December 2015 archive

social media and the devaluation of information

Iran’s blogfather: Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are killing the web

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/29/irans-blogfather-facebook-instagram-and-twitter-are-killing-the-web

is it possible that the Iranian government realized the evolution of social media and his respective obsolescence and this is why they freed him prematurely?

Blogs were gold and bloggers were rock stars back in 2008 when I was arrested.

The hyperlink was a way to abandon centralisation – all the links, lines and hierarchies – and replace them with something more distributed, a system of nodes and networks. Since I got out of jail, though, I’ve realised how much the hyperlink has been devalued, almost made obsolete.

Nearly every social network now treats a link as just the same as it treats any other object – the same as a photo, or a piece of text. You’re encouraged to post one single hyperlink and expose it to a quasi-democratic process of liking and plussing and hearting. But links are not objects, they are relations between objects. This objectivisation has stripped hyperlinks of their immense powers.

At the same time, these social networks tend to treat native text and pictures – things that are directly posted to them – with a lot more respect. One photographer friend explained to me how the images he uploads directly to Facebook receive many more likes than when he uploads them elsewhere and shares the link on Facebook.

Some networks, like Twitter, treat hyperlinks a little better. Others are far more paranoid. Instagram – owned by Facebook – doesn’t allow its audiences to leave whatsoever. You can put up a web address alongside your photos, but it won’t go anywhere. Lots of people start their daily online routine in these cul-de-sacs of social media, and their journeys end there. Many don’t even realise they are using the internet’s infrastructure when they like an Instagram photograph or leave a comment on a friend’s Facebook video. It’s just an app.

A most brilliant paragraph by some ordinary-looking person can be left outside the stream, while the silly ramblings of a celebrity gain instant internet presence. And not only do the algorithms behind the stream equate newness and popularity with importance, they also tend to show us more of what we have already liked. These services carefully scan our behaviour and delicately tailor our news feeds with posts, pictures and videos that they think we would most likely want to see.

Today the stream is digital media’s dominant form of organising information. It’s in every social network and mobile application.

The centralisation of information also worries me because it makes it easier for things to disappear.

But the scariest outcome of the centralisation of information in the age of social networks is something else: it is making us all much less powerful in relation to governments and corporations. Surveillance is increasingly imposed on civilised lives, and it gets worse as time goes by. The only way to stay outside of this vast apparatus of surveillance might be to go into a cave and sleep, even if you can’t make it 300 years.

streaming

Inside Netflix’s Plan to Boost Streaming Quality and Unclog the Internet (Exclusive)

http://variety.com/2015/digital/news/netflix-better-streaming-quality-1201661116/

a new bandwidth-saving technology that the company has been working on for four years

At the lowest end was a file encoded with a bitrate of 235 kbps, which would work even on very slow connections, but also only deliver a resolution of 320 by 240 pixels. Somewhere in the middle was a 1750 kbps file for a resolution of 1280 by 720, and the best quality was a 5800 kbps version for a great-looking 1080p experience.

 

 

teenagers app AfterSchool

Millions of teens are using a new app to post anonymous thoughts, and most parents have no idea

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/millions-of-teens-are-using-a-new-app-to-post-anonymous-thoughts-and-most-parents-have-no-idea/2015/12/08/1532a98c-9907-11e5-8917-653b65c809eb_story.html

The app’s creators declined to say exactly how many students use After School, but they indicated that there are somewhere between 2 million and 10 million users.

Cory Levy, 24, one of the app’s founders, said After School gives teens a chance to “express themselves without worrying about any backlash or any repercussions.”

presentation tools for CPSY 101

Plan for work with CPSY 101 students on alternatives for presentation and design

short link to this blog entry: http://scsu.mn/1P39zKV

China educational reform

A Shifting Education Model in China

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/12/china-education-system/420234/
The news was taken from Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MindShift.KQED/posts/913192562049997. Here are the comments:

Marcin Zaród While at the same time in their kung-fu schools they have been using models like “station rotation”, “peer-learning”, “immediate feedback”, mastery learning, even some elements of gamification (like badges-like colour belts showing the mastery on some level and unblocking access to higher-level routines available only for the more advanced students), etc for hundreds of years…. And I am not joking. Just ask anybody who does some kung-fu under the watchful eye of a good coach (sifu).
A great example of a “peer learning” session on the enclosed photo (taken at a kung-fu training in Poland, not in China smile emoticon

China has now reshaped its national exam to focus on a broader range of topics and cognitive skills and, in turn, move away from teacher-dominated lecturing. The new test requires that students employ complex analytical skills, mixed with broader knowledge across various subjects.

This is exactly what Finland and the United Kingdom are aiming with the reforms in their education. In March 2015, this blog reported on a reform in Finland: https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/03/24/education-reform-finland/, which is to be followed by the UK.

parameters for academic technology

Cloud-hosted solution: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-amazon-is-so-hard-to-topple-in-the-cloud-and-where-everybody-else-falls-2015-10

content interchange/exchange between the solution and LMSs and adheres to LTI 1.2 global standards:

D2L and BB, it also integrates with Canvas, Moodle, Sakai, BrainHoney https://bwhs.brainhoney.com/Welcome.vp/page.htm , Schoology https://www.schoology.com/, Jenzebar http://www.jenzabar.com/, LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability® 1.2)

1.2 https://www.imsglobal.org/specs/ltiv1p2

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