In the world of educational technology, the future actually is what it used to be

A New Year's tweet got me poking Audrey Watters blog and finding all sorts of good things (more on that coming soon). One post I'll definitely be putting away for reference is this list quotes on the potential of educational technology.

I've been arguing for a while that the broad outlines of our concept of the future were mostly established in the late 19th/early 20th Centuries and put in its current form in the Postwar Period. Here are a few more data points for the file. 

“Books will soon be obsolete in schools” — Thomas Edison (1913)

“If, by a miracle of mechanical ingenuity, a book could be so arranged that only to him who had done what was directed on page one would page two become visible, and so on, much that now requires personal instruction could be managed by print.” — Edward Thorndike (1912)

“The central and dominant aim of education by radio is to bring the world to the classroom, to make universally available the services of the finest teachers, the inspiration of the greatest leaders … and unfolding events which through the radio may come as a vibrant and challenging textbook of the air.” — Benjamin Darrow (1932)

“Will machines replace teachers? On the contrary, they are capital equipment to be used by teachers to save time and labor. In assigning certain mechanizable functions to machines, the teacher emerges in his proper role as an indispensable human being. He may teach more students than heretofore—this is probably inevitable if the world-wide demand for education is to be satisfied—but he will do so in fewer hours and with fewer burdensome chores. In return for his greater productivity he can ask society to improve his economic condition.” — B. F. Skinner (1958)

“I believe that the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system and that in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks. …I should say that on the average we get about two percent efficiency out of schoolbooks as they are written today. The education of the future, as I see it, will be conducted through the medium of the motion picture… where it should be possible to obtain one hundred percent efficiency.” — Thomas Edison (1922)

“At our universities we will take the people who are the faculty leaders in research or in teaching. We are not going to ask them to give the same lectures over and over each year from their curriculum cards, finding themselves confronted with another roomful of people and asking themselves, ‘What was it I said last year?’ This is a routine which deadens the faculty member. We are going to select instead the people who are authorities on various subjects — the people who are most respected within their respective departments and fields. They will give their basic lecture course just once to a group of human beings, including both the experts of their own subject and bright children and adults without special training in their field. These lectures will be recorded as Southern Illinois University did my last lecture series of fifty-two hours in October 1960. They will make moving-picture footage of the lectures as well as hi-fi tape recording. Then the professors and and their faculty associates will listen to the recordings time and again” — R. Buckminster Fuller (1962)

“The machine itself, of course, does not teach. It simply brings the student into contact with the person who composed the material it presents. It is a laborsaving device because it can bring one programmer into contact with an indefinite number of students. This may suggest mass production, but the effect upon each student is surprisingly like that of a private tutor.” — B. F. Skinner (1958)

Happy New Year from Windsor McCay and Little Nemo

Make it a good one.

Some good news for the new year

From Mental Floss:

In September, a cryptic update to cartoonist Gary Larson’s The Far Side website hinted that something new might be in store for fans of the popular single-panel comic strip. This week, Larson and his syndicate, Andrews McMeel Universal, made it official. The irreverent cartoon, which originally ran from 1980 to 1995 and explored the perils of anthropomorphic cows and science run amok, will now be available online for the first time. But it won’t be strictly archival material: Larson plans to periodically revisit his bizarre world with new art.

Monday Tweets (because spending New Year's Eve on Twitter would just be wrong)

Welcome to the world of climate gentrification.

"Little Haiti’s elevation  is 7 feet above sea level with pockets in the neighborhood that go as high as 14 feet above sea level. By comparison, Miami Beach is about 4 feet above sea level."

In many parts of the US black communities were pushed to low-lying flood prone areas.

In Miami, the opposite is true. Black communities were built on high elevation away from the coast. Now because of sea level rise that high land is in demand. (THREAD)https://t.co/3nFgtjzR7v

— Nadege Green (@NadegeGreen) November 5, 2019

"One of these things is not like the other..."

