Reddit

I spent some significant time exploring Reddit today and really came away with mixed emotions that left me strongly feeling it is not for me.  I found some wonderful positive stories, including understanding and supportive stories and comments about the tragedy in Minneapolis, which is dominating the news everywhere.  I found some great videos that made me laugh.

I can see the potential of the platform as a space to share information freely, hold discussions, and use it as a learning tool.  I actually found a very good article on using Reddit as a learning tool here: https://icto.humanities.uva.nl/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Teaching-with-Reddit.pdf.  I actually was starting to consider if we could use it to distribute some company training that I would have no problem with others borrowing on subject such as ethics.

When I opened up a few stories that I was interested in and started reading the comments posted, I started to get both frustrated and angry.  There is a crowd of Reddit users that obviously are anti-establishment, anti-government, and feel the need to post their viewpoints on anything even closely related to their issues.  The shooting death of a Federal Protective Service officer brought out a huge diatribe on the evils of the IRS, and the discourse went downhill after that.  A clean-up of Export Regulations that were restricting export of information that is available on the internet developed into an argument about gun control in the United States.  I can appreciate substantive discourse, but many of these people seem to have learned nothing about government, civics, or social studies in school. 

Do I think they need to be silenced?  NO!  I strongly defend the Constitution now, as I swore to do for the first time forty years ago.  They have a right to express their opinions.  But at the same time, I have the right to not listen.  I'm sure if I explored and become more proficient with Reddit, I could become a user and avoid much of that, but I don't see enough positive outcome to be worth my time investment.

True Self and Social Media

This week's Voicethread had a slide that discussed how we adjust what we post based on who we think is reading (Context Conflict).  This really reminded me of something I deal with in others.

I am a teacher and small group leader in a ministry program called Living Waters where we help people deal with relational brokenness through Christ-centered teaching, ministry, and prayer.  The program is broken down into 20 teaching subjects and four of them deal with the True Self.  
Obviously this is a key teaching in trying to heal people from their brokenness that manifests as additions, abuse, self-loathing, narcissism, and repeated relationship failures.  We work carefully with participants to allow them to safely let go of the false fronts they put up and be honest with themselves and those they love.  It is summed up in the four sections:

• True Self Forgives
• True Self Aspires to Wholeness, Refuses Dispair
• True Self Unites with God - Overcomes Narcissism
• True Self Loves the Existing Self

Not being yourself on social media seemed to resonate with many of my classmates; it seemed like we are all doing that.  If we cannot be ourselves on on our own social media, is that healthy?  The answer to that is probably dependent how much of our self-worth is linked to our social media.  People that are casual social media users will likely not be impacted by this, as their projected false self is more of an effort to maintain civility and simply avoid conflict. 

For the person that is constantly counting contacts or friends, watching likes, and always hoping something they post will go viral, the false self they project on line will likely be damaging to their ability to maintain good healthy relationships with those around them, be they physical or virtual.  Taking some of the wording from the points above, the virtual life becomes a half life (not whole), self-absorbed (narcissistic), and consumed with trying to be someone they are not. 

If the self you project on social media becomes too different from your true self, it may be time to terminate your relationship with that social media persona and return to the real world.

Memorial Day with WEB 2.0

Where does an analysis of WEB 2.0 go when looking at Memorial Day?  Firstly understand that Memorial Day means different things to different people.  It was meant to be more that just a patriotic holiday, something I did not understand when I matched in the Memorial Day parade in my hometown years ago.  Nor is it a day to recognize veterans, although the day is special to them.  It is a day to recognize those who have given their lives in sacrifice for our country.

Memorial Day's presence in our social media becomes two levels of remembrance.  At one level is a general recognition of those who have died in defense of this country.  These posts are patriotic and sometime meaningful and touching.  As a veteran with a number of friends lost, I really do appreciate those posts.  They express the general meaning of the day and, if done right, make readers realize it is not a "happy Memorial Day."

The other level is the more specific remembrances that identify specific events and/or people.  To those of us involved, these posts on our social media takes us back to that moment when it happened, or when we first found out.  For each of the names listed below, I can give the details of what happened.  It is our way of honoring our friends no longer with us, and helping us to "never forget."

Is it educational?  Well last year, I received a text on my phone from a young man from my church.  I had been helping him learn to drive because his dad was not available to do so (that dad is on my list below).  He reminded me that the weekend was a time to remember ...and listed five of the names below.  He had to have looked back into my old FB posts to know those names and what they meant to me.  To that young man, he knows personally what Memorial Day means, and understands what it means to me.  I will not delete that text from my phone.

