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21apples | arvind s grover

• Is there really any privacy online? Even when “anonymous,” like formspring or Chat Routlette?

  17Mar
  Categories: Uncategorized Comments: 0

  How do I delete/disable my account?

  Ryan Dec 30, 2009

  You can disable your account by going to Settings > Disable Account and clicking on “Yes, Disable my Account”. You can restore your account later if you choose.

  All traces of your profile page and questions users have asked you will disappear.  Questions you have asked others will still appear, as there is no way to ever delete a question you have asked another user.  Only that user can delete it.

  via formspringme.zendesk.com

  I was reading How Privacy Vanishes Online in the New York Times which shows how computer systems can now analyze even seemingly anonymous data to get quite an accurate idea of who you are when a parent of a student asked how she could delete her daughter’s formspring account. If you work in a school and haven’t heard of formspring, you will soon, so get ready. Anyway, I looked up the answer to her question and came upon the FAQ response above. Wow, what a great lesson for students to read: “Questions you have asked others will still appear, as there is no way to ever delete a question you have asked another user.” There is real confusion over what “anonymous” means online, and what “delete” means. For all intents and purposes, I’d argue that neither are a realistic option when online, so consider that the next time you’re pressing ’send’ or ‘post.’

  Also given to me recently was the news that there is a new mashup out there mapping Chat Roulette (”anonymous” video chatting) users. It’s pretty scary that now your image and your location can be mapped for the world to find you. More on this at Mashable. Here’s a previous post of mine on Chat Roulette, for context.

  Posted via web from arvind’s posterous

• How can we evaluate curricula for bias and inclusivity?

  17Mar
  Categories: Uncategorized Comments: 0

  

  I’ve recently been engaged in fascinating conversations about evaluating curricular resources for bias and inclusivity. These came out of a conversation on whether To Kill a Mockingbird was an appropriate text for 7th grade students. The books uses the ‘n word’ many times and portrays black characters are uneducated and poor (yes, I realize I’m being somewhat simplistic in my summary). The book is also a “classic” of “American” literature – I put both of those words in quotation marks because there are real questions as to whose classic and whose America.

  I’ve been looking at a number of resources to try and get at this question of whether this book should be read, and if so, how it should be read. I wanted to share those resources publicly as well as ask you all for help.

  • should schools read this book and books like it?
  • if so, how do we prepare students for the words used in the book?
  • how do we discuss the history surrounding the book?
  • how do we balance the inherent bias displayed in the book?
  • what other questions do we need to ask ourselves?

  Here are some resources I’ve been using:

  • Evaluating Children’s Books for Bias
  • 10 Quick Ways to Analyze Children’s Books for Sexism and Racism
  • An article from Teaching Tolerance magainze titled, “I Don’t Think I’m Biased“
  • Reading Bias, Writing Tolerance - a history teaching resource for teaching about bias and confronting it
  • Looking through an anti-racist lens

  Here are some relevant book recommendations from Teaching Tolerance:

  • Multicultural Voices in Contemporary Literature
  • The Color of Words - 851-word “dictionary of ethnic bias”
  • The New Press Guide to Multicultural Resources for Young Readers
  • Confronting Our Discomfort: Clearing the Way for Anti-Bias in Early Childhood

  Anything you can share to this conversation would be much appreciated.

  Posted via email from arvind’s posterous

• THATCamp 2010: the humanities and technology camp

  15Mar
  Categories: Uncategorized Comments: 0
  

  via thatcamp.org

  THATCamp is a humanities and technology “unconference” at George Mason University near Washington, DC. It seems like a great opportunity to involve history and English teachers in. The applications, however, are due today, March 15, 2010. Even if you can’t make this year’s conference, keep it on your calendar for next year.

  On a side note, have any of you attended before? Do you recommend it?

  Posted via web from arvind’s posterous

• How we streamed and remote keynoted the NCAIS Innovate Conference #ncinnov8

  12Mar
  Categories: Uncategorized Comments: 0

  

  I had to draw it up before I forgot, but here’s the setup for the NCAIS Innovate conference broadcast. @alexragone was in New York City, @vvrotny was in Chicago, and I (@arvind) was live in North Carolina. We conducted a live webcast of our show 21st Century Learning by interviewing @kellyhines, @msstewart, and @plugusin. The team at #ncinnov8 was awesome, hospitable, and just plain fun. The audio/video of the broadcast is being edited and will come out as soon as we can get it out. Thanks to Kelly, Meredith and Bill for the wonderful conversation.

  Lastly, but not leastly, big props to @samandjt for his and his team’s incredible work getting the tech set up. We did some last-minute tweaking (read: a lot) and they handled it with grace.

  Posted via email from arvind’s posterous

• Summing up the evolution of technology

  23Feb
  Categories: Uncategorized Comments: 2

  Cringely’s Law states that short-term adoption of new technologies never occurs as quickly as we expect, but their long-term impact is far greater than we realize.

  via technologyreview.com

  I came across this quotation while reading this month’s MIT Technology Review and loved it immediately. I didn’t know anything about Robert X. Cringley but knew that I liked his thinking. This is what disruptive innovation is about. People make things, some say, “why would anyone do that/want that?” (think Twitter, Facebook, computers, BlackBerry’s, etc), and then sure enough, everyone wants that. Now this doesn’t happen to every innovation, and it is certainly difficult to predict which ones will catch on, but it’s simply important to know how the phenomenon works.

  This is essential for schools and teachers who might want to think that, “this will never have a place in schools,” but be careful about using words like never. Innovation works in strange and twisted ways.

  Posted via web from arvind’s posterous