OLDaily

More Than Ten Free Hosted Jupyter Notebook Environments You Can Try Right Now
Tony Hirst, OUseful Info, 2019/01/04

This is a quick item from Tony Hirst that does exactly as the title promises. Jupyter Notebooks is an example of an online resource that integrates a real programming environment with text, producing an example of the sort of next generation learning resource we can look forward to. See also: Initial Notes… Jupyter Notebook To OU-XML.

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Old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dance video goes viral as supporters mock shaming attempt
Joel Shannon, USA Today, 2019/01/04

I've said this before but it bears repeating: the problem is not what there is about you on the internet, the problem is in what people do with it. Case in point: there is utterly nothing wrong with making a video of you and some friends dancing on a rooftop. That's what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did. The resulting video is what the Chronicle, citing Lawrence Lessig, calls "'read/write culture,' in which everyday people felt empowered to generate their own creative product." And it's a wonderful example of that. But for one commentator, it was raw material for a lumpy-headed attempt to shame Ocasio-Cortez. Now is this an argument for never posting such content online in the first place? Of course not. It's an argument for asking, "how weird is it that there's some guy out there who thinks dancing is shameful? Why would anyonme take them seriously?"

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Say goodbye to the information age: it’s all about reputation now
Gloria Origgi, Aeon, 2019/01/04

I don't agree with the main point of this post, but rthe reasons are complex. Here's the main point: "rom the ‘information age’, we are moving towards the ‘reputation age’, in which information will have value only if it is already filtered, evaluated and commented upon by others. Seen in this light, reputation has become a central pillar of collective intelligence today. It is the gatekeeper to knowledge, and the keys to the gate are held by others." Now this isn't wrong, exactly, but the use of the word 'reputation' suggests that it's the others' reputation (standing in the community? track record? number of followers?) that will make them a 'gatekeeper'. But no - this is just a return to the way we used to do it. It's not reputation that makes someone a gatekeeper, it's connection, and connections come and go not based on anything like reputation, but in the continuing value you - as an individual - see in continuing to maintain that connection.

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The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Xiao Mina, Nieman Lab, 2019/01/04

Michael Caulfield asks "Why Reputation" in reaction to this piece by Xiao Mina. Mina writes, " Rather than trust in sources of authority (institutions in power as such), people today are more likely to put their trust in networks of affiliation (those in your circle, however you define that)," which seems right to me. But this is different from reputation. More broadly, as Mina says, the need here is to see ask trust in institutions is low, rather than doubling down on institutions. "What journalism needs most is to move from a defensive crouch and into a more adaptive one. We need a vision for a new journalism, and a clear path to supporting and sustaining it in a world where consensus can no longer be taken for granted." So too for us all.

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Defining Digital Literacy
John Robertson, Cindy Strong, Seattle Pacific University, 2019/01/04

This website was developed by John Robertson & Cindy Strong in the context of a course being offered at Seattle Pacific University. But like anything like this, it depends on the strength of the contributions. And it has attracted an interesting assortment thus far. I've contributed my own responses; they don't appear yet but they may by the time you see this. Why not add your own contribution?

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Listening and Epistemic Injustice
Maha Bali, Reflecting Allowed, 2019/01/04

Maha Bali discusses the related concepts of Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) and epistemic injustice. The former is created and promoted by sociology professor Karl Maton and is the idea of " exploring practices in terms of their organizing principles or ‘legitimation codes’." The latter originates in a book by philosophy professor Miranda Fricker. Both are rooted in the idea that some voices may fail to be heard because of systemic flaws in the social and epistemic environment surrounding their assertions. Both need quite a bit of epistemic overhead to get off the ground - the idea that some voices can be legitimized, a shared conception of justice, and a theory of social classes and structures.

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