Teachers Have More Impact than they Know

Since I announced my retirement, I have heard from people, particularly former students, who I haven't had contact with for years.  It has caused me to think more generally about the impact teachers have on their students' lives.

Some things I'm thinking about:

1. Years ago, when I was a development officer for the USD Foundation, we had a prominent alum retire.  I won't name him, but he was the chief financial officer for a major corporation that you would all realize. In reflecting on his retirement for the USD alumni newsletter, he named a business faculty member who he said had a profound impact on his career. When the teacher was asked, he didn't recall his former student at all, i.e. the guy hadn't been much of a standout in class, but he had been influenced anyway.

2. I am also reminded of a movie few people will remember from 1980 called The Competition.  In it,  a character played by Lee Remick lists her pedigree as a piano teacher:

"Ludwig Von Beethoven taught Carl Czerny, who taught Leschetizky, who taught Schnabel, who taught Renaldi, who taught me."

What I taught was the product of things that my previous teachers taught to me, as well as meaning I made on my own.  Some of what I learned on my own was after I started teaching, so I could better explain things to students. And there are things nobody could have taught me years ago, because they were brand new. Some of what my own teachers taught me was what their teachers had taught them, and their own teachers before them.  

In the last couple of weeks, since I announced my retirement, I have heard from hundreds of people, many of them former students, many of them saying remarkably nice things.  Some are crystal clear in my memory from their time as students and some are more of a "what class were they in?" kind of memory. I see some often on Facebook, and some I haven't hardly heard from since they graduated.  

It leaves me pondering what people really learned from me, what they have taken farther based on the foundation I helped them develop, and how they are using this ability and knowledge today.  How are they, formally or informally, teaching others? Do they even remember which ideas and skills they first came to understand in my courses, but that they are using today?

Teachers don't pour knowledge into people's heard.  They create environments in which students can connect the dots and create new knowledge for themselves.

Often teachers don't know the true impact we have had on our students.

All Good Things 2: Accomplishments

On the occasion of my retirement, I have been thinking back over the past 16 years.

I have been the radio station advisor and Radio Workshop teacher for almost a third of the lifetime of KWSC-FM, which begins its 50th year this fall. When I inherited the station, it had a transmitter that was past its design lifetime, aging studio equipment, no AP service, bootlegged software on its production computers, and a programming automation system that somehow kept playing outdated things we tried time after time to remove. The station was also facing a $10,000 fine for FCC violations, committed before my time.  One of the main things I was charged with when hired was to "get things under control."

Today, the station has a new tower and transmitter site, audio consoles with years left in their lifetimes, a constantly updated production music library, a constantly updated on-air music service, and an automation system that works effectively (except for occasional glitch caused by human learning curves). We have recently-purchased BluTooth sports remote equipment, recently-purchased standardized studio microphones, and we are using a podcasting platform that I researched and brought to the table. My partner in all of these technology updates was our engineer, Tom Schmitz.

I have also been a leader for many curriculum updates.  What we now call "Electronic Media" was "Broadcasting' but the industry had moved beyond that "silo."  Collaborating with Maureen Carrigg and Max McElwain, we updated the name of the major and began the ongoing process of converging the student media to make them multi-platform, as the industry expects.  I also like to think that I helped find critical resources and the curriculum structure for the very popular digital film coursework of the "Hot Attic Film School", which is probably leading Mass Communication to a record enrollment, possibly as soon as this fall.

I have had multiple service roles at the school, including serving on the vital Academic Policies committee, the Institutional Review Board, chairing multiple hiring committees (they were all good hires), and some years ago chairing the Technology for Learning and Teaching (TLTC) committee as we revitalized it.  I also served on the WSC Centennial Committee.

There was a time recently, due to unexpected faculty changes, in which I was the ONLY full-time faculty member in mass communication. I do believe that I was an important part of holding things together during that challenging time.

For the record, there are things at WSC that only I know how to do, particularly involving the radio station, and I say that literally.  In anticipation of having Emeritus status, I am fully intending to assist and mentor whoever comes next teaching the classes that have been mine and in operating KWSC-FM.

