Why we need a change in Washington

Recession. Health care. Women's rights to their body and their privacy. America's decreasing reputation, influence and place in the world. Our education system. The environment. Belief in the need for alternative energy sources. Thoughtful policies on changing the economic tailspin. We've all heard it, and we understand the very difficult choices ahead for the issues of our nation.
But the media is increasingly quiet about another nation many miles away. The death count continues to rise, the medical injuries are astronomic, and still John McCain claims our right to occupy Iraq for another hundred years.

Lest we forget, because the numbers and the caskets and carnage are being kept from us by an 'embedded' media:
American dead: +4,000
American wounded/damaged/maimed forever: +30,000
* data from globalsecurity.org as of Oct 2008

Our domestic problems are in the forefront of election news and ideas, but it would be a heartless cruelty not to remember, and track, and understand what we've done in Iraq and to Iraq. May God forgive us. May the citizens of Iraq forgive us, including the 50,000+ marching in the streets of Baghdad yesterday, demanding we leave now. May the world forgive us. And even if they don't, may we begin to take action to leave the oil and the grief and the occupation behind so that we can begin to forgive ourselves.

A Short Post on Palin and the Big Picture

This is a Blog on innovation technologies and use in higher education, but speaking on the Viet Nam war, MLK said "A time comes when silence is betrayal. " 

Now is one of those times. Invasion. Recession. Poverty. Homelessness. A government that protects the wealthy and allows New Orleans to disappear. A leadership that permits so many Americans to go without the simplest essentials while making enemies of the world. 

I watched the VP debate this evening and I am having trouble coming to terms with Sarah. She distracts me. Leaves me speechless. She's so sure and so grounded in the lack of need for knowledge. There is much of what she IS that I respect: funny, grounded, earthy, determined, energetic, charming, folksy, real. Pretty and rugged doesn't hurt. Ooh Alaska! 

What causes deep conflict is that she doesn't respect the things I hold inherent: intellect, study, discovery, knowledge, deep thought, ambiguity and wonder. She's read 'all' the newspapers but can't name one? Can't name one supreme court decision except Roe V Wade? Has no idea what the Bush Doctrine might be? Talks gibberish when asked direct questions? Doesn't suffer doubt or considerations of others' ideas? Doesn't worry about the big city people that now live in tents and lost everything while her family became comfy on Alaska bounty and oil revenue returns?

Sarah: this is not a game. America is hurting here!

MLK was right. Silence is betrayal when our country needs the voice of the people to speak up, speak out, be heard. I am an American and a woman and I admire Sarah Palin.  

But I do matter, and so do the homeless in tent cities and 'East coast' city dwellers SP dismisses with her crinkly grimace. 

I matter and I have a voice. I will soon be "Reduced in Force" (laid off) by a University I served for 17 years. My city has 20,000 empty homes in foreclosure and an anticipated 26,000 more to come in the next few months. We are a big city and we matter. We live in the desert and we matter. 

I am voting for Barack Obama and Joe Biden in November.

I Still Love/Adore/Worship Google: Spreadsheet LookUps

Despite a few stumbles in the recent past (especially the offensive Knol, for which I won't even provide link), the Google kids astound me on a regular basis. There is so much, coming so quickly, I don't even have time to explore a new, disruptive/transformative tool or service before they provide another. And yet, getting under the hood, finding the deep features or integration gems within these tools, is where the real beauty of Google resides.

Here's my latest, which I'm quickly discovering that most of my high-tech friends are equally in the dark over. We should have intuited the possibilities, given that it's GOOGLE providing the service, and realized that search logic would be embedded, but we're not as smart as Google so we never imagined how...or how beautifully.

So,Google Spreadsheets provides the creator (you) with the ability to do a Google Search (Lookup function) on another cell. If I put "George Washington" in cell A1, I can do a dynamic look up of his birthday in A2 with a function =GoogleLookup(A1,"place of birth") . Here's Google's explanation of the function GoogleLookup. After it does the lookup, it also stores the sites where the information was found and verified. Rest your cursor on the response to see them.

