Learn About Tableau

">

Learn About Tableau

Demographic and Enrollment Change in the Barrow Area

Bonus: Explainer

I have no idea how many people have actually been reading this blog. Literally tens possibly! But as I've made a habit of dropping esoteric references into the titles (can you tell I'm an Alan Moore fan?) I figured it might be kind to at least explain some of them before I sign off. Some are just a lark, some have some connection to what I was posting about. But enough pretext. Here we go.

Thing 6: Or How I stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Diigo - A reference to Stanley Kubrick's classic movie Dr Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Thing 7: Death Rides a Pale Otter - Obviously a reference to Death Rides a Pale Horse...but with an Otter!

Thing 9: The Tragedy of the Commons - Reference to a famous and influential article in the magazine Science by Garrett Hardin.

Thing 10: A Nation Turns its Lonely Eyes to Flikr: Snippet of the Simon & Garfunkel song "Ms. Robinson" with Flikr replacing Joe Dimaggio.

Thing 11: Come and See The Violence Inherent in the System: A line from the famous Peasant:Government scene in Monty Python's The Holy Grail.

Thing 12: The Nameless Dread - The title of a short story by legendary horror/SciFi novelist H.P. Lovecraft.

Thing 13: I try to Leave but They Pull me Right Back In: Slightly reworded line from the Godfather part III.

Thing 14: Opiates for the Masses...Like that's a bad thing - Reference to Karl Marx's statement that Religion was the "Opiate of the Masses."

Thing 15: Abandon Hope all Ye Who Enter Here - The Plaque above the entrance to Hell in Dante's Inferno.

Thing 16: Fear and Loathing in Professional Networking - Reference to many of Hunter S. Thompson's books.

Thing 17: The World as Will and Representation...and Twitter - Title (minus the twitter part) of famous philosophical treatise of Arthur Schoepenhaer.

Thing 18: Quite Exciting, this Computer Magic - Line from This is Spinal Tap.

Thing 19: Take Your Protein Pills and Put Your Helmet On - Line from David Bowie's "Space Oddity".

Thing 20: Hominem te Momento - Latin for "remember you are a man", a line that slaves in ancient Rome were instructed to chant to generals to remind them of the fleeting nature of life.

Thing 21: In Vino Veritas - Latin for "in wine truth."

Thing 23: The End of Laughter and Soft Lies: Line from The End by the Doors.

Thing 23: The End of Laughter and Soft Lies

So I guess now comes the time to wrap up the class, as all 23 things are finished. I may need to clean up some of the documentation and upload some things to the Sandbox, but we have reached the end. As with all summative statements it is necessary to sum up in just a few words a complex phenomenon. The futility of this is not lost on me. I really had no expectations for the class. I recognized a few of the 23 things before we did them and had a general idea. The work load was similar to what I had expected (read: it was hard at times, but in the end it was definitely worth it.

I have learned about many web 2.0 applications that I never knew existed. Some I'll simply nod at and move on, never to use again. Others will become part of my personal and professional life for the foreseeable future. So what are the overarching themes of all of these tools? The simple answer is that their isn't one. These are tools after all and no one has ever asked about the deeper meaning of a hammer (ok...ok...Heidegger did...so shoot me). But as all theories are essentially simplifications I'd like to propose one here. Web 2.0 is at heart about community and collaboration. The best tools don't simply let you do things you couldn't before, they encourage you to share them and to build on them. I think this is subtly important. One of the themes of postmodernism is alienation. That we, as a society, are more alone and cut off than ever before. Their is undoubtedly some truth to this, although not Canon truth.

But its hard not to look at Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, and a thousand other applications and not see new communities forging. Their ability to bring people together is obvious. Now I have never been accused of being Panglossian. Nothing is absolutely good. And I don't need to leave a laundry list to show that there are downsides to all of these tools. But as these things will be part of the communities of the future it is imperative for educators to understand and, yes, even participate in them to remain relevant. I'm glad I went through this class. I learned a lot. I gained some tools I will continue to use. But that is what I will take away the most.

Thing 22: Self-Evident Truths that Aren't Always Evident

One of the oldest debates in intellectual circles in America is between the primacy of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Some scholars argue that the United States is primarily founded on the principals of the Declaration (equality, enlightenment, idealistic freedom) while others view the Consitution as the more relevant document with its less lofty ideals (separation of powers, limits on governance, practical freedoms). Each side has its defenders (e.g. Harry Jaffa for the Declaration, Harvey Mansfield for the Constitution), and while abstract, the debate between idealism and pragmatism that embodies the split is alive and well in our political discourse today, running through and between both political parties.

Web 2.0 tools can make useful contributions to this debate and I could see something like this being used in a U.S. History class. The first is www.wordle.net. Here I loaded the texts of both documents to generate a word cloud. The results are below. Constitution is on top.


As you can see both documents contain the word "States" a lot. One small but telling difference that reflects the debate. The Declaration is very prominent with the word "People" while the Constitution less so. The consitution meanwhile, demonstrates its groundedness with the word "May" being used so frequently.

To continue the debate I tried out the very cool Amap page. Below is my creation with my personal thoughts on the issue. If you'd like feel free to jump in with the "reply" feature. I would point out that Amap is a little limited in terms of text, so if this were being used for a complex argument like this it might make sense to go with lots of basic arguments, rather than one long one.

Thing 5d: I do not think that word means what you think it means

I have a soft spot for contrariness. The Catholic Church has always had a "Devil's Advocate" whose job it is to, as it were, "represent the devil" and try to dig up anything untoward or unsavory about a potential candidate for Pope or for Canonization. The point of playing Devil's Advocate really isn't to weaken, but to strengthen. To find better Popes and Saints. To me looking for the downside of everything, if done in proper scale and for the right reason, isn't to tear down, but to ultimately get at the truth by eliminating dead ends. Often contrariness can be taken too far (see for example the thoroughly annoying and intellectually lightweight Malcolm Gladwell) but utilized constructively it serves an important role, particularly as it requires a rigid and, in many ways, irritating personality (guilty as charged).

So I always have a soft spot for the naysayer who gets vindicated. So I was pleased to see this article come across my reader from the Neuroscience blog Mind Hacks. The article (found here) is a commentary of another article in Newsweek entitled "The Rise and Fall of Anti-Depressants." Both articles discuss recent evidence that while Anti-Depressants do work and are life-savers for many people, in general the effects for many more than expected are really nothing more than placebo effect. Money Quote:

The Newsweek article tracks this story but also picks up on many important subtitles in the story, notably that the research doesn't suggest that antidepressants are useless - quite the opposite - just that their effect is only in part due to their direct chemical effect; and that many patients in trials work out that they're not taking placebo because of the side-effects and this realisation can trigger a stronger placebo effect.

But for my personal favorite:

The piece particularly follows the work of psychologist Irving Kirsch who was the first to conduct a meta-analysis of the effects of anti-depressants back in 1998.

Titled "Listening to Prozac but hearing placebo" it suggested that the drugs were hardly more effective than placebo and, for many, marked Kirsch out as a biased and dangerous 'anti-psychiatrist'.

However, later studies in a similar vein by both Kirsch and others have supported his original findings and many countries have now changed their treatment recommendations as a result.

Sweet, sweet vindication. Shine on brother contrarian. Shine on.