Which Democratic voters are potentially the most disloyal? Here's the percentage of each candidate's base who say they'll vote Dem in the 2020 general:

Warren: 97
Steyer: 96
Biden: 94
Klobuchar: 93
Buttigieg: 92
Sanders: 87
Bloomberg: 82
Booker: 80
Yang: 73
...
Gabbard: 15

— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) December 28, 2019

Welcome to LA

The San Gabriels. #dtla pic.twitter.com/ZBep7WUyV7

— Sean Meredith (@seanmeredith) December 27, 2019

Klein is making a tremendously important point here

The media thinks the power it has is covering things positively or negatively. If that was ever true, it's not now.

The media is an amplification machine. Our biggest impact is in choosing what to cover. If we amplify lies — even to fact check them — they often gain power. https://t.co/jHVKycMV3r

— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) December 27, 2019

It's a complex issue, but my initial impression is that this would have more pros than cons, assuming the city could force it through.

It would be a first for any cityhttps://t.co/gXmyfuZB3i

— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) December 27, 2019

Of course C-level executive compensation is rational.

For killing the company. And, arguably, a few hundred people.
Nice work if you can get it. https://t.co/VAlkMNoxtr

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) December 25, 2019

NYT = Hal900 Admitting that they were wrong drives both insane.

Not just readers and Twitter users. Other journalists know it too. pic.twitter.com/0FXBlXLPM2

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) December 28, 2019

Must read

The Christmas Eve Confessions of Chuck Todd. https://t.co/64nLjKiXqr My new post. I hope you will read it.

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) December 26, 2019

It's the wrapping paper budget that kills you.

The Infinite Gift 🎁

This is an interesting object where the side of the nth box is 1/√n. As n→+∞, the gift has infinite surface area and length but finite volume!

Learn more about this interesting paradox here: https://t.co/jbWbg6iqFZ pic.twitter.com/kxO20PTGti

— Fermat's Library (@fermatslibrary) December 24, 2019

This is a big story.

"Journalist Napp Nazworth, who has worked for the Christian Post website since 2011, said he quit his job Monday because the website was planning to publish a pro-Trump editorial that would slam Christianity Today." https://t.co/N3TmhL7WHp

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) December 24, 2019

Kanefield has become the essential legal commentator for the Trump years. For those who lack the patience for really long threads, she also has blog versions.

(thread) How California Turned Blue

Alternate title: California shows the way

California used to be Republican. We gave the nation Nixon and Reagan.

Republican candidates won CA in every presidential election between 1952 and 1988 except one⤵️ pic.twitter.com/d6YvnCrMsr

— Teri Kanefield (@Teri_Kanefield) August 19, 2019

This remains one of the best indications of real expertise in all fields.

My year as an MIT fellow taught me that truly smart people, real experts, can make complicated concepts understandable to non-experts, in tight simple language. Poseurs have a problem with that. https://t.co/054pq6DSTu

— Russ Mitchell (@russ1mitchell) December 27, 2019

"East of Lincoln"-- updated

Now with soundtrack.

Monday, April 9, 2018

I've never been a beach person. There are (or at least used to be) some exceptions but most of these towns are for me nice places to visit but a little too bland and way too pricey to want to live there.

I know people, however, who have trouble imagining living anywhere else. One of them, a long time Venice resident, described it like this. He had lived in other parts of the city when he first came here but said he never felt he was truly in LA until he made it all the way west. He compared the feeling to that of a pioneer crossing the continent in a covered wagon only to die of thirst in the desert just short of California.

Venice Beach used to have a seedy, bohemian reputation, just the sort of place you'd expect Jim Morrison to hang out. These days, the feel is definitely upscale, the rough edges have largely been worn away, and the crime you encounter is less likely to involve gangs and drugs and more likely to involve Silicon Beach Ponzi schemes.

One of the last holdouts of old Venice was Abbott's Habit, a decidedly non-corporate coffeehouse that long held a corner of Abbott Kinney, the street now known for pop-up shops, trendy restaurants, and places where you can get bone marrow ice cream (no, really).

I happened to be in Venice the day that Abbott's Habit closed. It was packed with regulars as a long list of local musicians played short sets to say goodbye. One song in particular captured the mood of the event (I'm sure it's out there somewhere on the Internet but I haven't been able to find it). The chorus went something like this, "when I get east of Lincoln, my heart starts sinkin'."

