sudo life

One of the coolest games I’ve ever played is Team Fortress 2.   While it’s tons of fun to play, one issue with it is that it doesn’t come with a manual.  Just over a week ago, reddit user ‘lolard’ posted this to the new to tf2 subreddit, asking us to solve this problem.  The reddit community responded.  We fired up an etherpad clone and got to work.  Here’s what we accomplished:

• In less than 24 hours, we had written nearly 8,000 words.
• Today, we’re close 13,000 words.
• More than 50 people have contributed in some way.
• 28 people have contributed substantially.
• Gone through at least two major transitions in the style of writing: from 2nd person to third person, and from the voice being used.
• 4 different websites (3 etherpad clones and crocodoc.com)
• My copy of the manual is 56 pages long, formatted.
• There is now a website: http://tf2manual.net/
• We were flexible enough to neutralize trolls who deleted all our work.

The list can go on.  The message is clear: this has been a massive collaborative work that has produced something amazing in a very short amount of time.  I’ve been involved throughout the whole process, stepping up soon after lolard made the first post.  From this perspective, I’ve learned several things.

1. The future is live collaboration at the level etherpad (and it’s clones) tried to provide.  Wiki’s are last generation technology that only slow things down.
2. None of the etherpad clones were able to fully function at our level of collaboration, including the new Google Documents.  We used ietherpad, openetherpad, sync.in, and I privately tested Google Documents.  All of them experienced difficulties dealing with both the number of collaborators and the size of the document.  Sync.in functioned the best of the bunch.
3. Crocodoc is awesome, but does not scale up to groups of more than 2-3, especially for a 50 page document.  It’s flash driven, and was extremely slow.  It claims to be ‘live’ in the sense of etherpad, but it really isn’t at the levels we were using it.  I had to refresh the page to make sure I was viewing all of the changes.
4. Do not use the time slider on any of the etherpad clones.  This basically made the document useless for everyone over the next 20 minutes as the website did who knows what.  This feature worked great in the original etherpad, so I’m not sure why these clones have trouble with it.  Even sync.in had this trouble.

I can’t emphasize enough how much this changed my view of collaboration.  This has been collaboration how it’s supposed to be done.  While reflecting upon this experience, I’ve identified several reasons I think this went so well.

1. We’re passionate about the subject.  Of course this is important and must appear on the list.
2. We’re passionate about the community.  This is not necessarily an extension of the first point.
3. There was no barrier of entry.  Once the pad was created, we could simply spread the URL around, and once people arrived on that page, they could start editing.  There was no registration, no waiting.  They could immediately jump in and start writing.  This was true for all the etherpad clones as well as crocodoc, and I applaud all of those websites for that.
4. The latest work was immediately available, down to the keystroke.  We could see exactly what others were typing as they were typing it.  Corrections could be done within seconds, and they were not always done by the person who made the mistake.
5. Version control was transparent.  We didn’t have to think about keeping track of a history; the application did it for us.  Hypothetically, we could even playback that entire history as it played out, but that feature was broken on every website we tried.

The biggest theme is that while we were all very good with technology, the technology was completely transparent.  We didn’t have to think about it (except when it broke, like with the time slider).  We just focused on what we were trying to do, and then we did it.

It’s been an amazing experience so far, and while this project is far from over, our parts are winding down.  Soon, we’ll have a nice manual for team fortress 2 users to go with all this valuable experience we’ve gained.

education collaboration, education, gaming, teaching, technology

As the war between PZ and the folks at the Intersection heats up again, I can’t help but throw my own voice into the cacophony.  The argument is age-old and tries to answer the question: “Why are people so gosh darn ignorant?”  On one side, the answer is because they cling to superstition and ritual.  On the other side, it’s because scientists aren’t good enough educators.  To be fair, the previous two sentences were gross over-simplifications of the respective positions.

To a certain extent, both sides are correct, but it’s not a debate I’m really interested in.  As an educator, the reach of my influence is greater than the common person, but not that great, and I’m personally satisfied with what I’m doing.  I can’t do anything about the rest.

The question I have seems to be the one that the accomodationalists (that is, the people who think scientists should focus only on the science) have yet to answer.  What should be done about those people who are not merely ignorant, but ignorant and proud of it, and actively work against known truth.

I don’t have a problem with people believing evolution is wrong and the earth is only 6000 years old, until those beliefs start influencing public policy.  How should those demonstrably harmful beliefs be handled then?

I don’t have a problem with people taking homeopathic medicine and other alternative medical treatments, but how should those beliefs be treated when they’re foisted upon children and others who are unable to protect themselves?

How should the psychic who preys on the weak and hurt be treated?