Pandemic Pursuits

I haven't blogged for a while, because a lot has been going on. My school suspended face-to-face classes in March and required all teachers to pivot to distance learning, with little more than a week's notice, which made for a busy time.  Now the school year is over and I am transitioning to summer mode, a time in which I mostly stay home anyway and work on academic writing and other home projects.

One of my fun activities has been home-mare sourdough bread.  I haven't baked much for some time (and really surprised my wife when I started).  And, of course, yeast is almost impossible to find in the stores, so like many people I have established my own sourdough started.  It turns out to not be hard at all, and the resulting bread tastes much better than commercial bread from the stores.

In scholarly writing, colleagues and I have a manuscript we are about to submit that has to do with the experiences of college teachers in the pandemic transition.

And I am constantly amazed by the politicization of the pandemic.  We truly do live in "the dumbest timeline."

Time for a Change

I have stepped down from my Civil Air Patrol national staff position (volunteer staff) in the radio communications program.

Many of my social media friends are CAP members, but many around me know little about this part of my life.

General Amy Courter awards my first of two
Distinguished Service Medals for my
CAP Communications leadership

The reasons are complex and do not need to be shared in public, but for the last 15 years I have been part of the policy-setting and leadership of the communications program at the national level of CAP, the official auxiliary of the US Air Force.

My accomplishments (with the collaboration and leadership of many others) have included:

-- Front-line management of the VHF narrowband transition, a $5 million project that replaced over 500 repeaters around the country, often with volunteer installers, and has been called the single biggest CAP project since World War II 

-- Advocating “if the national commander wants radio messages, then let’s SEND messages...” leading to the weekly Intercom messages that began the revitalization of CAP’s HF radio nets, and which in turn has opened up very cool new missions for CAP as a whole  

-- Designing the innovative, multimedia Introductory Communication Users Training (ICUT) course, in an age when most training consisted of “look at these PowerPoint slides” (and too often still does) 

-- Visioning and rewriting the communication management and operational procedure regulations every time since 2004, as well as multiple national communications plans…

Which collectively helped transform the communication system from a legacy relic of the 1980s to a vital 21st century operational mission resource… 

Including, among many other things, bringing the NIMS/ICS “plain language” expectation for inter-agency radio traffic to the CAP voice operations manual, and incorporating after action reporting (AARs) as an expectation of CAP communications exercises.

-- Specialty Training Track test revisions multiple times since 2006, including transformation of the requirements from electronics orientation to management training, and changing the educational theory according to which test questions are structured 

-- Saying “if the wings (states) are required to send in communication plans, we should be READING the plans and giving feedback” 

-- Developing and implementing the 2011 transformation of CAP’s dormant Automatic Link Establishment (ALE) HF network to a nationally-managed vital communication asset 

-- Planning and conducting the first national communications exercise in anyone’s memory a decade ago and three subsequent national exercises, before somebody else took of the exercise function 

-- Oh, and then there was the time I got repeatedly threatened with being called to testify before Congress for an imagined failing of the comm system, which in reality was “a feature, not a bug”

As I said, LOTS of other people were part of these accomplishments, including often taking ideas I voiced first and running with them, to great success.

I will still be around the national comm program, and may work on special projects.  I also have other people in CAP actively recruiting me to work on national-level projects.

Trump: Masterful Control of the Narrative

More than ever before, political operatives struggle to influence what people talk about, and thus influence what they believe.  More than ever, it's done by making assertions that are, at face value, false.

Why do they do this and how does it work?

Many years ago, I watched an election campaign in which a member of Congress was seeking reelection.  His opponent had been active in local causes but was not well-known statewide.  The incumbent's campaign staff thoroughly researched the opponent for past public statements, such as letters to the editor.  For the last 45 days of the campaign, the incumbent blasted the challenger about every three days for some past public comment. The result was that the opponent was always defending himself, and never got to go on the offensive.  He lost the election in no small part because what people believed about him was defined by his opponent, not himself.

In all manner of public relations, practitioners want to maximize the positive and minimize the negative.  That's why negative news is often released after 3 pm on Fridays - because fewer people will see it Friday evening and Saturday, so any reaction will be smaller, and less intense.

