Parents Of Nasal Learners Demand Odor-Based Curriculum

The following article was originally published to be funny, perhaps satirical.  That being said, does it offer a serious challenge to some of our teaching practices? Is there any reason we should assume nasal learners don’t exist?  Should we tailor our instruction to their needs with the same vigor used for oral or visual learners?  Why? Or Why not?  If not, why are we so sure that we should cater to oral or visual learners, or anyother such groupings of needs?

From: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28606

Parents Of Nasal Learners Demand Odor-Based Curriculum

March 15, 2000 | Issue 36•09

Bottom of Form

COLUMBUS, OH–Backed by olfactory-education experts, parents of nasal learners are demanding that U.S. public schools provide odor-based curricula for their academically struggling children.

“Despite the proliferation of countless scholastic tests intended to identify children with special needs, the challenges facing nasal learners continue to be ignored,” said Delia Weber, president of Parents Of Nasal Learners, at the group’s annual conference. “Every day, I witness firsthand my son Austin’s struggle to succeed in a school environment that recognizes the needs of visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic learners but not him.”

Weber said she was at her “wit’s end” trying to understand why her son was floundering in school when, in May 1997, another parent referred her to the Nasal Learning Research Institute inColumbus. Tested for odor-based information-acquisition aptitude,Austinscored in the 99th percentile.

“My child is not stupid,” Weber said. “There simply was no way for him to thrive in a school that only caters to traditional students who absorb educational concepts by hearing, reading, seeing, discussing, drawing, building, or acting out.”

Austin’s experience is not unique.

“My 15-year-old daughter Chloe couldn’t sustain her interest in academics and, as a result, she would goof off with her friends and get in trouble,” said Michael Sweeney ofOswego,NY. “Now I realize that all those Ds and Fs did not represent any failure on my daughter’s part, but rather her school’s failure to provide an appropriate nasal-based curriculum.”

According to Reyna Panos, director of the Nasal/Olfactory Secondary Education (NOSE) certification program atBrownUniversity, children begin to indicate their nasal needs as early as the first grade, so parents need to be on the lookout for the telltale signs.

“Nasal learners often have difficulty concentrating and dislike doing homework,” Panos said. “They also frequently have low grades in math, reading, and science. If your child fits this description, I would strongly urge you to get him or her tested for a possible nasal orientation.”

Educators have been slow to recognize nasal learners, said Panos, even though her research finds that 10 to 20 percent of all students fall into the category.

“In the early years of educational psychology, children were believed to fall into one of two camps: visual and auditory. Eventually, kinesthetic and tactile learning styles were recognized, as well,” Panos said. “But, to this day, nasal learning continues to go unacknowledged.”

Panos said nasal learners do best when they are encouraged to use odor-based recall techniques in testing situations, and are allowed to organize and prioritize items by scent. The biggest challenge now, she said, is to “educate the educators.”

“It’s very gratifying to be a pioneer in a totally new field of education, but at the same time, it’s frustrating to come up against such strong resistance,” Panos said. “That’s where groups like Parents Of Nasal Learners make all the difference: They’ve got to push, push, push until their children’s needs are finally met.”

Scholastic Scents is a Cambridge, MA, company attempting to fill the void in educational materials geared toward nasal learners.   “Our line of scratch-and-sniff textbooks won’t be available until next school year,” Scholastic Scents president Randy Bauer said, “but we do have a variety of educational packets such as the Oregon Trailfragrance set and our ‘Speak & Smell’ language workshops. I’d also recommend you browse our non-text book selections, such as the all-odor version of The Yearling.”

However, according to Dr. Ira Greene, author of The Nose Knows: A Nasal-Based Curriculum Development Guide, such efforts do not go far enough. Greene said there are three distinct types of nasal learners: the goal-oriented nasal learner, the activity-oriented nasal learner, and the learning-oriented nasal learner. Each type, he said, must be treated differently.

“It’s important to understand that not every nasal learner is the same,” Greene said. “For example, while goal-oriented and activity-oriented nasal learners may see the prospect of olfactory reward at the end of a task as sufficient motivation, the learning-oriented nasal learner needs something more to sustain his interest.”

For parents who suspect their children may be nasal learners, Panos recommended the Stanford-Binet Nasal Index Exam.

“This test asks students to respond to statements like, ‘I enjoy smelling things,’ and ‘I would rather write a book report than smell one that has already been written,'” Panos said. “From this, we can determine the best way for parents to help teach that child. It would be nice if the schools gave such tests, but the sad fact is, for the child with special nasal needs, today’s educational system stinks.”

A quick fact to defend factual knowledge and route learning

 

Twitter can really cut through a concept you’re wrestling with sometimes and help you crystallize it. I couldn’t quite encapsulate an idea I has having until this tweet came to me the other day:

@mathewi Mathew Ingram

RT @sacca: Everything you read is true. Except when the article covers a topic you actually know something about.

I have been wrestling with writing a defense of facts / factual knowledge / route learning for a while now. I have largely written what I refer to as part one, but I haven’t published it yet. I still might, but for now, this will co-opt that earlier writing.

I think what the post concludes is that unless someone makes an overt error, it is impossible to be fully critical of an argument or presentation. Unless there is a leap in logic or an internal inconsistency you will only know if something is wrong, if you first know what is right. When I read Wikipedia with my son about the Solar System, I try to absorb everything; however, when I read about the Eastern Abenaki, I consistently want to edit or argue a point. The difference is I have some factual knowledge about the Eastern Abenaki while I have only a rudimentary understanding of the Solar System.

It is factual knowledge that allows us to utilize our critical thinking skills. Students can’t be expected to accurately judge information found on the web, unless they know something about it first. Teachers must teach factual knowledge in order to encourage the application of critical thinking. While no great fan of Bloom’s taxonomy (or the revision) it is no coincidence that remembering and understanding come before apply, analysis, evaluate and create.

Analytic tool based on Postman’s 5 ideas

Below is a graphic organiser that I created to use Postman’s article “5 Ideas we Need to Know About Technological Change.”  My students used this to analysis the Internet or any social media tool.  I think it helped to focus / lead some of their efforts.  Formatting changed a little when I posted it here but there is a word document link at the end of this post to see the formatting as I intended.