Tell me, how cool is that? Wait! It gets better. I can then populate cells for that column with like information. When I click on the cell holding "George Washington", a small blue box appears in the lower right corner. Just as with Excel, you could pull down from that box and populate the column with many, many cells filled with our beloved first president. BUT, unlike Excel, when you hold down the CTRL key as you pull down through the column, Google will populate with other instances/objects/things that are 'like George Washington'.
Give it a try, and depending on how deep down into the column you pull your cursor, you'll see our other beloved (and not so beloved) presidents appear. Hand-enter a number of cells to better narrow the data. (eg: Enter Los Angeles and Phoenix if you want large cities; entering just Phoenix will return cities in AZ. Google chooses its own definition of 'like' and it may not be as same as yours if it doesn't have enough data).

Here's the thing...Google is NOT as smart as you. So you'll have to check the data returned, even if you're specific. I needed to erase "Benjamin Franklin" from the data on U.S. presidents. He's 'like George Washington", but not a president. I knew that, Google didn't.

Same with cities and populations. I created a list of American cities 'like Los Angeles" (SF, NY, Chicago, etc) and then did a LookUp on population. Google nailed it, but instead of population for Philly, it gave me "10,882 sq/miles"). Huh?

It also gave me the correct population for San Antonio, but doing a LookUp on state in another column, it gave me Puerto Rico. Huh? Not like, unlike, except in Google's flat world.

Thus, a thing of beauty but only as smart as the metatags. A great case for the need to infuse information literacy into the expected outcomes of 21st century education. And a great example of why we love Google in emergent learning, but desperately need a digital literacy curriculum that focuses on critical thinking, evaluation, meaning and the notion of ownership over mere acceptance. Teach them to use the information at their fingertips, and then to evaluate the returns.

Here's the demo sheet, if you want to see results in action: Google Spreadsheet w/Lookups and populated columns. You must try it yourself to actually get in there and wander around in the data and functions, though. Publishing takes away the dynamic aspects of seeing the functions, markers, references, etc. And owning and creating your data is much more fun. For those of you watchin the stock market tumble, check out how you can use Google's related GoogleFinance function to look up stocks, current prices, track the tumbles, etc.

Hey, not until I published my spreadsheet did I see that Google adds citation mark and all the referenced LookUps at the bottom of the document on publishing. It justs gets better and better. Now, let's start worrying about a world where Google owns the information channels, tools and data services of the digital age. Somebody start creating applications and services as beautiful as Google's. Please.

Meta-Reflection in a time of jest politics

Can't help dwelling on David Foster Wallace and how much he contributed to my understanding of how seldom we experience deep reflection. Hit and run thought is the currency of the constant, tuned in & digital moment. Reflection was DFW's way of being in the world, brought on perhaps by sadness and worry, making meaning through thought rethought annotation and explanation.



He could make me crazy, wishing for an easier read. And he could make me revel in the wonder and humor and depth and 'smartness' and dogged pursuit of theme. And I am so much the less for our loss of him.

So, I'm driven to stop the course of my day and think about thinking about thought on a topic of meta-reflection. Here's where it leads me:
- I'm out of step and a woman not of this time. Evidence: I took one of those inane work-smart personality tests recently. What did I learn? I should work on assertiveness, participation in social activities, and less waffling and subjectivity in my decision making. Bleccchhhh. If I had wanted to be Caribou Barbie, I'd maneuver a place on some rigid, assertive, only-our-way platform. My quiet, perhaps obsessive reflections and desire to get it right - even if it looks like waffling/revising/annotating/allowing multiple views has served me well in technology and so I guess this is here (somewhere) that I'll stay. If I had DFW's talent, I'd be writing 1000+ page tomes on the nature of it all explored in small moments and large themes, but instead...I'll think about designing perfect online courses where every voice is heard and every mind constructs their own understanding at their own pace in their own way. I think DFW would approve.

And I'll ignore workplace profiling that suggests women like Sarah Palin are the new role model: uncompromising, non-collaborative, "won't blink" (don't her eyes hurt??), no time or interest in her children (I know, none of my business...consequences be damned), mean-spirited, take-no-prisoners, & small. Not small-town for I've been there and done that...prefer it to city life...just small & small-minded. And I don't care how successful it makes one, man or woman, I want a quieter, more reflective mind and a kinder, bigger, more doubtful life.