The Lincoln in question is the stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway that runs north and south through that part of town and informally divides the "beach" community from the "non-beach" areas. To live west of Lincoln means to have cool ocean breezes throughout the summer, to be able to walk down to the boardwalk, and generally to feel yourself part of the vibe.

Every time the singer got the chorus, the crowd nodded in melancholy appreciation. This was a big part of how they had defined their community and, to a degree, themselves. Now, many were being priced out of the area and, more importantly, those who stayed or returned for a visit knew that their Venice was gone regardless.

While it certainly lacks the emotional resonance for the new residents, "west of Lincoln" has never had more economic importance and perhaps never more social value. Venice Beach has become one of those places where well-off people want to live and, more to the point, one of those places where well-off people want to brag about living. There's nothing especially objectionable about this (most non-native born Angelenos have at least occasionally taken a certain pleasure in telling friends back east stories of beautiful weather and celebrity encounters), but it can have important implications for our urban planning discussion.

Many of the arguments we hear about density and transportation are strongly dependent on some rather simplistic assumptions about linear relationships and fixed demand. Why people live where they live is almost always complicated and seldom monocausal. If the discussion doesn't start reflecting some of that complexity, we are in danger of making some very big mistakes.

(And, yes, the bone marrow ice cream wasn't that bad.)

American political journalism is better than has been in a quarter century.

No snark.

No qualifiers.

One of the good things to come out of the past few years was that events have forced journalists to finally start facing some ugly truths about the profession, that they had abdicated their responsibility to inform, that they had used self-serving definitions of fairness as an excuse for caving in to pressure, that they not only tended to reduce complex stories to simplistic narratives but often let those narratives be dictated to them.

While we still have a ways to go, things have improved greatly. The conversation used to be lead by hacks like Howard Kurtz and tribalists like Jack Shafer. Now, the leading voices are arguably Margaret Sullivan and Jay Rosen, both of whom spent years playing Cassandra, having their prescient warnings ignored as things kept getting worse.

I'm sure there are exceptions, but every mainstream press institution I can think of at the moment has improved from its low point. I routinely find myself impressed by a piece of reporting or analysis from CNN (something that never used to happen). Even the Chuck Todds are starting to stand up on their hind legs.

This process of acknowledging and correct flaws has proved most difficult for the New York Times and NPR. The first is held back by compulsive self-congratulation and the axiomatic belief that is it is the world's best newspaper. The second has almost convinced itself that its now instinctive submissive crouch is a sign of maturity rather than cowardice.

Nonetheless, both are showing progress. This NYT piece represents a big step forward in acknowledging the situation, if not the gray lady's role in it.

"Centrist bias, as I see it, confuses the idea of centrism (which is very much an ideology) with objectivity and fairness." https://t.co/8CTknh59UU

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) December 23, 2019

 
Better still is this interview by Steve Inskeep, where he calmly but forcefully deals with the disinformation.

"Gotta stop you there." Invite Pam Bondi on your program for some of that good both sides feeling, you're going to receive made-up facts. Listen to what happens starting at 3:10. She is corrected, but keeps going. Inskeep decides to turn down her mic. https://t.co/YAHFzCRkCJ

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) December 19, 2019

And yes, that Pam Bondi.

White Christmas in LA -- drive carefully

Probably later today...

One of the many things I didn't expect when I moved to LA early in the 2000s was that I would still have to adjust my travel plans for winter storms. 

A cold winter storm will bring widespread rain and mountain snow to Southern California late Wednesday into Thursday, the National Weather Service said.

Snow levels will dip as low as 2,500 feet, and up to 8 inches could accumulate in the Antelope Valley. The Cuyama Valley could receive 3 inches of snow. Higher elevations of the L.A. and Ventura county mountains could see up to 2 feet of snow, especially above 6,000 feet.

Merry Christmas from Little Nemo

It's the thought that counts

"Albert and Pogo's Christmas" by Walt Kelly

Sixties television was filled with heart-warming Christmas episodes often featuring orphans

The Untouchables got a lot of criticism during its original run for its depictions of violence. Can't imagine why.

"The unicorn is a mythical beast."

I realized that now when I hear the word "unicorn," I think of a tech bro pitching a 21st Century Ponzi scheme to some clueless venture capitalists. Here's something to wash the taste of all of those WeWorks and Pelotons out of your mind.

