Category: open practice

#23things: taking a “flaneur” approach to discovering digital knowledge

Illustration from Walter Benjamin’s Passagenwerk http://margininversi.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/walter-benjamin-i-passages-di-parigi.html

The Flaneur is one of my favourite figures, in particular in the writing of Walter Benjamin whom I discovered as an undergraduate. I was, and am, interested in the Flaneur as he is a useful device for exploring a city, for thinking about how urban life changed during the industrial revolution and beyond it – and because of the idea that walking with a tortoise as a fashionably slow accessory/pet one could discover the pace of observation. The Flaneur discovers the world at his, and I think it is a predominantly male, pace and directs his gaze where others may not even glance. I was thinking about this because I have been finding that my own engagement in the 23 things of the course by the same name has very much proceeded at my own, slow pace, sometimes on my own and sometimes in company. That is because I am taking part as part of a team (and I have written earlier posts about our approach) as well as spending time exploring some of the things that I have a particular interest in.

As a team we are in the middle of block 2 of course content and in our weekly team meetings talking about the course has become a useful focus point for discovering common questions, exploring interests and discussing areas for professional development. We, as a group, continue to benefit from the course as a joint venture in learning new things and that in itself is extremely useful.

But beyond our common participation I have been having a look at what the next few weeks of course will bring, what things I might discover… and to return to the Flaneur, I feel very much that there is a host of wonderful things waiting to be discovered in the arcades of digital knowledge before me. One topic in particular that I am interested in is Digital Curation. Not something I am overly familiar with and also a topic that encourages us to explore Tumblr, a tool I don’t use as yet.

So, #23things, while the first 12 things have been very rewarding to encounter and discover so far, I am looking forward to the next 11 even more. With my trusty tortoise at my side I shall proceed at my own pace.

24/10/2016
#FLcoding16: we meet graphs in the second week

It’s the second week of the course ‘Learn to Code for Data Analysis‘ and we have started making graphs! Alongside my course participation on FutureLearn I am posting a short summary of my experience on my blog (you can read also my post from Week 1).

I found this week a lot quicker to get started, partly because I am now more familiar with the course structure but also because the Anaconda interface I am using is becoming easier to navigate. That was a good thing because I have less time this week. Picking tings up where we stopped in Week 1 this part of the course introduces new concepts and methods leading to learning how generate graphs using the plot function. I found generating my first few graphs and changing what they showed immensely satisfying. The data we are using this week is about the weather and the project of the week enables you to use weather data from your own location.

In order to practice some of the syntax and get more used to using the interface I have started creating my own fictional data set which I am experimenting with in a separate exercise book. Hopefully there will be more time to play with this and the weather project next week. For now, the course continues to engage and educate – enabling me to learn the basics at my own pace. One study resource that I have found particularly helpful is the weekly glossary. I have downloaded both of these and use them to help remember different concepts. See you in Week 3…

22/10/2016
#23things: twitter archive, no facebook… social media reflections

I am using thing no. 7 (Twitter) and thing no.8 (Facebook) of #23things to note some reflections on how I use social media. This is about my individual professional or personal use, rather than any organisational perspective.

So, starting with Facebook, I find I have little to share. I am a reluctant Facebook user, strictly using it for personal relationships with far flung friends and for keeping in touch. Reviewing my Facebook timeline since I joined in 2007 reveals three clear trends: I post about the weather, the weekend and my cat. You could probably write a programme to auto-compose posts for my timeline and no one would know the difference.

Over the past two years I have also had to use Facebook for a project, more reluctantly still, and I have to admit that I have a lot to learn if I ever want to leverage that network for my professional aims. Moving on…

Twitter archive using TAGS

Twitter I joined a few years and 3k+ tweets ago – to provide holiday cover for someone who was travelling. It took me some time to get the hang of it, but since then it’s become a most useful space for me and I would echo many of the observations made by other participants in their posts about how valuable it can be. It’s easy to forget how few people in general are using it however and I find it irritating at times when media becomes to referential to what people have tweeted instead of finding other sources. Last year I installed Martin Hawksey’s TAGS twitter archive (read more about how to make your own) and ever since then I have been happily archiving my tweets and conversations. This is actually the first time I have had a look at the “top hashtags” in my own little universe of tweets and while it’s predictable to me it’s also interesting and useful and will probably be more so over time. I like tweeting about my own work as well as interesting or useful things I come across, but there is always a lot more on Twitter than I can follow. I dip in and out and enjoy the random things I find. Unless I am at an event I rarely tweet at high volume and I have plenty of days when I don’t use it at all. There isn’t always something to say.

10/10/2016
#23things: (algorithmic) transparency and diversity

This week on the #23things course that I am participating in together with my colleagues I read an article on diversity, described thus:

Can computers be racist? Big data, inequality, and discrimination– An excellent article, including video of a lecture given by Dr. Latanya Sweeney, on how big data can perpetuate and exacerbate existing systems of racism, discrimination, and inequality (see this week’s full text here)

I found the article really stimulating not least because I am interested in the growing movement behind public interest technologists (link to the full article). One paragraph in particular caught my eye, specifically a recommendation on how we may overcome the bias in relation to inequality inherent in big data practices:

Pressing for “algorithmic transparency.” By ensuring that the algorithms underpinning critical systems like public education and criminal justice are open and transparent, we can better understand their biases and fight for change.

It’s a recommendation I think makes a lot of sense, but I have come across many instances where this isn’t the case. In many cases only the expert developers involved in creating the system really understand how it works. That leads me to consider where efforts to make algorithms underpinning critical systems more open and transparent will meet the growing expertise professionals in for example education need to have in order to approach the technology at their disposal in an effective way.

