I Speak of Dreams

Cell phone rudeness or a generational difference?

The other day I carpooled to and from an event with a married couple who are 30 years younger than I am.  I was looking forward to the drive because I'm quite fond of both the husband and the wife, and I don't get to visit with them often. 

The husband drove.  On the way up, the wife sat in the back and spent most of the trip on her cell phone, arranging a weekend event for their family.  Because she was in the back, I could kind of shut out her end of the cell phone conversation.  I  didn't feel like it would be intrusive to chat with the husband so I was able to have a long conversation with him.

On the way back, the wife sat in the front seat and spent most of the trip on her cell phone with a friend she sees several times a week, talking about several issues the friend was having.  I didn't feel like I should carry on a conversation with the husband, because it would intrude on the wife's cell phone conversation.

I realized the next day that I was a bit put out with the wife, who (in my view) found it more important to talk with friends she sees every week than to talk with me.

I expressed this feeling to my daughter (who also knows and likes the couple) and her view was that it was a generational difference.  The wife wasn't being rude at all.

Then I ran across this article at Discover Magazine:

How many yakking people does it take to drive you freaking nuts? Not two. Not three. Researchers say it only takes one–if they’re talking to someone else you can’t hear.

So maybe it isn't rude, but it is danged distracting

College Professor on Teaching Online Classes

I'll Never Do It Again - Chronicle.com.

This much I can say with certainty: I have years of experience successfully teaching in collegiate classrooms, and online teaching doesn't compare. So I'll just chalk up my first and only venture to experience and make my way back to the traditional academy. Here are five reasons why.

I have taken one online class and one "hybrid" (some lecture, mostly online) class and I must say I do not get as much out of them as a live, face-to-face class. I haven't done a teleconferencing class. I'll let you know when I do. Update: Amy Williams tweeted these comments

Ha. I maintain that ftf teaching and online teaching are two different skill sets. Some instructors have both; some don't. I might add I've taught ftf for 20 years, and online and hybrid for 13 years. :)

Phoenix Police Raid Blogger's Home

In April, 2008, an anonymous blogger started a website, Bad Phoenix Cops, and a companion blog,  Bad Phoenix Cops:

We intend to share all the ineptitude and lies within the Phoenix Police Department under Chief Jack Harris and his management team.

This is where you will able to post messages and read the posts of citizens and even fellow Phoenix PD.

It was eventually revealed that the blog owner was Jeff Pataky.  After Pataky filed a suit against the PD,  the Phoenix PD raided the blogger's house while he was away, handcuffing a guest who was there, and removing files and computer equipment. Pataky said,

"They took everything," said Pataky, 41, a Phoenix software consultant. "They even took my personal photos and iTunes music. Since when does a citizen's home get raided for something like this?"

According to the search warrant issued on Mar. 9 by Maricopa County Judge Gary E. Donahue, there was probable cause to support that Pataky allegedly committed the following public offenses:

- "computer tampering, a class 5 felony"

- "theft, controls property of another knowing or having reason to know that the property was stolen, a class 1 misdemeanor."

Phoenix Assistant Chief Andy Anderson said the harassment case [against Pataky] is unique because of the connection to an unaccredited grassroots Web site. He said the blog is one part of the case, though he did not provide specifics of the ongoing investigation.

"This isn't about the blog," Anderson said. "That's just where the investigation led."

Texting While Driving? If You Hurt Someone, Jail Time for You

A Shingletown woman was sentenced Friday [April 3 2009]  to six years in prison after being convicted last month of gross vehicular manslaughter for ramming into the back of a car in 2007 while texting on a cell phone.

Misogyny on the Web--Still Here: SXSWi Panel

I haven't written about cyberbullying, online mis-conduct, and related issues for a while. It isn't that the issue is unimportant, just more pressing things to talk about.

There was a panel at SXSWi:

That's Not My Name: Beating Down Misogyny Online

This panel explores the complex and violent ways that women are treated online, specifically feminists when they speak publicly about politics. Presenting some of the lead feminist voices on the internet we will discuss and share our war stories while offering tips for how to survive the anti-feminist internet.

Liz Henry liveblogged the panel. 

I still think that what Dorothea Salo said in 2007 is strong:

But the cycle can be broken. It just has to be broken by men....

So here is what you do, if you’re a man wanting to help. You say, “Um, was that supposed to be funny? Because, not laughing here.” You say, “Hey, could we not use that phrase? I don’t like it.” You say to the main perpetrators, in IRC whispers or private email or whatever, “Hey, would you mind toning down the jokes? That kind of talk really bothers me.”

The key here is to express that the demeaning of women bothers you, you personally.

Previous Posts

• Blog Civility  December 22, 2005
• Take Back the Blog April 2007
• Blogs Can Talk Past Each Other April 14, 2006
• Blog Civility: Online Integrity Pledge May 6, 2006
• Rudeness  February 6 2006
• Craig Weller's Civility in Conflict  April 11 2006
• The Death of Civility January 17 2006
• How To Disagree Online Without Being Disagreeable April 30 2006
• Smart or Happy?  July 3 2004
• Laura at Apt 11D: Disagree or Attack? July 3 2004
• Polarization and Moving the Middle December 4 2004
• My Blogging Principles  December 4 2005

Previous commentary and other folks' work:

• Outline of How To Disagree Without Being Disagreeable
• Blog Civility
• Making An Effective Complaint
• Nancy White: Blog Civility
• Brad Warthen's Civility Posts
• Praxis101: Civility Wiki
• Kathy Sierra: Are "Nice" and "Honest" Mutually Exclusive?
• Kevin Drum: Blog Civility
• Jane Galt: Kevin Drum's Blog Civility
• PubliusTX: Kevin Drum's Blog Civility
• Mike Reed's Flame Warriors
• Teresa Nielsen Hayden: Some things I know about moderating conversations in virtual space
• Dorothea Salo: What Some Folks Can Do, If They Choose

The Long Saga of Julie Amero: Free but Still A Victim--Of Cyberbullying by the Police Officer in the Case

Julie Amero was the Connecticut substitute teacher whose classroom computer was taken over by malware. The response was not to fire the school's IT administrator, but to charge Ms. Amero with felony child endangerment.