Revisiting the catharsis thread

Recent events have got me thinking about this point from four years ago.

I've been arguing for quite a while now that we need to pay more attention to the catharsis in politics (such as with the reaction to the first Obama/Romney debate), particularly with the Tea Party.  Conservative media has long been focused on feeding the anger and the outrage of the base while promising victory just around the corner. This has produced considerable partisan payoff but at the cost of considerable anxiety and considerable disappointment, both of which produce stress and a need for emotional release.

There's a tendency to think of trading political capital for catharsis as being irrational, but it's not. There is nothing irrational about doing something that makes you feel better. That's the real problem for the GOP leaders: shutting down the government would be cathartic for many members of the base. It would be difficult to get the base to defer their catharsis, even if the base trusted the leaders to make good on their promise that things will get better. 

 The difference now is that the head of the party is one of the base.

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Planned Parenthood, channeled information and catharsis

This recent TPM post about the looming government shut-down ties in with a couple of ideas we've discussed before. [Emphasis added]

Facing a Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government, GOP leaders in both chambers decided they would fast-track standalone anti-abortion bills in an effort to allow conservative Republicans to express their anger over a series of “sting” videos claiming to show that Planned Parenthood is illegally harvesting the tissue of aborted fetuses. The leadership hoped that with those votes out of the way, the path would be clear for long-delayed bills to fund the government in the new fiscal year, even if those bills contained money for Planned Parenthood.

But anti-abortion groups and conservative House members are not backing down from their hard line. They are reiterating that they will not vote for bills that include Planned Parenthood funding under any circumstances, despite the maneuvering by leaders to vent their outrage over the videos. If anything, anti-abortion groups are amping up the pressure on lawmakers not to back down from the fight.

Here's what we had to say about the GOP reaction to those videos a month ago.

Fetal tissue research will make most people uncomfortable, even those who support it. If you were a Republican marketer, the ideal target for these Planned Parenthood stories would be opponents and persuadables. By contrast, you would want the videos to get as little play as possible among your supporters. With that group, you have already maxed out the potential gains – – both their votes and their money are reliably committed – – and you run a serious risk of pushing them to the level where they start demanding more extreme action.

With all of the normal caveats -- I have no special expertise. I only know what I read in the papers. There's a fundamental silliness comparing a political movement to a business -- it seems to me that in marketing terms, the PP tapes have been badly mistargeted. They have had the biggest viewership and impact in the segment of the voting market where they would do the least good and the most damage (such as pushing for a government shutdown on the eve of a presidential election).

[I really should have said "causing supporters to push," but it's too late to worry about that now.]

I haven't followed the press coverage that closely, but based on what I've come across from NPR and the few political sites I frequent, I get the feeling that the center-left media is more likely to discuss the doctoring of the tapes than to focus on the gory specifics of harvesting fetal tissue. I'd need to check sources like CNN before making a definitive statement, but it appears that the videos are having exceptionally little effect on what should have been their target audience.

Instead, their main impact seems to have been on the far right. The result has been to widen what was already a dangerous rift. The pragmatic wing looks at defunding as a futile gesture with almost no chance of success and large potential costs. The true believers are approaching this on an entirely different level. It has become an article of faith for them that, as we speak, babies are being killed, dismembered and sold for parts. They demand action, even if it's costly and merely symbolic, as long as it's cathartic.

I've been arguing for quite a while now that we need to pay more attention to the catharsis in politics (such as with the reaction to the first Obama/Romney debate), particularly with the Tea Party.  Conservative media has long been focused on feeding the anger and the outrage of the base while promising victory just around the corner. This has produced considerable partisan payoff but at the cost of considerable anxiety and considerable disappointment, both of which produce stress and a need for emotional release.

There's a tendency to think of trading political capital for catharsis as being irrational, but it's not. There is nothing irrational about doing something that makes you feel better. That's the real problem for the GOP leaders: shutting down the government would be cathartic for many members of the base. It would be difficult to get the base to defer their catharsis, even if the base trusted the leaders to make good on their promise that things will get better.