Years ago, when Donald Trump became a celebrity, he learned that when he said outrageous things, they would be reported by journalists. He learned about the news cycle, in which his statements would be reported for a day or so, and then any reaction would be reported over another day or so. He learned to influence what the media talked about.

When he became a political candidate, reporters were guaranteed to report what he said in campaign rallies/interviews, particularly when it was something other than a standard stump speech.  It was the same pattern - inflammatory statements reported for a day or so, and reaction for another day or so, always repeating the original claim and thus validating it.

And on top of that, the more inflammatory the Trump statement, the more it, and reaction to it, would dominate the news for a couple of days, often marginalizing other stories having less controversial content.

Lesley Stahl's report that Trump has admitted attacking the news media so that negative stories about him won't be believed is just another way of using the news cycle to control the narrative.  It's not really a new tactic.  Vice President Spiro Agnew was famous for attacking the press (before pleading guilty to tax evasion, resigning from office, and serving felony probation).

Singling out of people and media employees for personal attacks uses the ad hominem logical fallacy, and while all of our teachers tell us that we should avoid logical fallacies, they can be highly effective in persuasion, because most people do not detect that the logic is flawed.

So here is the pattern:

1. A claim is made, with either no evidence or faulty evidence, but is reported by many media outlets because of who said it.
2. Other people react, repeating the original assertion, denying it or supporting the assertion, so the original claim is reinforced from many directions, creating doubt about the truth in the minds of the public.
3. When there has been enough talk, allies then say "we need a formal investigation into whether this is true."
4. The investigation repeats the claim endlessly, making it seem more and more plausible, or disappears into the background static of the news, and gets little attention when conclusions are finally released (if ever), because they are not as inflammatory as the original claim, thus leaving the original claim as the strongest thing most people remember. 

You can criticize this strategy of controlling the media.  You can make an excellent case that the use of falsehoods and exaggeration makes it unethical (along with a lot of other things in politics).

BUT...

It is a sly, crafty, and highly strategic way of manipulating the media and controlling the narrative, making sophisticated use of the fundamental ways in which journalists work, public psychology, and ways in which people consume news content.

Facebook

There has been a lot of angst recently about how Facebook uses data from user profiles. But pretty much every organization that uses advertising does essentially what Facebook does, i.e. collecting information about customers and using it to target advertising messages to them.  So how do we make sense out of current events in social media?

Yes, Everybody does it

It is a standard postulate of advertising and marketing that we respond most favorably when the messages we receive are relevant to our interests. So ALL advertising companies do research to find out where their preferred customers (and prospects) hang out in the media, and they advertise in those locations.

They also do various kinds of research to understand us better.  For example, the bar code scanning in our favorite supermarket.  Everything goes into a database, and if we pay by credit card for check, they know a lot about us, personally.  Have you ever noticed that the coupons that print out while we're checking out are usually for something we already buy (or a competitor)?

Data collection about customers is not new, by any means.

• For centuries, newspapers and later radio and TV created interesting content in order to get people to also see advertisements.
• Starting in the 1970s there was an explosion of specialty magazines, allowing advertisers to reach audiences they knew was already interested in the specialty products the advertiser sells. 
• The hundreds of cable channels now provide this same pre-selection of specialty interests for advertisers.
• When businesses started using the WEB, the same thing happened -- specialty websites sprang up allowing advertisers to find the audience interested in their particular specialty products.

Modern mobile technology has certainly taken this way of doing business to new heights, like knowing your exact location so they can text you discount coupons when you are near a certain store. But it is more of the same and NOT something unprecedented.


How does Facebook Advertising work?

When you make a post on a Facebook business page, some people see the post "organically" because they already follow the page, or they see a friend comment or like the post.

But as page administrator, you also have the opportunity to pay money to extend the post so more people see it.  You can select friends of your current followers, or use a variety of other criteria, such as geographic area, age, and gender.  Facebook also watches what members post, like, and share, so you can select people based on a variety of interests which Facebook has identified, resulting from your history of posting.

In doing this, Facebook does NOT actually share your data.  The advertiser provides the criteria, and Facebook does the match internally in its system, and "serves" the post (advertisement) to the people who match the criteria.