How should the faith healers who use honest belief as instrument for personal profit be treated?

The popularization of science is not going to make the young-earth creationist change their mind.  When they come to the schools and attempt to gut science curriculum, what should be done?

Education will work in the long term.  We see it working already.  But it will take decades before we get the kind of literacy society really needs.  What are we supposed to do in the meantime?  Sit silently and hope we don’t destroy ourselves out of ignorance?  What can we do right now beyond education?

These are the questions I’d like answered by the accomodationalists.

Philosophy education, Science

As I work through my Educational Technology Masters Degree, one of the things I’m very interested in is the use of video games for educational purposes.  So when I saw this article (pdf) entitled “Scientific Habits of Mind in Virtual Worlds” a few months ago, I couldn’t wait to read it.

This particular study focused on the users of the popular massive multiplayer online role playing game (mmorpg) World of Warcraft, and specifically an online discussion forum used by players to communicate.  The abstract sums up their findings:

Eighty-six percent of the forum discussions were posts engaged in “social knowledge construction” rather than social banter. Over half of the posts evidenced systems based reasoning, one in ten evidenced model-based reasoning, and 65% displayed an evaluative epistemology in which knowledge is treated as an open-ended process of evaluation and argument.

The paper itself it very accessible, and doesn’t take long to read.  The findings are surprising, and I think important for educators to be aware of.  Since I’m not much of a gamer, I was unaware of the level of detail and care gamers put into playing this game, although after reading “Everything Bad is Good For You” last fall, this really shouldn’t have been much of a surprise.  From the paper, here is an example of what I’m talking about:

The calculations correctly show that mind flay [spell]
receives just as much +damage percentage as mind
blast. However mind blast has a 1.5 second cast time,
and mind flay has a 3 second cast time. And therefore
mind flay receives half the dps [damage per second]
boost it should. (post #2609.43)

There are two things about this kind of thinking that really demonstrates something I hope I can foster in my own classroom: the depth of analysis, and social knowledge construction.  The user in this case, wasn’t satisfied by the damages given by a particular attack; they took it a step further and came up with their own method of identifying what kind attack is better (damage per second).  While this particular example seems simple, since it only involves one issue (a single tactical decision), it’s important to realize that this is just a piece of a much larger discussion that involved many more variables. From later in the paper, here is an example of a more complicated, user generated equation:

For Mindflay, SW:P, and presumpably VT [3 priest spells]:

Damage = (base_spell_damage + modifier * damage_gear) *darkness * weaving * shadowform *misery

The second thing they did was post their analysis in a forum, generating discussion and debate.

It was this paper that inspired me last semester, when I was assigned to create a lesson plan that integrated some form of technology, to use Schorched3D as a way for students to create models for learning about trajectory and range.  While I wasn’t able to give this lesson to actual students, and it’s outside the field I actually teach, I think this kind of integration will be necessary in the classrooms of today and tomorrow.

For further reading, there is a wealth of information to be found in the citations of this article.  I also recommend the book “Everything Bad is Good for You.”  Finally, I check out Constance Steinkuehler’s website.  She’s done a lot of great work in this area.

References

1. Steinkeuhler, Constance & Duncan, Sean (2008). Scientific Habits of Mind in Virtual Worlds Journal of Science Education and Technology, 17 (6), 530-543

Uncategorized education, Philosophy, Science, teaching, thinking

Earlier this week, I found myself at the public library.  During my browsing, I ran across a book that had been recommended to me by a friend, so I picked it up and checked it out.  The book was Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher’s First Year.  I’ve been pretty busy this week, but tonight I couldn’t get to sleep so the opportunity to dive in presented itself and I took it.  This book is a relatively quick read, but also contains some emotional depth.

Esmé is a first year teacher at an inner city school in Chicago.  The diary entries contained in the book haven’t been censored for publishing, so it reads as a very authentic look into her perspective.  There are both great victories and terrible defeats, representing the full spectrum of experiences (including some very humorous anecdotes), from a student who stabs a teacher in the back with a pencil, to another student who brings their 2 year old brother to school because there’s no one to watch him at home, to a class yelling “play ball” after the anthem in a very inappropriate (but hilarious) setting, to a class coming together and awing the school with a literature show they put on.  I felt Esmé’s despair and helplessness when considering the situations her students found themselves in, but also her deep pride in their eventual successes.

Working at a university, I am largely ignorant of most of the issues confronting public school teachers, except for those issues relating to educational technology.  This book was very eye-opening in that regard as Esmé’s nemesis throughout the book was the one person who should have given her complete support: the principal.  It was disheartening to read about his repeated meddling over completely irrelevant issues, such as what name Esmé should answer to.  The principal really represents must of what is wrong with public education in this country today.

