Where was grade inflation when I was in school?
Another Form of Grade Inflation.
You may recall Princeton’s proposal to fight grade inflation by putting a quota on the number of A’s that can be awarded. Joe Barillari made a brilliant followup proposal in yesterday’s Daily Princetonian, to fight the “problem” of inflation in students’ ratings of their professors’ teaching.
Isn’t this the truth. And a truth that I, too, need to learn over and over again. Now, I have a handy reminder.
Homeschooling parent, Sarah, reminds of a very important point when it comes to parenting:
You can t play games with readiness. That s been my one of my Most Important Parenting Lessons (and one which I, apparently, need to learn over and over again). Kids are, or are not, ready.
…
Readiness simply comes of its own accord. You can lay the foundation, but no game, no trick, no bribe can make an unready child ready. Those things are approaches or motivators; they don t flip the switch inside their brain, or body, or heart. They ll be ready when they re ready. And because we re impatient, or we believe we know better, or that we re more powerful/ influential than we are, we struggle to learn this lesson. But go ahead and learn it. You re ready.
Something to add to my “Radio” setup here. Matt Mower up to his usual tricks. Thanks Matt and thanks Lilia for passing this along.
For Thomas and others: Radio macro to get Technorati cosmos for a post (see this post in browser for an example).
From Matt Mower via IM:
- save http://matt.blogs.it/gems/postCosmos.txt into your Macros folder
- edit #itemTemplate.txt adding <%postCosmos( <%itemNum%> )%>
- publish
I also edited macro to display “Technorati cosmos” instead of “What other blogs are saying about this post”, you’ll find it easily in the text.
Innovation continues. I have both the Kensington unit and the WFS-1, which I prefer of those two. This looks to be a definite improvement over the first generation products.
World’s greatest Wi-Fi signal finder. Glenn Fleishman got his hands on a prototype of a new, tiny, Wi-Fi signal finder, and he likes it a lot. There’s a video clip of it on his site.
Chrysalis previews their WiFi Seeker, a keychain sized device for instant Wi-Fi signal finding: Chrysalis sent me a demo unit of its just-unveiled WiFi Seeker, which they designed to differentiate 80211b/g networks from other devices. Two previous Wi-Fi signal finders fell short in ways the Seeker does not.
I was on the phone with one of my brothers the other night. He’s a long time computer user and early adopter. Yet he is very early in the learning curve on RSS and weblogs, even though he does read mine from time to time. So now I have a useful resource for him as he starts to explore this space.
Great New RSS Primer.
Fagan Finder provides us with a Great New RSS Primer: Before you go any further, realize this: RSS is really simple. Just because it is an acronym doesn t mean that it s complicated. Don t get scared away, there s really nothing to it. I said it was an acronym, but depending on who you ask and what version of RSS you are speaking about, it may stand for Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary, RDF Site Summary, or a variation on one of those. None of that matters to you anyhow
By dhenry@howdev.com (Daniel Henry). [Lockergnome s RSS & Atom Tips]
Helpful collection of DNS related material.
I just stumbled across http://www.dnsstuff.com, which is a handy site that gives you access to a bunch of functionality from one page:
- Any DNS record
- Reverse DNS lookup
- DNS timing
- Whois
- Ping
- Tracert
- Spam database lookup (150+ DBs searched)
- etc
Nifty.
The following three items turned up in sequence in my aggregator this morning.
While it’s starting to shape up as another A-List/Power law debate, I think something else more interesting is going on that Dina is highlighting. There are new cultural norms taking shape here influenced, as always, by key characteristics of the technology. At the same time, as Finkelstein points out, these norms are also shaped by predictable aspects of human nature.
It can be a struggle to tune into the nuances of this debate. You can choose to listen to a small set of voices all saying the same thing. You can choose to seek out diversity in sources and perspectives at the expense of having to develop your own synthesis. Most importantly, you can choose to do so mindlessly or mindfully.
1. Revenge Of The A-List(er/ers).
Feel the floor, I mean being flat on the floor, while a very few have the floor. [Seth Finkelstein’s Infothought]
With this key graf.
What I am saying is that bloggerdom is as gatekeeper-constricted as other Big Media. It’s a gatekeeper of audience, not a gatekeeper of production, but this makes no different in the final result. To be charitable, people keep responding to that observation by saying anyone can pitch a story to the editors, I mean the gatekeepers, and that they are unmoved by insularity and clubbiness. Which, by the way, is exactly what Big Media claims too, and I think is about as true (note the implication there – people can think conections count for more than they in truth do, but denying they mean anything at all seems over-idealistic)]
Scoble is responding to Finkelstein’s earlier post. Or more precisely, he’s using his take on Finkelstein’s post to make his own point. But the nice thing about blogs and linking is that we can easily go look for ourselves.
2. Finkelstein notes that he isn’t in the A list.
Seth Finkelstein says that the A-list isn’t linking to him. Or something. Seth, you miss the point. How did I get to the supposed “A list?” By linking to everyone and by reading more than 1000 blogs. Seriously. Why does that matter? The more you link and the more you read, the more likely people are to link to you and talk about you. Here’s a question for you Seth: have you ever linked to an A lister? Here you do and you get linked to by two of us.
Here’s my top blogger tip: if you want people to link to you link to them first! A link is a gift. Everytime I get a link it tickles my soul. Plus, it shows up in my referer log so I notice you did it. How do you think I found out about your blog?
