Why Educate?

Responding to http://davecormier.com/edblog/2010/08/29/standards-testing-keeping-us-safe-from-the-creative-economy/

I have thought more about the question, "why do we learn?" or maybe "why do we become educated?" And the only answer that makes sense to me, the only answer that explains economic ("get the credential") motives as well as personal development ("be all you can be" or "knowledge for the sake of knowledge") motives, is the answer, "to have a good life," which in turn is something like, "pursuing one's own good (which may include altruistic goods) in one's own way.

Now this of course is at first blush distinct from the question, "why do we educate." But is does allow us to distinguish types of motivations for "why we educate." One set of motivations, and a very important one for me, is the altruistic motivation, of helping (or allowing) people to have a good life.

But also important is my own pursuit of my own good life. Here there are, for me, a range of lesser motivations, among them including the possibility of earning a living through education, the propagation of knowledge and values that will improve the society in which I live and which supports me, and the possibility that the people I educate will enrich my own life with new discoveries, knowledge and insights.

Different people weigh these moyivations differently. But I would say that in general a balance is required; education without altruism is exploitation, and education without attention to one's own definition of a good life is self-depreciation. The skill lies in understanding this balance, and the elements - economic, politicial, social - that make up this balance, and in aligning them to the maximal benefit of educator and student.

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Moon Over PEI

Moon Over PEI.
Moonlit waters over the Gulf of St. Lawrence at PEI's Jacques Cartier Provincial Park. Originally uploaded by Stephen Downes

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Freedom of Speech

In one of the most content-regulated countries on Earth we constantly hear the old refrain about defending freedom of speech. Like this:

defending free speech is, at its core, as content-neutral and apolitical as demanding that people have enough food to eat and potable water to drink—and journalists and other free-speech advocates must recognize this if they are to successfully press for changes in countries like these.

When the U.S. allows child pornography to be published on the front page of a national newspaper, then I will allow that its definition of 'free speech' is somehow fundamentally different from everyone else's.

This isn't such an outlandish example. As a Canadian, I laugh at American television networks' prudishness and wonder why they we never see swearing, nudity and rampant drug use (a la Trailer Park Boys, a runaway Canadian hit) on U.S. TV. Funny, that.

Until then, you're simply arguing about what sort of things you're willing to tolerate in your society. We're pretty comfortable with things like drug use, swearing and nudity on television. But we draw the line at promoting hatred and racism, things that I guess are OK in American media.

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The 'Trial' of Omar Khadr

The so-called 'trial' of Omar Khadr is a sham that should be stopped.

If you're not familiar with the case, he is an Ontario-born Canadian who was in Afghanistan when the U.S. invaded in 2002. He is accused of throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. special forces officer after a four-hour assault on the compound he was in. More here.

So why is it a sham?

First, he was fifteen years old when the alleged assault happened. This makes him a child soldier, and you don't imprison child solders and put them on trial eight years later, you rehabilitate them.

Second, though he is being described as an "illegal combatant" he was present in a country being invaded by a hostile force, and in particular, located in a building subject to assault by that force. It is hard to argue that he should have done anything other than what he is said to have done, which is to defend himself.

Third, it is not at all clear that he committed the action he is accused of taking. There is n testimony other than that of American troops. Khadr himself was seriously injured in the assault, and hence possibly incapable of attacking a special forces officer after the fact.

Fourth, even if Khadr is in some sense a war criminal, he should not be judged by a U.S. military tribunal on such charges, he should be brought before an international court. This is where real war criminals (such as, say Slobodan Milosevic or Charles G. Taylor) are tried.

Fifth, there are allegations that he was tortured, which is not actually denied even though the 'judge' (actually, a military official) will allow the confessions extracted from the interrogations. Does the threat of gang rape make the resulting confessions involuntary? According to the court, no.

Because of the years of indoctrination he has suffered both before and after the incident in Afghanistan, Omar Khadr probably cannot be released. But let's not compound the injustice committed against him by his family, who converted him into a child soldier in the first place, and the military system of justice, that locked him up in an illegal offshore detention facility for eight years. We should be working toward rehabilitation, not heaping falsehood upon falsehood onto the head of this young man.

