Using transparency to get citizens alert and active, or how Christian Kreutz influenced my thinking

It has been a very hectic period over the last couple of weeks. A tight workshop, planning a facilitator training, a short course with a lot of online activity, budget hassles, my master starting up … and this kept me from writing posts on a regular basis. I was also in an existential dip on blogposting.

Lucky for me I had one fresh and inspiring encounter at the middle of these chaotic weeks: meeting Christian Kreutz. His blog has been an inspiration for the last couple of years and all of a sudden I had the chance to meet him in Brussels.

Engaging citizens by analyzing (internet) data – civil society
We had an informal meeting, but a lot of what I learned from him made sense and sharpened my overall thinking on the use of websites and the internet to get civil society moving.

So what did Christian say that I found so enlightening? He simply said that we have all this data at our fingertips (google statistics, geo information, …), and all of these available data could be used for the better of society and its citizens.
In the past he has been writing about it. He wrote on metrics for social networks and what really happens, focusing on knowledge sharing and learning, he wrote about 6 innovative mashups for transparency, in which you could see the impact certain decisions have on the social fabric of regions (I was especially struck by the Healthcarethatworks – website that shows the New York City wide status for hospitals and its disproportionate impact that recent hospital closures have on low-income communities.) and his most recent post was on maptivism as a new approach of activism (based on the estimate that as much as 80% of data contains geo-referenced information. So, a lot of information can be displayed through maps. Digital maps allow easy ways to present large amounts of data and reduce complexity.)

The internet started out as a Utopia for me. It would benefit people around the world and make the globe a better place. With the increased absorption of internet initiatives into corporate environments, some of that euphoric belief in the WWW disappeared. But after reading the possibilities posted by Christian and after our talk in which he put forward the extra’s a transparent use of existing data (both on regional, national and international level) could bring… I am again a radiant believer. He gave a wonderful and simple example to get people interested in their own social environment. What if we take the data from a specific part of a city and open this data up to the citizens, e.g. people could see where trash bins are located, light poles are implemented, benches are placed... if city council than wants to change the outlines of that specific areas, or do something to create a better living space for all its citizens in that location, it could show the citizens what is already there, and ask them how they think their living area could be improved. I agree that a lot of debate could come from this, but coming to a consensus as a group can also adds to the social fabric of a region. All this data is already available, but in many occasions very little is done with it.

Christian Kreutz blogs qualitatively, which makes his blog a gem, check it out. He is thinking about going fully into consulting, so if you feel the need for a very professional, citizen-oriented web-analysis-expert, send him a note.

If you know of any data being used to make society more transparent, let me know, I would love to get more ideas.

Do you know of other changes in education for students?

Education is changing and all of us feel the results of that change. We are amidst the change as educators, but how does this affect the student/learner?

After reading the book ‘Disrupting Class – how disruptive innovation will change the way the world learns” by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael B. Horn and Curtis W. Johnson, I had the urge to start putting the changes on a piece of paper. As soon as I committed the ideas to paper, more ideas bubbled up.

Although I came up with a more or less lengthy list, I hope you can add some of your ideas of change in education. The list I could put together leading to the Walhalla of education we are aiming for.

In the meanwhile I am now listing changes for parents and teachers as well... will be posting those soon.

(thought after publishing this post ... wondering what the tables will look like on my mobile.... )

(Cartoon by Nick D Kim, nearingzero.net.)

Yesteryear – a passive more read than write world	My educational Walhalla: the content production era
The student / learner
The student went to school on fixed times.	The learner fits education within her/his schedule or interest.
Lunch and breaks were given during which you better NOT learned (nerd and geek were bad names in those days).	You learn even when others do not, because you know that learning is fantastic.
Only very precise labeled books, papers, manuscripts were mandatory course material and as a student you just needed to go through them;	You gather your content, in doing so learning to be critical in filtering obtainable content.
As a student, you had little chance to explore the world and dive into any content yourself (exceptions aside).	The Web is your oyster… or chocolate cookie jar, where you can satisfy your knowledge hunger with delight.
Assignments and exams were mandatory if you wanted to pass anything formal.	Any type of assignment/test/task is very closely linked to real life cases and situations.
School was part of a life cycle: birth, school, work, death.	Learning is life.
You, as a student were isolated to your close (regional) classmates.	Anyone who has access to internet (even with limited frequency) can be your classmate or learning colleague. The world is your neighbor.
Group work was limited and did not go beyond class-room or at the most own school boundaries.	Group work can be very multicultural and diverse both in approach and in peers.
Your part of the world was enough; other continents were exotic and different.	The world is getting to be more of the same, no matter where you live (war zones not included, hopefully they will disappear).
No fiddling, no doodling, no talking… for most of the time. Paying attention = similar to physical and mental lethargy.	You do whatever is needed to get your mind working (I curse, yell and walk around stamping my feet if my brain cannot grasp something – this part does not resemble Walhalla)
If you scored above average on your assignments, you would get a diploma. Strangely enough this never meant that you were prepared for working life. It was more an indication that you could do what needed to be done to obtain a diploma in the prevailing learning system.	What you learn, is either a useful foundation for or the actual content you will use in your professional or personal life.
Higher education would mainly be followed in your own region.	Go to whatever educational institution you like, why not join the University of South Africa (the longest operating University in Distance Education)
The focus is on extrinsic motivation.	Intrinsic motivation rules!
Material was not taken into account different learner skills and/or needs	Even the least mainstream learner can find what is needed for his/her own knowledge benefit in a way that is accessible to them.
Teacher centered	Learner-centered
Learning is linear	Learning is connected
Learning is receiving	Learning is retrieving, analyzing and producing.
Learning is whatever the group gets, you will be measured to the performance of the group, not to your absorption of the content.	Learning is what YOU need.
If you learn slower or quicker then the average processing time of your student group, that will be that, there is no alternative way to get more or less time to absorb the content in.	You absorb content at your pace (slow or quick).

