Inside View: Recent Episodes
Bernard Goldbach
Looking inside technology and social media through Bernard Goldbach's perspective as a journalist and college lecturer.
I AM COUNTING down the number of Mondays remaining in my university teaching career and with around four dozen Mondays on my academic schedule I've started thinking about what I will leave behind and who would be interested in the remnants of 25 years of my teaching on the same campus. I'm journaling these thoughts as part of an enjoyable secondary learning experience (something I learned from Mark Guerin of Leargas).
I reckon the small building holding eight classrooms that are viewable through the red anchor on campus will still be standing well beyond its useful life. And the information technology infrastructure will keep ticking over. In fact, the IT services will undoubtedly improve while the building's roof continues to leak.
It's those IT services that concern me--in a good way. I've uploaded and refined more than a terabyte of high quality academic material onto the campus SharePoint services. I can search that material with standard finder tools as well as with Microsoft Copilot's large language library. But since the Office Graph has not been enabled for our information services, it's unusual for anyone to serendipitously discover what I'm teaching. And that means very little cross-modular collaboration between lecturers and researchers.
Invisible Legacy with Office Graph Shut OffI've often wondered if I should petition Science Foundation Ireland for PhD funding to study this shortfall in academic institutions. I know that most items I express about Creative Commons sharing through Open Education Resources falls on deaf ears. And I also know there's a hornet's nest just underneath any discussion about ownership of academic materials. These are some of the sentiments underpinning the reason for limited discovery of emerging material across all the higher level academic institutions in Ireland.
Knowing these deep-seated sentiments, I wonder if I can ever hope to leave behind a polished legacy. This is the idea I'm sharing with the Congregation Unconference discussion about Legacy in November 2024.
The Legacy of Critical Thinking and CreativityOne of the most significant moments of my teaching career happened when I was politely moved well off the firing line as a lecturer in 2023. Thanks to the personable intervention of Marie Walsh, I got a chance to explore a Special Advanced Programme about Critical Thinking. It involved a week-long session on the campus of Polytechnic Leiria in Portugal. While in workshops with students from seven different countries, I had several opportunities to learn how to think critically while formulating creative solutions. Some fellow students commended me for showing them how to think outside of the box. When this happened, I felt recognised for one of my legacy skills while also realising I have not carved out a thought space for this important skill set. And perhaps that failure to enjoy the spotlight will be burned into my legacy.
The Legacy of Just ReadingSince she was three, I've been inspired by watching Mia (now 16) read. Perhaps Mia picked up some of her love of reading by watching her mom and dad read more books than screens. But as I write this, I realise I should be a better role model.
I've written about the importance of learning how to read better and have shared personal insights on enhancing reading skills. One of my daily routines involves reading things I've highlighted, using a service called Readwise.
And perhaps my legacy should be simply advocating the joy of reading. It's something that would help my 13 year old son in school as he tries to compensate for poor reading scores.
So as I scroll through other contributions made by people who will attend the Congregation 24 Unconference, I'll bring a few books to be left behind in the various meeting venues around the town. I'll write my name inside the front cover of the books so people will know they're touching part of my legacy as I highlight and share some words on pages I hope others will read too.
[Bernie Goldbach has 55 Mondays remaining as a third level lecturer in Ireland.]
by Bernie Goldbach in Leiria, Portugal
TODAY I WATCHED Dylan (above) control several computer programs by just using his eyes in the Centre for Digital Inclusion (CRID) on the campus of Polytechnic Leiria. Several of the programs were very challenging for Dylan since his right eye is weaker than his left eye.
I hope Dylan makes a full report in an upcoming Topgold Newsletter and on his podcast. You can sign up for the newsletter below.
[Bernie Goldbach is planning a Special Advanced Programme with Polytechnic Leiria.]
accessibility
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
ON THE DAY Donald Trump was shot in my home state of Pennsylvania, I remember several C-141 flights when we took Secret Service teams aboard our aircraft in support of the President of the United States. We often had a comfort pallet like the one in the photo.
Some of the Secret Service teams were CS (Counter Sniper) specialists. They could carry all their gear on our military aircraft. I remember watching one of the guys cleaning his bolt action Remington 700. It had a suppressor on it and he had a box of .300 Winchester Magnum rounds. I once saw that weapon on a firing range and it had a substantial recoil when the sniper was dialing in a target nearly 800 meters away. These were not off-the-shelf rifles.
Inside our comfort pallets the Secret Service team members would often compare satellite imagery to venues. They would use grease pencils to encircle 100, 200, and 300 yard threat perimeters. Once they knew where they would be positioned they wouldn't have to worry about milling-out their weapons because they would have dialed in their scopes with their range finders and wind analyses.
In the 1980s when I was actively flying these kinds of support missions, I learned about the Minutes of Angle computation used by snipers. A standard rifle has one MOA which means a shooter should expect to get a one inch grouping when 100 yards from a target. An average male target is 25x40 which is a large target.