Name: ______________________    

Subject being analyzed: ______________________________

Postman analytic tool

When trying to understand new technology or a media / Internet tool, Postman’s article “Five Things We Need to Know about Technological Change” provides a good framework to begin:

“Idea number one, then, is that culture always pays a price for technology.”
“What will a new technology undo?”	What other negative consequences are associated with this tech / media? .

 

“…There are always winners and losers in technological change” is the second idea. .
What are the winners winning?  What are the advantages of producing this technology to the producer?	What are the advantages of consuming this technology? .
	What are the losers losing? .

                       

“The third idea, then, is that every technology has a philosophy which is given expression in how the technology makes people use their minds, in what it makes us do with our bodies, in how it codifies the world…”

What is the idea or bias behind this tech. / media? .

 

“…fourth idea: Technological change is not additive; it is ecological.”

What is now different about the culture given the presence of this new tech / media? .

 

“…the fifth and final idea, which is that media tend to become mythic.”
Describe a characteristic	How could it be changed for your benefit? .
Describe a characteristic	How could it be changed for your benefit? .
Describe a characteristic	How could it be changed for your benefit? .
Describe a characteristic	How could it be changed for your benefit? .
Describe a characteristic	How could it be changed for your benefit? .

 

Expectations

1.1 explain how various media texts address their intended purpose and audience

1.6 identify who produces various media texts and determine the commercial, ideological, political, cultural, and/or artistic interests or perspectives that the texts may involve

Criteria	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4
Use of critical/creativethinking processes	uses critical/creative thinking processes with limited effectiveness	uses critical/creative thinking processes with some effectiveness	uses critical/creative thinking processes with considerable effectiveness	uses critical/creative thinking processes with a high degree of effectiveness
Application of knowledgeand skills in familiar contexts	applies knowledgeand skills in familiar contexts with limited effectiveness	applies knowledgeand skills in familiar contexts with some effectiveness	applies knowledgeand skills in familiar contexts with considerable effectiveness	applies knowledgeand skills in familiar contexts with a high degree of effectiveness

 postman analysis

Free services on the web

Image, if you will, that I have an idea of a game and wish to make money from it.  In those bygone days, I could: start a company and manufacture that game, or licence it to another company to sell.  Those would be my possible business models.  Today though, I have more options then those traditional avenues.

I can also:

1) Start an Internet site and charge per use

2) Start and Internet site and charge for a membership with unlimited use

3) Start an internet site and charge for special services or products with in the game

4) I can charge advertisers to place banner ads on my site adjusting the cost based on usage

5) I can charge advertisers to embed their ads inside the game in a variety of subtle or overt ways adjusting the cost based on usage

6) I can partner my service as content to another site which is trying to increase its usage

7) I can embed my game in other sites to drive users to mine

8) I can do number 6 and 7 simultaneously

9) I can track and sell the profile information of my users to direct marketers.

10) I can sell to users other related products based on the profiles I acquire

11) I can change my business plan to fluctuate between these options

10) I can combine many of these options together either all at once or gradually

11) I can wait to be bought out by Google or some other such company

There are lots of ways to make money, even if the game is free.  Now not everyone likes games, but what is also growing is social media tools for educational purposes; the same business models apply.  Still think that App is free?  Are we delivering our students as a captive targeted audience?  

Pause to consider

Strategy Games for procedural writing

Strategy Games for procedural writing

People have been sharing, on Twitter, about learning with games for a while now, and I wanted to share these games.  These are strategic board games that are easy to duplicate and only require markers to play.  I photocopied and laminated game boards and used counting squares as markers.  I started using them when I taught Junior Special Ed. but I have also used these games with every level from grade 4 to grade 8 gifted.  Originally, it was to work with procedural writing. Students read and figure out how to play a game.  Once they are good at it, they either have to explain the rules in their own words, describe a game being played, or create a detailed strategy guide.  Several of them were written at different levels but that was a longer project then into which Iwanted to  invest.  Several of these games have been played for over 1000 years.  There are many other games that would be suitable (ex: the Royal game of Ur).  Here is my selection:

FOX AND GEESE

Fox and Geese seems to have originated in northernEuropesome time during the Viking Age.

1. The game is a contest between one Fox and 13 Geese.
2. Play begins with the pieces in the positions shown.
3. Players may move a piece to any vacant adjacent spot on the board, either vertically, horizontally or diagonally along the marked lines.
4. Only the Fox may jump another piece.
5. When a piece is jumped, it is removed from the board.
6. The object for the Geese is to capture the Fox by surrounding him so he cannot move or jump.
7. The Fox must try to remove all the Geese, or at least enough of them so that there are not enough left for a capture.

AWITHLAKNANNAI

Player 1

                                                                    

Player 2

1. Set up the board as shown above.
2. Randomly determine who goes first.
3. Players take turns moving one of their pieces at a time either forwards or sideways
4. Pieces may not move back towards their player.
5. The object of the game is to jump your opponent’s pieces and make yours safe by moving them across the board to the other side. 
6. Pieces can be jumped.  To jump, the pieces must line up along a line with an empty space behind the piece being jumped (like in checkers).
7. When no one can move any of their pieces, the game is over. 
8. The winner is the person with the most pieces left at the end go the game.

 

FIERGES 

 

RULES (this game is similar to Checkers):

1. Pieces are set on the first 2 rows in front of each player.  All spots must be occupied.  The middle row will be empty.  The pieces are moved diagonally, forward, or sideways one space at a time. They cannot move backwards.
2. You may jump over and capture an opponent’s piece if there is an empty space beyond it. If, having jumped and captured a piece, you find your piece is able to jump another of your opponent’s pieces, you may do so. Captured pieces are removed from the board. In Fierges there is no compulsion to capture an opponent’s piece.
3. If you manage to place a piece on your opponent’s back line, that piece becomes a King. That piece is “crowned” or marked to denote its status. Usually by placing a second captured piece on top of it
4. A King can move backwards or forwards; however, “crowning” ends a move. So a piece cannot move into the back line, become a king then jump back out over opponent’s piece capturing it, in the same move. It must wait until its next move.
5. The object of the game is to capture your opponent’s 10 pieces or make it so they can’t move.

