Monday, March 16, 2015

#SoL15 Day 16: random notes

Today it's random notes from 750 Words. No, I am not doing two challenges in one month. One year, I used 750 Words for NaNoWriMo but drifted away and re-started because I was writing too much in my daybook file (txt)

4:30 am was way earlier than I planned to start my day's writing -- hit the cyber deck commenting and tweeting or doing anything. Too bad the swarm of silly #NAWD twitter bots don't make themselves useful with #PARCC, #Pearson1984 and other #peepingPearson tags.

It's either more coffee or crash again very soon. That low grade fever and respiratory some I've been trying to dodge caught up with me.



Did a quick TweetDeck round of RTs on #edblognet and peeping Pearson tags. Checked email (mostly to sort and keep unread count manageable). Added Adjunct Teachers Songbook link to March 12 COCAL Updates and, after adding more IWD links, posted that. Set new morning writing goal for 750 Words: break 100 words before going crashing.

§ Up again just past noon, better, less congested but not really rested. More coffee, double vitamin C (another round at 3 pm with decongestant). Chicken soup, heavy on the ginger. Extra sleep not withstanding, I'd better be ready to drop at a moment's notice. That means triage: a realistic priorities list: email; EdBlogNet's Pearson/surveillance and Caravana 43 campaigns; Greater Good clicks.; sharing COCAL Updates on adj-l ...and of course, writing the slice plus reading and commenting on others. I am not sufficiently coherent to attempt correspondence.

from the inbox: 


§ Footnote to Freedom of Press Foundation Newsletter that I posted by email to McGee's Closet (draft folder for introduction and layout editing):

“A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, a ubiquitous press must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the even greater values of freedom of expression and the right of the people to know.” —Judge Murray Gurfein, Pentagon Papers case, June 17, 1971

§ More on student surveillance and privacy issues... Medium article, "Grooming Students for a Lifetime of Surveillance"
Since 2011, billions of dollars of venture capital investment have poured into public education through private, for-profit technologies that promise to revolutionize education. Designed for the “21st century” classroom, these tools promise to remedy the many, many societal ills facing public education with artificial intelligence, machine learning, data mining, and other technological advancements. 
They are also being used to track and record every move students make in the classroom, grooming students for a lifetime of surveillance and turning education into one of the most data-intensive industries on the face of the earth. The NSA has nothing on the monitoring tools that education technologists have developed to “personalize” and “adapt” learning for students in public school districts across the United States.
§ Audry Watter's Hack Education Newsletter ~ also to McGee's Closet


pages tabbed along the way:



Slice of LIfe I am participating in the March Slice of Life Challenge: blogging a slice a day for all of March.  Thank you, Two Writing Teachers! Visit the site to read some slices

2 comments:

  1. Oooohhh. Let's spread the word and stop the madness and the frightening future: "They are also being used to track and record every move students make in the classroom, grooming students for a lifetime of surveillance" I had not thought of the madness in quite that way. "grooming" -- but that IS what is. What groups are working with stopping this?

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    Replies
    1. Education Bloggers Network, Network for Public Education (Diane Ravitch) and Badass Teachers Association. A blogger -- retired teacher and journalist -- broke the story ~ mainstream media was ignoring it. The social media furor got it into the Washington Post and now the NJ AG is investigating.

      I doubt that will be the end of it though

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