While earning a Marksmanship ribbon while a cadet at the USAF Academy I remember an instructor explain how he specified a Hollow-T target preference. He had survived a tour in Vietnam and had very graphic explanations about how body armor couldn't prevent fatal injuries related to head shots.
Setting Up Protective CoverThere will be inquiries about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Many of these public hearings will involve Kimberly Cheatle, director of the Secret Service. Something failed in the tiered and layer protection strategy at the Butler Township Farm Show Grounds. If the tiered and layered approach of a protective detail is done correctly, a threat should not get within a kilometer of a candidate. But lots of resources and command structures have to be put in place for protection to be improved. And if I remember correctly, top tier protective details do not roll into place until a national Presidential candidate has been nominated by established party structures.
In the case of Trump's mid-July campaign stop in Pennsylvania, protection of the middle tier surrounding the main stage is delegated to local law enforcement, probably the Butler Township police.
Looking at Google Earth of the Trump Campaign Rally, it appears that 18 buildings would have clear line of sight to the stage on which Donald Trump was speaking. And on one of those buildings, a man was bear crawling up the roof with a rifle on his back as Trump started speaking.
Threats AheadThe New York Times surveyed Americans about what they thought about political violence. Ten per cent of those surveyed believed the use of force is justified to prevent a candidate from assuming office. And one third of those responding owned guns.
The shooting of Donald Trump reverberated around the world. At the same time, politicians in Ireland receive bomb threats and verbal intimidation. The CEO of Rheinmetall in Germany has been threatened because of his company's production of artillery rounds. And the prime minister of Slovakia has been shot. Across all nationalities, people need to think about dialing down their abusive comments and threatening behaviour.
[Bernie Goldbach has flown more than 3000 flying hours, nearly 1000 of those hours in a C-141.]
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
AFTER THREE MONTHS of hard use, I can unreservedly recommend the DJI Osmo Pocket 3 as a primary tool for mobile journalism.
I bought the camera and its accompanying DJI Wireless Mic II from Harvey Norman in Waterford after discovering DJI wasn't stocking Whelan Cameras in Limerick fast enough. I got the extremely stable Manfrotto mini tripod from Whelans years ago but they don't sell it anymore so there's Amazon for a fast delivery option.
Here's a breakdown on the equipment.
DJI Osmo Pocket 3 Camera costs €585 from Harvey Norman or Amazon
DJI Wireless Mic 2 costs €359 from Whelan Cameras
Manfrotto Mini Tripod costs €39 from Amazon
The DJI Osmo Pocket 3 runs out of stock quickly and that might mean new adopters may need to purchase it as part of the Creator Combo.
The Creator Combo wasn't available in Ireland when I purchased the DJI Osmo Pocket 3 by itself. I need the battery handle that complements the Osmo Pocket 3. That 950mAh battery extends the camera's operating time by approximately 62%. It also supports hot swapping and has a USB-C port for connecting external audio devices. And I will need the Pocket 3 carrying bag because the camera moves around in my shoulder bag even when snapped into its plastic case. So I've made a wishlist that specifies these additional accessories with things like a wide-angle lens and camera filters.
If you want to get inside info about how Dylan and I create content that attracts more than 1000 views, please subscribe to my Create and Share Newsletter. We use the Osmo Pocket 3 camera to produce YouTube clips such as interview with Amy in our favourite chipper below.
[Bernie Goldbach teaches creative media production on the Clonmel Digital Campus of the Technological University of the Shannon].
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
MY ANDROID PHONE needs a factory reset. It's more than five years old, has a cracked screen and a worn charging port, and its battery is well-worn.
I watch it go from being fully charged to less than 10 per cent power in three hours. It feels very warm to touch. I think I have rogue app that's causing a problem so I'm looking at either a factory reset followed by restoring the phone's services from its saved settings in the cloud. I wouldn't mind losing all the images and videos stored in the phone's memory.
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
I'VE STARTED MOST MORNINGS with prompts to my favourite AI. Today I asked Mem.ai to guide me in a process that ensured the results of my questions would include trustworthy evidence from high quality sources. Its first set of answers drilled down into my personal knowledge management (PKM) system.
Because I had included ideas about workflows that incorporate note-taking techniques, Mem shared some observations worth considering.I teach students that they need to incorporate note-taking techniques into their interactions with their personal knowledge management systems. In my opinion, this is a powerful way to educate whatever AI service you select because this workflow helps to ensure results are based on trustworthy evidence from high quality sources.
In my work with university students, I know there is rampant usage of AI tools. So here are the processes I use to ensure there's a human at the other end of the computer screen:
Source VerificationI insist on seeing verified sources. High-quality sources often include academic journals, reputable news outlets, and government publications.
Critical ThinkingI teach fundamentals of prompt engineering to my advanced students. By refining prompts, students learn to critically think about the information provided by the AI. This includes questioning the source of the information, the methodology used to obtain it, and the credibility of the 'expertise' if the information is based on expert opinion.
Iterative QuestioningIf you want to explore nuances embedded in the results served by an AI, you need to ask follow-up questions to dig deeper into the topic. This can help uncover more detailed and accurate information.
