Making sense of self-assessment
TL;DR #164 – 9/7/2018
TL;DR is a weekly look at the news in technology, education, and literacy. I’m seeking to keep you on top of the news so you can be the expert.
The GIF I shared above is from a tweet from Drew Spangler. I love the placement and use of this assessment. I also recommend clicking through to the tweet to identify other physical self-assessments added by educators.
Here’s some of what I posted this week:
- What is trust in digital, hybrid, and physical spaces – Trust is a term that comes up frequently in my research, writing, and teaching. I try to unpack some of the framing in this post.
- Video: Postmodern Picturebooks – I love children’s books and picturebooks. I think they provide incredible opportunities to think and teach about a number of topics. I’ll start sharing some of my favorite books as I come across them. Sorry for the video quality…I’m working on a new setup for video capture. I guess I need a shave as well. 🙂
- What is screentime? – We’re getting started with topic one in our research/discussion surrounding screentime. We’ll start by defining the topic. Please come join us.
Seeing White Fragility (6:23)
I’m in the middle of reading Robin DiAngelo’s new book, White Fragility. It’s an eye-opening look at systems and society. It’s helping me think through my teaching, research, and personal interactions.
I understand that this book is meant for someone like me. DiAngelo states at the beginning of the text that this book is primarily for “white progressives” that think they’re not racist, or “see race.” I’ve already had a couple of times in the reading that I’ve stopped and said…yeap…that’s me.
I know this text is not for everyone. I know many family/friends that would be frustrated and put this down immediately. For those that are interested…I recommend the journey. I think it’s important.
To learn more, you can also check out this interview DiAngelo conducted with EdSurge.
Teaching in the age of school shootings
This week many schools across the U.S. went back for the start of a new year. As the year started at the high school where I used to teach, a suspicious person report sent the campus and community into a lockdown. Over the next couple of days I watched social media as family & friends were at first terrified, then relieved as the threat was identified as a hoax. Finally, I saw as this same group of colleagues went through trauma on social networks as they recovered, and then thought about going back to school.
This post by Jeneen Interlandi in the NY Times identifies the challenges as we think about how we prepare teachers (and students) for this sort of trauma. How do we prepare teachers (and students) to be first responders? Should we have to worry about this?
All of my annotations are available in context here.
Predicting active shooter events
This research from Richard B. Duque, E.J. LeBlanc, & Robert Rivera asks questions about the motivations, planning, and preparations for these events. The authors present data about recent trends, and discuss opportunities to deter future events.
An Avalanche of Speech Can Bury Democracy
Zeynep Tufecki in Politico Magazine. All annotations in context.
For the longest time, we thought that as speech became more democratized, democracy itself would flourish. But in 2018, it is increasingly clear that more speech can in fact threaten democracy.
But in the digital age, when speech can exist mostly unfettered, the big threat to truth looks very different. It’s not just censorship, but an avalanche of undistinguished speech—some true, some false, some fake, some important, some trivial, much of it out-of-context, all burying us.
Social media is a weapon of war
David Axe in Motherboard. An interesting look at the larger impact of the Internet as a system, and the power structures that exist behind it.
To ‘win’ the internet, one must learn how to fuse these elements of narrative, authenticity, community, and inundation,…And if you can ‘win’ the internet, you can win silly feuds, elections, and deadly serious battles.
Finding your voice on social media
As the semester starts up, I spend time guiding my students as they think about identities they want to have in digital spaces. This post from Sue Beckingham helps identify some possible ways to frame your identity online.
The importance of marginalia
Doug Belshaw identified this great post from Austin Kleon about “reading with a pencil.”
Kleon notes:
I believe that the first step towards becoming a writer is becoming a reader, but the next step is becoming a reader with a pencil. When you underline and circle and jot down your questions and argue in the margins, you’re existing in this interesting middle ground between reader and writer.
We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.
Seneca
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