 

FOUR FIELD KONO

Number of Players: 2
Equipment: Board and 2 sets of 8 marbles for Four Field Kono, and 16 marbles

Objective: To capture all your opponent’s pieces (or prevent him or her from moving)

1. The board is set up as in the picture with each player’s marbles placed in the two rows directly in front of him or her.
2. Players take turns moving.
3. A player can capture an opponent’s marble by jumping over one of his or her OWN marbles and landing on the opponent’s marble, which is then captured and removed from the board. Capture moves can only be made horizontally or vertically, not diagonally.
4. Only one piece can be captured in a move.
5. If not capturing, a piece can be moved one space horizontally or vertically, not diagonally.
6. A player who cannot make a move or has only one piece left loses.

 

PROPOSED RULES FOR LATRUNCULI

 

Use an 8 X 12 grid board

1. Black plays first.
2. Each player has 12 pawns and 1 king
3. All pieces are set on the board before play begins as shown.
4. All pawns may move any number of spaces in the horizontal or vertical direction.
5. the king can only move 1 space at a time either horizontal or vertical
6. A single pawn is captured if it is surrounded on two opposite sides by a combination or Kings or pawns; however, a pawn may move between 2 other pawns without being captured.
7. The outside walls cannot be used to capture pawns.
8. A piece in the corner can be captured by two playing pieces (either pawns or kings) placed across the corner.
9. Multiple stones can be captured if surrounded at the same time, by the same move.
10. The king cannot be captured but can be immobilized by being surrounded on all four sides. 
11. The king is also considered immobilized if it is blocked by an enemy stone such that it has no place left to move.
12. First player to immobilize the enemy king wins.
13. If the game stalemates, the player with the most captured enemy stones wins.
14. Sequences of plays that repeat endlessly must be prohibited (this is usually obvious to both players after two series of moves repeats — any move initiating a third repeating series of moves is illegal).

 

MERELS

 

Rules:

1. Start with an empty board.
2. Each player has 9 pieces of a different colour.
3. The players must decide who starts first.
4. They take turns placing their pieces on the board.  Pieces are put on the board one at a time with the players taking turns.  Only 1 piece can be in any space.
5. Once all the pieces are put on the board, players can move 1 piece at a time along the lines to the next empty space.  You cannot move to a space that already has a piece on it.
6. The object of the game is to form what is called a “mill.”  That is when you have 3 of your pieces in a row.  When you have a mill, you can remove 1 of the other player’s pieces from the board.
7. One player wins when the other player has only 2 pieces left.
8. Whenever possible, the captured man should NOT be taken from an opponent’s existing line of three (mill).
9. Players must move a man if they can.
10. A player who cannot move a man loses the game.
11. It IS allowed to move a man out of a mi and then move back the following turn. ll, and then move back the following turn.

 

 

NYOUT 

Nyout is an ancient game, originating in the area currently known asKorea. It is a game that can be played by two, three or four players. Based on horse racing, it’s playing surface is shaped as a circle inscribed with a cross. The circle and the cross are composed of circles that act as playing spaces. The center circle and the circles at the cardinal points are larger than the rest of the circles. 

The object of the game is to enter your pieces onto the board, move them around the board and bear them off. The player to bear all of their pieces off first wins.

The entry and exit point is the small circle to the left of the top large circle and is called the Chut. Pieces travel widdershins (counter-clockwise) around the board. 

Two-Player Nyout

If two people are playing, each player gets four playing pieces, called horses. Players determine the order they go in by a throw of the casting sticks (highest throw goes first).

The casting sticks are composed of four sticks, each with a light and a dark side. The sticks are shaken in a player’s hand and then dropped (cast). The number of light sides showing is the number of moves a player must move one of their horses (from 1 to 4). If no light sides are shown (all four sticks show dark sides) a player must move one of their horses 5 spaces.

Horses enter the Chut on any throw value.

Each circle space (including the Chut) counts as a move of one.

A throw of four or five allows another throw.

Finishing a move on a large circle allows a player to change the direction his horse is going, and on the next move take a shortcut using the paths through the center of the circle, if desired. If a horse taking a shortcut through the circle ends up on the opposite side of the circle with movement still to do they, the horse must turn widdershins (counter-clockwise) and finish out its movement. Use of shortcuts is not required.

If a player’s horse finishes a move on a space that already has a rival horse there, the rival horse is considered to be “kicked”, and it is removed from the board and must begin again. If a player has a horse finish a move on a space that has two or more rival horses there, all rival horses are considered to be “kicked”, and all are removed from the board and must begin again. The player who “kicks” another horse or horses off the board gets an additional turn. They receive only one additional turn no matter how many horses were “kicked”.

If a player’s horse finishes a move on a space that already has one of his own horses there, the player may (if desired) pair the two and have them move as one piece from then on. No more than two pieces may be paired together. If a player has a horse finish a move on a space that has two or more of his own horses there, he may pair pieces (if desired) provided they are not already paired.

An exact throw is NOT required to bear a horse off the board. If a horse is borne off, with movement left, the extra movement is lost.

Three-Player Nyout

The rules are the same if three people are playing, except that each player gets three horses apiece instead of four. Players determine the order they go in by a throw of the casting sticks (highest throw goes first).

The casting casting sticks are composed of four sticks, each with a light and a dark side. The sticks are shaken in a player’s hand and then dropped (cast). The number of light sides showing is the number of moves a player must move one of their horses (from 1 to 4). If no light sides are shown (all four sticks show dark sides) a player must move one of their horses 5 spaces.

Horses enter the Chut on any throw value.

Each circle space (including the Chut) counts as a move of one.

A throw of four or five allows another throw.

Finishing a move on a large circle allows a player to change the direction his horse is going, and on the next move take a shortcut using the paths through the center of the circle, if desired. If a horse taking a shortcut through the circle ends up on the opposite side of the circle with movement still to do they, the horse must turn widdershins (counter-clockwise) and finish out its movement. Use of shortcuts is not required.