Note-TakingNot only do I take written notes on the information provided by the AI, I normally write down key points in my Travelers Notebook and then use the OCR capability inside my Readwise app to inject these core discoveries back into my PKM. This reinforces my corpus of information and also provides a record of the information for future reference.
I'm glad that I never abandoned a requirement for students to keep a personal Media Writing Journal. There are some high quality nuggets in the journals I'm currently reviewing and I plan to capture the best content with Readwise so students next year can benefit from workflow that revolves around personal note-taking.
Bonus LinkDigital Transformation Photos
[Bernie Goldbach teaches digital transformation on the Clonmel Digital Campus. The photo at the top was snapped at the Grow Remote Summit in 2023.]
AI
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
DURING MY 3000 FLYING HOURS I vividly remember two occasions when we were cleared to land on a runway that was occupied by another aircraft or by a vehicle. In both cases, I didn't see the conflict but a crew member sitting in the jump seat pointed out the problem.
Knowing this, I believe the JAL crew landing their Airbus on Flight 516 in Haneda yesterday didn't see anything on the runway as they prepared to land with clearance.
The Japan Airlines aircraft caught fire after it landed on top of a Dash 8 turboprop. All 367 passengers and 12 crew members on the JAL flight evacuated their Airbus A350 but five crew members in the Coast Guard turboprop plane that was on the landing runway passed away.I saw some footage recorded inside the Airbus as it was careening down the runway. Flight attendants were yelling in Japanese, urging passengers to evacuate. An eerie orange glow burned outside the windows of the aircraft as the evacuation slides were activated.
The cabin crew proved their professionalism as they evacuated all 367 passengers and 12 crew members safely within 90 seconds. That was remarkable as was the fact that the collision did not sever hydraulic lines or critical electrical cables while the aircrew was trying to control the Airbus while landing.
The root cause of this accident has not been decreed but I've listened to the Air Traffic Control audio recordings and the JAL crew received two clearances to land during their five mile final approach. Two aircraft are not supposed to be on the same patch of concrete while an aircraft is landing.
As an instructor pilot in the T-38, I flew in the back seat with significantly reduced visibility. Landing on an unfamiliar civilian airport always concerned me because the T-38 has to maintain a nose-high attitude through approach and landing.
WHILE READING CHRISTMAS newspapers and scrolling through Threads, I can verify that Elon Musk's X is failing to sustain a platform where free speech can thrive. The platform is dying.From The Sunday Business Post:
One of the main differences is that it no longer appears to have a functioning business model, with scores of advertisers deserting it due to the policies enacted by one of the world's most successful businessmen.As our investigation reveals today, X's new rules allow users to post violent speech and lies related to the Israel-Hamas war, without any enforcement being taken against their accounts.We also show how users were able to spew hate during the Dublin riots, and how X advised its content moderators not to suspend them.The revelations help explain what many X users have been complaining about since Musk acquired the company that the platform is, now more than ever, a place where hateful and abusive people can go without fear of sanction.They also bring to life the behind-the-scenes decisions that have prompted many advertisers to flee X - something Musk himself has admitted could kill the company outright.Musk, a freespeech absolutist, is ultimately the owner of a company funded by advertisers.From a commercial perspective, then, Musk's policies and his personal behaviour on the platform have clearly damaged X's ability to perform its main commercial function.But the questions raised by the Business Post's investigation are more substantial than the efficacy of the company's business model.X is a platform with an enormous global impact and the way it polices content can have ramifications for the fabric of society.The European Commission, with its Digital Services Act, wants to make this clear to organisations like X - which is why it has launched formal proceedings against the company.Social media platforms - as well as governments and regulators - have been grappling with how and where to define the limits on free speech, and how to translate this into healthy digital spaces, for more than 20 years.If you allow people to post lies that can go halfway around the world in minutes, then you are going to create a space where people who want to propagate hate and falsehoods feel emboldened.Ahead of a year of crucial elections around the world, it's urgent that we have a conversation about why so much false and foul material is appearing on social media - and why X, one of the world's most important online platforms, is allowing it to spread.
Source: "We need to talk about X and the damage it is doing", The Sunday Business Post in Ireland, December 24, 2023. Image from Ann Handler.[Bernie Goldbach teaches digital transformation for the Technological University of the Shannon.]
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
I'M FLIPPING BACK through 2023 and pointing to 12 items that deserve special mention. I discovered each of them have landed inside several online camera rolls where I can see what was happening around the same time these significant events occurred. The most memorable of the dozen items involve people.
Dylan Took the MicDylan (12) has been walking around the house with a mic in his hands since he turned five. It's been a natural progression for him to add video recordings to his skill set. Several of his video interviews gained more than 1000 views, including his review of the Clonmel Sports Hub.
Digital Transformation
I started teaching classes in digital transformation and ended in a new (yet comfortable) thought space. I have totally integrated generative artificial intelligence into my workflow. My core technology is Mem.ai, a service I'm using to cross-check the validity of this blog post. I pay to use Magisto, a video production software as a service owned by Vimeo.