Guilty: Lori Drew

Update Apophenia

It doesn't bring Megan Meier back to her family.  But maybe the verdict will give others pause.

"Lori Drew decided to humiliate a child," U.S. Attorney Thomas O'Brien, chief federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, told the jury during closing arguments. "The only way she could harm this pretty little girl was with a computer. She chose to use a computer to hurt a little girl, and for four weeks she enjoyed it."

O'Brien, who pronounced the case the nation's first cyberbullying trial, said the jury's decision sent a worthy message: "If you have children who are on the Internet and you are not watching what they are doing, you better be."

Update:

The New York Times, Nov. 26, 2008

Backstory:

• Nordette, November 2007:  When Should Cyberbullying be A Crime?
• danah boyd, December 2007: Who Is To Blame for Megan Meier's Suicide
• Karoli, November 2007: Charge Lori Drew with Child Abuse
• Karoli, December 2007: Lori Drew Poses as Victim
• I Speak of Dreams: Lori Drew: A Disgusting Mother

Unfounded Assumptions Lead To Bad Problem Solving: Teens, Online Behavior, Sex, and Age-Verification Technology

If your child is online--if your child uses social networking software such as MySpace--is he or she at great risk from being solicited for sex by a predatory adult? 

Some parents think so, but as Larry Magid reports

Drawing from several surveys and studies, all the researchers said the risk of a child being forced into sex from an online predator is almost non-existant.

It's in today's Digital Crossroads column, Larry reports on the recent meeting of the Internet Safety Technical Taskforce (ISTT), featuring  the research of  Michelle Ybarra, Janis Wolak, Amanda Lenhart, and Dana Boyd.  Please read Larry's whole column for a detailed and nuanced report on teens, sex, and online behavior.

The impetus behind the task force is to mandate age-verification for internet sites, to protect children from adult predators.  But if  the problem isn't that children are being approached by adults for sexual purposes--is that the appropriate response?

You should go read Larry's whole column

Attention Parents: Is Your Girl on MySpace? Watch Out for the Pink Patch

 

The Pink Patch's advertising:  Want to lose those pesky 5 lbs? Want to make your skinny jeans your regular jeans? Then get Skinny with the New Pink Diet Patch! A weight loss solution created by women and for women like you.

Ads for the Pink Patch are plastered all over MySpace.

From The Blog that Ate Manhatten: The Pink Patch--Irresponsible Advertising on MySpace

The Pink Patch is blatantly marketed to teens and young women, with slogans like "Be the envy of every girl you know", and comments about dining hall food and term paper stress.

Of course, you need a credit card to buy the Pink Patch, which limits its availability to older teens and college age girls. Fortunately, that's just the market they're going after.

Yes, this is America, and yes the FDA has no regulatory power over herbal products such as the Pink Patch.

But MySpace's central place in teen culture imparts a responsibility to its owners to act responsibly in choosing advertisers. I notice there are no liquor or tobacco ads. They know that this would just not fly.

Parents, talk to your daughters about the uselessness (and possible risks) of the Pink Patch.  You might want to read the ads with them and point out how they are preying on women's body-image issues.

Unless you are one of those parents who would use the Pink Patch yourself.

Another Post on Homework: When Is An Online Study Group Cheating? -- The Chris Avenir Story

Chris Avenir is a freshman at Ryerson University (Toronto, Canada), studying computer engineering.  He was enrolled in a chemistry class last fall, in which the professor assigned problem sets (online?  Through Blackboard or its equivalent?) which students were required to complete individually.

Avenir became part of an on-line study group through Facebook, eventually becoming the moderator.

As this Ryerson graduate said, it isn't unusual for college students to form study groups:

I recall studying, night after night, with three students. We teamed up to solve the homework problems. Every Ryerson engineering student was part of a similar group. No one could have solved the problems by themselves.

It makes sense.  A student has so much work in the engineering program that teamwork is a necessity.

As Avenir described the kind of interaction that went on in the group, it certainly sounded like any face-to-face study group:

"So we each would be given chemistry questions and if we were having trouble, we'd post the question and say: `Does anyone get how to do this one? I didn't get it right and I don't know what I'm doing wrong.' Exactly what we would say to each other if we were sitting in the Dungeon" [a study area used by engineering student] said Avenir yesterday.

However, the professor teaching the chemistry course ran across the study group on Facebook and reacted quite strongly:

[Avenir] had earned a B in the class, but after the professor discovered the Facebook group over the holidays, the mark was changed to an F. The professor reported the incident to the school's student conduct officer and recommended expulsion.

Avenir was charged with one count of academic misconduct and 146 counts of enabling academic misconduct -- one for each of the students belonging to the Facebook group.  Not one other member of the Facebook group was charged.

On March 11, Avenir's case was heard before a faculty body.

News reports indicate that the professor "stipulated the online homework questions were to be done independently".  However,  it is not clear how rigorous the requirement was.  Could a student be tutored?  Doesn't the tutor reteach material the student is confused about?  If the tutor spots a math error in the student's solution to a chemistry problem -- is it "cheating" for the tutor to point out the student's error?

Was Avenir cheating, or just using a study group?  Were other members of the group cheating?  Why was Avenir the only one punished?