If a player’s horse finishes a move on a space that already has a rival horse there, the rival horse is considered to be “kicked”, and it is removed from the board and must begin again. If a player has a horse finish a move on a space that has two or more rival horses there, all rival horses are considered to be “kicked”, and all are removed from the board and must begin again. The player who “kicks” another horse or horses off the board gets an additional turn. They receive only one additional turn no matter how many horses were “kicked”.

If a player’s horse finishes a move on a space that already has one of his own horses there, the player may (if desired) pair the two and have them move as one piece from then on. No more than two pieces may be paired together. If a player has a horse finish a move on a space that has two or more of his own horses there, he may pair pieces (if desired) provided they are not already paired.

An exact throw is NOT required to bear a horse off the board. If a horse is borne off, with movement left, the extra movement is lost.

Four-Player Nyout

If four people are playing, there are slightly different rules. First, each player gets two horses instead of four. Players form teams of two players each. Players still determine the order they go in by a throw of the casting sticks (highest throw goes first). Thus a team might go first & second, first & third, first & fourth, second & third, second & fourth or third & fourth.

The casting casting sticks are composed of four sticks, each with a light and a dark side. The sticks are shaken in a player’s hand and then dropped (cast). The number of light sides showing is the number of moves a player must move one of their horses (from 1 to 4). If no light sides are shown (all four sticks show dark sides) a player must move one of their horses 5 spaces.

Horses enter the Chut on any throw value.

Each circle space (including the Chut) counts as a move of one.

A throw of four or five allows another throw.

A PARTNER IN A TEAM MAY MOVE HIS OWN HORSE OR ONE OF HIS TEAMMATE’S HORSES.

Finishing a move on a large circle allows a player to change the direction his horse is going, and on the next move take a shortcut using the paths through the center of the circle, if desired. If a horse taking a shortcut through the circle ends up on the opposite side of the circle with movement still to do they, the horse must turn widdershins (counter-clockwise) and finish out its movement. Use of shortcuts is not required.

If a player’s horse finishes a move on a space that already has a rival horse there, the rival horse is considered to be “kicked”, and it is removed from the board and must begin again. If a player has a horse finish a move on a space that has two or more rival horses there, all rival horses are considered to be “kicked”, and all are removed from the board and must begin again. The player who “kicks” another horse or horses off the board gets an additional turn. They receive only one additional turn no matter how many horses were “kicked”.

Teammate horses do not count as rival horses. Teammate horses may share a space.

If a player’s horse finishes a move on a space that already has one of his own horses there, the player may (if desired) pair the two and have them move as one piece from then on. No more than two pieces may be paired together. If a player has a horse finish a move on a space that has two or more of his own horses there, he may pair pieces (if desired) provided they are not already paired.

A player may NOT pair one of his horses with a teammate’s horse.

An exact throw is NOT required to bear a horse off the board. If a horse is borne off, with movement left, the extra movement is lost.

Quirkat

                                                    

This game is very similar to checkers

1. At the start of the game, each player places their twelve playing pieces on the board as shown in the diagram.
2. A piece may be moved from one point to any adjacent point along an empty line, forwards, diagonally or sideways, but not backwards.
3. If the point is occupied by an opponent’s piece, you may jump over and capture the piece, if there is an empty point beyond it. If, having jumped and captured a piece, you land next to another of your opponent’s that can be jumped, then you may jump again and capture a second piece.
4. If you can jump, you must, otherwise it is considered to be “huffed”, and can be removed from the board by the other player. If you move a piece instead of one that can jump, the one that could jump is removed by your opponent.  This is not their move.
5. If two or more pieces can make a capture on the same move, the pieces that did not capture are not removed from the board, if a capture was made. If no capture was made, all pieces that could have captured are considered “huffed” and are removed from the board.
6. The game ends when one player loses all their pieces, cannot move a piece, or has all their pieces along the back row. In the last case, the player with the most pieces left wins.

Mancala

Rules for Mancala

1. Mancala is played with seven pits per player.
2. Your pits are the 6 small pits on your side of the board, and the larger Kalaha pit on the right hand side.
3. Each player starts the game by placing 4 stones into each of their 6 small pits.
4. A turn consists of taking all the stones from one of your pits, and then dropping a stone into each following pit in a counter-clockwise fashion
5. If you drop a stone in your Kalaha, and have stones left, then you continue dropping stones counter-clockwise into your opponent’s pits.
6. The winner is the person with the most stones in his / her Kalaha
7. The game ends when all of a player’s pits are empty.
8. If you end your turn by dropping a stone in your Kalaha, you get to go again
9. If you end your turn by dropping a stone in one of your pits that is empty, you take the stones in the opposing pit.

 

The Tiger and the Goats (Bagha Chal)

 

 

1. You begin the game with the Tiger placing his four pieces on the corners of the board.
2. The Goat then places one piece on the board at any spot where lines cross.
3. The Tiger then moves one piece along one line to the next intersection. 
4. The pieces can move along any line in a horizontal, vertical or diagonal direction.
5. The Tiger and the Goats continue to take turns with the Goat placing pieces and the Tiger moving or jumping until the Goat has placed his or her 20 pieces on the board. 
6. The tiger’s goal is to eat all the goats.  To do this, he must jump over a goat piece.  A jump can be made when there is an empty space behind the goat like in checkers.  Only one goat can be jumped at a time.  When this happens, the Goat piece is removed from the board.
7. The Goat pieces cannot move while there are still Goat pieces to be put on the board, so the Goat needs to place the pieces to block a Tiger from eating a Goat.
8. Once all Goats are on the board, one piece may be moved one space when it is their turn.
9. The Tiger has won if it eats 5 Goats.
10. The Goats have won if the Tigers are blocked and cannot move.

We need to talk about what we shouldn’t do

Last night as part of the #edtechbc, I received 2 tweets that really upset me.  Granted, I might be taking them out of context.  If so, I hope that someone will correct me.  If I’ve I have understood them as intended, then I hope that the senders will correct themselves.  The two tweets were:

 @royanlee Royan Lee Word.