Consulting with fellow lecturers, I surveyed several AI-enhanced image editors that I used with text prompts to create photos from real people such as the one in this paragraph. If you follow my blog, you might be interested in how a wide variety of students interpret "digital transformation" by the images and short descriptions that they share in the Flickr Digital Transformation Group.
Journaling with TN
I enjoy the routine of journaling and this year I converted from Leuchtturm 1917 hard covers to soft cover B6 format Traveler's Notebooks. The TN format is smaller which means the journals fit easier in my pannier bags or in the Tumi messenger bag that I carry everywhere.
I lost one month worth of my notebook when I left it behind on an Irish train and since that time, I've promised myself to keep line items of each page in my Obsidian digital notebook. I add content in Markdown format to my Obsidian database by using my five year old Samsung Note 9 or a three year old Microsoft Surface Book.
Hosting Friends from America
It's always a big day when friends from America visit. In May 2023, Huck Donovan and Thomasine Sahd reset their COVID travel plans and dropped into County Tipperary enroute to the O'Donovan ancestral home in County Cork.
I hope to host a crew of my high school graduating class before the end of the decade. I know we would have a blast remembering times past. And a large cross-section of graduates from Lancaster Catholic High School can trace their roots to Ireland.
Leargas and Erasmus
I attended several Application Clinics hosted by Leargas in 2023 but I haven't made an application--yet. I hope to co-ordinate with two other European collaborators and produce a series of intergenerational conversations with young people interviewing elders in their communities.
Fibre Broadband
It took six attempts to connect our home to fibre broadband but we got gigabit speed in time for the new academic year. And then we didn't connect Vodafone TV service until December, in time for New Year's Eve parties.
Proud of Mia
We watched Mia turn 16, earn five distinctions in her Junior Cert, and start a part-time job. If she can continue focusing on academic achievements, she will have a wide assortment of options for higher education.
Grow Remote in Clonmel
I've become a chapter lead for Grow Remote Ireland. The Clonmel group doesn't have an activity level that the community deserves. But the national organising committee is strong, focused, and willing to help South Tipperary show people the importance of working remotely and in hybrid versions in the 2020s.
RUN-EU
The Regional Universities Europe is a relatively new grouping and TUS.ie is a lead partner. I attended a Short Advanced Programme (SAP) about Critical Thinking in Portugal and got motivated to see if I can spin up a similar offering in Ireland.
My current collaboration is with Filipe Santos in Polytechnic Leiria. We hope to launch a "Building a Second Brain" SAP to run in September 2024.
Best Ever Graduates
I worked with the Digital Animation Class of 2023 from start to finish and then attended their graduation ceremony in Limerick. They shared their energy and creativity with me from COVID through film studies and during break-out sessions. I sincerely doubt that we will see another creative collective with their group dynamic until their children arrive on campus.
Friends In Person
Only after connecting over coffee with a group of friends I used to see on a daily basis did I realise how important the person-to-person connection is. During the run-up to Christmas, I squeezed in change meetings with Darragh Doyle (pictured), Larry Maguire, Dermot Casey, and Kevin O'Rourke.
It's the personal connections that often yield the strongest professional collaborations. I plan to prove this point during the next 12 months by following through with a series of plans involving each of these four men. And as I write these words, I realise (1) there are strong women who should be in this mix of collaborative energy and (2) none of those I cited here are local. I am not ignoring local talent and need to pay a visit to Skypaper to ensure we're still sharing the same motivations.
Meta View
The latest technology to grace my life comes from Meta in the form of Ray-ban Wayfarer glasses. I snapped a shot of mine on the table.
I hope Dylan and I can make content with the two sets of glasses while he interviews people for his YouTube channel.
If you've read this far, please consider sharing a memory you cherish from 2023 by commenting to me @topgold on Threads.
[Bernie Goldbach teaches digital transformation on the Clonmel Digital Campus for the Technological University of the Shannon. Follow Dylan's creativity by searching Google for #littlebitoftipp]
Timeline
WHILE READING MAX READ in the New York Times Opinion section, my thoughts go out to all the millennials who have passed through my social networking classes.
Here's what Max Read shared in the NYT:
For my entire professional life, I have started nearly every weekday morning with an extremely important productivity ritual: I make a coffee, I sit down at my computer, and I mess around on the internet for an hour or so. And, for most of my career as a writer, this has been an effortless task. I’ve had accounts on dozens of social networks, message boards and online communities thronging with similarly bored and truant peers, vibrant with creativity and delight. Or, at least, with tolerably decent jokes.
But recently I find the task of wasting time online increasingly onerous. The websites I used to depend on have gotten worse, and it seems as if there’s nowhere else to look. Twitter has been transformed under new management into an increasingly untenable social experiment called X. Instagram is evolving into a somehow-even-lower-rent TikTok, while TikTok itself continues to baffle and alienate me. Even Reddit, a stalwart last resort of time-wasting, briefly went dark in June during a sitewide revolt over new policies.