So how did Cambridge Analytica get the data?

According to this article, the researcher, Dr. Kogan, made an agreement with Facebook which allowed collection of data for research purposes, but forbade transferring the data to third parties.

At face value, this is reasonable.  Academic researchers collect personal data all the time, but ethical research does not allow the identities of the participants to be known by anyone outside the study. Institutions have mechanisms in place to ensure this, called "Human Subjects Institutional Review Boards."  I have served on HSIRB at my school and have written proposals seeking approval for my research plans.

In keeping with this, Facebook prohibits collected data from being sold or transferred “to any ad network, data broker or other advertising or monetization-related service.” Dr. Kogan apparently collected the data, then violated the agreement with Facebook and transferred the data anyway.


What was the real failure here?

One can certainly argue that Facebook needs a stronger way of enforcing it's terms of service policy than simply trusting people to comply.

One can argue that websites and apps on which we post personal data should not be allowed to use that data, but this has been happening for 20 years or more on almost every commercial online platform you visit.  It is the REASON they exist, i.e. to make money (not to "serve the public.")

One can argue that users need more warnings about "the information you are about to post may be used for advertising, and delivered back to you in individually-targeted messages."  Most people will still ignore the messages, as they do the terms of service and other warnings.

One can argue that the people in Congress who are charged with regulating this stuff have no clue about what they are trying to regulate (a fact made clear by the questions from members of Congress to Mark Zuckerberg).

I wish I could boil this all down to a single failure with corresponding solution, but the social media environment is too complex.

The vast majority of these web and app systems are for-profit undertakings, meaning that they either need to charge fees, or depend on advertising.  The tried and true business model is to attract an audience with interesting content, and then expose them to advertising, ideally focused to the interests of the audience because what is advertised aligns with the content.

But most consumers conceptualize these content sources as "services" and do not understand that they, themselves, are an audience being sold to advertisers.  This makes them gullible and prone to impulse when they encounter memes, quizzes, and other means of data collection.

There is no simply way to change this paradigm, but public education is part of it.  Caveat Emptor (let the buyer beware) is critical.  Stop and think what information you are entering into the app or website.

If you don't want the entire world to know something, don't put it on the Internet (including ANY communication transmitted via technology).

5+1 Tips for Good Photographs

I am getting ready to teach photography again this coming semester, and I also have some friends with new cameras. So I have been reviewing my basic rules for taking good photos, whether by smartphone or a more elaborate camera.

Here are tips, plus a bonus, to help YOU take better photos (and the rules apply to video photography, also).


1. Tell a story 

Your photo will have the most impact when it tells a story.  What are the people doing? What is happening around them?

2. Don't pose (or at least don't let your shot look posed)

Posed pictures are boring.  Better to take candid or impromptu photos that feel more spontaneous.

3. Plan your time and place

Often being at the right place and time makes the difference between a boring photo and a powerful one.  At events, figure out what the most interesting things are and figure out what the right angle to capture them is.  Wait patiently for just the right moment.

For outdoor photographs, time of day can also be important.  Early morning and late afternoon light is warmer and less harsh.   But also, avoid facing the sun while you shoot.  This will increase the odds of ending up with a silhouette (unless that is what you want).  It is often still a matter of finding just the right moment.

4. Take lots of shots and choose the best.

"One-and-done" is not the way to get great photographs.  Take a photo, look at it, and analyze "how could it be better?"  Then take another shot that makes it better.  Do this from several different angles, or in ways that capture several different elements of what is going on.

5. Don't center everything in your photo! 

This is the biggie, and is a principal you see across many realms of art. It is called the Rule of Thirds.  You mentally divide your shot into thirds, both horizontally and vertically.  Then you use these lines, in two complimentary ways.

One: The MAIN thing you are depicting should be at one of the intersecting points of those imaginary lines.  The rest of the shot should provide balance. Don't put everything right in the middle.

Two: Often, there will be a logical dividing line in a photo.  Outdoors, it might be a horizon line, or the edge of a tall building.  Indoors, it might be more than one person's face forming a sort of line.  Put those actual dividing lines along one of your imaginary thirds lines in a way that provides balance.  If people are facing left, put them at the RIGHT vertical line.  If you have a horizon line, decide what is more important, the sky or the land and choose your imaginary line accordingly.

