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Our research—conducted in the summer of 2013—reveals that 85 percent of executives disapprove of professional women who wear shoes that are too pointy.

The Importance of a Woman's Image in the Workplace

Skeptical.

#science #crap detection

A Guide to Crap Detection Resources by Howard Rheingold

This document is a resource for assessing the accuracy or veracity of online information, organized under a number of headings. The objective of the resource is to improve the digital lives of individuals and to improve the quality of the online commons by increasing the number of people who know how to separate good info from bad info.

#crap detection #digital literacy #information literacy #media literacy #libraries #library

Research Questions

How are different companies operating in the social media marketing space?

How are companies able to gain or lose social capital via social media marketing and the affiliated exploitation of social networks?

How can improved crap detection and infotention abilities disrupt how social media marketing efforts happen?

#social capital #crap detection #companies #research #social networks

"I Did What?!?" Anonymous, Crap Detection, and What Giving Your Attention Can REALLY Do

Howard Rheingold's Net Smart is really striking the right chords with me--part self-help, part-theoretical exploration of the Internet, the text delves deeper into the social and psychological side of social media and technology while showing readers how to understand and, more importantly, control how they surf the 'net.

The book goes over the basics of how important your attention span is while you browse the internet, especially with sites like Twitter and Facebook, while also showing you how to be more conscious of how your attention is captured. The text also highlights the importance of your attention in this process by emphasizing that practically everyone is out to get a piece of it. Unfortunately, that not only includes Aunt Cathy and your college roommate, but corporations like Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and numerous small businesses, musicians, Internet trolls, etc. Rheingold's analysis makes it extremely clear that, on the Internet, our attention is a part of a larger socioeconomic system where it can be considered a commodity, a currency, or something else--it's definition is constantly taking shape and multi-layered. Rheingold writes that

The moment you see a link, and then decide whether or not to click it, is the moment you exert executive control of your attention or, by not exerting control, allow it to be captured. (97)

Of course, one of the major points that Rheingold makes is that your attention can be used for good. I was reminded of my own participation in a form of cyber-activism in the form of Folding@Home, a program that uses a portion of your computer's processes to work through protein folding (which can help find cures to diseases like Alzheimer's, Mad Cow Disease, and Parkinson's), which Rheingold references as a positive use of attention. At the time, as a freshman in college, I stumbled upon a topic on a forum about using my Playstation 3 video game console to help cure some pretty rough diseases. In addition, the Folding@Home client allows users to join "teams" that can be used to promote the cyber-activism of various virtual community groups such as forum members, co-workers, etc. So, with the goal of helping cure Alzheimer's while promoting NeoGAF and GameFAQs (all while exerting no effort whatsoever--all you had to do was open the program when you weren't using your system), I installed F@H on both my PS3 and my computer. This, I think, is a great example of how virtual communities and positive attention can come together for the social good.

However, fast forward a few years later, and I found myself, unknowingly, engaged in a worldwide cyber-terrorist attack on the US Department of Justice.

Back in January of this year, when the infamous video site called Megaupload was shut down and its owners arrested, the Internet group Anonymous vowed to get "revenge" for the shut down. Of course, Megaupload's closure was merely a catalyst--this was during the time that SOPA was an issue.

When all was said and done, Operation Megaupload, according to Time,

took down usdoj.gov and justice.gov (the U.S. Department of Justice), universalmusic.com (Universal Music Group), RIAA.org (the Recording Industry Association of America), MPAA.org (the Motion Picture Association of America), copyright.gov (the U.S. Copyright Office), hadopi.fr (France’s copyright-enforcement agency), wmg.com (Warner Music Group), bmi.com(Broadcast Music, Inc.) and fbi.gov (the Federal Bureau of Investigation). The DOJ’s website was first to fall, about an hour after the Justice Department announced its indictment of Megaupload.com.

Anonymous executed this take down through the use of DDoSing the websites. A DDoS, or distributed denial of service, attack is when users flood a server with incoming data, causing the website or server to crash. This kind of attack does a lot more than simply rendering the websites unvisitable--it totally destroyed online infrastructure for these organizations and companies, causing substantial financial losses. Even CBS.com was deleted for over twenty minutes.