Something is changing about the internet, and I am not the only person to have noticed. Everywhere I turned online this year, someone was mourning: Amazon is “making itself worse” (as New Yorkmagazine moaned); Google Search is a “bloated and overmonetized” tragedy (as The Atlanticlamented); “social media is doomed to die,” (as the tech news website The Verge proclaimed); even TikTok is becoming “enjunkified” (to bowdlerize an inventive coinage of the sci-fi writer Cory Doctorow, republished in Wired). But the main complaint I have heard is was put best, and most bluntly, in The New Yorker: “The Internet Isn’t Fun Anymore.”
It’s indisputable that we are living through a transitional period in the short history of the internet. The end of the low interest-rate era has shaken up the economics of startups, ending rapid-growth practices like “blitzscaling” and reducing the number of new internet businesses vying for our attention; companies like Alphabet and Facebook are now mature and dominant businesses instead of disruptive upstarts. But I suspect there is another factor driving the alienation and discomfort felt by many of the people who feel as though the internet is dying before our eyes: We’re getting old.
For more than a decade now, millennials like myself have effectively (and, in the case of our cohort’s richest member, Mark Zuckerberg, quite literally) run the internet. We were the earliest adopters of smartphones and we once consistently (not that I’d brag about it) led the generational pack in screen time. Over that period we’ve grown used to an internet whose form and culture was significantly shaped by and molded to our preferences. The American internet of the 2010s was an often stupid and almost always embarrassing internet — but it was a millennial internet. There were no social networks on which we felt uncomfortable; no culture developments we didn’t engender; no image macros we didn’t understand.
This now seems to be changing. There was a time in my life when it was trivial to sign up to a new social network and pick up its patterns and mores on the fly. Now, I feel exhausted by the prospect.
Google Search and Amazon may have gotten worse in an absolute sense, but so too has my patience for finding stuff. Millennials are increasingly joined online and off by people who have never heard the sound of a modem handshake in their lives and never asked “a/s/l” in an AOL chat room. We’ve been used to wielding an innate understanding of the web’s capabilities and culture to our advantage; our knowledge of “how to search Google” and “how to use emoji” and “how to deploy the ‘Sarcastic Wonka’ meme,” which may once have given us an edge in multigenerational workplaces and social settings, is simply irrelevant to people younger than us.
According to the consumer research firm GWI, millennials’ screen time has been on a steady decline for years. Only 42 percent of 30- to 49-year-olds say they’re online “almost constantly,” compared to 49 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds. We’re no longer the earliest adopters, even: 18- to 29-year-olds are more likely to have used ChatGPT than 30- to 49-year-olds — though maybe only because we’re no longer being assigned homework.
These stats confirm what a brief survey of popular posts on TikTok or Instagram or X will already tell you: The heaviest users and most engaged American audience on the internet are no longer millennials but our successors in Generation Z. If the internet is no longer “fun” for millennials, it may simply be because it’s not our internet anymore. It belongs to zoomers now.
Zoomer internet is, at least on the surface, quite different than ours. The celebrities are unrecognizable (Kai Cenat???); the slang is impenetrable (gyatt???); the formats are new (GRWM???). Austerely tasteful overhead shots of meticulously arranged food posted on Instagram have been replaced with garishly lit minute-long videos of elaborate restaurant meals posted on TikTok. Glibly chatty blog posts about the news have been replaced with videos of recording sessions for podcasts. No wonder millennials feel so alienated — the language and terrain of the internet are now entirely foreign.
And yet zoomers — and the adolescents in Generation Alpha nipping at their generational heels — still seem to be having plenty of fun online. Even if I find it all inscrutable and a bit irritating, the creative expression and exuberant sociality that made the internet so “fun” to me a decade ago are booming among 20- somethings on TikTok, Instagram, Discord, Twitch and even X. “Skibidi Toilet,” “Fanum tax,” “the rizzler”: I won’t debase myself by pretending to know what these memes are, or what their appeal is, but I know that zoomers seem to love them. Or, at any rate, I can verify that they love using them to confuse and alienate middle-aged millennials like myself.
True, the fun I’m talking about is co-opted and exploited by a small handful of powerful and wealthy platform businesses. But platforms have sought to mediate and commodify our online activity since the beginning of the commercial web. Millennial memorials to the “fun” internet tend to rely on a rosy vision of the web of the 2000s and 2010s as a space of unmediated play and experimentation that doesn’t always stand up to scrutiny. Engagement-driven platforms have always cultivated influencers, abuse and misinformation. When you drill down, what mostly seems to have changed about the web over the last few years isn’t the structural dynamics but the cultural signifiers.
In other words, “enjunkification” has always been happening on the commercial web, whose largely advertising-based business model seems to obligate an ever-shifting race to the bottom. Perhaps what frustrated, alienated and aging internet users like me are experiencing here is not only the fruits of an enjunkified internet but also the loss of the cognitive elasticity, sense of humor and copious amounts of free time necessary to navigate all that confusing junk nimbly and cheerfully.