Newspapers should stop calling this facade a 'trial'. It is nothing of the sort.

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The New Improved CChat

CChat stands for 'Conference Chat' and it's the backchannel application I have been using since 2007. I first used it at two conferences in California, Brandon Hall in San Jose and AECT in Anaheim. You can see the backchannel in action in the video of my talk at George Mason in Fairfax.

I've had mixed results with the backchannel - people weren't always polite, or on topic - but on the whole it worked pretty well. But I got complaints from people who would rather use Twitter, and I had one backchannel for everything. So I have had in mind for some time to upgrade it. Hence, the new backchannel.

Let me explain the concept. The idea is, at a live event, such as a conference presentation or speech, people can send messages to each other and comment about the presentation. Normally, this would happen in secret, but it's more fun if you take the conversation and put it up on the screen. Here's an example of one using Twitter, at right.

This image is an Open Back Channel picture from Guardain Activate09, source rooreynolds.com. I found it posted on an article by Jeff Hurt called Ten Reasons Why You Should Use a Backchannel at Your Conference.

As you can see from the image, the Twitter backchannel is hard to read. Also, you have to have a Twitter account in order to take part. So I've always preferred to use my own system. It has big text, and you can post comments without having a Twitter account.

In reality, a backchannel is nothing more than an internet chat discussion. It works the same way: you join the chat, you post messages to the chat, and you read messages from other people at the chat. The only difference is, you're doing this at a live event, and (properly) talking about the event.

When I use a backchannel, I ask organizers to set up two video screens, one for my slides, and the other for the backchannel. That way people can see both. And if I'm doing a videoconference, then I ask for three screens - one for the video image, and the other two for the backchannel and the slides.

What Makes CChat Special?

First of all, you can use it for your own backchannel at your own talk. I've set it up using gRSShopper, so anyone who is a registered user on my website downes.ca can set up their own backchannel. I haven't imposed any limits, so you can set one up and start using it right away. As well, you can join anyone else's backchannel.

All this is possible from the backchannel entrance page. I call each backchannel a separate 'thread', so the start page allows you to select or create a thread. Here's what the page (at http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/cchat.cgi) looks like:

Yes, the formatting is a bit boring. One day I may add actual styling. But as you can see, there's a list of my chat threads, an option to create a new chat thread, and a list of active chat threads. You can only join active chat threads; the idea is that the thread is active only during the conference presentation.

Select 'Create a New Backchannel' to make a new backchannel: http://www.downes.ca/create_backchannel.htm It looks like this:



It's a very simple form with two input parameters:
- thread_title
- thread_description

The thread will acquire other properties as the chat is managed by the chat administrator. Who is the chat administrator? Whoever created the chat. That's why you have to be registered and logged in - this is what gives you control over your thread.

The chat thread itself is composed of two major parts. The first part is the display screen, on which you see the messages. The second part is the input form, into which you type your messages.

To view the chat thread, click on the title of the chat thread. Each chat thread has its own unique number. The links point to these numbers. Like this one:

http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/cchat.cgi?chat_thread=707

Which takes you to this:



This display, though, is intended mostly for desktop or laptop computers. It isn't useful in other contexts.

The display on the screen at the front of the room, for example, should only show the messages, not the form. So the computer attached to the digital projector should point to:

http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/cchat.cgi?action=display&chat_thread=707

Meanwhile, the display on devices like mobile phones, iPhones, iPods, and other small mobile input devices should consist of the form only. There just isn't room on these screens to show the whole display. Also, if you want to limit the load on the server and on the room internet, it is better to have people load only the form. The URL for this is:

http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/cchat.cgi?chat_thread=707&action=form

This way, participants can enter their comments into the form and see them on the screen at the front of the room.

One thing that makes CChat different from other systems is that it shows only one comment on the screen at a time. Thus, what it does is to accept incoming comments into a queue, and then to display them one at a time. Each comment is on the screen for a certain period of time, the refresh period, and then the next comment is displayed.

