Sam Harrelson

Sam's Personal Stream of Life

The Web Means the Beginning of Empathy

Jeffrey Rosen writes in the NYTimes a well researched piece (provocatively titled) "The Web Means the End of Forgetting" on the premise that the web is contributing to our continual evolution of social norms such as forgiveness, exposure, voyeurism and discretion. Although Rosen doesn't address middle schoolers directly, I couldn't help but consider my own students. This current generation of middle and primary school students will help bake the standards for their world as we enter a new cultural experience shaped, in great part, by the web for the first time. In my opinion, the most significant part of the post comes at the end when Rosen opines about the need for a new conception of empathy:
In the meantime, as all of us stumble over the challenges of living in a world without forgetting, we need to learn new forms of empathy, new ways of defining ourselves without reference to what others say about us and new ways of forgiving one another for the digital trails that will follow us forever.
Expressed and genuine empathy is the one quality I admire the most in young people and I hope my daughters themselves have a strong sense of empathy (I'm an INFP after all). As we enter this brave new digital-tinged world, I wonder out loud what will become of empathy? The evening news and magazine articles targeting late 30's suburban mothers typically point to a future of zero empathy because of these evolving digital norms. However, I don't think that will be the case. Instead, perhaps these new tools are helping us realize more about ourselves as creatures than we realize.

GriffinScience Text(s)book

I'm working on our GriffinScience Text(s)book for next "year" (not sure why we call them school years...) and it's coming together nicely. We aren't going to be using a standard textbook for many reasons. Cost is one, but the assumption that science can be learned via a medium like a textbook is antithetical to the scientific endeavor. Instead, I'm writing everything (along with student work during the "year" that will be incorporated into the book) that will be the backbone of our class. Of course, the students will be doing most of the work and this is a labor of love to provide them with pointers. This isn't me emptying my head and asking them to memorize the facts I proclaim. Instead, this is more of a compass for their own studies of Physical Science. All of the excerpts in the book are from primary texts by scientists and in the public domain. This will all be public domain as well. I'll have it all out there on http://texts.griffinscience.com soon if you'd like to follow along and maybe learn a thing or two about your universe from the incredible young people with whom I'll be working. Here is the HTML outline that you can expand: > GriffinScience Textsbook Here is text file with the outline you can download:

> GriffinScience TextsBook.txt And here is an .rtf file you can open in Word or Pages or OpenOffice:

> GriffinScience TextsBook.rtf I'm also wrapping up on an mp3 version as well as an iPod/iPad/iTouch app (and hopefully Android as soon as I get into the App Builder beta since I don't have time to learn a new programming language after slogging through Objective-C this summer). I'll keep you posted on when those are in the App Store. More soon!

My GMail was Hacked

I awoke to a few hundred bounced-back emails in my (Mail.app) inbox this morning. Yikes. It seemed to all be coming from my old primary personal email address (sharrelson@gmail.com) that I've been forwarding to my self-hosted account. So, I went to check that GMail account (I've moved my personal address off of GMail but many folks still email me there) and saw this:
Yikes again. Good morning to you too, Google. Luckily, I had set up a few Verification Options so I could regain control of my account in case this happened. If you haven't yet, you really should. Just sign into your GMail (or Google Account) and go here. If not, you'll be faced with this, and I've heard that route is not always pleasant. So, I text myself, get my verification code, type it into the little box and get to pick a new password...
I'm all set from there. The almost insulting part is the "Read some tips on creating a secure password" since I use an encrypted password via the awesome 1Password app (which I also have on my iPhone and iPad). It looked more like spoofing from the email bouncebacks I got. In other words, this wasn't an insecure password issue or me clicking on a phishing email (I haven't logged into GMail in a while since all the mail from there forwards to my self-hosted address). As GMail and Google apps continue to climb in market share, I'm wondering how frequently these stories will continue to pop up. Google isn't known for their "customer" service (I do pay for 200 gigs of extra storage for GMail and Picasa), which could lead to many headaches and potential brand damage. So, be smart and update your verification info beforehand. It can/will happen to you.