Let me know if you can think of any other changes that can be added or if you made a list of any of these changes as well.

Facebook in case of divorce

Just a suggestion for sociological research in social networking software's.

In a divorce you want to do two things: split up everything of value and leave the past behind while moving on without too much of a hassle. Facebook and other social networking sites make this virtually impossible.

You know how it goes. You split up, you divide books, cd's, movies... and in the next few months you get frustrated because you keep searching for the books, cd's, dvd's you once bought yet no longer can find anywhere. But hey, after a couple of months and some therapeutic talks with friends, you let go of those once treasured items and you go on.

With facebook this is no longer possible! Ex-partners can now suddenly pop-up and start facebooking as well. They - of course - add shelfari in which they mention the books they have read ... and lookie here, some of those titles look really familiar.
They add a profile mentioning what type of people they really don't like (characteristics that look amazingly familiar when you read them). Other also familiar objects suddenly get sold on eBay (this was a gift from my nana!). And to top it off, you suddenly see them linking themselves to people that are 'your' friends. And because your friends are polite, they add your ex-partner to their network. By now you are clicking like mad on your ex-partners profile because you cannot belief your eyes... and as a result you see your ex-life passing in front of your eyes yet once again. By now - if you are a bit of a nervous type - you might be wondering if there is something like a constraining order for social networks?

I am lucky, my ex-partners and I get along just fine. We frequently look each other up (during which time we swiftly take one of 'our' books from the partner's shelves and push it underneath our sweater or coat while exiting quitely). But some of my friends are having facebook-divorce-shivers, inspiring though, I never looked at facebook this way.

Anyone interested in researching the subject? Anyone have other examples?

‘Cartoon by Nick D Kim, nearingzero.net. Used by permission.'

CCK08 - will connectivism without guidance result in unuseful knowledge mutations?

The CCK08 course is running for three days now and discussions are beginning to emerge. Some useful links: What is Connectivism a short presentation by George Siemens (made in adobe presenter, so you will need the latest flash plugin and quite a strong computer processor - might be difficult for low resource areas).

very short summary of the presentation:

the human mind builds on:

• our need to externalize to make sense;
• our need for frameworks/structures for sensemaking;
• our need to socialize and negotiate around knowledge;
• our patterning mind;
• our desire to exceed our humanity through technology;

Connectivism =

• knowledge is networked and distributed;
• the experience of learning is one of forming new neural, conceptual and external networks;
• occurs in complex, chaotic, shifting spaces;
• increasingly aided by technology;

In order to better learning, we need to understand how and why connections form.
Connections create meaning.

Determining understanding

• depth and diversity of connections, determines understanding
• frequency of exposure;
• integration with existing ideas/concepts;
• strong and weak ties.

My reflections, and because a lot of people are discussing on a theoretical level, I will focus on the 'common sense' part as knowledge is equal in connectivism.

Let's create wild savages
I agree that learning is inevitable as humans have patterning minds, but what if learning is opened up completely, without basic foundations? I agree with the deductions of what learning is, but if learning is solely left to the learner, chances are you will learn only what is of interest to you and... it is my experience that the most difficult things to learn are peace, social equality and other such very human though not natural characteristics.

So how will connectivism lead to an increase in self-centered, only interested in their own world individuals because moral knowledge can be skipped?


organizing content is for sissies
If there is anything well structured and not ad random, it is libraries. If you think about the history of libraries, you cannot escape the fact that every library needs to be well organized. The organization of libraries has become a specialist profession. And I am glad because I can find my way in it. The fact is - as George Siemens says in his presentation on what connectivism is, that humans have a patterning mind - so we are glad if we know there is a pattern, but if there is not any we will make one up as we go along.

At home I also tend to organize, though much less than in most other homes (oh and this is no euphemism). The only thing is I do not find things as quickly as I could and because I keep buying things, the amount of things to sift through keeps growing. So every once and a while I tell myself I should put in some structure in order to find things more efficiently. I do not.

But now, with all the new content related technologies, the opening up of the new world (global, everyone joins) and my knowledge hunger... I am beginning to be at a loss for knowledge. For even if I use my personal organizing technologies (previous posts on this), they - in themselves - are beginning to get soo chaotic I do no longer find what I am looking for within a reasonable amount of time.