Frankly, that should be freeing. Being extremely online, on an internet geared to your interests (in the same way that heroin is geared to your brain), is not exactly a quality conducive to personal happiness. Young people themselves will tell you they have, at best, an ambivalent relationship to their internet. The more alienating the mass internet is to me, the more likely I will put to good use the hours I previously spent messing around. Or, at least, the more likely it is I will find corners — group chats, message boards and elsewhere — geared to my specific interests rather than the general engagement bait that otherwise dominates.
And even if you’re jealous of zoomers and their Discord chats and TikTok memes, consider that the combined inevitability of enjunkification and cognitive decline means that their internet will die, too, and Generation Alpha will have its own era of inscrutable memes and alienating influencers. And then the zoomers can join millennials in feeling what boomers have felt for decades: annoyed and uncomfortable at the computer.
Max Read is a journalist, screenwriter and editor. He writes Read Max, a newsletter about technology, politics and culture. His writing appeared in The New York Times, December 21, 2023, under the title "The Year the Internet Left Me Behind".
[Bernie Goldbach teaches digital transformation for the Technological University of the Shannon.]
social media
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
WE GOT TWO Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses and I believe they are the best piece of tech I've purchased this year. Their design, audio performance, camera quality, and charging case deliver value for the €495 I spent to get the two sets of glasses. And I believe I will open new opportunities to spam friends with live streams before the end of the spring semester 2024.
I discovered a few things during the first two days of ownership.
TL;DR This is the time for you to consider wearing connected eyeglasses as you walk, run, and drive.
It looks like there will be opportunities to converse with Meta AI soon. I did a factory reset with the glasses and saw more than 10 DALL-E libraries the had to be deleted in the process of resetting the glasses from one phone to another. Here are a few other first impressions.
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
CATHERINE CRONIN launches Higher Education for Good in Galway today and I've asked our main library to add the book to our local reference section. In the book, editors Catherine Cronin and Laura Czerniewicz break down neoliberalism in higher education through a critical lens. They argue that the neoliberal influence has led to a pervasive austerity logic that constricts not just budgets, but every facet of what higher education does.
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
I NEED A NEW Logitech MX Anywhere mouse because my long-serving Logitech MX Anywhere 2 has walked away from one of my classrooms. I used that faithful mouse for more than six years and want to replace it with a newer and pinker version of itself.
So I'm wishing for a Logitech MX Anywhere 3S Compact Wireless Mouse. Like its predecessor, it scrolls fast, tracks across glass, clicks silently and when linked to one of our lab computers the MX Anywhere works 10m away from the host. This means I can stand in front of our large studio classroom and control the screen with a mouse in my hand. That is a big win for me.The Logitech MX Anywhere 3 in rose is going to cost me more than €100 but I can vouch for its value for money. I know I can get more than three weeks of hard use between recharging it via USB-C. This means my phone can recharge my mouse. It also means the MX Anywhere will pair to my phone and I can use the Logitech mouse to scroll and click on items seen on my phone.
The Logitech MX Anywhere 3 incorporates Logitech’s Flow feature and that lets me move my cursor to copy and paste content from one Windows or Mac computer to another, as long as those devices have the Logitech Options software installed.
Three Things I Like1. I have become accustomed to the fluted effect on both lower sides of the mouse. This sculpting make gripping the Anywhere 3 very pleasant and that means I can easily use the mouse for several hours at a time without my hand cramping. And as a bonus, the metal scroll wheel feels very upmarket. 2. Logitech's optical sensor means my mouse works on a glass surface. That's important to me because I often find myself in hotel lobbies with glass tables or highly highly reflective white table tops. I don't like carrying a mouse mat so this level of surface tolerance is essential. 3. Battery life is superb. Logitech claims its 500mAh Li-Ion battery will run for 70 days. I have definitely gone that long with the MX Anywhere 2. And I really like knowing I can get three hours of use from a one-minute quick charge on my mains power adapter.
Versatile 2.4Ghz wirelessI use the Logitech MX Anywhere with Bluetooth most of the time but when I need long range service, I pair it with the add-on 2.4 GHz dongle. I have a slot in my Tumi shoulder bag for the MX Anywhere. It's empty at the moment but hopefully I will find a replacement mouse in a Christmas stocking next month.
I HAVE SUCCESSFULLY extended the upgrade cycle for our mobile phones and now expect the handsets to work at least five years before being refreshed. Today, I've started pushing the functionality of an iPhone we bought in 2018 by using it as a daily transcription device.
I SPENT 55 MINUTES on a catch-up Zoom Call with journalist and thinker Karlin Lillington today and want to mark my timeline with the event. Although the purpose of the call was to share what we think about the Fediverse, some of the preliminary commentary helped me resurface some important references to shared experiences.
I'VE RESTARTED my daily flow with Notion as part of my Personal Knowledge Management, spurred on by Larry G. Maguire and helped massively by Sarah Brennan's excellent YouTube tutorials. I'm writing this blog post to remind myself I owe RedGregory at least five coffees because of her free templates and excellent online teaching style.
