The Texas Textbook Wars

Posted on March 10, 2010 by The End of Linearity

There is an interesting discussion underway on the “Texas Textbook Wars” over at FoxNews.com. Of course, when one posts a comment in these sorts of online venues, one always runs the risk of the emotional response to a substantive post.  However, there is also the probing question, though, that deserves more attention, which is why I am making a more thorough answer to one of those questions here at theendoflinearity.

My original post went as follows:

Of course, the really interesting part of this debate is the topics that are just under the surface. In a world of iPads, Kindles and digital content, we are still talking about books! In the era of Encyclopedia Britannica, “content” was static because it was printed on paper, and it was not cost effective to print more than every 7 or 8 years. The content was never static; the delivery and production mechanisms were.

In a world of Wikipedia, content can now be more dynamic, because the costs to deliver it are dramatically reduced. Think about it. If there is a mistake in Britannica, it will take years to have it corrected. If there is a mistake at Wikipedia, it can be fixed in seconds. Even better, debates like this one can have all of the arguments available to students, not just the conclusion. Facts like 1+1=2 are easy to validate; other “facts” are bit more challenging to nail down firmly.

Please check out these two posts for much longer expositions on the real battles we should be fighting over textbooks: Learning to Read – Books or Words? Beyond Schools: A Foundation for Education in the 21st Century.

The more useful question (the other one told me I had a lot to learn) went like this:

i agree with you but this also means that what they dont want us to see can be rewritten just as easy

As I commented in the thread at FoxNews, Continue reading →

Posted in Education | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Reweaving the Fabric of the Internet

Posted on February 10, 2010 by The End of Linearity

Weaving is an art practiced since ancient times.  Fragments of fabric dating to 5000 B.C. mean  this art pre-dates the fabrication of papyrus in 3000 B.C. in Egypt.  The art of weaving, its cultural and economic ecosystem, and the tremendous volume of innovation over the centuries that stems from weaving  make for an apt and powerful analogy to understand the potential of the next phase of Internet and economic development.

In weaving, threads and yarns are essential. Threads are hooked to the physical loom, converting them into warp threads.  Each warp thread passes through a heddle, which lifts and lowers the warp threads, creating a shed. The shed allows the weft thread to pass back and forth through the warp threads on a shuttle to create fabric.

Over time, looms become faster and mechanically driven and their complexity increased.   Continue reading →

Posted in Internet | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Set the Default to Open

Posted on January 22, 2010 by The End of Linearity

Nowhere is the end of linearity more important than our individual rights, and Set the Default to Open takes a new look at this issue from both a legal and technology perspective.

From the introduction to the article in the forthcoming Texas Review of Law and Politics, Volume 14, Issue 1:

Rugged individualism and religious and economic freedom are among the most important factors that have contributed to the growth of U.S. global power and prestige and the welfare of its citizens since the founding of the original colonies. The trajectory of freedom has not always been smooth; however, the United States has remained a powerful example of the benefits and resilience of constitutional democracy. It has weathered a civil war and two world wars, grown from the shores of the Atlantic to the northern reaches of the Pacific, become a global economic and technological powerhouse, and even treated the great wound of slavery.

In the midst of this success the underlying tension in constitutional democracy—the force behind U.S. power and prestige—has the capacity to muddle the national vision. Tension between individual rights and the state is not new. It stretches from antiquity to the Renaissance to the modern world. The U.S. Constitution represents an attempt to codify the social contract between the government and its citizens in an enduring document that supports a functioning government and society. Continue reading →

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Learning to Read – Books or Words?

Posted on April 16, 2009 by The End of Linearity

An interesting debate is unfolding in the Texas Legislature and with concerned citizens organizations regarding the funding of textbooks for our school children. Textbook funding is faced with a 25% cut and approval as a contingency rider, as opposed to its traditional budgeting in the TEA baseline.

Books for kids… That one is always guaranteed to create a deep and emotional response. I’m just old enough to not be a GenXer but just young enough to not be a baby boomer. Regretfully, this still means that I am old… and old enough to love a good book. Continue reading →

Posted in Education | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Recession, Recovery or Great Reorienting

Posted on March 10, 2009 by The End of Linearity

Paul Wilkinson, former senior advisor to Chairman Cox at the SEC teases out some very interesting thoughts in his recent blog post on A Great Recovery (http://paulwilkinson.com/2009/03/08/why-not-a-great-recovery/)?

As I think through Paul’s comments and the scenario in which we find our economy today, I can’t help but be struck by the following thought. When our economy transitioned from an agrarian society to an industrial one, what did a citizen in the UK, the United States and so many other countries think was occurring? Continue reading →

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There is no There There on the Internet

Posted on June 24, 2008 by The End of Linearity

I am at the Personal Democracy Forum in NYC, and as the many great panels and conversations unfold, I realized that I needed to post some of my recent conversations around social networking into the public sphere.

As more and more of us tap into destination sites like FaceBook, LinkedIn and MySpace, it is critical to understand that like email, these types of all-in-one sites are very unInternet.

The most critical aspect of the Internet is that there is no there there. Continue reading →

Posted in Internet | 4 Comments

Beyond Schools: A Foundation for Education in the 21st Century

Posted on April 4, 2008 by The End of Linearity

In late 2006, I had the pleasure of drafting an article on the future of education for the Texas Lyceum. At the Lyceum’s fall conference, “Harnessing the Lightening: Economic Growth Opportunities for Texas,” the fall journal presented a series of articles pertinent to this topic, including mine on education.

The following link is to Richard Florida’s Creativity Exchange, where the article is posted for downloading. Richard was a keynote speaker at the conference and blogged on my article:

http://creativeclass.typepad.com/thecreativityexchange/2006/11/beyond_schools.html

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Networked Content, Networked Communities, Empowered People

Posted on March 31, 2008 by The End of Linearity

This past Friday, I had the pleasure of being a guest lecturer for a Digital Media class in the Department of Advertising at the University of Texas at Austin. The class is deep into the semester and about to begin their semester project, fusing Web 2.0 and social networks. This is a topic that is close to my heart and one I enjoyed sharing some thoughts on.

Professor Gene Kincaid has assigned excerpts from The ClueTrain Manifesto, a book that has driven much of my thinking regarding the Internet over the past several years. In the context of Digital Media and advertising, it could not be a better text. Its focus on ‘conversations’ captures the essence of marketing and the power of evolving social networks and Web 2.0. Continue reading →

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