RT @gcouros: “We need to talk a lot more about what we should do with social media than what we shouldn’t” Great by @chrkennedy

 @MrWejr Chris Wejr

Instead of talking about what we should NOT be doing using SM, we need to be talking about what we SHOULD be doing – @chrkennedy #edtechbc

I responded to both but found I wanted to be more explicit.  My original tweet response was:

 @ginrob_pt P. Tucker

Disagree -Am working with minors. It is my duty 2 error on side of caution. What we shouldn’t is our limit-what we should is limitless @MrWejr

Unlike the 2 tweets, I believe that our first conversation needs to be what we shouldn’t do.  I further believe that we should continue to have that conversation until we are at least reasonably sure that we understand the dangers / pitfalls / negative consequences.  We need to know what we shouldn’t do because that needs to serve as our limit.  What we should do, is near limitless and with infinite possibility; there are many right things to do and no one right way to do them.  An opportunity is like a bus; a missed one, while unfortunate, can easily be made up for.  Doing something we shouldn’t, is more likely to cause harm (broadly defined of course) and once it is done, can be difficult or impossible to undo.  Knowing what we shouldn’t do is also knowing the negative consequences.

Most of us teach minors that are entrusted into our care.  It is our ethical duty to error on the side of caution.  If you want to explore technology, then do it yourself and expose yourself to unknown risk.  By the time you introduce it to you students, you need to understand the dangers that need to be avoided (or prepared for) so that you can fulfil your duty to your students.  I’ll never make that mistake again.  I was encouraged to explore Twitter with my students and to learn it with them.  I was therefore ignorant and unprepared when several of my students were exposed to spam pornographers.  Besides this expose to my students (for which they were unprepared), more negative consequences were created in this situation.  As I am a professional, I’d be expected to know about this.  I think that by inadvertently exposing my students to unknown risks, I was also putting myself a more risk.

We need to share our knowledge of dangers and what we shouldn’t do at least as vigorously as we share what we can do.

The purpose of Social Media / Hidden Costs

 

aka an expansion on Tucker’s Law Number 2: “Remember that unless you pay for the service, you are not their customer –you are likely to be the product (except for Wikipedia.org); even if you pay, there is no guarantee that you are their only customer:”

We all know, at some level, that our purpose when using media is often different from the purpose of the company publishing, or increasingly, supporting content.  Our purposes are diverse and ever changing, the business’s purpose is fixed: to make money.  More often than not, media is a advertizing delivery service.  We can of course derive benefit from consuming or utilizing media or its tools; indeed, this is required to keep us coming back and increase their market penetration. 

Even though we benefit from media and social media tools and platforms, we must weigh this against the cost.  Costs are sometimes hidden as the business models for many companies are complex (a future post perhaps). We should no longer say that internet services are free; this is misleading and untrue.  While it is true that we don’t always spend money, these are not charities.  they are business; they are selling a product.  Increasingly that product is us. 

“The Internet is Us/ing us”

While this is fine for adults who, at least in our legal imagination and social rhetoric, have autonomy (or the potential anyways), it is not always fine for students.  I think that we have an ethical obligation to teach the consequences of using social media before we introduce it to our students.  As professionals, we need deep understanding of the consequences so we can impart them in our students.  Some of them, or their parents, might opt out of the use of social media sites–do we have the courage of our convictions to enable this by educating?  I feel a good start for educators is a mere 2 articles (both conveniently posted here: Neil Postman’s “5 ideas,” and Danah Boyd’s “Internet as Social Publics”).  This may seem like a very small amount of information to start (and there is of course many other great articles and sites to go to…Tim Chambers’s “who owns the digital you” for example), but I’d bet it would raise awareness levels in a vast majority of educators.

Not to put too fine a point on it, if you were to do a search on any book store’s web site with the search string, “social media” I bet many would be surprised by the result.  There is barely an book on education to be found but many about marketing, business, and advertizing.  The primary purposes of these media is to make money (your money, your student’s money) by selling to them or selling them to others.  Any educational value they have is the incentive to get you to come back (and bring the kids!); the carrot; the happy meal’s prize.  Be sure it is worth it, because sometimes it might cost too much.

Postman’s forward revisited

A visual compainion to Neil Postman’s forward in Amusing ourselves to death.  Really brings out the message.  For those unfamilar with his work, you might consider reading: “5 Ideas we Need to Know About Technological Change,” “Informing Ourselves to Death,” Amusing Ourselves to Death, and even The Disapearence of Childhood, to get a good grounding in his thoughts.  Thanks to the original creater and poster:

Aldous Huxley and George Orwell… which was right?

The internet as a Social Public

The following is a portion of a larger article.  I originally edited it for focus and to make it more manageable for my students.  The whole article can be found quite easily with a Google search.  I believe that this is a helpful article for teachers because it can help them develop deep understanding of the nature of the Internet and Social Media spaces.  Danah Boyd describes the innate nature of social media spaces as four characters: Persistence, Replicability, Scalability, and Searchability.  These must be understood by teacher’s and other caregivers to ensure student safety and effectiveness on the Internet.  As a student progresses through their learning, they should, of course, develop their own awareness of this nature and assume their own control over it as they grow as digital citizens. 

Social Network Sites as Networked Publics: Affordances, Dynamics, and Implications

Citation: Danah Boyd. (2010). “Social Network Sites as Networked Publics: Affordances, Dynamics, and Implications.” In Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites (ed. Zizi Papacharissi), pp. 39-58.

The following clips provide some understanding of the nature of social networks and are also largely applicable to all web 2.0 tools…

Physical structures are a collection of atoms while digital structures are built out of bits. The underlying properties of bits and atoms fundamentally distinguish these two types of environments, define what types of interactions are possible, and shape how people engage in these spaces. Both William Mitchell (1995, p. 111) and Lawrence Lessig (2006, pp. 1-8) have argued that “code is law” because code regulates the structures that emerge. James Grimmelmann argues that Lessig’s use of this phrase is “shorthand for the subtler idea that code does the work of law, but does it in an architectural way” (Grimmelmann, 2004, p. 1721). In looking at how code configures digital environments, both Mitchell and Lessig highlight the ways in which digital architectures are structural forces.