For people who have come in late, or who want to review comments that have already been displayed, each thread has an archive. The format for the archive is consistent with that for the display and the form:

http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/cchat.cgi?action=form&chat_thread=707

Archives may be displayed in reverse chronological order using the option opt=reverse. As well, archieves may be retrieved in RSS using the option format=RSS.

CChat Administration

If you create your own chat thread, you are automatically the administrator. As administrator, you can customize your backchannel discussion thread.

To enter a command as an administrator, you simply type it into the comment form. The system will recognize that you are an administrator and will be listening for your commands. You can also set thread parameters from the editing window you see after you have created your thread.

Backchannels are not like ordinary chats in that they are not running most of the time. By default, the backchannel is hidden and inactive. Even when people can see it, the messages are paused. In order to start using the backchannel, an administrator must enter two commands:

    status:active

The default backchannel status is 'hidden'. When it is hidden, it will not even show up when people look for backchannels they can join (it will show up on your list, though, because you own the backchannel). It will not accept any messages from users at all. To make the backchannel visible, set the status to 'active'. To make it invisible again, after the presentation or event, set the status to 'hidden'.

    active:on

Even when the backchannel is visible, the flow of messages is halted.It will accept messages from users, but it will store them in the queue for later display. To start the messages flowing, turn the active parameter 'on'. To halt the message flow - perhaps to interrupt the discussion in mid-presentation - turn the active parameter 'off'.

By default, each message displays on the screen for 10 seconds. Sometimes this is too quick, or too slow. It really depends on the audience. The administrator can change the refresh rate with another command:

    refresh:20

This would set the refresh rate to 20 seconds.

By default, text displays on the screen at 36 points. Again, this may be too large or too small for the display. Accordingly, the administrator can change the default text size:

    textsize:40

This would set the text size to 40 points.

CChat and Flickr

Even though there is a perfectly good input form, some people still prefer to use Flickr. This may be because they are using a Flickr client on their mobile phone or desktop, or because they just like Flickr.

CChat automatically searchers Flickr for content relevant to the current thread. To set this up, the administrator should define a custom tag for the backchannel.

  tag:#downestest

This would set the tag to '#downestest'. Following this, CChat will search Flickr in real time and retrieve any Twitter post using the tag. It will bring them in and add them to the queue, They will then be displayed as though they were ordinary chat comments.

Eventually, I'll take posts submitted through the chat form, tag them, and send them to Twitter - I don't do this yet, though. Watch for an update.

Future Plans

I plan to create an admin panel, so admins don't have to enter commands. As mentioned above, I want to create a Twitter 'send' capacity - it's easy to do, but I'm not so sure I want to send them all under a single user name, but I don't want to collect users' usernames and passwords. Also, I want to set up options to allow administrators to restrict entrance into the chat, and to have private chats. Finally, I'd like to support other input mechanisms (not sure what, though - instant message?).

Full API

To http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi (must authenticate)
    db=chat
    id=new
    thread_title=$title
    thread_description=$description 

To http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi (no authentication required)
    action=update|display|form|archives
    all four require:
       chat_thread=$id
    update requires:

       chat_signature=$name
       chat_description=$content
    archives allows:
       opt=reverse
       format=xml
   
http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi (must authenticate)
    action=update
    chat_description=$command
    Commands:
      status:active  -- makes chat thread visible and accept comments
      status:hidden  -- hides and closes chat thread to comments
      active:on      -- display comments at set intervals
      active:off     -- halt the display of new comments
      tag:xxx        -- set the search tag for this thread
      textsize:xx    -- display text size xx pt
      refresh:xx     -- display a new chat comment every xx seconds
      admin:help     -- display this help screen
      admin:panel    -- display the admin panel
      Just click [Submit] to clear this form

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Wallpaper

I'm using CoreDownload Wallpaper Changer, along with my collection of tens of thousands of photos (three or four times what I've uploaded to Flickr; Core descends into a directory tree, while the others I've looked at depend merely on a list) to change my desktop wallpaper. It routinely produces masterpieces like this:



Talk about a desktop wallpaper that just grabs your attention! Original image on Flickr here.

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