Combining these two elements...matching horizontal and vertical lines in your shot with the imaginary lines of thirds, and putting your prime subject at an intersection of the lines...will give you strong, memorable photos.

6. Bonus: For cameras that are not in smartphones -- explore the menus and learn the settings, such as the various focus and exposure options.  Often the fully automated mode will not produce the best photos for advanced photographers.


There is a lot more to being a great photographer, but these 5+1 tips (rules) will help you stay on the right track.

Why go to the Moon?

Going back to the Moon will be great -- if it's a means to an end and not an end in itself.

The Trump administration announced an initiative today to partner with private industry to return Americans to the Moon, and continue on to Mars.

I like the idea...if it's done right. But it could easily be done wrong.

First a confession

The starry-eyed idealist in me believes that we MUST establish a population of humans off the Earth, because there are SO many things that could destroy the Earth, or at least destroy civilization. I have thought this since I was old enough to understand the ramifications of the Cold War, and my ideas have been strengthened by the credible threats of climate change, big rocks from space, and even things like the Yellowstone super-volcano, not to mention epidemics, political stupidity, and other threats.

For the human race to insure that it will survive for the very long term, we have to distribute ourselves, in a way that is sustainable, on many different worlds, and eventually many different star systems.

Now back to today

Based on my logic above, having a significant human presence on the Moon, and eventually getting it to the point where it does not need resupply from Earth, would be a good thing. 

Having a significant human presence on MARS, and eventually getting it to the point where it does not need resupply from Earth, would also be a good thing, and possibly easier to sustain, in the long run, than the Moon.

There are other worlds in our solar system with lots of water and the possibility of sustainable colonies, as well.

Why return to the Moon now?

The biggest reason to go to the Moon now is to begin developing the technology we need to do the rest of this stuff.

A lander that can set down on Mars would also likely be able to set down on the Moon, which would be a good way to test it. The deep space outpost around the Moon, previously announced, can be the precursor of the orbit-to-orbit "mother ship" that takes people and landers to Mars, and maybe farther out.  We need to develop these things, step by step.

But we also need to start thinking not just in terms of reusable space vehicles, but also vehicles that can do lots of stuff.  Like the space opera fiction of the 1950s, our next generation of craft needs to be flexible enough to go many different places and land on many different worlds.

That's expensive, isn't it?

Yes, but the reusability brings the cost down a lot.  Partnering with private industry brings the cost down a lot.  Stable goals that do not get changed every time there is a new president would make a BIG difference. 

And remember -- every dollar spent on space is spent ON EARTH.  All the R&D and construction contracts go to companies and institutions on Earth which employ people, and have payrolls.  It would require a big push for STEM education, which would benefit lots of other technology programs and companies, also.  Face it, without the Apollo Program, you probably wouldn't have smartphones.

Is there a down side?

There is some concern that the Trump administration is pushing NASA to the Moon and Mars as a way of deemphasizing Earth resources programs and climate research.  It may be, and those programs will need protection in Congress. 

But going to the Moon, Mars, and beyond is still a wise investment in the future of the human species.

8+1 Life Hacks to help you Succeed in College

2020 edit:  I wrote this article in 2017, long before the COVID-19 pandemic.  Today, I add one more behavior that will lead to success - wear your masks faithfully, be meticulous about social distancing, and don't cheat on virus safety rules. Even if you only get a little bit sick, you could infect other people who are at much higher risk.

_____________________________

The school year is starting and every year, college freshmen have to figure out how to live their lives independently.  For many, it will be the first time they have been away from home for very long.

All college students need to figure out how to balance their school work, social lives, jobs, and sleep.  Some never figure it out by the time they graduate (or leave school without graduating). Some struggle and eventually figure it out.  A few are in great shape from the beginning.

College is about academic learning, certainly.  But it is also about learning life skills, like organization, work ethic, and how to balance multiple priorities and stay in control.

If you are a new college student or are close to someone who is, consider the following eight strong recommendations I make for new students.  They may seem obvious, but when you are newly on your own, sometimes they are harder to accomplish than you think.