Adding new technologies was fine, until lately, because it seems they cloud my brain and it starts to become too much for me to organise. In a different world this would not matter, or in a different profession this would not matter neither, but as it is I am depending on my knowledge, on strong arguments why I suggest things that come out of my knowledge and on quickly retrieving things that I know I have somewhere (where?).


Technology pushes content to superficial levels
No matter how you twist and turn it: everything takes time, so reflection is the only thing that keeps our mind focused and connected. But reflection demands time. If time is becoming ever more important (Moore's law that humans want to mimic), how can we assure that our content products will have any quality in them?

do we increasingly build on other one's knowledge because of time restraints?
It would be interesting to see if the amount of content questions put out via new technologies (twitter, blogs, forums...) are beginning to increase... I think so. As everyone's time to find answers diminishes, we hope to find answers outside of our own brain and I think we increasingly depend on outside (=not our own personal) networks to find answers. But that is okay, we did do this in the past (International researchers, well traveled artists...). The only thing is what happens if nobody has the time to truly grasp certain knowledge? We believe certain 'experts' or 'gurus', but who is to tell they will not fall into the hands of non-argumented theories or solutions, just because they know they NEED to look as though they know?


read/write web results in no readers
Let's say we will still have time to reflect, so we will still write down our thoughts and ideas. As long as you read a book, you are not writing it and even if you write your own book, why would anyone else be interested. Even if your book was build on knowledge, it will be redundant as soon as you have written it (not even bothering with the distinction between paper or digital).


But copyright can eventually be dismissed
If more people (global) write down their ideas, more similar texts will be formed. So who is to tell who will be the 'author' of those ideas? I think that we can state that one thing is for sure, the copyright will be out on basis of too much. Who wants to read references that mention 20 different authors?

So for me connectivism is a nice idea, it will lead to some kind of revolution, just because everything is changing thanks to technology. But opening up all learning, will not necessarily result in a more humane society. In fact, giving the learning power to all humans from an early age, without guidance could result in a new savage era. Or will it?

On the other hand, opening up learning will give developing countries the tools to get cracking with their own theories and ideas... that is a BIG bonus!

‘Cartoon by Nick D Kim, nearingzero.net. Used by permission.’

Wireless power vision by Intel versus microwave health risks

It's a case of the optimist versus the pessimist view on life. During the latest Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, California, one of the topics in the visionary keynote was wireless power. Justine Rattner, Intel's vice president, demonstrated a Wireless Resonant Energy Link (WREL) to power a 60-watt light bulb without the use of a plug or wire of any kind, which is more than is needed for a typical laptop. For this technology Intel said they were using principles developed by MIT scientists developed by MIT scientists.

"WREL technology employs strongly coupled resonators, a principle similar to the way a trained singer can shatter a glass using her voice, Intel said. At the receiving resonator's natural frequency, energy is absorbed efficiently, just as a glass absorbs acoustic energy at its natural frequency. With this technology enabled in a laptop, for example, batteries could be recharged when the laptop gets within several feet of the transmit resonator, the company explained." as the TG-daily reported.

The optimist in me definitely agrees that 'The wireless power supplier will be a great invention! '

But than again the pessimist in me is quick enough to get me focused on possible dangers that need to be taken into account. What about the radiation of these wireless power solutions? I remember the great works of art Richard Box set-up using nothing more than stand-alone, non-connected light tubes, spread underneath high voltage transmission towers. The effect was amazing light without needing to connect the lights to an electricity plug (see the photo: 'shake pole by Richard Box). It is clear some radiation is filling the air surrounding these high voltage towers.

And while reading the article something else came to mind: is the radiation that is used in this future wireless power supply using the same frequency as microwaves and cell-phone radiation? If anybody knows this, feel free to fill me in.

Because if this is indeed the case, those radiated microwaves could effect human health. I know a lot of people put question marks on the research that is focusing on microwaves from cell-phones and the possible effects they can have on health, but I always try to be safe. If simple measures (hands free set, radiation free isolated homes...) can make sure I do not have to worry about whether these waves do have an effect, I simply apply these safe guidelines.

If you are interested in reading up on radiation from cell-phones and human health, feel free to have a look in the publication list of the computer science researcher Mikko Ahonen from the University of Tampere, Finland. Mikko Ahonen also has a great blog on open innovation, creativity and technology.

Why are the optimist and the pessimist seldomly agreeing on the same thing?

And thanks to great colleague Carlos Kiyan for getting me on to Intel's wireless power vision.

rethinking my blog: work sheet

Today I start with the dreaded 'rethinking of my blog' exercise. I was putting it off, could not stop thinking about it and ... well, there is a lot of room for improvement so I am starting it today.

Procrastination demands that I first google possible strategies or frameworks I could use:
be a more productive blogger/
or immersing myself in Building a Better blog
or why not stick to the thing I strive for? better karma: 10 ways to improve your blog karma

No matter how much I procrastinate, I will have to dive into it.

Things I will be working on:
- making a writer schedule;
- thinking in the long-term with blog posts;
- my info needs to be easier to access;
- structure, structure, structure!!!

Add-ons for Firefox (anything that can enhance posts):
post-wisdom (helps with checking post necessities)
Scribefire (an editing help)