A few weeks ago Lisa Phillips, a Masters student at the University of Oxford, asked for my help in scoping ‘rebellious approaches to educational technology’. I found the questions she asked so provocative and appealing I invited readers of this blog to complete her brief questionnaire.

Lisa followed up that questionnaire by interviewing me yesterday. With her permission, I recorded the conversation and have made it available below (it’s also here).

This study is an exploration of how innovation is defined within the educational technology field: what values and conceptions are ascribed to innovation, how and why programs and ideas get named as innovative, and whether or how we form a shared definition of innovation.

It’s quite long, but I’d love to hear any feedback!

(note that my views aren’t those of JISC, etc.)

1. The social element (you don’t seem to get this at, for example, Codecademy)
2. Filling in gaps in my knowledge (I didn’t learn any of this sequentially; sometimes I’m missing some building blocks)
3. Reviewing other people’s work (some people obviously do the bare minimum, others are super-dedicated)
4. The opportunity to become a mentor (once you’ve learned something, there’s the opportunity to then teach it)

An example of the second item on my list is the P2PU task Some Tags for You to Meet. I learned about the <time> and the <q> HTML tags, the former being used to provide a machine-readable way of parsing the start of, for example, an event. The latter is used for short quotations that are included within a paragraph of text. Handy.

There’s plenty more of these on the Mozilla Developer Network but, for the time being that’s enough.

If you’re an educator you should be all over P2PU like a rash. Seriously.

Posterous, a blogging solution I’ve really enjoyed using and have advocated widely, was bought by Twitter recently. It was a talent acquisition, meaning that the future of the service is in doubt. Yesterday, I spent some time moving my Conference and FAQ blogs (previously hosted on Posterous) to subfolders of dougbelshaw.com.

The next step is to find a way to transfer Thought Shrapnel, my Tumblr-powered blog, in a satisfactory way. Truth is, Tumblr is an excellent (although painfully proprietary) platform with some really nice features. I like the defined post types and the way you can queue-up blog posts to go live.

Another thing I’d like to do is move both this blog and my e-books space from separate installations to my new WordPress ‘multisite’ installation running on the site root.

Finally, I’ve discontinued blogging at literaci.es (transferring the posts here) and moved my Ideas Garden to a public Evernote workbook.

You can find all of these spaces linked to from my profile at dougbelshaw.com.

Image CC BY-SA Fey Ilyas

In addition, you may want to check out both Martin Waller and James Michie who have also been consolidating their online presence.

Rob:

Ultimately I don’t think the problem is between native vs web, the problem is one of closed vs open, and not in a Google PR way. The things we tend to care about in the online world are services, not apps. Services see us passing responsibility for our data on to a third party, and usually based on features rather than interoperability or longevity. At the end of the day, if there’s something which we would mind losing, it’s our responsibility to keep it, not some third party.

Doug:

My issue, I suppose is platforms becoming de facto standards because ‘everyone uses them’. Kind of like Dropbox and Twitter and so on…

There’s definitely an elision which I need to resolve in my thinking between ‘HTML5 webapps’ and ‘openness’. Thanks for the pointers!

Rob:

The standards thing is tough I guess. Who wants to be the business that boasts of how easy it is to jump ship? Especially for social applications like Twitter, Facebook, G+ etc (Dropbox and other personal services not so much since they tend to compete on features and can’t rely on “hey, all your friends are here, you’re not going anywhere”).

I pointed out that Google Takeout actually does allow you to export your data from Google to other platforms. But, as Rob responded, not the comments on other people’s posts.

All of this made me think about my principles for using software and web services. It reminded me of Baltasar Gracian’s constant reminders in The Art of Worldly Wisdom (which I read on constant repeat) that it’s easy to begin well, but it’s the ending well that counts.

So, I’ve come up three principles to guide me:

1. I will use free and Open Source software wherever possible. (I’m after the sustainable part of OSS, not the ‘free’ part)
2. If this is not possible then I will look for services which have a paid-for ‘full-fat’ offering.
3. I will only use proprietary services and platforms without a paid-for option if not doing so would have a significant effect on my ability to connect with other people.

What’s in and what’s out? I’ll stick with Twitter and Google+ (but will try to connect with people I follow in additional ways). Evernote, Spotify, Skype and Dropbox are fine for the time being (I pay for them). I’ll try and move away from GMail and Google Calendar.

Any suggestions for replacements?

This has led to some interesting reviews:

• Slashgear
• The Verge
• Gizmodo

Essentially, they all say that the phone is gorgeous, both in terms of hardware and the swipe-based MeeGo operating system.

But.

The Nokia Ovi store contains very few apps as Nokia has effectively abandoned the platform (although they are supporting it until 2015).

That hasn’t stopped me getting two significant updates to the phone in the short time I’ve had it. The latest update was awesome and included built-in DLNA streaming to devices such as my Playstation 3.

Quite why a closed app store equates to a successful mobile device is beyond me. The only two apps I’m actually missing are two you probably don’t use: Path and LastPass.