Architectures of Participatory Learning

But the meat of the argument is about how the best explanation for many of the group phenomena we see online, from ICanHazCheezburger to Wikipedia, is that people like sharing with each other and collaborating. Not always, of course. But there are architectures of participation that encourage the kind of sharing and generosity that enriches us all, and by experimenting with them, we can create media and social change that harnesses millions of people to help and amuse each other.
via boingboing.net

Just got this on my Kindle/iPad/Desktops/iPhone (have I mentioned I love the type of portability the Kindle platform offers and hope that iBooks can replicate that type of cross-platform experience?) and can't wait to dig in today.

I'm a big Clay Shirky fan (click the link if you need a sample), and I'm hoping this book, along with Daniel Pink's ongoing work, becomes a pointer I can use when folks ask about the "effectiveness" of my teaching style.

I love the idea of the Teacher/Learner as an Architect. There's something inherit about teaching that lends itself to the type of mystical and very practical practices of masons-meet-Howard Roark.

We'll see and I'll, of course, keep you posted.

Architectures of Participatory Learning

But the meat of the argument is about how the best explanation for many of the group phenomena we see online, from ICanHazCheezburger to Wikipedia, is that people like sharing with each other and collaborating. Not always, of course. But there are architectures of participation that encourage the kind of sharing and generosity that enriches us all, and by experimenting with them, we can create media and social change that harnesses millions of people to help and amuse each other.
via boingboing.net

Just got this on my Kindle/iPad/Desktops/iPhone (have I mentioned I love the type of portability the Kindle platform offers and hope that iBooks can replicate that type of cross-platform experience?) and can't wait to dig in today.

I'm a big Clay Shirky fan (click the link if you need a sample), and I'm hoping this book, along with Daniel Pink's ongoing work, becomes a pointer I can use when folks ask about the "effectiveness" of my teaching style.

I love the idea of the Teacher/Learner as an Architect. There's something inherit about teaching that lends itself to the type of mystical and very practical practices of masons-meet-Howard Roark.

We'll see and I'll, of course, keep you posted.

The Wasteland

"Or maybe even these worries are mistaken; it can be hard to predict the future through the haze of nostalgia. In 1916, T. S. Eliot wrote to a friend about his recent experiments with composing poetry on the typewriter. The machine “makes for lucidity,” he said, “but I am not sure that it encourages subtlety.” A few years later, Eliot presented Ezra Pound with a first draft of “The Waste Land.” Some of it had been composed on the typewriter."

The Wasteland

"Or maybe even these worries are mistaken; it can be hard to predict the future through the haze of nostalgia. In 1916, T. S. Eliot wrote to a friend about his recent experiments with composing poetry on the typewriter. The machine “makes for lucidity,” he said, “but I am not sure that it encourages subtlety.” A few years later, Eliot presented Ezra Pound with a first draft of “The Waste Land.” Some of it had been composed on the typewriter."

Looking Forward to the Year of Google Voice

A Google executive said the company has only scratched the surface of what it plans to do with Google Voice, the phone management application that lets users route calls to all of their phones from one unique number.
via eweek.com

2010 is going to be the breakout year for Google Voice.

Personally, it's been the most revolutionary app experience since I opened GMail for the first time on April 6, 2004.

I can't wait to see how the service improves.

The New Lost Generation of pseudo-Minimalists

Go read the whole Internet-Age Writing Class Syllabus...
"Instant messaging. Twittering. Facebook updates. These 21st-century literary genres are defining a new "Lost Generation" of minimalists who would much rather watch Lost on their iPhones than toil over long-winded articles and short stories. Students will acquire the tools needed to make their tweets glimmer with a complete lack of forethought, their Facebook updates ring with self-importance, and their blog entries shimmer with literary pithiness. All without the restraints of writing in complete sentences. w00t! w00t! Throughout the course, a further paring down of the Hemingway/Stein school of minimalism will be emphasized, limiting the superfluous use of nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions, gerunds, and other literary pitfalls..."

Students must have completed at least two of the following.

ENG: 232WR—Advanced Tweeting: The Elements of Droll
LIT: 223—Early-21st-Century Literature: 140 Characters or Less
ENG: 102—Staring Blankly at Handheld Devices While Others Are Talking
ENG: 30—Advanced Blog and Book Skimming
ENG: 231WR—Facebook Wall Alliteration and Assonance
LIT: 202—The Literary Merits of Lolcats
LIT: 209—Internet-Age Surrealistic Narcissism and Self-Absorption

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