The hardest part of reading this book is watching the idealism fade away and a near-cynicism replace it, only to see the pride in her students at the end of the book.  About halfway through, I began to worry: was I reading yet another story of a wonderful creative inspirational teacher that would quit after her first year, or third?  According to the Washington Post, half of all teachers quit by their fifth year, so this sort of outcome would not be out of place; in fact, it’s all too common already.

About halfway through the book, Esmé makes the following poignant observation:

“In my opinion, the prefabricated curriculum and board mandates that are concocted to hide [inner classroom workings], can work both ways.  They can be benign suggestions to make talented investors out of teachers.  Or they can make it so people who don’t have anything to share can still work, since their scripts are made up for them.  Nobody really knows which is happening when the teacher closes the door.  At worst, mediocrity.  At best, miracles.”

Have we created a script that anyone can use to “teach?”  I haven’t been able to sleep tonight as I am coming down with some sort of cold, but I think it’s this observation above that will keep me up for just a bit longer.  If you get a chance, especially if you’re a teacher at any level, I highly recommend this book.

Book Reviews education

Technically I think we’re smack dab in the middle of the ‘Holidays’ since New Years is still a few days away, but I’ve been unable to see it.  I’ve been too busy so far, but I think I’ll be taking a break here over the next few days. There have been a number of things on my mind, and I wanted to throw them out there, for whoever ends up reading.

First, I’m already psyched about the upcoming Watchmen movie.  It helps that the trailers are incredible in every way, especially the music.  I’ve got the soundtracks off of iTunes, and while the music is now inextricably linked to the movie, I’ve also found them quite enjoyable to listen on their own.

Secondly, If you’re using Firefox, you must check out the Ubiquity plug-in.  I’ve been using it for a few months now, and it’s made it’s way into my toolchain.  For example, I quickly checked the definition of “inextricably” a few moments ago, just to make sure it means what I thought.  Now this was already an easy task: open a new tab and type “define:intextricably” into the google search box, and off you go.  This cuts out the new tabs part, which is a small improvement that feels much better.  Ubiquity can do much more than dictionary look-ups, though.  I’m more than a little biased: Ubiquity is the topic of a teaching conference presentation I’m giving in a few months.

The Future of this Blog

I’ve been working on a post for the last few months at least entitled “Software for Introspection.”  Introspection, not in the programming sense, but the psychological.  It’s a topic I’ve always been interested in, and along these lines, I’ve developed a personal suite of tools I use for both quantitative and qualitative analysis of internal processes.  This suite of tools is really aimed at my personal needs, and I’m not sure just how transferable some of these tools would be to someone else.  However, given the new home of the blog, I think that I might begin to aim at a public release.

Just over a month ago, I moved from my old domain, joshuamcharles.com, to the current domain, sudolife.org.  I had several reasons for this, the biggest being that I really like the play of “sudo”-”pseudo.”  The website isn’t my life, but it is.  It is the electronic presence that tells the world who I am, but it isn’t necessarily an accurate representation.  Therefore, it’s psuedo-josh.

As I thought about the other side of the wordplay (“sudo life”, as though it’s a unix command), though, something else occured to me.  This could be the perfect place to release my introspective tools as a service, once I get them to a point that they would actually be useful to someone else.  I’m not sure if this is a good idea or not, but I wanted to throw it out there and see if anyone else has any thoughts on the matter.  It could be that there is no demand for this sort of software at all.

Beyond that, I’m looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow, especially considering that it’s too late for me to be blogging.  I have noticed a distinct increase in the lack of ability to sleep over the last week or so, as well as an increase in general anxiety, and a fixation on certain topics.  The next few days could seem excruciatingly long.

Personal blogging, education, introspection, zen

photo credit: TheArtGuy

This post contains BREAKING NEWS.

I haven’t been blogging lately, or keeping up with all my blog subscriptions.  While my Google Reader is telling my I merely have 37 unread posts, this is at least partly due to the judicious use of “mark all as read” button.  But why is this so?  Well, I have my final two grad courses for this semester to finish up this week and the next, and I”m also putting the “finishing” touches on the CMS I’ve written for my School.  But yesterday something was offered to me, and today it was confirmed that has thrown a huge load of work on my shoulders.  I don’t mind one bit, however, because this is something I am *really* looking forward to.  What is it?

*I* am teaching a class here at the University next semester.  My *own* class!  It’s in the catalog.  Students are registering for classes.  I keep pinching myself.  This is *actually happening*.