I have a saying. Everyone gets one link for free. But you gotta earn the “n” link. So, the stakes go up next time. Next time you’ll have to be interesting. Sorry, but that’s sorta how it works. (Yeah, my boss ignores me when I go in to ask for a raise too and mubles something about how my coworkers are writing more code and doing more cool stuff to help customers).
Oh, and look at my experimental aggregator blog. What percentage of those posts are from the “A list?” See, you don’t need to be an “A lister” to get noticed.
I’ve only been blogging for about three years. It doesn’t take long to get onto the A list if you wanna be there (here’s a hint, it isn’t as interesting as you might think). Just write something that other bloggers find interesting. Don’t know what that is? Well, then visit Technorati and read some more blogs.
Oh, one rule that an “A lister” taught me very early on: don’t beg for links. There’s nothing more uninteresting than that. [Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]
And Dina finds an interesting perspective on community that is worth considering.
Another way of looking at community …. Why the Amish would like Blogs.
“The Amish way of life is actually a means to prevent interaction with outsiders. Oddly this is precisely why they are such supporters of community……………………..
The problem with the Amish method of community or the beauty of it depending on how you see it, is that there is not really any growth. The only way you get more Amish to have kids. That limits the growth to a pretty slow number. The same is true of Separatist or Elitist communities. If you aren’t trying to actively convert users, or working on ways to have communities interact you aren’t likely to grow your communities.” [Brandon Wirtz’s Digital Mix]
[Conversations with Dina]
This is a nice collection of tips and strategies for designing large scale training events.
The Problems With Training (and What to Do About It). As the author asserts, “Mirroring the 7th grade classroom and the freshman college 101 lecture hall will serve only to copy their mediocrity.” Too true. But what to do about it? This essay contains a number of good suggestions, ranging from the ever popular 99-second talks to the importance of food, round tables, and varied activities. When I plan a conference (and I will plan a conference some time over the next couple of years) it is my intention to employ a number of these tactics to draw on some of the lessons on learning that we all know but never seem to apply for ourselves. Like, for example, having the conference participants themselves design the conference online before the actual event. Whoever heard of such a thing? Via elearningpost. By Scott Berkun with Vanessa Longacre, UIWeb, February, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect] [OLDaily]
Lots of people have been pointing to this or sending me links to go look. What I found most intriguing is its implicit decision to approach knowledge management from the perspective of personal knowledge management. It simply takes as a given that the primary object of knowledge management is to assist knowledge workers in organizing and applying their own personal stores of knowledge. I happen to think this is a good thing as does Dave Pollard. Here’s a recent post Dave did on Personal Content Management: An Exploration, for example that speaks to this idea nicely. My post on knowledge work improvement – black box, white box, and deliverables is an entry point to some of my thinking on this point of view.
James Fallows writes in the New York Times:
A current race for a solution goes by the deceptively blah name of “knowledge management,” or K.M. It is an effort to bring Google-like clarity to the swamp of data on each person’s machine or network, and it is based on the underappreciated tension between a computer’s capacity and a person’s. Modern computers “scale” well, as the technologists say – that is, the amount of information they can receive, display and store goes up almost without limit. Human beings don’t scale. They have finite amounts of time, attention and, even when they’re younger than the doddering baby boomers, short-term memory. The more e-mail, Web links and attached files lodged in their computer systems, the harder it can be for people to find what they really want.
If anything, the challenge of helping people find their own information is harder than what Google has done. Search engines let you explore sites you haven’t seen before. Knowledge management systems should let you easily retrieve that Web page, that phone number, that interesting memo you saw last month and meant to do something with.
The current creative struggle is important because, when it yields a victor, it will leave everyone less frustrated about using a computer. What makes the struggle intriguing is that it involves two great axes of competition. On the business level, it is another installment of that ancient tale, Microsoft vs. the World. On the conceptual level, it raises basic questions about what knowledge is.
The underlying intellectual question about knowledge management is whether people actually think of knowledge as a big heap of laundry just out of the dryer, or as neatly folded pajamas, shirts and so on, all placed in the proper drawers. The “big heap” theory lies behind some of the programs: we don’t care where or how things are stored; we just want to find certain pairs of socks – or P.D.F. files – exactly when we need them. The “folded PJ’s” theory guides a variety of programs that let you mark information as it shows up – for instance, tagging an article you know you want to refer to later, when shopping for a new car. Brains work both ways, and the ideal K.M. software will, too.
Google’s success suggests that there is a huge potential for solving a problem that people didn’t realize they had until the right solution appeared.
Going to need this.
Small Pieces Loosely Joined for kids.
David Weinberger is one of the most cogent and original thinkers about the meaning of the Net and the impact it has, and can have, on our lives and our society. As one of the authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto, he helped define the impact of the web on how we conduct our business – personal and professional.
In his follow up solo offering, Small Pieces Loosely Joined, he attempts to present a unified theory of the web. It’s a terrific read and a book I have recommended to many friends and co-workers.
Today, while reading through my blog list, John Porcaro pointed out that there is a kid’s edition of Small Pieces. Weinberger originally created this version for his son (11) and it’s a wonderful explanation of the dynamics, the wonder, and the potential dangers of the web.
If there’s a child in your life in the 11-13 year old range (like my son Jason who’s 12), please show them this wonderful work. It can be read online or downloaded in MS Word format for printing. It will change the way they look at the Net and help them to appreciate the potential it has to change our world.