Yet while the article has certainly prompted me to think and read further, it’s also reminded me that even the simplest or most commonplace technology can create problems. #23things uses examples like exploring accessibility features on mobile devices or the use of emoji/bitmoji to get us thinking about wider issues and those are easy to relate to. Anyone who like me functions as tech support for family members for example has likely been grateful that a mobile phone’s text size or colour contrast adjusted to suit the needs of elderly users. There is a huge spectrum of issues that opens up before you when you start focusing on accessibility and diversity.

For me, these two of the #23things are a useful reminder that this is an essential part of what we do every day and that there is always a lot of room for improvement.

01/10/2016
Omni-directional expansion of the ‘Google me’: exploring my digital footprint in 10 screenshots

Hello, and welcome to thing no.3 of the #23things course (also, this is my 100th post on this blog)… As I mentioned previously I am taking part in this course together with my team. If you are curious about our approach read the post, but here it is in a nutshell: we have given ourselves permission to lurk, audit, explore or participate in each thing as we deem fit on an individual basis. So… this is my attempt to contribute:

This task starts with searching for yourself on Google and that’s where I have paused. It feels strangely personal writing about my own search results, but then of course that is the point of the exercise. This information is already in the public domain and easily discoverable by anyone. Why did searching for myself give me reason to pause? I want to explain why, using 10 screenshots I took:

Front page: The most public version of ‘me’ is on the first page of results. Like most of you I monitor the information about me online regularly and the results presented here are what I expected. It’s sometimes surprising how high events I participate in appear in the search results, but so far, so good.

Old News: In contrast to the first search results, this is not a list I look at frequently, but I’m already uncomfortable. Giving interviews or quotes is a circumspect business but no matter what I say it can read badly after a few years (or sometimes far sooner). Looking at this list also reminds me that I am not consistent when it comes to archiving news items, so I suppose one advantage of having whatever you say archived and indexed is that you can compile at least a partial list at a glance. Next!

Videos: I often ignore how much video there is now of me. Granted, it’s a tiny amount in comparison to others, but not even 10 years ago there was no video of me at all. In most cases the video is a recording of a live event either in front of an audience or online. It’s often improvised, never polished and can make for cringe-worthy watching for me. On the other hand, some of my favourite moments in my professional life have been in front of an audience, so on balance I think I am glad to have these videos and hope that some are useful or interesting to others.

And now… images: this is where you can go down all sorts of rabbit holes and find surprises. First up: pictures in weird settings or combinations:

Images I have no control over and that are ranked highly, can feel like an annoying part of my digital footprint. In other instances the images are not of me, but made by me or posted by me at some point in the past. It can be fun to rediscover a former self , but it strongly reminds me that each time I publish anything, this post included, I make a decision to add to this expansion of stuff about or by me:

Some images, like this one above for example, I posted at some point and thought I had removed. Others, like the one below, are a blast from the past. In this instance it shows an outdoor trade-show of funerary wares, mainly coffins, that I visited as part of my doctoral research.

Finally, there are also images I post on sites like JustGiving, when I was raising money for Cancer Research. I am not sure how I will feel seeing this in a few years time, particularly if my personal circumstances or those of my family are different by then. What if you find images of raising funds for someone who is no longer with you?

All of this information about me is on the surface. I haven’t really started digging into what else you can find about me online and there are dire warnings about what can be done with personal information that isn’t safeguarded. That’s one reason why I am taking part in this course. Being online, particularly as an open practitioner, is making yourself vulnerable. Josie Fraser gave an inspiring keynote at ALT’s Annual Conference this year and I’ll end this post by encouraging you to watch it. Don’t let trolls follow your digital footprints…

21/09/2016
#23things: Getting started with a team

Team-made biscuit plate…

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve signed up for some new open courses this autumn. Since then, I’ve encouraged my colleagues from the ALT staff team to join the 23things course and we are now embarking on it as a team.

Like many organisations we are always looking for effective ways to provide CPD opportunities around use of technology and I think the course looks like a great way to meet that need. Given that we are a small, distributed group a course that is wholly online and has some flexibility as to when and how you learn seems ideal.

As we want to take part as a team, we have set up some additional “taking part” support, including adding a discussion about our experiences to our weekly team meetings and a shared Google folder and doc “scratchpad” for everyone. While we are taking part in an open course I also want to create a safe space for everyone to experiment and share their views without them being public.

So, I am joining in with this first post about what I’d like to gain from the course and also some reflections on the social media guidelines that we follow:

First, social media guidelines: that’s something I think about quite a lot and as well as the guidelines of our host institution we publish our own policies governing our different platforms. Some of us are very active on social media, others less so – but events and membership activities are increasingly finding their voice on different platforms. So, as well as developing various digital literacy skills, the course will provide an opportunity for us to talk about our approach to social media as a team. I found Eric Stoller’s talk at the Jisc Digifest very inspiring on this topic.

Secondly, what do I hope to get out of the course? Learning new things is definitely the top aim, but this time round I hope we can learn something new together. In our organisation we move very quickly from one project to the next and sometimes there isn’t enough time to enjoy the process of finding a solution to a problem or implementing something new. I hope the course will provide a way for us to share more of that experience.

Open/closed? I have thought quite a bit about writing this post, because in the past when I have shared my practice openly I haven’t written directly about the colleagues I work with daily. There is a lot to consider when you share your practice openly and my own participation should support and contribute, not hinder anyone else’s progress. So I think the approach I will take is not to write about anyone’s personal experience or journey – or at least not without their express permission. I won’t share anything unless it is already in the public domain (and intentionally so) and with my colleagues’ consent. And I will contribute, just like my colleagues, in our internal spaces as well as this more public forum.

16/09/2016