For now, the Tea Party is inclined to do what feels good, whether it's supporting an unelectable candidate or making a grandstanding play. It's not entirely clear what Boehner and McConnell can do about that.

If you've gone through the holidays without hearing "Sugar Rum Cherry"...

 ... you have not had a cool Christmas.

Tuesday Tweets

Starting with some news you can use.

You've got to be kidding me. After all these years... pic.twitter.com/dhNgjCVzeG

— Chuck B (@chUckbUte) December 15, 2019

Not Harwood, of course, but how many pundits have used the wealth tax as an example of Democrats risking electability by moving too far to the left?

Elizabeth Warren has lost some political ground since the summer, but her wealth tax proposal is doing just fine

Fox News poll shows 68% of Americans support it - including 83% of Democrats, 68% of Independents, and 51% of Republicanshttps://t.co/pWKOGMvaDn

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) December 16, 2019

I've noticed this too.

It is frankly bizarre. He cld defintely hustle a mid-40s electoral college win, as he did in 2016. But objectively he is in a daunting, daunting position. Stuck w 10 pt approval deficit, more than 50% say they refused to vote for him. Top opponents winning by 5 to 10 pts. C'mon.

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) December 16, 2019

This should be a bigger story.

Wisconsin is set to purge 234,000 voters, 7% of electorate

Tonight Georgia is cancelling 300,000 registrations, 4% of electorate https://t.co/wOMypmPU12

— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) December 16, 2019

When actual engineers talk about drones and flying cars, noise pollution is one of the first things they bring up. Many (perhaps most) journalists skip that issue entirely.

Every article about drones should mention they are and will ever be extremely loud and almost certainly viewed as a serious neighborhood nuisance. https://t.co/QfwnrgwkEg

— David King (@dk2475) December 12, 2019

Check out the whole thread.

6\ Here @elonmusk forgets about the existence of Ohm's Law. Imagine the resistance on wires going from Arizona to NYC!https://t.co/2GCn6WnqMM

— "Elon Says" (@ElonBachman) December 13, 2019

Baker is terrible at his job.

@peterbakernyt on MSNBC on Thursday said with a perfectly straight face that “both sides” of the House Judiciary Cmte were keeping the fact checkers busy. It’s not just the cult like behavior of the GOP. It’s the NYT insistence that the GOP is not actually a cult that dooms us.

— Kevin Judge (@kevster57) December 14, 2019

But at least he has company in the office.

👇 https://t.co/n9sQlXVdgu

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) December 15, 2019

2016 showed us that the press still has a horrible problem with misogyny and that it's especially bad at the NYT.

When Buttigieg was on the Daily he was not asked why people see him as inauthentic or opportunistic.

But Warren gets asked repeatedly why she's "alienating" or "uncompromising"

"Why do people hate you?" is a question asked only to women https://t.co/UcWxm0Q6kR

— Charlotte Alter (@CharlotteAlter) December 16, 2019

Too many otherwise sober commentators have bought into the idea that all Trump has to do is hold the base. That line of reasoning never made any sense.

Maybe someone will noticehttps://t.co/8MpC7n7uQN

— Erik Halvorsen (@erikhalvorsen18) December 15, 2019

We've got your good billionaire press lords and we've got...

In fairness LPJ was running dangerously low on money and surely couldn’t afford to keep a 16 person publication running. She’s down to her last $24 billion. https://t.co/STsArXIHMm

— dylan matthews (@dylanmatt) December 14, 2019

We'll be coming be coming back to this one.

haha pic.twitter.com/00SydGuOjP

— Rachel Cohen (@rmc031) December 14, 2019

I also wonder if the bankruptcies have something to do with which farmers (and companies) are getting the money.

As a result, farmers have suffered, with a number going bankrupt, despite a bailout *twice the size of Obama's auto bailout* 5/ https://t.co/hZlIEojcvz

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) December 15, 2019

Sincere question for those out there with relevant expertise, to what extent does the existence of today's unicorns depend on the innovations of the infamous Match King?

The Match King did make and sell matches. https://t.co/42wzLieUlF

— Russ Mitchell (@russ1mitchell) December 14, 2019

And finally, some yak karma. 

pic.twitter.com/qGh65R1la6

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) December 15, 2019