1. Go to class and take notes

This seems like it would be most obvious, but many new college students are too casual about their classes.  Some only attend sporadically.

Don't fool yourself into thinking "nothing much is going on in that class, I can skip today."  

Class is where you learn the professional skills that will get you a good job down the road. But it is also where you make connections with teachers who will give you strong references (or not strong).   

If you often skip class, remember that a prospective employer is likely to ask me "is she dependable?"  I can't lie. 

2. Turn in assignments on time

This follows from point one.  In addition to the fact that your grade is likely to suffer from a late assignment, being late also speaks to your dependability, work ethic, and initiative.   

Late assignments are a big flashing red light over your head that says "do not hire me."

3. Do not procrastinate; be ahead of the curve

You don't learn much from hurry-up rush jobs on assignments.  You teacher has made the assignment because it will help you achieve the objectives of the class.   

Doing the minimum to get by on the theory of "a D still passes the course" means maybe you should not be in college. Why spend thousands of dollars that either you or your parents will have to pay back if you aren't ready to apply yourself to learning? 

The same advice also applies in everything else you do in college.  Take charge and be in control of all the various parts of your life.  If something seems beyond your power to control, don't allow yourself to be helpless - figure it out.  

4.  Don't be a drunk

To be blunt, most college students drink, including before they turn legal age. Some do pot or other drugs. But if you do, like everything else in this article, don't let it control your life. 

If alcohol, pot, or other controlled substances control you, rather than the other way around, you are tempting failure.

The typical college students would ignore me if I encouraged complete teetotaling, but that's not the real point.  The point is to be in control and don't let it take over your life. Which leads to the next point...

5. Ask for help when you need it

College and university campuses have all kinds of help available to you, from special meetings with your teachers, to tutors, to emotional counseling, and everything in-between. Absolutely do not be too proud or too nervous to ask for help if you need it, whatever the needed help is.  

6. Schedule your study time

Sure, college is complicated.  There is a lot going on.  But other people are not going to keeping you on target anymore.  YOU need to take control of your life and your schedule. 

I strongly recommend scheduling your study time, just like you schedule other things in your life.  For every hour you spend in the classroom, teachers are supposed to be assigning your TWO hours of homework.   

Make sure you set the time aside, and do not low ball how much time you really need.  If you DO get done early, so much the better, but don't skimp on study time. 

7. Work at making college friends

You are not going to be happy in college if you are isolated and have no friends.  If you make the effort to find friends and join in campus activities, it will help your school work and your overall learning (as long as you keep your social life in balance).  Hang out and do things with your roommate and dorm neighbors.  Join campus organizations to meet people with interests similar to yours. 

Sometimes taking these steps to make friends feels awkward and makes you a little nervous, but it is worth it. 

Plus, this is where boyfriends and girlfriends come from, which are part and parcel of college life for many students.  Such relationships are great, but remember the basic theme of keeping all parts of your life in balance.  Don't ignore the advice in this article, just because there is someone new in your life. 

8. Get enough sleep

Again, this seems obvious, but college students your age need at least seven hours of sleep a night, with a little more on weekends.   

Not getting enough sleep will tempt you to violate all of the other recommendations above. Plus you will have higher stress, more chance of mental health issues, and you will generally be more miserable. 

Like all of the other points above, take charge of your sleep schedule and remain in control.

As I said, these things may all be obvious, but each semester I have students who stop coming to class, fail to turn assignments, or otherwise get their lives off track. Some get their act together and get back on track.  Some don't.

It's true that college is a pretty desirable lifestyle, particularly if you don't worry about classwork. You have more independence than ever before and your lodging and food (most of it) are pre-paid.

But also remember that you are making decisions that will have consequences for years to come.  Be proactive and make them smart decisions.

It's not really about statues and flags

Charlottesville, and all of the other hot buttons about white supremacy, is about the symbolism, not about statues and flags.

It is all about the symbolism, and this means that it is not a stark "one or the other" of whether we can or cannot have statues and flags commemorating the confederacy.

It is highly complex and nuanced, and it is all about injustice and discrimination, committed to preserve social and political power.