So what class is it that has my heart thumping in equal parts fear and excitement?  TE385, also known as “Teaching and Learning with Technology.”  Basically I’m going to teach future teachers how to be more effective students and teachers (and people in general) by utilizing technology.

I have many ideas about what I want to cover in this class.  I’m not the only person teaching this course; there are other sections, so there is a basic set of things I need to cover, and then we can move beyond that.  I’ve started the process of creating the syllabus, and the collosal size of this task is starting to set in.  I have a lot of work to do in the next month if this class is going to be successful.

Personal education, teaching

The H.M.S. Beagle Blog has published an e-mail they sent to a local science teacher:

Your students are reporting to us that you are offering a non-scientific alternative to how plant and animal species evolved on earth. Many of them are quite disconcerted with what seems to be a blatant attempt to subvert scientific fact and theory with unfounded speculation, mythology and beliefs. Since we have not personally heard your presentations we cannot accurately judge what you are, in fact, presenting or what your approach to teaching science is. If there is even a whiff of creationism or intelligent design being offered as a legitimate alternative to science in your classes then that would go against the basis of the recent Dover decision in Pennsylvania (Kitzmiller v. Dover, 2005, Judge John E. Jones presiding).

You can read the rest over at their blog.  I realize this is an issue that goes under-reported so I feel it’s important to bring as much attention to it as possible.

The word delusion is defined as “an erroneous belief that is held in the face of evidence to the contrary.”  Given the mountains of evidence that exist in support of the theory of evolution, is it a stretch of language to call rejection of the theory a delusion?

Science biology, education, evolution

Back in August, my MBP developed some hardware issues that required a visit to the Apple store.  The Kansas City Apple Store happens to be on the famous Plaza, and very near to a Barnes and Noble.  So during this time, I ended up spending a large amount of time browsing books at said store.  As I went through the store, I happened to wander over to the science & technology section where my eyes fell upon a book with a very strange title:  “Everything Bad Is Good For You.”  If that wasn’t enough to pique one’s interest, the subtitle would be: “How today’s popular culture is actually makeing us smarter.”

Needless to say (but I’ll type it anyway), I was extremely skeptical.  Never-the-less, it was a provokative enough title for me to pick it up and turn to the first few pages.  The author, Steven Johnson,  begins with a discussion about a precursor to the modern fantasy sports games.  The story was engrossing enough that I went ahead and purchased the book, and once I was home I devoured it.  I just couldn’t put it down.

Johnson describes what he calls “the sleeper curve.”  His basic argument is that popular culture requires an increasingly complex involvement by the consumer to fully enjoy.  He supports his arguments with several specific examples taken from tv shows like “The Bachelor” and “The Sopranoes” and video games like “Zelda.”  I’m not much of a popular culture participant, and was unfamiliar with all three of these, but this did not hinder my understanding of his argument.  While I had started reading the book quite skeptically, by the end, I felt like he had made a good case using the examples that he did.  However, I do think his argument benefited from a selection bias to begin with.

One of my main criticisms is how citations and the bibliography were handled.  There were no in text citations.  The bibliography contained a snippet of the text where the information was used and then the source itself.  It’s a painful way handle sources.  One nice consideration was a section on suggested further reading, however.

Overall, this is a very worth-while book, and while I’m not completely convinced by his argument, I have to agree that Johnson is certainly on to something.  Published in 2005, it is available from Amazon.com, and other retailers.

Other Book Reviews Coming Down the Pipeline:

1) The Tipping Point and Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

2) The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

3)  Multiple Intelligences by Howard Gardner

I realize I’m a bit behind the times, especially with gladwell’s books, but I don’t personally know anyone else who has read them.

Book Reviews Book Reviews, education, technology

This story gets under my nerves.  A professor asked his students to write an essay critical of U.S. VP Candidate Sarah Palin.  The article doesn’t provide any details of the assignment directly, but off the top of my head, I can’t think of any reason why such an assignment would be wrong, especially at the college level.

This isn’t about your views.  This isn’t about whether you like or dislike Sarah Palin.  Reading the sentence on it’s own merits, it doesn’t even necessarily mean finding flaws in Ms. Palin:

criticize
1. To find fault with: criticized the decision as unrealistic.
2. To judge the merits and faults of; analyze and evaluate.

I would like to draw your attention to the second definition, as it is the one most commonly used in higher education.

But let us suppose that this wasn’t the case.  The assignment really was to write an essay that found fault with Sarah Palin.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with that either.  One thing any well balanced should be able to do is formulate an argument whether they agree with it or not.  It is a necessary part of being able to understand anything.

Where is the problem?

It drives me batty that anyone attending an institute of higher education would not recognize this.  It drives me batty that the press are even paying attention to this.  Isn’t the skill this lesson is aimed towards a fundamental part of being a journalist?

