Once again, XKCD says it all – “Share Your Knowledge With Joy”

Posted: May 11, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Education | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

In a recent XKCD post, Randall Munroe asks us why we criticise people when they don’t know something, rather than taking it as an opportunity to inform and delight them. After all, what is the actual benefit of belittling someone if they haven’t happened to have been exposed to the same information as you.

Well, that’s an excellent question. And, if you’re an educator, it’s the essential question.

We know that out students come to us without the information that they need. Because of this, they are regularly going to not know things and, sometimes, that’s going to be frustrating, but that’s what we’d expect.

I’ve run across it a few times myself when I’ve been surprised that people haven’t known basic (and to me common) terms in other languages like French or German. Why should they? I was raised in England, intermittently around French speakers, and have been exposed to European languages in one form or another for 40 years. I studied French at school and have German-speaking friends and colleagues, who I’ve visited. When someone doesn’t know what bon mot,  or soupçon means, that’s not actually an indicator of anything, except that they don’t know it yet. Ok, hand up in shame, I have, in the past, been obviously  surprised when someone didn’t know something but, over the last few years, I’ve worked really hard to curb it and try to be positive and informative, rather than being a schmuck.

After all, when I was a wine making student, a Microbiology PhD student sneered at me, quite effectively, because I didn’t know how to prepare a certain type of sample. The fact that I had never been shown, it hadn’t been a pre-requisite, and that it was actually his job to show me apparently eluded him on the day. Net result? 10 years later I remember being made to feel small but I still don’t remember how to prepare that sample.

I know what it’s like when someone decides to feel superior through exclusivity, rather than get a kick out of sharing the knowledge. Even if it wasn’t my job, even if knowledge sharing wasn’t something I enjoyed, even if it wasn’t the only ethically defensible choice – I should still be doing the right thing because I know what it’s like to be on the other side.

Thanks again, Randall, for a potted summary, in fun cartoon form, to remind us what it means to not be a schmuck.

How the Internet Works: For You and On You

Posted: April 7, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Education | Tags: , , , , , , | 1 Comment

I would link to a recent April 1st post on Randall Munroe’s XKCD (it’s http://www.xkcd.com/1037/ if you need to know) but I can’t because I’m not sure what you’ll see when you get there and some of the possible images are not safe for work. The theme of his post is umwelt, the notion that your perception of your own world is highly personal, influenced by your previous experiences and the lens that you have on your environment.

This is the image I see now – using my default browser. It is, very much, what you make of it. (I attribute the image to XKCD, but I can’t link to it for obvious reasons.)

A well? The Ring? The Sun? Your perception of what this mean depends on your senses, your experiences and your world to date.

Some people saw images of unlikely earthquakes. Some saw images of groups being stalked by velociraptors – but only when they elongated their screens enough to see everything on the page. Serving military saw a supportive post that encouraged them to keep an eye on the missiles. Panels adjusted based on who you were, which browser you used, where you were, even what size screen you used.

How did this work? Your browser provides a great deal of information as to what it is, to allow sites to adjust for browser variation. At the same time, the Internet Protocol (IP) address of your computer, the address that other computers use to get to it, gives away your location and your organisation. That’s why students at MIT got MIT jokes and people in Israel got an XKCD comic in Hebrew.

I can’t think of a better way to introduce students to the idea that gazing into the abyss also involves the abyss gazing into you. There are two great summary pages here (Reddit) and here (Google document).

This is the Internet and it’s ubiquitous. This is a great way to discuss the amount of information that is being sent back by every browser, from every platform. The amount of information that can be obtained by underlying systems that most people are unaware of.

For me, what I found most amusing is that a friend sent the link of the image to me saying “Hey, Voight Kampf test” (from Blade Runner) and I saw a picture of something completely different and thought my friend was mad. That’s something else to talk about – what it would mean if information itself mutated depended on who you were and where you were.