Welcome to episode 114 of the EdTech Situation Room from November 14, 2018, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) and Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) discussed the past week’s technology news through an educational lens. Topics for the show included college students at UC Berkeley developing browser extensions to identify political bot accounts on social media, prospects for liberal democracy portrayed in PBS Frontline’s recent series “The Facebook Dilemma,” and issues of both trust and due process involving Facebook, content takedowns and smart assistants like Alexa and Google Home. Microsoft’s problems with recent Windows10 updates and its new crowdsourced feedback process for updates, and new research on the value of doodling for learning and retention were also discussed with a shout out to Sylvia Duckworth’s (@sylviaduckworth) new book on sketchnoting. The “Shift Happens” video series 10 years later, problems with drone videos and wildlife harassment, Google’s pleas to content creators to help oppose new copyright legislation in Europe, and a Mozilla report identifying the “creepiest” tech gifts this holiday season from a privacy / surveillance standpoint rounded out the show. Geeks of the week included FFWorks / FFMpeg for video encoding, Thankful Bot from the Noun Project, a funny U.S. election meme on Twitter, and the virtual keyboard project CopyChar. Please follow us on Twitter @edtechSR for updates, and join us LIVE on Wednesday nights if you can (normally) at 10 pm Eastern / 9 pm Central / 8 pm Mountain / 7 pm Pacific or 3 am UTC.
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- Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) – blog: blog.ncce.org
- Wes Fryer (@wfryer) – blog: speedofcreativity.org
- The College Kids Doing What Twitter Won’t (Wired, 1 Nov 2018)
- BotCheck.me
- The Facebook Dilemma Part 1 and Part 2 (PBS Frontline, 29 & 30 Oct 2018)
- Facebook Is the Least Trusted Major Tech Company When it Comes to Safeguarding Personal Data, Poll Finds (Fortune; 8 November 2018)
- Human rights groups want Facebook to offer ‘due process’ for takedowns (The Verge; 14 November 2018)
- Instagram starts rolling out dashboard that shows how much time you spend on it (Verge, 14 Nov 2018)
- Alexa, Should We Trust You? (The Atlantic, November 2018)
- Microsoft re-releases Windows 10 October 2018 Update today after pulling it offline (The Verge; 13 November 2018)
- Microsoft to focus on Windows 10 quality after a buggy year (The Verge; 13 November 2018)
- Drawing Is the Fastest, Most Effective Way to Learn, According to New Research (Inc Magazine, 31 Oct 2018)
- The Surprisingly Powerful Influence of Drawing on Memory (Sage Journals, 30 Aug 2018)
- “How to Sketchnote: A Step-by-Step Manual for Teachers and Students” by Sylvia Duckworth @sylviaduckworth
- Has ‘Shift’ Happened? Revisiting a Viral Video From 2008 (EdSurge, 6 Nov 2018)
- That Cute Baby-Bear Video Reveals a Problem With Drones (The Atlantic, 6 Nov 2018)
- A Final Update on Our Priorities for 2018 (YouTube Creator Blog, 22 Oct 2018)
- Google CEO’s China argument doesn’t hold water (Columbia Journalism Review, 9 Nov 2018)
- Mozilla Releases Creepy Gift Report (Mozilla Foundation)
- Wes’ Geeks of the Week: FFWorks (backstory), “Thankful Bot” by @nounproject and the Twitter meme – “me voting in 2016 vs. me voting in 2018”
- Jason’s Geek of the Week: CopyChar.CC – Virtual Keyboard
I'm thankful for #podcasting and @techsavvyteach: Our Montana @edtechSR #edtech yoda!
s/o @nounproject for the "Thankful Bot" 🙂#edtechSR #OklaEd pic.twitter.com/oLuNa0FGEl
— Wesley Fryer, Ph.D. 🌎🎙🚀 (@wfryer) November 14, 2018
