Archive - 2010
April 28th
Wordless Wednesday
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 04/28/2010 - 08:24
April 27th
Understanding Public Information
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 04/27/2010 - 14:49Whatever else people might say about Susan Bysiewicz’s campaign for Attorney General here in Connecticut, it certainly is raising some interesting questions. First and foremost in many people’s minds are questions about the qualifications to become Attorney General. On the one hand, there are the legal requirements and on the other there are the requirements of the voters. The courts are currently considering the first, and depending on their decision, the voters may or may not get a chance to express their own opinions at the polls.
The other question is about what information is public information and how that information can or should be used. The Friends of Susan 2010 campaign filed a Freedom of Information request with the Secretary of State’s office to retrieve her contact management database and allegedly used that information for emailing potential supporters. This is also being investigated and much has been written about it.
Woodbridge Board of Education Shows Leadership in Technology and World Languages
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 04/27/2010 - 08:46Shortly after Apple released its new iPad, Woodbridge Board of Education member Steven Fleischman attended the National School Boards Association annual conference in Chicago. The new iPad that he carried with him attracted attention from many other school board members in attendance.
At the April meeting of the Woodbridge Board of Education he hooked up his iPad to a projector to give a report about the annual conference, perhaps making the Woodbridge Board of Education the first board of education to use an iPad for a presentation to the board.
Dr. Fleischman’s presentation covered many important topics, including how technology can be better integrated into the curriculum, and the importance of school boards, administrations and teachers working together on a shared vision. He spoke about how all of this needed to focus on twenty-first century skills.
Yet many of these ideas are not new to members of the Woodbridge Board of Education. Before Dr. Fleischman spoke, two Woodbridge students used some of the schools technology, including a smartboard and iPhoto to present to the board information about what they were learning from the school’s world languages program. The board also approved Woodbridge’s participation in the Cooperative Educational Services’ Title II grant ‘to create a 21st century learning environment for World Language students’.
This grant will use technology including ‘interactive whiteboards, Flip video cameras, iPods, multi-user virtual learning environments, Google Earth, Skype, and others’ to provide a rich opportunity for students to learn Spanish and Chinese. The program will include Beecher Road School, the Six to Six Interdistrict Magnet School and Southern Connecticut State University. Besides the technology, an important focus will be placed on professional development.
The Woodbridge Board of Education, together with the teachers and administration of Beecher Road School continue to work together to find ways to use technology to make learning world languages and other twenty first century skills more exciting.
(Cross posted at the Woodbridge Citizen.)
April 26th
Google Maps and Drupal Location
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 04/26/2010 - 10:18One of the things I’ve enjoyed working on recently, has been using Drupal modules for location and Google Maps to present information in a new ways. As an illustration, I’ve set up a page on the Adopt CT First website, to show where there are various shelters and adoption events in Connecticut.
Before I get into the geekiness of how I set this up, let me tell you a little bit about Adopt CT First. The goal of this new group is simple. It is to get people who live in Connecticut and are looking for a new pet to check their local shelters first. By getting more people aware of local shelters, we can hopefully get more dogs adopted, and less killed. We can get more people to make sure their pets are spayed or neutered so the population of the shelters doesn’t continue to grow, and we can encourage others to become more involved with helping at local shelters.
April 25th
Projecting Onto Means of Communications
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 04/25/2010 - 08:37There are no accidents, but sometimes a cigar is a cigar.
I’m on a mailing list that recently has had some communications problems. People have written emails to test if the list is working and have responded in various ways. Others have talked about their feelings when messages are not responded to. I wrote an email to the list sharing some of my reactions to the discussions there and this is a version of that message adopted for my blog.
I've been fascinated by some of the discussions on the list over the past few days and thought I would add another one of my typical, out of left field, responses.
When it comes to text based computer mediated communications, people often comment about the disadvantages that a lack of non-verbal cues presents. On the other hand, some argue that having just text makes it a much richer environment for exploring projections. I've been fascinated by this viewpoint and always enjoy hearing discussions about this. Yet it struck me this week, that there may be projections not only on the words, but on the form of communications itself.
This line of thought started as I wondered why we have these various bursts of "Test" messages. What are they really all about? Are they reflecting some sort of need to stay connected in this world that seems increasingly connected via online communications? Years ago, I would not have expected to hear from people in Austria and Australia. If by some chance, I had established a connection like that, I suspect that a delay in communications of a few days would be less likely to be noticed. Before the days of air mail, a letter would take many days to make it half way around the world. A delay of a few days would be unlikely to be noticed, and I would also suspect that I would have been more likely to expect messages to get lost in transit. I probably wouldn't have sent a letter back saying "test". Now, if we don't hear something we quickly suspect something is amiss and often quickly become frustrated.
I've also found, especially in my younger years, that if someone did not respond to me, I quickly assumed it was because of some flaw of my own. People didn't respond because they didn't like me. Yes, I struggled a lot with my own insecurity when I was younger, and perhaps it comes back to haunt me today. When I send an email to the various mailing list and get no response, I am still perhaps more likely to assume it is because I said something stupid, than to assume it is because there are problems with the mailing list servers, or perhaps even, that it is because other people on the list are really busy with other things. Yes, I want my words to be more important than server problems or other important things going on in my friends’ lives. The same applies to my reactions to no comments on my blog.
As a technologist, I have made mistakes adjusting settings on servers and made it difficult for people to get their messages through. Perhaps these were accidents. Perhaps they were the result of me being too tired, distracted or inattentive to make the correct serve configuration adjustments. Yet at the same time, to the person wondering why they haven't gotten a response to their emails, it may be because of mistakes by me or other technologists and not a reflection of some character flaw of the person sending or receiving the email. The undelivered email might not be an accident, but it might not be a cigar either.
When technology doesn't do what we think it should do, it might not really be telling us anything interesting. However, or responses to problems with technology may be very rich material to explore to learn a little bit about ourselves.
Thoughts?