The difference between bits and atoms as architectural building blocks is central to the ways in which networked publics are constructed differently than other publics. More than a decade ago, Nicholas Negroponte (1995) mapped out some core differences between bits and atoms to argue that digitization would fundamentally alter the landscape of information and media. He pointed out that bits could be easily duplicated, compressed, and transmitted through wires; media that is built out of bits could be more easily and more quickly disseminated than that which comprises atoms. During that same period, Mitchell (1995) argued that bits do not simply change the flow of information, but they alter the very architecture of everyday life. Through networked technology, people are no longer shaped just by their dwellings but by their networks (Mitchell, 1995, p. 49).

The content of networked publics is made out of bits. Both self-expressions and interactions between people produce bit-based content in networked publics. Because of properties of bits, bits are easier to store, distribute, and search than atoms. Four affordances that emerge out of the properties of bits play a significant role in configuring networked publics:

• Persistence: online expressions are automatically recorded and archived.
• Replicability: content made out of bits can be duplicated.
• Scalability: the potential visibility of content in networked publics is great.
• Searchability: content in networked publics can be accessed through search.

To account for the structure of networked publics, I want to map out these different elements, situate them in a broader discussion of media, and suggest how they shape networked publics and people’s participation. Although these affordances are intertwined and co-dependent, I want to begin by looking at each one differently and considering what it contributes to the structure of networked publics.

Persistence: What one says sticks around

While spoken conversations are ephemeral, countless technologies and techniques have been developed to capture moments and make them persistent. The introduction of writing allowed people to create records of events and photography provided a tool for capturing a fleeting moment. Yet, as Walter Ong (2002) has argued, the introduction of literacy did more than provide a record; it transformed how people thought and communicated. Furthermore, as Walter Benjamin (1969) has argued, what is captured by photography has a different essence than the experienced moment. Both writing and photography provide persistence, but they also transform the acts they are capturing. Internet technologies follow a long line of other innovations in this area. What is captured and recorded are the bytes that are created and exchanged across the network.

Many systems make bits persistent by default and, thus, the text that one produces becomes persistent. Yet, do people interpret the content in the same way as they did when it was first produced? This is quite unlikely. The text and the multimedia may be persistent but what sticks around may lose its essence when consumed outside of the context in which it was created. The persistence of conversations in networked publics is ideal for asynchronous conversations, but it also raises new concerns when it can be consumed outside of its original context. While recording devices allow people to record specific acts in publics, the default is typically that unmediated acts are ephemeral. Networked technology inverted these defaults, making recording a common practice. This is partially due to the architecture of the Internet where dissemination requires copies and records for transmission and processing. Of course, while original records and duplicated records can in theory be deleted (or, technically, overwritten) at any point in the process, the “persistent-by default, ephemeral-when-necessary” dynamic is relatively pervasive, rendering tracking down and deleting content once it is contributed to networked publics futile.

Replicability: What’s the original and what’s the duplicate?

The printing press transformed writing because it allowed for easy reproduction of news and information, increasing the potential circulation of such content (Eisenstein, 1980). Technology has introduced a series of tools to help people duplicate text, images, video, and other media. Because bits can be replicated more easily than atoms and because bits are replicated as they are shared across the network, the content produced in networked publics is easily replicable. Copies are inherent to these systems. In a world of bits, there is no way to differentiate the original bit from its duplicate. And, because bits can be easily modified, content can be transformed in ways that make it hard to tell which is the source and which is the alteration. The replicable nature of content in networked publics means that what is replicated may be altered in ways that people do not easily realize.

Scalability: What spreads may not be ideal

Technology enables broader distribution, either by enhancing who can access the real-time event or widening access to reproductions of the moment. Broadcast media like

TV and radio made it possible for events to be simultaneously experienced across great distances, radically scaling the potential visibility of a given act and reshaping the public sphere (Starr, 2005). While such outlets allow content to scale, distribution outlets are frequently regulated (although this did not stop “pirates” from creating their own broadcast publics [Walker, 2004]). The Internet introduced new possibilities for distribution; blogging alone allowed for the rise of grassroots journalism (Gillmor, 2004) and a channel for anyone to espouse opinions (Rettberg, 2008).

The Internet may enable many to broadcast content and create publics, but it does not guarantee an audience. What scales in networked publics may not be what everyone wishes to scale. Furthermore, while a niche group may achieve visibility that resembles

 “micro-celebrity” (Senft, 2008), only a small fraction receives mass attention while many more receive very small, localized attention. Scalability in networked publics is about the possibility of tremendous visibility, not the guarantee of it. Habermas’s frustration with broadcast media was rooted in the ways that broadcast media was, in his mind, scaling the wrong kinds of content (Habermas, 1991). The same argument can be made concerning networked media, as what scales in networked publics is often the funny, the crude, the embarrassing, the mean, and the bizarre, “ranging from the quirky and offbeat, to potty humour, to the bizarrely funny, to parodies, through to the acerbically ironic” (Knobel and Lankshear, 2007). Those seeking broad attention, like politicians and wannabe celebrities, may have the ability to share their thoughts in networked publics, but they may not achieve the scale they wish. The property of scalability does not necessarily scale what individuals want to have scaled or what they think should be scaled, but what the collective chooses to amplify.

Searchability: Seek and you shall find

Librarians and other information specialists have long developed techniques to make accessing information easier and more effective. Metadata schemes and other strategies for organizing content have been central to these efforts. Yet, the introduction of search engines has radically reworked the ways in which information can be accessed. Search has become a commonplace activity among Internet users.

As people use technologies that leave traces, search takes on a new role. While being able to stand in a park and vocalize “find” to locate a person or object may seem like an element of a science fiction story, such actions are increasingly viable in networked publics. Search makes finding people in networked publics possible and, as GPS-enabled mobile devices are deployed, we will see such practices be part of other aspects of everyday life.

Central Dynamics in Networked Publics

• Invisible audiences: not all audiences are visible when a person is contributing online, nor are they necessarily co-present.
• Collapsed contexts: the lack of spatial, social, and temporal boundaries makes it difficult to maintain distinct social contexts.
• The blurring of public and private: without control over context, public and private become meaningless binaries, are scaled in new ways, and are difficult to maintain as distinct.

