you indicating that there was more to this story. As a side note…I really appreciate the expertise and pushback many of you send behind the scenes as I share things out. I try to make sure I fold this thinking into my work and content.

Some of the content that I recieved in repsonse to this story from The Intercept is this story from The Observer and this tweet thread from Chris “Cal” Carnaham.

I’ve been doing some deep thinking on this, and it’ll most likely show up in an upcoming publication. But…what do you think?

California unanimously passes historic privacy bill

California lawmakers passed a new privacy bill on Thursday that would give residents of the state more control over the information businesses collect on them and impose new penalties on businesses that don’t comply. It is the first law of its kind in the United States.

The so-called California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, would govern how tech giants like Amazon, Facebook, Google and Uber collect and monetize consumers’ personal data – a set of changes that could ripple throughout the country. The new online privacy law would require tech companies to disclose the categories of data they collect about consumers as well as the third-party entities, like advertisers, with whom they share that information. Web users would also gain the ability to opt out of having their data sold, and companies wouldn’t be allowed to charge users a fee or provide them less service if they made that choice.

Pioneering alternative forms of collaboration

This publication from Rebecca Hogue, Jeffrey Keefer, Maha Bali, Keith Harmon, Apostolos Koutropoulos, Ron Leunissen, & Lenandlar Singh details what they call “swarm writing.” They detail how an institutionally, culturally, and geographically diverse group of people, many of whom have met and worked together only online, are able to come together to create conference presentations and write academic papers collaboratively. They focus this study on our primary authoring tool, Google Docs, and the processes that made possible, enabled, and shaped collaborations.

Listening as resistance

A great post about listening from Sherri Spelic. What I appreciate most about the post is Spelic’s humility and wisdom in listening as a form of learning, action, and resistance.

I frequently find myself at the keyboard on my computer or mobile device and ready to fire off a rant, or targeted message. Yet, I find myself stopping, pausing, and deleting. I’ve recently thought about that as a sign of weakness. But, perhaps Sherri is pointing me (us) in a better direction.

Google Family Link

Why did I not do this sooner?!?!

My son has a tablet in his room. He uses it to listen to white noise when he sleeps. He also plays games, listens to music, reads comics, etc. We wanted a way to place some limits on time, apps, and content on his device. Since this is an Android tablet…Google Family Link allows me to install/remove/modify apps and content on his device. We can determine time spent per day, hours of usage, etc.

The app even lets me see where the tablet is…and set off an alarm if his sister hid it in the room. 🙂

I haven’t tried this on our iPhone/iPad, but I love how Google’s app is baked into the system.

Where there is power, there is resistance.

Michel Foucault

TL;DR is a summary of all the great stuff from the Internet this week in technology, education, & literacy. Please subscribe to make sure this comes to your inbox each week. You can review archives of the newsletter here.

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