Flying the confederate flag over state capitol buildings (and other places) has a symbolism of glorifying and endorsing the confederate cause of continuing slavery, which was highly unjust. This is true, even when that glorification is not the intent.

Does that mean we forget what the flag looked like? Of course not. But we have to understand the complexities that go with the pro-slavery cause it represented.

We remember Robert E. Lee as an effective general. There are positive and negative things about him. In giving loyalty to the state of Virginia over his vows to the national government, he exhibited a form of patriotism, but also supported the unjust political and social regime that was grounded in slavery. Is it appropriate to honor him on public property, without recognition of this complexity, and things that were NOT honorable about him?

I know people in the South today who feel that states should have the right to nullify all federal laws and regulations they do not like. For them, the confederacy is an uncompleted project that they would be happy to get back to, not in terms of another war, and not to return slavery, but in terms of transforming the federal government to eliminate the ability to impose rules on states and local government.  Remember that the emancipation was an imposed rule that the local whites mostly did not like.

The current national debate is about a movement that strategically uses intimidation, fear, and also politics to repress people who are not like themselves. It is deeply motivated by fear of becoming a minority and having to abide by the majority rule of others, not like themselves. There is nothing admirable about this movement.

But the debate also resides in today's hyper-sophisticated techniques of persuasion and brand marketing. The "brand" is what our target audience thinks about our company, product, or cause, based on all of the messages they have received about us.

So what is the brand of white supremacy?  What do they promise followers? How do they "tell their story"?

Their promise is to preserve white privilege.  And they personalize it.  All of these other non-white groups are harming you and you will be better off without them, they tell followers.

To a huge majority of the people, this brand is unethical, unjust, and confederate flags and statues symbolize this injustice.  But the white supremacy brand appeals powerfully to a certain small minority, based on their backgrounds and world-views.  To them, the symbolism of removing flags and statues is the growing threat of losing their power and provilege.

Counter-protests may change laws and official policies, but they are not likely to change the minds of those who have bought in to the white supremacist cause. Removing statues and flags that commemorate and glorify the unjust confederate cause also will not change their minds, and in fact will like make these guys even madder.

So what do we do about the statues and flags?

I think that this mission of remembering the complexities and nuances of history, particularly the negative parts of our history, is the role for museums, not for public property displays that lack explanation and context. So, move these things to museums, or put companion interpretive displays in the parks, or maybe even companion statues that tell the other side of the story.

Do a better job of teaching the underlying pro-slavery social and economic dynamics of 19th century American slavery in our history classes.

Our society has long-neglected addressing the underlying white supremacy driving many political agendas.  Just like a politician works to define the "brand" of the opposing candidate, the overwhelming majority needs to continually define the negatives of the brand of white supremacy.

Five things "Digital Natives" need in Educational Technology

Today's younger generation is considered to be "digital natives" because they have
grown up with Internet/mobile technology and are highly comfortable with it.

But what are the implications of that? Should educators really treat them differently?

According to this story, a recent academic study suggests that today's students are no better at information skills simply because they grew up in the digital era. It also finds evidence that “digital natives” are no better at multitasking than other age cohorts.

So, as a teacher, I wonder what this says about instructional technology (and here I am talking about systems that go beyond PPT slides and playing YouTube videos in class).

There is a lot of research that shows that, in general, students like using technology for schoolwork.  In part, this is because they are already used to technology, and in part because it tends to lead classes away from boring lecture-memorization methodologies.

But I teach specialized technology, used for broadcasting.  Many of my students are great users of the technology, but......

If there is a problem, many of them are stymied. Some of them cannot even explain what the problem is sufficiently for me to understand it, without going to look for myself (and then I can often solve the problem in two minutes).

Then there's the recurring problem of the students who save a file, and then cannot come back and find it again, because of lack of understanding of file folder structure. That should not be college-level curriculum!

So my take is that today's generation of students is sophisticated in USE of technology, but not necessarily in UNDERSTANDING how the technology works.

Again -- what are the implications?