I want to credit Amber Thomas with a throwaway comment she made during our Skype conversation earlier this week. She talked of the worrying tendency of people to treat ‘platforms as standards’. Hence the title of this post. What I’ve realised is that Apple iPhone app makers love to create silos for information. It makes their apps profitable.

On the other hand, I like my workflows. And the best mechanisms for making those workflows as smooth as possible? RSS and email. Which, given Project Reclaim, is just as well.

I’ve spent a small fortune on apps for Apple devices. And to what avail? I don’t need a dedicated special ‘distraction-free’ iPad app to write well. I just need to find an environment conducive to writing and get on and write. I don’t need a fancy to-do list with heatmap colours. I need a list of things to do. Paper and pen’s working well.

The N9 has apps and accounts that are integrated into the operating system itself. The Twitter app is great and the Messages app integrates SMS, Google Talk, Skype and other instant messaging platforms:

Connecting your accounts enables you to import and export from almost any app. I added the Evernote and MeeIn (LinkedIn) functionality through the Nokia Ovi Store. It’s not completely barren.

This isn’t  a review of the Nokia N9. Nor is it a post comparing it with my previous smartphone: an iPhone 4. The reason for this post is to point out a couple of things:

1. To what extent do we (myself included) treat platforms as de facto ‘standards’? Is that healthy? Is it sustainable?
2. To what extent does our tool use affect how we see the world? Do we need to change the tools we use to see the world in a new light? If so, how often?

Finally, the change has made me think about web apps. Cross-platform, browser-based HTML5 applications. Why don’t companies go down that route? Well, perhaps because anecdotal research shows that people only tend to look in app stores rather than on the Web for such apps. And second there’s the issue of monetisation. There’s money in those iOS and Android hills.

I can’t help but think, however, that initiatives such as Mozilla’s completely Web-based operating system Boot to Gecko (B2G) will lead to greater cross-platform compatibility. As the fortunes of large companies such as BlackBerry, Microsoft, Nokia and Apple wax and wane, so too will the desire of consumers to lock themselves into one ecosystem. I don’t want to have to re-purchase all of my apps just because I buy a new mobile device.

The future is more democratic. The future is more open.

Eventually.

At the Mozilla Festival last year, Mozilla Chairperson Mitchell Baker stood up and gave a short talk. Something she said really resonated with me. In fact, it resonated so much that I baked it right in as a central message of my TEDx Warwick talk.

We need to move beyond mere ‘elegant consumption’.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with elegant consumption in and of itself. Reading, watching and experiencing other people’s creations put together in a thoughtful and delightful way is joyful. But if that’s all we’re doing, then we have a problem.

I’ve championed Apple’s hardware and software since buying my first MacBook in 2006. I love the way that their offerings are so easy to use. At some point over the past six years I think I’ve owned or used pretty much their whole product line.

So why this week did I install Pinguy OS (a Linux distribution) on my iMac and trade my iPhone for the open-source Nokia N9?

Until last year, it was possible to swap out almost any hardware and software and still have a functioning ecosystem. An individual or organization could first decide what they wanted that ecosystem to look like and then invest in the constituent parts of that ecosystem. I feel like that’s changed. Now it’s a case of choose your vendor lock-in. And worryingly, that choice seems to be increasingly an aesthetic choice.

Yes, it’s nice that Apple, through iCloud, auto-syncs all of my stuff everywhere. And it’s wonderful that Google can present me with a (mostly) seamless experience on their combination of hardware and software. But I don’t want to have to buy into their whole ecosystem to get the functionality I require.

I’ll tell you what I want. I want interoperability. I want standards. I want a world where I can plug one thing into another and it (mostly) works. And if that world is slightly less shiny than it might otherwise have been? Well, that’s fine with me. At least I’ll have learned to start worrying and love my data.

Background

I’ve always found politics difficult. What I believe society should look like doesn’t fit well with the traditional two-dimensional left/centre/right representation.

On the one hand, I believe that a guiding principle should be for the State not to interfere in our lives (wherever possible). So far, so Libertarian (and usually, so Conservative).

On the other hand, however, I’m not a great believer in the ‘invisible hand’ of the free market to solve all our woes. And I certainly don’t think that billionaires should co-exist in a world with starving people. So that’s fairly Liberal and left-wing.

Hmmm…

To me, we seem to be missing a third dimension to politics. Sometimes it’s not either/or. Sometimes it’s and/and/and.

The podcasts

Whilst I enjoy the high quality of podcasts from the BBC (In Our Time and Thinking Allowed being my favourites) my go-to podcasts when commuting come from Canadian broadcasters.

The first, Spark is hosted by Nora Young, who has a voice like butter. Not only that, but the Spark Plus podcast features the full version of interviews we only hear a snippet of in the regular podcast. It’s a goldmine of interesting people talking about important ideas.

Recently, Nora interviewed Gabriella Coleman about Anonymous. It’s fascinating:

The second, always high-quality, Canadian podcast I think is fantastic is Big Ideas from TVO. Not long ago they featured John Duffy on The Emerging Politics of Technology. The last 17 minutes or so are devoted to questions, leaving just over half an hour of really thoughtful consideration of the three-dimensional nature of politics I allude to above.

