Technovana

Everyone who works in education is trying to figure out what to do with the new capabilities afforded by IT. The most prominent example is the move toward MOOCs, the massively-open online courses made visible by the efforts of EdX, Coursera, and associated institutional partners. For those of us in the trenches, MOOCs represent the least imaginative application of information tech to the classical challenge of enlightening young minds. Think about it this way: you have any and all documented facts at your fingertips, and the ability to connect with experts anywhere in the world, and you use it to turn university lectures into a Netflix product? Michael Sandel is a talented lecturer, but I don't see philosophers binging on his Justice course the way we all do with Orange is the New Black . So, if MOOCs aren't the big challenge, what is? As far as I can tell, educators (self included) have the most trouble coping with the "flipped classroom." A "flipped classroom...

Sorry to let the flow of posts dry up, but I'm preparing to move abroad for a really interesting teaching opportunity. In the meantime, here's a fragment from some thinking about the rational discourse and communication technology. Information and communications technology enables a raft of networked communications platforms. Email, IRC, and various social networking platforms are all designed to facilitate communication between individuals. Of course, we must also be aware that communication platforms shape the content of interpersonal communications. By creating a vessel for content, content must also fit within the vessel.  Consider three stages of human communication technology: Discourse Cacophony – with written language and symbol as the only communication technology, much human communication takes the form of spontaneous utterances in natural language. Discourse means nothing other than holding a conversation. With the sense of indivi...

I hope you watched at least a few minutes of Wendy Davis and her epic filibuster. I appreciate the rhetorical force of the exercise more than anything else. At the end of the day, the strength of the filibuster is not really in what is said but that a person feels so strongly about an issue, sees it as so important, that she will literally not stand down in defense. I think having that exercise is important in a democracy where consensus must emerge from public discussion and rational persuasion. We all know that rhetoric is not entirely rational, but the emotional component is an important flag for reason. The investment of the speaker demonstrates a conviction that counts in favor of revisiting one’s own position on an issue, makes you look closer at why someone would feel so strongly. These are important considerations in shaping a community because we need to recognize the concerns of our fellows as just as important to them as ours are to us. Wendy Davis demonstrate...

While frontiers represent freedom, they also represent opportunity and potential. The untamed spaces have no limits, rules, or organizing communities, so one can venture into the frontier do as one pleases. The success of the frontier in this traditional context is the establishment of rules, limitations, and organizing communities. To realize any value from the frontier, one needs to establish security, infrastructure, and clear boundaries. To establish these things, the frontier must be domesticated. As such, the opportunity represented by the frontier is its own destruction, or the destruction of those features characteristic of a frontier.  Yesterday, the EFF released a formal objection to the inclusion of DRM in HTML5. While that sounds pretty technical, the base idea is straightforward. The short version is that there is a proposal to include usage control and digital rights management capabilities in the next version of the markup language used to create web pages and conse...

Given the recent Occupation evictions (and returns!) and the associated reports of police brutality (UC Davis, I'm looking at you), a few thoughts about rights and liberal democracy have been steeping in my mind. There is some symbolic merit in the rights to religious freedom, free speech, a free press, and free associated being collected at the beginning of the Bill of Rights. While I'm no Constitutional scholar, I cannot readily explain the historical reasons behind the composition and ordering of the first ten amendments to the US Constitution. I do recall that the Bill of Rights formed a package of compromises, things that the colonies demanded be added to the Constitution before ratifying it. As that is the case, one could be forgiven for thinking that the Bill of Rights consists of some non-organizational necessary conditions for a liberal democracy. Let me give an example using the First Amendment rights. The freedom from state religion or “religious tests” is crucia...

Continuing on this week's topic of first sale and digital distribution, I thought I would discuss emerging distribution strategies for digital media. The outline below comes from my observations on new media technologies, some of which can be found in an earlier entry  here . As far as I can tell, digital distribution strategies can be divided into three categories according to salient features. Access-Based distribution (“cloud” based services) the customer subscribes to a service the subscription entitles the customer to access content stored on the provider's servers content is remotely stored, though some items may be remotely cached for offline use when the subscription is terminated, the customer loses access to all content the content provider can exercise a great deal of control over what content is offered; the selection of content may vary over time, meaning that the customer is only guaranteed access to the cloud, not any particular item in the...

The previous entry ended on the note that to discuss file sharing, there must be some discussion of first sale in the age of digital content. At base, first sale is a straightforward concept. A copyright-holder has the exclusive right to make and sell copies of the work, but that right to sell is exhausted after the first sale. Once a consumer has purchased a copy, she has the right to resell the copy, give it away, lend it out, or even destroy it. First sale typically makes content both more available and more affordable. Content is made more affordable by the creation of secondary markets for used copies. Libraries also rely on first sale rights to lend copies to the public (or to members, students, etc), lowering the cost of access by distributing the cost of copies over a population (of tax-payers, tuition-payers, etc). First sale increases availability of content by allowing the owners of copies to continue to circulate (through sale or gift) their copies even after the work is...

I have neglected this blog due to a wave of work. In an attempt to turn that neglect around, I offer up some somewhat sketchy notes for my dissertation. I have been thinking through some arguments about file sharing and first sale. To get a better grip on the issues, I have a short taxonomy of file sharing cases. Other scholars have done this before; this is just my attempt to get some clear on the fine points of the file sharing debate. Instances of file sharing can be divided into four categories: Public Domain content (PD) Protected works still in circulation (PC) Protected works out of circulation (P~C) Unreleased works never in commercial circulation (NC) For each category, there are different issues at stake. PD cases are the least problematic. A work in the public domain can be freely copied, so there are no legal interests at stake. PC cases are perhaps the hardest cases for justifying file sharing. The work is still under legal protection and is still available f...

As research for my dissertation, I found myself in consumer electronics store. In thinking on the issue of first sale in the digital age, I realized that I've been a little out of touch with content delivery systems as the consumer tends to interact with them. Working with computers and software is one of my hobbies, so I keep track of development, but I prefer building computers to buying them and use GNU/Linux operating systems as often as possible. As a result, my interactions with media are guided by a tinker's sensibilities. If I want to know how major media conglomerates want consumers to interact with media, I have to go the retail outlets where such things are sold, especially to those who do not want to tinker. My goal was to take a good long look at content delivery: what channels are available for accessing media, how is that access controlled, and what are the capabilities of available platforms. I looked at devices for video, audio, and ebook content, as well a...