DDoSing a website intentionally can potentially net you up to ten years in prison, as shown through the arrest of some Anonymous members back in 2011. However, the Operation Megaupload attack complicated the intentional aspect of DDoS attacks. Blogger Adrian Chen explains the process:

The link is a page on the anonymous web hosting site pastehtml. It link loads a web-based version of the program Anonymous has used for years to DDoS websites: Low Orbit Ion Cannon. (LOIC). When activated, LOIC rapidly reloads a target website, and if enough users point LOIC at a site at once, it can crash from the traffic. Judging from a Twitter search, the link is being shared at a rate of about 4 times a minute.

That's how I got dragged into the mess. People (especially my more tech-savvy friends) were posting both run-of-the-mill TinyURL and PasteHTML links that looked totally normal--one even had the headline of "Possible Smiths Reunion? Marr Talks About Morrissey," and that's when I became a victim. My computer started DDoSing the US DoJ. I see myself as a pretty savvy tech user, but even I became a pawn in this grand scheme. You constantly see less-savvy people being phished and hacked on Facebook, so what happens when the consequence is a lot more than having to reset your Facebook or change a few passwords? What happens when that friend's (or your own) choice of attention leads to the destruction of the US Department of Justice's web presence, which could potentially cause millions of dollars in losses?

Chen explains that 5,635 people [were] confirmed using LOIC to bring down sites during Operation Megaupload--but how many of these were willing participants and how many were people who were tricked into clicking on a Facebook or Twitter post? Rheingold makes some great points about learning social media literacy in Net Smart, but, as he notes, we must always be aware of how our attention is being manipulated. I constantly use TinyURL as a way to shorten my URLs for Tweets, so what makes it clear that what you're clicking on is what you're going to get? Even though the signs said that the tweet was real (Morrissey and Marr are never getting back together), the friend ran a music blog and nothing seemed out of the ordinary, I was immediately thrust into something that I did not prepare for. Needless to say, that friend was unfollowed and I stopped frequenting their blog, but I'm a little more hesitant to even click links from people that I typically trust. Not clicking on the TinyURL in the "SEE WH0S 1S LOOKING AT YOUR FACEBOOK!" post is one thing, but you never know when the link to this article, for example, could be leading you to a commit a cyber-crime that could, in theory, land you 10 years in prison.

So now, I've begun to romanticize the days where I could post things on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr without being extremely paranoid about where I was going to end up.

#freedom's mixtape #social media #anonymous #crap detection #net smart #rheingold #howard rheingold