Both are well worth watching or listening to. And if you haven’t subscribed to any/many podcasts, I’d highly recommend both Spark and Big Ideas.

Conclusion

The left/centre/right two-dimensional version of the political spectrum has served its purpose as what I call a ‘convenient hypocrisy’. But to try and force every issue into its confines forces the metaphor to breaking point.

Apart from perhaps politicians in line with the party whip, no-one I know exhibits purely Liberal or purely Conservative behaviours. We’re three-dimensional.

What I find really interesting is that, as John Duffy points out, the political battleground is shifting from the economy to issues surrounding technology.

And that sounds like a debate I’d like to be part of.

Many things can be automated these days using sites such as ifttt. If you haven’t discovered this website yet, click on the link and say goodbye to the rest of your morning/afternoon/evening. You’re welcome.

For the past year or so I’ve been used to using something called gdzl.la to connect Twitter with Flickr. Instead of using TwitPic or, now, Twitter’s built-in service, I pointed my ‘Image API endpoint’ to gdz.la and my photos would show up in my Flickr stream. The flic.kr link to the image would then be appended to my tweet. Awesome.

But.

In their infinite wisdom, Twitter took this functionality out of the latest version of their official iOS client:

(click to enlarge)

Disappointed Doug was disappointed.

All was not lost, however. I asked (via TweetDeck – the Adobe Air version, as Twitter’s HTML5 version sucks) my Twitter network which iOS client they used. The response was many and varied, but a significant number of people recommended TweetBot. Enough for me to pay £1.99 for an app that provides similar functionality I can get for free.

To cut a long story short, TweetBot allows you to define a custom Image API endpoint:

(click to enlarge)

Happy Doug is now happy.

One of the films I’ve already mentioned, I, Robot, is a dystopian vision of how things could go spectacularly wrong. Surrogates is another, potentially even more problematic, vision. In line with my previous post on growing inequalities in global society, I want to consider what would happen if robots became good enough to carry out more of the human jobs that currently attract the lowest levels of renumeration. In other words, what happens when the financial elite can obtain ‘efficiency savings’ by employing robots instead of paying minimum wage to some of the poorest in our society?

We have a historical precedent for people who violently oppose technological innovation. In the 19th century a loosely-organised group of people collectively known as Luddites smashed machines that made it easier, quicker and cheaper to produce textiles. Although I don’t condone their violence (they attempted to assassinate factory owners) I’m in full agreement that ‘efficiency’ is less important than human welfare. So who thinks it’s a safe bet that the first wave of robots to take (visible) jobs from humans will be set-upon and destroyed? I do. In countries like the USA where guns are a normal part of society this could lead to robot owners arguing that they should be able to arm them to protect their investment. If that happens, it’s armageddon time.

And what about education? If you consider learning to be akin to knowledge transfer, then before Matrix-style human brain ‘upgrades’ become commonplace, some states/countries will seriously consider using robots to teach children. Japan will be first, no doubt. Unless we undergo a transformation in our collective thinking, we will end up sending our children to institutions with high fences to drill-and-practice skills that are not needed now, never mind in 2020 and beyond. Sometimes it’s good to investigate the thick end of the wedge to test our intuitions.

Part of the problem is that our view of human flourishing is based on a scientific rationality that, at its logical extreme culminates in us ‘uprading’ ourselves to be functionally indistinguishable from robots. When I mentioned this to Louise Thomas from the RSA recently she said that something similar to this forms the basis of one of Iain M. Banks’ novels. I shall have to investigate. All in all, I think that not only do I think we need a conversation about the purpose(s) of education, but we also need a conversation about what it means to be human. People will do what they can get away with, what it is socially acceptable to do, what gives them a competitive advantage. Once robots become involved, things get serious on a whole new level. And I haven’t even mentioned robots for security, warfare and policing…

Image CC BY-NC-SA STCroiss

That’s why I want to bring your attention to the proposed SOPA legislation currently being debated in the US Congress. Ostensibly, the idea is to crack down on piracy and ‘protect’ citizens. The potential reality is very different, with websites and blogs like the one you’re currently reading potentially being censored for even linking to a blog that attempts to circumvent government filtering.

Go and read this. It’s all about big business:

SOPA contains anti-circumvention language that would essentially allow for government control over essential privacy software such as VPNs, proxies, and even something as fundamental as SSH. SOPA also provides for an incredibly broad right of private action that would allow content owners to interfere with the operations of payment processors and social media services such as Twitter.

Every organization I believe represents our interests online is against it – the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Mozilla, Creative Commons, the Wikimedia Foundation – even YouTube, eBay and Paypal.

Please head over to americancensorship.org and do something about this. I’ll leave you with words from James Allworth from Harvard Business School:

[SOPA] contains provisions that will chill innovation. It contains provisions that will tinker with the fundamental fabric of the internet. It gives private corporations the power to censor. And best of all, it bypasses due legal process to do much of it.

More at BoingBoing.