As people engage with networked publics, they are frequently forced to contend with the ways in which these dynamics shape the social environment. While such dynamics have long been part of some people’s lives, they take on a new salience in networked publics because of their broad reach and their pervasiveness in everyday life. Let’s briefly consider each dynamic.

Invisible audiences: To whom should one speak?

In unmediated spaces, it is common to have a sense for who is present and can witness a particular performance. The affordances of networked publics change this. In theory, people can access content that is persistent, replicable, scalable, and searchable across broad swaths of space and time. Lurkers who share the same space but are not visible are one potential audience. But so are those who go back to read archives or who are searching for content on a particular topic. People in certain professions have long had to contend with invisible audiences. Knowing one’s audience matters when trying to determine what is socially appropriate to say or what will be understood by those listening. In other words, audience is critical to context. Without information about audience, it is often difficult to determine how to behave, let alone to make adjustments based on assessing reactions. To accommodate this, participants in networked publics often turn to imagined audience to assess whether or not they believe their behavior is socially appropriate, interesting, or relevant.

Collapsed contexts: Navigating tricky social situations

Even when one knows one’s audience, it can be challenging to contend with groups of people who reflect different social contexts and have different expectations as to what’s appropriate. For some, the collapsing of contexts in broadcast media made expressing oneself challenging. Consider the case of Stokely Carmichael, which Meyrowitz (1985, p. 43) details in his book. Carmichael was a civil rights leader in the 1960s. He regularly gave speeches to different audiences using different rhetorical styles depending on the race of the audience. When Carmichael began addressing broad publics via television and radio, he had to make a choice. There was no neutral speaking style and Carmichael’s decision to use black speaking style alienated white society. While Carmichael was able to maintain distinct styles as long as he was able to segment social groups, he ran into trouble when broadcast media collapsed those social groups and with them, the distinct contexts in which they were embedded. Networked publics force everyday people to contend with environments in which contexts are regularly colliding. Even when the immediate audience might be understood, the potential audience can be far greater and from different contexts. Maintaining distinct contexts online is particularly tricky because of the persistent, replicable, searchable, and scalable nature of networked acts. People do try to segment contexts by discouraging unwanted audiences from participating or by trying to limit information to make searching more difficult or by using technologies that create partial walls through privacy settings. Yet a motivated individual can often circumvent any of these approaches.

Some argue that distinct contexts are unnecessary and only encourage people to be deceptive. This is the crux of the belief that only those with something to hide need privacy. What is lost in this approach is the ways in which context helps people properly contextualize their performances. Bilingual speakers choose different languages depending on context, and speakers explain concepts or describe events differently when talking to different audiences based on their assessment of the audience’s knowledge. An alternative way to mark context is as that which provides the audience with a better understanding of the performer’s biases and assumptions. Few people detail their life histories before telling a story, but that history is often helpful in assessing the significance of the story. While starting every statement with “as a person with X identity and Y beliefs and Z history” can provide context, most people do not speak this way, let alone account for all of the relevant background for any stranger to understand any utterance. Networked publics both complicate traditional mechanisms for assessing and asserting context as well as collapse contexts that are traditionally segmented. This is particularly problematic because, with the audience invisible and the material persistent, it is often difficult to get a sense for what the context is or should be. Collapsing of contexts did take place before the rise of broadcast media but often in more controlled settings. For example, events like weddings, in which context collisions are common, are frequently scripted to make everyone comfortable. Unexpected collisions, like running into one’s boss while out with friends, can create awkwardness, but since both parties are typically aware of the collision, it can often be easy to make quick adjustments to one’s behavior to address the awkward situation. In networked publics, contexts often collide such that the performer is unaware of audiences from different contexts, magnifying the awkwardness and making adjustments impossible.

Blurring of public and private: Where are the boundaries?

They alter practices that are meant for broad visibility and they complicate—and often make public—interactions that were never intended to be truly public. This stems from the ways in which networked media, like broadcast media (Meyrowitz, 1985), blurs public and private in complicated ways. Social network sites disrupt the social dynamics of privacy (Grimmelmann, 2009). Most importantly, they challenge people’s sense of control. Yet, just because people are adopting tools that radically reshape their relationship to privacy does not mean they are interested in giving up their privacy. Defining and controlling boundaries around public and private can be quite difficult in a networked society, particularly when someone is motivated to publicize something that is seemingly private or when technology complicates people’s ability to control access and visibility. What remains an open question is how people can regain a sense of control in a networked society. Helen Nissenbaum (2004) argues that we need to approach privacy through the lens of contextual integrity, at least in terms of legal protections. I believe that we need to examine people’s strategies for negotiating control in the face of structural conditions that complicate privacy and rethink our binary conceptions of public and private. While public and private are certainly in flux, it is unlikely that privacy will simply be disregarded.

Physical spaces are limited by space and time, but, online, people can connect to one another across great distances and engage with asynchronously produced content over extended periods. This allows people to work around physical barriers to interaction and reduces the cost of interacting with people in far-off places.

Yet, at the same time, many people are unmotivated to interact with distant strangers; their attention is focused on those around them. Andy Warhol argued that mass media would guarantee that, “in the future everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes” (Hirsch et al., 2002). As new media emerged, artists and writers countered this claim by noting, “in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen people” (Momus, 1992; Weinberger, 2002, p. 104). In networked publics, attention becomes a commodity. There are those who try to manipulate the potential scalability of these environments to reach wide audiences, including politicians and pundits. There are also those who become the object of widespread curiosity and are propelled into the spotlight by the interwoven network. There are also the countless who are not seeking or gaining widespread attention. Yet, in an environment where following the content of one’s friends involves the same technologies as observing the follies of a celebrity, individuals find themselves embedded in the attention economy, as consumers and producers. While new media can be reproduced and scaled far and wide, it does not address the ways in which attention is a limited resource. Persistence and replicability also complicate notions of “authenticity,” as acts and information are not located in a particular space or time and, because of the nature of bits, it is easy to alter content, making it more challenging to assess its origins and legitimacy.