Crap detection и собственное мнение

Совсем недавно Елена Тихомирова опубликовала рефлексивный пост, в котором затронула проблему формирования собственной точки зрения в эпоху изобилия мнений. Не остался без внимания и вопрос мусора в Сети. В продолжение ее мыслей, я могу добавить следующее. Технологии сегодня как никогда определяют будущее, формируют его образ. Но проблема в том, что мы не всегда успеваем понять, как нам следует жить в этом будущем, когда оно внезапно становится настоящим. Я вспоминаю такую мысль Дугласа Энгельбарта: все, чего Человечество достигло к концу XIX века, было достигнуто посредством достаточно скромного набора инструментов. То, что есть у нас сегодня -- вездесущие компьютеры и Сеть, -- это нечто совершенно новое, то, чего никогда раньше у человека не было. Эти технологии требуют новых идиом, метафор и способов мышления только для того, чтобы быть рядовым пользователем. Это то, что Энгельбарт называет ко-эволюцией. Пока наше сознание "отстает" от технологий, об "усилении интеллекта" (intelligence amplification) можно только мечтать. Сеть per se -- это вызов. Ко-эволюция должна состояться, и вот почему мы говорим сегодня о навыках XXI века. Один из этих навыков -- "crap detection", который как раз и направлен на эффективное различение достоверной (релевантной) информации в потоках "помоев". На YouTube доступна небольшая лекция -- мини-курс "Crap Detection 101", в котором Говард Рейнголд, позаимствовавший понятие "внутреннего детектора помоев" у Эрнеста Хэмингуэя, раскрывает содержание данного навыка. Говард относит этот навык к грамотностям XXI века. Он предпочитает говорить о так называемых грамотностях (literacies) вместо навыков (skills) по следующей причине. Навыки индивидуальны в том смысле, что мы всегда можем найти человека, который владеет каким-то уникальным навыком, т. е. может делать то, что никто другой кроме него не сделает. В противоположность индивидуальным навыкам, грамотности предполагают сообщества участников, которые ими владеют. Если коротко, то грамотность = навык + сообщество. Сообщества играют ключевую роль в контексте грамотностей XXI века: они обеспечивают возникновение, существование и развитие навыков. Стоит ли говорить, что формой организации сообществ (с точки зрения отдельных участников) является персональная обучающая сеть? В рамках "crap detection" эта сеть, которая обязательно включает экспертов из различных областей, может выполнять оценочную функцию. Что касается проблемы формирования собственного мнения, то, как пишет Джордж Сименс, -- это личная ответственность каждого человека. Даже если отфильтровать все "помои", остается слишком много мнений, которые дополняют, уточняю, отличаются или вовсе противоречат друг другу. И здесь ничего нельзя сделать, каждый должен сам решить, какой точки зрения он будет придерживаться, чью аргументацию он найдет более адекватной своему знанию и системе ценностей. Но сам процесс формирования мнения (более асбтрактно: понимания сложных концепций) социально обусловлен уже потому, что мы формируем собственную точку зрения, рефлексируя на множество чужих. Самое замечательное, что персональная обучающая сеть и здесь может помочь! Участники этой сети -- люди, которых мы аккредитуем как экспертов, помогают нам ориентироваться во всем многообразии мнений. Это то, что Сименс называет социально обусловленным пониманием (ориентированием).

#literacies #XXI #learning #new literacies #crap detection #Howard #Rheingold #George #Siemens #diversity #wayfinding #social

Mimi Ito: The Positive Potential of Peer Pressure and Messing Around Online

"We can debate outcomes of engagement all we want, but the thing that's really important, I think, to have on the public agenda is really the question of 'Who is getting access to the kinds of experiences that are productive and engaging, and who is not?' And what are the factors contributing to that?"

via youtube.com

Mimi Ito is a Professor in Residence at the Department of Anthropology and the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine, and serves as Research Director of the Digital Media and Learning Research Hub in the system-wide University of California Humanities Research Institute.

This past October, Ito spoke at the New School's biennial conference series, The Politics of Digital Culture. In her talk, "Learning with Social and Mobile Media: The Positive Potential of Peer Pressure and Messing Around Online", she examines the diversity of youth experience with new media and how it relates to questions of equity, access, and learning opportunities.

"I think there's still a persistent perception among parents and teachers that activities like gaming and social media use are a waste of time and a distraction from learning, rather than something that is inherently a support for productive forms of learning." (6:25)

"It's often profoundly uncool to care deeply about something [...] kids have mechanisms for hiding these kinds of identities[...] Now, the online world suddenly offers an opportunity for kids to affiliate and connect with others who share these passionate interests in a way that's not bound by the social status hierarchies of high school." (12:46)

"Now what was extremely interesting about Clarissa that made her different from [...] almost all of the kids who we talked to as part of our study was she was able to take the work she did in the role-playing world and make it visible and consequential, in a positive way, to the adult-facing world." (15:33)

"We're doing work right now in trying to develop some alternative assessments, ways of thinking about dispositions, metacognitive capacities, preparation for future learning [...] that can really enable us to make an argument why it's not domain-specific knowledge that we should be looking at as much as an underlying disposition for learning and capacity for future learning that's the most important outcome." (22:27)

"Our theory of change, it's really centered on the fact that--in the best circumstances--new technology can really lower the barriers of access to connected learning experiences. That it can help really connect the dots between these diverse spheres of learning that young people navigate through in their everyday lives." (27:09)

Video Credit: MobilityShifts: An International Future of Learning Summit (http://mobilityshifts.org)