I’m planning on voting for Barack Obama this fall.  Here are a few faults he has:

• His recent FISA vote was so wrong, that to completely explain why would not be appropriate for this blog post.
• He appears to think it’s wrong to criticize other people’s religion.
• A few of his commercials have not been completely honest in their criticisms of his opponent.

Those are three things right off the top of my head.  If I sat down to think about it more, I’m sure I could come up with several more.

I fear the real issue here is avoidance of being self-critical.  If you agree with Sarah Palin, criticism of her is criticism of you.  We can’t have that in the classroom, obviously.

Dammit, grow some courage, people.

“We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers. -Carl Sagan”

Philosophy critical thinking, education, Philosophy

Americans have gained an unfortunate reputation for being terrible at geography, among other things. That was driven home recently in an episode I had with someone with a Ph.D. I won’t give out specifics, but the episode has stayed on my mind for a while.

This person had a mind map they were working on, and they were laying out some countries relative to the continents they reside in. What was this persons snafu? They had labeled Nicaragua and Cuba as belonging in South America.

Yikes!

I spotted their error immediately, and pointed out that this wasn’t actually correct. Then insisted it was right, though, and instead of arguing my point, I let the matter drop. After all, they have a Ph.D. What do I know with my lowly bachelors degree in music? Never-the-less, nearly two weeks have past, and it still bothers me. There were so many wrong things with this. The mind-map already had North America listed, which had Mexico, Canada, and the United States under it. Nothing wrong with that. I would have been ok if they had listed Nicaragua under ‘Central America’ even.

Actually, I’m not clear whether technically it should be North America, or Central America. But I do know it absolutely should not be listed under South America. Cuba is the same way. Should it be listed under ‘Caribbean,’ or ‘North America?’ Once again, though, ‘South America’ is just dead wrong.

The fact that these were wrong, though, isn’t what is truly bothering me. We all make little stupid mistakes like that. What really bothers me is that this person had absolutely no interest in what was actually true. They were set in their ways, and to hell with everyone else. They knew what was right, and any one who contradicted what they knew was wrong by default.

They did not have an empty cup:

A university professor went to visit a famous Zen master. While the master quietly served tea, the professor talked about Zen. The master poured the visitor’s cup to the brim, and then kept pouring. The professor watched the overflowing cup until he could no longer restrain himself. “It’s overfull! No more will go in!” the professor blurted. “You are like this cup,” the master replied, “How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup.”

This story has been on my mind lately.  There is so much one can learn from this.  The main point is that the professor had come to the zen master with a lot of preconceived notions.  He already knew what zen was, and came to the master, not in order to learn, but to demonstrate his own knowledge.  This is not necessarily bad, but the implication in the story is that he had come to the master in order to learn zen.  The lesson to draw from this story is that in order to learn, you need to be willing to learn.  You need to be able to leave what you know behind and absorb new knowledge.

The application of this lesson can go far beyond zen and buddhism itself.  As a music major, I had lessons every week with my euphonium professor.  What would have gotten accomplished if I had gone into the lessons under the impression that I already knew everything about playing euphonium?  I learned the most in these lessons when I had dropped my preconceived notions about music and playing.

It can apply in the classroom as well.  What’s the point in taking a history class when you already assume that you know it all?  We’ve all seen students like this in class.  They’re smart, they know what’s going on, they’ve studied on their own, outside of the classroom.  I’ve probably been that guy once or twice as well.  If I could go back to that time, I would tell myself to ‘empty my cup.’

I hear someone ask, ‘Doesn’t this attitude cause some epistemological issues?’  It certainly seems so, doesn’t it?  If we forsake all our knowledge when we go in to learn something new, we’ll never actually learn anything.  It becomes a useless philosophy.  As with most things, moderation and wisdom is the key.

Should I have an empty cup when talking to an young earth creationist, for example?  Or someone who believes that meditation will give you supernatural powers?  You might think that my answer to this is ‘no way,’ but this is not the case.  In situations like these, the important thing is listening, and that is how you apply the idea of ‘empty cup.’  If I was talking to a young earth creationist, for example, and assumed that what they were saying was just like every other young earth creationist I’ve ever heard, those are preconceived notions that interfere with communication.  I need to empty my cup of those notions and listen to what the person is saying.

And perhaps that is the real lesson here: a willingness to listen to what is being said instead of forcing our own notions on someone else.  Perhaps it doesn’t have anything at all to do with our own beliefs, but our willingness to actually listen to what someone else is saying rather than being interested in only giving our own perspectives.

Philosophy Buddhism, education, koan