I want to take the time to read writers like DFW, but sadly, (and here's my point IF I have one) there is no other writer like DFW and there is now no DFW. And as interesting as this current election is turning out to be in examination of presence over ideas, it hurts to think about it. We need tools to do it. Here's one from the Bamboo Project Blog: Debriefing Yourself.

A gift to all the hard, fast, mean-spirited folk that didn't have time or interest in the meta-thought and ideas of David Foster Wallace. Be careful when reading. You may wind up changing your mind. But, the good news is that, unlike your present state, you may also change the minds and lives of others.

Wings of the Butterfly

Aug 31, Phoenix: I stare desolate into the water of my pool today, safe water, set deep in a dry dry desert, while the people of New Orleans once again head for safety. My thoughts are with them and I'm hoping, this time, the energy and resources of our government are with them as well.

Too infrequently, I step away from the information overload of this news, of my work, of my little life and step into the quiet overload of my digital connections. First, Google Reader and my feeds. I am smarter for my connections and the smart people I follow. Then, I scan Twitter for things I should know about friends, colleagues, and again, people I admire. Where are they? What are they doing? What's new? Last, I look at what's happening with my peeps on FaceBook, LinkedIn, Epsilen. Only when I have the time (like a Labor Day weekend) and usually late at night if I can't sleep. I'm not a digital junkie, nor am I the quotidian type who builds hobby into the daily flow. Zen practice/being of the moment doesn't quite seem to align with surfing for random data that crosses my screen. So I make my moments there when longing for connection, news, new ideas, something...else.

This week, it brought me right back to my practice. Dave Pollard tweeted a just do it call for people to read "Life is a Verb" and the language was so passionate I thought "Why not?"
A bit Artist's Way, bit self-help, bit art, bit judgmental. And worth the effort, IF you make the effort. Patti Digh offers story and exercises that help us connect with living intentionally, joyously, loudly. You shouldn't just read it, you should do it. I'm going to try. To be more aware, more mindful, more in touch with life in the moment. And do the homework. For 37 days. Patti has inspired me to carry my camera and capture the moments fleeting by. I'll post one, every day, for 37 days. Funny that a Buddhist would need to find her practice out in a tweet, but wherever we go...there we are.
Life is a Verb.
Yes, it is. Buy it, and buy one for a friend that needs it.

Tag clouds

We talk often about the idea of a 'disruptive technology'. The fascinating part for me is the notion that we don't often see it coming when it happens. So often, the technology began with a different intention, focus or goal from the way it's used when it radically changes a process. I assure you, no one in higher education IT saw the CMS coming: enterprise-level support, hardware, online courses, resources flying out the door. Overnight.

I'm wondering if our understanding of qualitative research is about the experience the same transformational change. Social network analysis. Thread and trend software. And my favorite: tag clouds. I used them in my dissertation so that the participants could better SEE consensus as it emerged.
I used ManyEyes, but have recently discovered Wordle, which is easier, quicker and prettier for the narrow application of tag clouds of text. Here's my dissertation, summed up in one cloud. Is THAT what it was about? Who knew?

For the technology to be truly disruptive, we're going to need some early adopters demonstrating affordance. Hop in. Show us your tags.

Colleen's dissertation made visual

Closing Pandora's Box

And they say it couldn't be done. But it can, when Draconian legislation aimed at curbing Internet access is allowed to succeed. Pandora Web radio is thinking about shutting its doors. Here's the story from ReadWriteWeb. Perhaps the music giants, clueless as to the value of Pandora in promoting music, wouldn't be able to manipulate our distinctly integrity-challenged men in Washington if we weren't a virtual community. Hard enough to get us out of our pajamas, let alone into the streets. If Iraq didn't do it, how can the loss of Pandora?

Sometimes I feel really alone here, hovering over the glow of a technology fire while politicians (and the people who buy politicians) are doing bad, bad things out there in the physical world. Internet petitions aren't working. Ironic that we might need physical bodies in action to save an Internet radio station...but what else would work? If I can save the world - starting with Pandora - from my couch, let me know how.