WHILE ATTENDING a hands-on training session in Waterford, I was challenged by Marc Guerin to reveal a facet of my secondary learning outcomes. [1] I point to reflective journaling as the primary evidence of my secondary learning. [2]
MOST OF MY WORK with Artificial Intelligence has been in the field of Machine Learning. I teach students how to improve their online profiles so they enhance their prospects of gaining good jobs. And last semester, I introduced generative AI into classrooms to increase the speed of creating responsive web sites.
IT'S TIME to reboot Irish Open Coffee sessions with creatives, this time with the halo effect of Grow Remote Ireland. Along with a team of animators, some working remotely with major studios, the helping hand of Grow Remote, and the support of the Questum Acceleration Centre, we will restart local Open Coffee sessions on the first Thursday of every month
THE RODE Wireless Go II microphones delete old recordings automatically when you make new recordings and while that can be a time-saver, it can also lead to a problem that haunts me.
I’M THUMBING THROUGH pages of notes and hours of audio recordings that I compiled during the Grow Remote Ireland 2023 Summit. It’s refreshing and invigorating. I’m posting this short blog to thank Tracy Keogh, John Riordan, and a score of volunteers to making the Summit a top class event.
I will be at the Grow Remote Ireland Summit 2023 to learn how to leverage remote working for the start-up culture in County Tipperary. I help graduate 40 students every year and all of them need to know how to leverage remote working in their futures.
by Bernie Goldbach in Thurles, site of #ictedu23
MY PHOTO COLLECTIONS notify me once a day to review images and videos I've uploaded over the past 21 years. Today I remembered Paul Hopkins, the visually impaired podcaster (@vipodasting) who taught me life lessons about accessibility.
In 2015, Paul flew from England to Ireland and then shared his workflow as a visually impaired podcaster. Paul's live podcasting demonstration in the Thurles conference centre influenced several people in the audience to bring the skillset into their classrooms and clubs. His 15 minute session marked the first time that many people had heard an iPhone in Voiceover mode.
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
IT IS GOOD PRACTICE to frequently change passwords and I'm publishing this blog post because I know some of my most loyal students read my blog more than they read my Insta.
I'm also trying to see if Microsoft Stream lets me play the Vyond video clip without imposing a major log-in burden.
And I'm proving to Claire Murray that I can step up to her challenge while attempting to (1) create a character library, (2) use motion path tracing, and (3) challenge the microphone array on the Microsoft Surface Book to produce high quality audio on the fly.
[Bernie Goldbach teaches digital transformation on the Clonmel Digital Campus.]
[1983 2FA]
innovation
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel.
IF YOU HAVE TWO MINUTES and you've attended #ictedu, would you take this survey?
By Bernie Goldbach in Ireland. C-141A on the ramp.
WITH PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN'S advance team flying overhead, my memories scrolled back to the 1980s when I flew several DV1 missions in support of POTUS. A Distinguished Visitor One Mission normally comes with additional screening of the aircrew and a well-maintained aircraft.
[ Notes about SAM TWO ]
When scrolling back in my blog, I realised some of the earliest blog posts that I wrote about my Presidential Support flights were actually audio notes. Most of them are now gone because I stopped paying Audioboom for their storage space. Now I wonder if I kept originals in some of the removeable hard drives stored under the stairs in our home in Ireland. It's probably a worth the time to dive into those hard drives because it's much easier to produce them as Otter.ai transcripts for faster scanning in a headless CMS.
The C-141 that I flew on Presidential Support missions was based in Charleston, South Carolina. Besides taking Presidential limos around the country, we also configured our aircraft with unique features. Sometimes the maintenance squadron loaded a comfort pallet before we departed. On other occasions, we fabricate field repairs.
On one mission, we pulled some of the aft-facing seats and replaced them with a wooden kitchen table that was attached to the floor with large bolts. The team aboard the aircraft used it to play cards while we crossed the Atlantic.
When I crossed the Atlantic Ocean three times every month, I carried supplies for American forces based in Europe and the Middle East. I got to see the sharp edge of the American sword while carrying troops or supporting cargo. On several occasions, I landed in remote locations that were well off the tourist maps. After dropping the cargo--tons of ammunition, medical supplies, perishable goods, and US Mail--we often flew home nearly empty. That meant we had space for people returning home on emergency leave.
When I flew with advance teams several months before the President or Vice President, I shared stories about how the C-141 Starlifter would normally be used to support US foreign policy around the world. The White House Advance Teams were much more talkative than the Secret Service agents. On one occasion, I know some of the aircrew banter with the White House contingent trickled back to Vice President George Bush because his office sent a thank-you note down our chain of command that came attached to an engraved invitation to visit the White House.
by Bernie Goldbach talking to Surface Book in Clonmel
YESTERDAY a visitor from the Philippines landed on my website insideview.ie to read how my family wrote and saved ideas. I started thinking that I no longer have to actually write anything. I can just talk about things and my blog will write itself.
I can talk to my Surface Books' screen and it will create text from speech. This has digitally changed the way I work.
The point of the post that I was reviewing on my website is that a generation two generations ago, my grandfather used paper notes with little circles and tick marks. And then one generation ago my dad had a crumpled spiral notebook that he kept in his pocket. Thirty years ago I started carrying a laptop along with a Moleskine. Twenty years ago I started using a mobile phone to create blog posts. And now I'm just talking to a computer and it's writing this blog post.