1. The technology used needs to be highly intuitive do it doesn't NEED figuring out.
2. Students need ample instruction in how to use it (called "induction training"). As long as it is confucing or hard to use, it will reduce their motivation.
3. Teachers need to use scaffolding -- giving high levels of technology support early, but gradually lessening the support to encourage students to become more independent and able to solve problems.
4. As much as possible, the technology needs to be cross-platform, i.e. suitable tfor desktop computers, laptops, and smartphones. Of course, this is not always possible.  My broadcasting assignments need to be done with professional hardware and software to be effective, not Garage Band. But for example, our school's Learning Management System (the only system allowed for online instruction) is just finally being updated this year to be friendly to mobile devices.
5. Teachers need to guard against mobile devices as distractions in class.  They can add to the classroom experience, such as for quick research during class discussion. But whenever a student blanks a screen or minimizes a window when the teacher walks up, you can bet that the device has been a distraction, not an learning aid.  This can be challenging because students resent being told they cannot text message during class, etc.  

I think that my particular Electronic Media program does a pretty good job of teaching the technology in a way that is not too intimidating and builds complexity step-by-step in reasonable increments.  And we'll need to, because we have new hardware and software we'll need to start using the first week.

What's this blog really about?

August is when school starts again for me, and the end of July seems like a reasonable time to reflect on the status and goals of my blog.

As it turns out, I have been making a lot of posts about politics recently, but that is not my MAIN intent with this blog.  My intent is to post as an observer -- of life and culture and things that interest me.

Academic Literature Visualizations

Here's an interesting resource for people who are actually interested in what the science shows about a given topic.

Open Knowledge Maps is an academic literature search engine, but it includes a visualization that categorizes the journal articles.  Click on one of the circles and it zooms in to show the specific articles.

Another nice thing is that it shows which articles are open access and therefore can be downloaded directly.

The example above (which I know is a little small to read), is a search on "Climate Change."

Because there are a lot of scholars out there who do NOT have access to research databases through university libraries, Open Knowledge Maps joins Google Scholar as a key way of exploring the academic literature to see what the peer reviewed scientific literature says.

Five Myths about Higher Education

©  2014 Michael Marek

Reading this article made think about myths about how education works.

Here are five myths that too many people believe about education, and particularly higher education.

What Makes a GOOD Teacher

What does it mean to be a "good teacher"?

It's not what a lot of people think.

Simple Thinking in a Highly Complex World

One of the defining characteristics of conservatives is that they expect things to be basically simple.  They think that once you figure out a problem, there is usually one identifiable cause, and the problem gets solved by doing one thing.  But that doesn't work out too well in a world that is highly complex, in reality.

Rejecting Ideas we Don't Like

When we receive information that conflicts with our pre-conceived notions (as happens all the time in politics), we often struggle to avoid admitting that we may have been wrong. But how does that work, exactly, and how can we overcome this resistance in others?

Managers versus Leaders

What do you do when someone is making bad decisions that affect you?  It is a particularly tough question, particularly when it happens in the workplace.

Educational Engineering

My latest scholarly publication is Chapter 14 of monograph published for the 25th anniversary of the English Teachers’ Association in the Republic of China (ETA-ROC), in November.

Educational Engineering for CALL and MALL, is an invited article on curriculum development, taking an engineering approach to developing outcome requirements and then engineering a theory-based system that will accomplish those outcomes.  The CALL and MALL in the title refers to Computer Assisted Language Learning and Mobile Assisted Language Learning.  But it's all Mass Communication to me.

The overall monograph, Epoch Making in English Language Teaching and Learning, is out in hard copy and CD.  I am not sure when or where it may eventually be available online, other than my pre-press version on ResearchGate.

It may be cited as:

Marek, M. W., & Wu, W. C. V. (2016). Educational Engineering for CALL and MALL. In Leung, Yiu-nam (Ed.), Epoch Making in English Language Teaching and Learning, Twenty-fifth International Symposium on English Teaching, English Teachers’ Association, Republic of China (pp. 115-125).

Geese and Climate Change

The geese used to migrate in late October and early November.  Now they are migrating in December.

They have apparently bought in to the global conspiracy of thousands of scientists created by Mainland China to take money out of the pockets of hardworking billionaires.

Darn geese.