My memorial day is about:
Lt. Jane Paradeis, USN - CH-46 crash Chesapeake Bay
Lt. Jason Skubi, USN - CH-46 crash Chesapeake Bay
AT1 Norman Geisel, USN - CH-46 crash Chesapeake Bay
AMS3 John Burkhardt, USN - CH-46 crash Chesapeake Bay
AMS2 James Crockford, USN - CH-46 crash Red Sea
Lt. Bantee Hall, USN - T-45 crash, Pensacola Bay
Sgt. Terrance Harrison, USA - PTSD, Virginia
GMC Howard Coyer, USN - PTSD, North Carolina

And yes...finishing this list the screen gets very hard to read.  I will never forget.

NAS Corpus Christi Shooting

Because I am involved in the training of Navy security personnel, I am carefully following the coverage of the terrorist incident at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi.  Most of the coverage glosses over how well the Navy Petty Officer at the gate responded.  Although the terrorist shot her in the vest area of her chest, knocking her down, she rolled over and hit the button that instantly deploys the installed vehicle barrier.  This prevented the shooter from going further onto the base and allowed other security personnel to engage the shooter.
This is exactly the response we have written into our curriculum and is practiced by security forces at every installation.  For us, we are proud that what we contribute to Naval Security Forces has prevented what could have been a serious incident.

Best coverage:  AP

Proofread and Edit

Part of our assigned reading this week was "Beyond Difference: Reconfiguring Education for the User-Led Age" by Dr Axel Bruns.  I really struggled to read the article as it just was not connecting with me.  It seemed almost like the words just would not get past some barrier of noise in my head.  In frustration, I pulled all the text out of the PDF and pasted them into Word so I could have my computer read the article to me in the Review tab.  That was when I found my problem.

Even allowing for the differences in spelling between American English and Australian English, there were over twenty words misspelled, and a number of made-up words beyond the 'produser' word that was the focus of the paper.  There were many punctuation errors, and a few capitalization errors.  Most significantly, Dr. Bruns does not know how to use parenthesis at all.  There were whole sentences with parenthesis, and one time even two sentences.  In one case he used them so many times he created an 88 word sentence.

As a professional instructional developer, I like to think I use words better than most people but time and again I find I have made a mistake in how I articulate the concepts within my curriculum.  The salvation to that is two-fold.

One is to use the tools presented in your word processor.  They are there to support you and help you create a better product.  If you have wording that is unique to your audience, then use 'ignore all' or add them to your dictionary.  In my office, nonverbal is one word without hyphen, watchstander is one word, and we never use weak hand or strong hand (firearms training).  I fight all the time with Microsoft knowing what I want to do better than me, but I still use the tools even if I do not always agree with them.

The second salvation is to have someone else read your work before posting.  We are all subject to 'inattentional blindness,' where we see what we expect to see and do not see what is really there.  Below is a link for a study on police officers with inattentional blindness.  In aircraft maintenance, I have seen it many times with people not seeing a tool missing from a tool box or not seeing something that should not be in the aircraft.  It is very common when proofreading your own writing to miss errors because your brain will insert the missing word automatically.  Having someone else read your work helps tremendously.  Other options include the "Read Aloud" option on the review tab in Word, or just reading out loud to yourself.

Yes...this was a bit of a rant.  But really...an 88 word sentence?





Inattentional blindness for a gun during a simulated police vehicle stop

FireEngineering.com

In looking at uses of the web as a means to teach and communicate, I thought I would share one of  the sites I regularly visit. 

As a student of firefighting strategy and tactics, Fire Engineering is a professional forum for firefighters that I frequent to learn what professional firefighters are discussing.  Every day there are new posts and videos dealing with professional issues on leadership, incident management, protective equipment, tactics, new equipment, and many others.  Many of the posts are blog style, or vlog style, personal postings of ideas and information that are shared in the hopes of helping other firefighters better.  In general, the posts are well written, researched as needed, and very timely to situations in the firefighting world.
There are two sides to the site.  Some posts and information are available to non-subscribers, while other is fully accessed only with subscription; they provide the title and first paragraph but the rest is hidden from those that have not subscribed.
Looking at the site from the WEB 2.0 view can to mind because of a post I read called  Being Aggressive Does Not Mean Being Reckless.  This post was written by Captain Duane Daggers of the Chesapeake (VA) Fire Department and takes a look at how that initial fire attack is performed.  After reviewing figures on the increase in line-of-duty deaths despite a reduction in structural fires, Captain Daggers makes the case for a transitional attack, where water is put on the fire before making entry, then transitioning to the more conventional interior attack through.  He also carefully addresses all the historical arguments of why not to do this with up-to-date information from Underwriters Laboratories and the Fire Department of New York.  It is an extremely compelling post that pushes against tactics that have been used for years.
This is one of the exciting possibilities of exchanging information through social and professional networks.  It makes it possible for one person with a very good idea to get that idea out where it can get some buy-in from others.  In the case of this post, it could save lives.  I'm sure there are other sites that cater to professional groups to create such a network; let me know if you have explored one.