In my earlier analysis on American teenagers’ participation in social network sites

(boyd, 2008), I highlighted that teens can and do develop strategies for managing the social complexities of these environments. In some ways, teens are more prepared to embrace networked publics because many are coming of age in a time when networked affordances are a given. Adults, on the other hand, often find the shifts brought on by networked publics to be confusing and discomforting because they are more acutely aware of the ways in which their experiences with public life are changing. Yet, even they are adjusting to these changes and developing their own approaches to reconfiguring the technology to meet their needs. As social network sites and other emergent genres of social media become pervasive, the affordances and dynamics of networked publics can shed light on why people engage the way they do. Thus, taking the structural elements of networked publics into account when analyzing what unfolds can provide a valuable interpretive framework. Architecture shapes and is shaped by practice in mediated environments just as in physical spaces.

Getting ready for EQAO

I wrote this 4 years ago in a school magazine I was working on.  At the time, I thought that blogging wasn’t for me.   I have been thinking about it since I read a tweet by @rrmurry : “Letting everyone know ahead of time. Standardized test scores this Spring will be VERY LOW. Non-election year & provide “data” to destroy.”  I don’t know if he is correct; we’ll have to wait and see but I just thought I’d post this to see if it was still relevant:

Response to Chapter 6 — by Sharon Murphy “No-one has ever gown taller as a result of being measured.” By Patrick Tucker

Sharon Murphy describes how, while standardized testing has always been with us, it was traditionally considered one piece of student and school assessment (pp. 145).  In the nineties, as a result of pressure from conservative elements in Canada, standardized testing was pushed to its current “high stakes” position where it governs many aspects of school life — from action plans to improve at the school level to graduation in the form of the “literacy exit examination” in grade 10 (pp. 145-146).  The remainder of the chapter describes the 6 lessons Murphy argues should be learned from our experience with standardized test (particularly the EQAO testing):

1. Neither standards nor standardize testing mean excellence or are a guarantee of excellence
2. Test results that are reported numerically, despite the cautions of the test developers, take on a life of their own.
3. Invariably the media will misuse information from standardized testing to manufacture news.
4. In a time of globalization, business interests and business ways of thinking have infused public policy and contributed to the move toward standardized testing.
5. The consequences of standardized testing can have a negative impact on the quality of education…and the effects can be particularly detrimental to children whose race, culture or first language is not that of the majority.
6. The inappropriate implementation and interpretation of standardized testing has allowed politicians to misguide the public, a consequence of which is the destabilization of the education system.

In her article, Sharon Murphy presents that there are 2 ways to standardize a test: “a) how the test is administered…  b) how the test is constructed – usually, standardized test are scored by comparing the performance of persons taking the test to the performance of a comparator group who initially took the test (Murphy, page 148).”  In regards to the EQAO neither of these standards seems to be rigorously pursued. 

Though both methods of standardization seem lax in regards to the EQAO test, my primary concern is the second standard.  EQAO has no norms other than the curriculum; however, I would argue, standardized concepts doesn’t equate to standardized measurement, how the question is asked, will affect determined achievement. 

I’m not talking about the unnatural conditions of the administration; the difference in the rules from everyday instruction, the up to 12 hours of testing done in 3 or 4 days, nor the societal pressure to excel.  I am more concerned with the fluctuations of mastery that will be observed based on the wording of each question.  Without norms, there is no way to accurately judge whether the results are meaningful.

Let us, for example, take black as a concept.  My 2 year old has mastered this concept; he knows what black is.  Now let’s image we wanted to assess that – to see if I am failing my son in some way (deliberate negative assumption).  Instead of unnatural conditions let’s suppose, I am playing with my son (to be fair of course — rather than having him write a test without assistance or motivation – only pressure); while playing, I hold up a black object, perhaps his favourite “Beep, Beep,” and ask one of the following:

1.  Is this black?

2.  What colour is this: pink, red, orange or black?

3.  Is this purple?

4.  What colour is this?

5.  What colour is this: black, dark blue, midnight grey, or nighttime blue?

6.  Is this midnight grey?

7.  Is this a shade?

8.  Is this a shade or a colour?

9.  How many letters does the colour of this object have?

10. Is this colour the absence or absorption of all visible thermal radiation?

 

The questions, while assess mastery of the same concept, become increasingly more difficult.  Even though my child confidently and independently understands black, he wouldn’t be able to demonstrate that mastery on many of these questions.  Granted this is a problem for all evaluations and assessment, but it is a problem that needs to me more adequately addressed by EQAO more than most tests for 2 reasons.  One, their test holds a particularly powerful place in our society and in our educational system.  Problems with test become bigger as the test becomes bigger.  Secondly, EQAO doesn’t just measure achievement, but it attempts to assert patterns or change over time.  This is particularly difficult when your questions change from year to year and are not normed.  While the concepts stay the same, the questions affect the calibration of the results.  This is not, to my knowledge, acknowledged by the EQAO system.

There are some questions on this year’s EQAO that seem particularly difficult.  Two math questions, in particular, stand out as more difficult then anything I could find in any of the boards approved textbook lists.  I worry a little that this was done consciously and that the resulting lower scores (a predicted result of more difficult questions) will be used to justify a push to increase our math component.  I don’t mean to suggest that increase attention to math is a bad thing for our students but, should that happen, we have to face the reality that our system cruelly exposed students to questions that were too difficult to ‘help’ younger students by forcing change into a system, and not help the ones taking the test.  It seems inconsistent with many of our core beliefs to abandon a group of students, perhaps even damage them to some small degree, to potentially help others.

EQAO has the ability to manipulate perceived achievement (consciously or not) because how the question is asked matters greatly; this is why true, meaningful, standardized tests take the time to create norms.  As a consequence, EQAO is not adequate in projecting trends; because each test is different, you cannot compare the results in any acceptable way; yet we, as a system do, and make policy based on those comparisons.   This problem is something that we really should address as an education system.  How do we measure, not student success, but system success over time?  As yet we haven’t, as a system, had anything even approaching this discussion.  How and when we do, might properly be the focus of the EQAO office.

comments?