LinkedIn - a Web 2.0 learning tool?

Linkedin - touted as the professional “Facebook,” is a professional social network where you pick your “connections,” vice friends.  For regular users, there are regular professional posts and articles that will appear, in general either tied to your areas of interest or posted by your other professional contacts.  With most of my connections being in the security and defense services, most of the posted articles I see are from that sector.  Yet these articles are very educational and spread wide in applicability as well. 

Since I am registered Personal Protective Specialist, some recent articles in that area included an exploration of ethical conflicts working with the client during protection services, and a ‘lessons learned’ from a recent incident where paparazzi got inside the protective bubble.  Since many of my contacts are from a previous job with a security contractor, articles about government contracting, force protection, and even a post from Eric Prince are common. 

For me, it is a great way to stay linked to these fields of interest even though I am not actively employed as a protective specialist.  Since I also have some classmates and instructors from my FSU time, I also get some postings on instructional theory and developments in that field as well.  There is less personal stuff in LinkedIn than on Facebook, and more thought-provoking, professional information.  Another advantage over Facebook is that you can have contacts that would not be friends, such as executives that you have worked under.

One issue that might be a problem is the distribution of your contacts.  The wider the spectrum of fields represented in the contact list, the broader your postings will be.  I actually went through and reviewed my connections and found that half were from my time at that renowned (or infamous) defense services and security contractor.  Most of them were coworkers but some of them were clients.  Most of my coworkers have moved to other companies, but in the same general field, so the posts tend to stay in that domain.

In the realm of looking at different tools in WEB 2.0, I think it can be a very useful tool for professional development with a line of work.  What has been your experience with LinkedIn and how do you view its use?

Subject Matter Experts

Not directly linked to this course but an observation in general.  I was watching a a show on the Science channel last night about the Navy's Coastal Riverine Force, specifically using their new Mark VI boats during an exercise off the California coast.  The narration made a statement on how the boat could deliver the "six soldiers" on board to the oil platform.  I heard that and cringed because you never call sailors "soldiers." 
I would think that the producers have the narration text reviewed by a technical advisor, just like we develop curriculum with the assistance of a Subject Matter Expert (SME).  I made me realize that the subject matter expert must not only have the technical knowledge of the subject, but in most cases the subject matter expert must have the "cultural knowledge" relating to the subject.
This means not calling sailors or Marines "soldiers."  You do not steer an airplane, you fly it.  It is how a community uses common language to describe what they do in relation to the world.  To misuse that language destroys the perceived value of the product to that community, be it a cable show episode or learning product.
Most instructional designers rely on their subject matter experts to cover them on these issues.  It has been my experience that to be truly effective you must have at least two SMEs that do not work together, or the instructional designer must become a second SME using technical manuals, written doctrine, or standardized procedures for what they create curriculum for.

Hello all

This blog will be a journal of my exploration of social media applications and their use in the distance learning environment.  This is all new to me and somewhat uncomfortable as I am not a social media user beyond the ubiquitous Facebook.  My concerns going into this are mostly dealing with privacy or security issue, mainly because most of my professional work involves either restricted information or privacy issues.

I have had some experience recently conducting some work on Zoom recently, and found it easy to work in small groups where the discussion pattern is controlled or follow a routine.  If less controlled, the audio of one person overrides other users and the communication get garbled.  Also, the user interface is difficult for some users, usually the ones trying to use a smart phone vice a tablet or computer, because the control functions (buttons) are harder to find.  It did allow over 40 of us to meet at the end, but it had to be controlled by our host so that all but a few people were muted most of the time.  Once there is more users than my screen can display, I found it best to shift to the mode that displays the person speaking rather than shifting windows if the speaker is in the second window.