In three generations, my family has transitioned from paper cards and little notebooks to mobile phones to create and share information.
Today, I just have to talk and Otter.ai ensures I can easily share.
The technology that makes this work is a simple user experience. I use a Surface Book from Microsoft to talk into. The mics are really good. I record directly into Otter with the on-board laptop mics and Otter produces the content that I can simply copy and paste it into my blog. I'm sure the share option that otter has will probably allow me to post directly to my website in the future.
Interesting times ahead.
Reduced to key wordsOtter reduced this short post into a summary of the 10 most used words:
- website
- generation
- talk
- mobile phone
- spiral notebook
- otter
- crumpled
- copy
- mic
- technological
[Bernie Goldbach teaches creative media for business on the Clonmel Digital Campus. He's still looking for a simple way for his car to read his email summaries. That's probably a job for Microsoft Copilot.]
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
SCOTT CAVANAH from Bradley University visited the Clonmel Digital Campus and he offered his appraisal of some of the augmented reality projects developed on the campus. Scott is Associate Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Interactive Media of Bradley University.
Samantha's AR project (photo above snapped during a tabletop session in Questum) is a show reel of her development work. The video shows more than the AR project by linking into a selection of her ePortfolio.Less is MoreScott revealed that he normally looks a video's timeline before he taps to play content and that he rarely views videos that are more than 30 seconds long. He encourages his UX students in Illinois to respect a similar time limit. He could cite online viewing statistics that show the importance of the 30 second attention span that has been documented by people scrolling social media.
Viewers Read PostsAnother discussion point revolved around user experiences on video sites (Instagram and TikTok) compared to text-heavy platforms like LinkedIn. Research shows people will read several paragraphs on LinkedIn where they won't read the same amount of text content on an Instagram grid post.
[Bernie Goldbach teaches creative media for business on the Clonmel Digital Campus. Scott Cavanah has advised several American students during their semester-long programmes at the Technological University of the Shannon.]
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, I carried a Moleskine Journalist notebook everywhere to scribble down important ideas and to save clippings related to emerging technology. Today I'm using a Traveler's Notebook with thinner paper, accompanied by a Rode mic that I use to record lectures with creative media students. I'm reviewing best practice recommendations about contemporaneous note-taking by borrowing ideas I heard expressed by James Comey after he was fired by Donald Trump.
If you want to lean into contemporaneous note-taking, consider these tips.1. Use a notebook or a document with numbered pages and date each entry. This will help establish the timeline of events and make it clear that the notes were taken at a specific time. 2. Write legibly and use clear language. If your notes are difficult to read or understand, they may not be admissible. 3. Use objective language. Avoid using subjective language or making judgments about the people or events you are documenting. 4. Record facts, not opinions. Stick to the facts of what happened and avoid speculating or drawing conclusions. 5. Use quotations when possible. If someone says something important, I sketch over-sized quotation marks or I draw a thick black line vertically along exact words. 6. Avoid leaving blank spaces or tearing out pages. If you make a mistake, cross it out and write the correction next to it. 7. Do not alter your notes after the fact. Your notes should be a true and accurate reflection of what happened at the time you took them. 8. Keep your notes secure. I number the splines of my notebooks, record outlines of them in Obsidian, and store the copy books on bookshelves.
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
I AM HAVING a week of Open Tabs. I'm cornered by too many things on my To-Do List.
- Pareto principle as it relates to sentiment analysis
- Fastest on-ramp to foundation skills with R
- Upskill in Python and then activate the web scraper
- Presenting my Digital Transformation syllabus on Git Hub
- Iterate a legacy post about Boston Brakes
- Being Open at Work
- Developing a tick-off list for more timely assessment of on-going student work and then pivot the best to my LinkedIn feed.
The aforementioned points should be show notes for a Topgold Audio Clip but I'm cornered so I don't have time to talk.
Listen to "Concerned about Clonmel Sports Hub E608" on Spreaker.[Bernie Goldbach teaches creative media for business on the Clonmel Digital Campus.]
By Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
I’M TRYING TO reboot writing on my iPad Mini so I’m creating a short blog post by typing thoughts on a Brydge Mini keyboard. I plan to select all the words, paste them into a Typepad editing screen, and then posting the result.
How about some speech-to-text?This content is spoken into the IA Writer and then reviewed on screen. I plan to think out loud and then revise the content when I scroll back to correct some of the errors. Let’s see what happens.
Let’s ask Bing Search about iA Writer and the iPad MiniBing told me iA Writer “is a minimalist writing app that lets you focus on your words and nothing else. It has a simple interface that eliminates distractions and provides a smooth writing experience. You can use it to write anything from notes to essays to novels”
The iA Writer is a very versatile app. I bought one version for the Surface Book. I paid 60 euro for iA Writer on the iPad. And there’s another version running on my Android phone.
When iA Writer runs on the iPad Mini, the text appears on a minimalist screen that keeps my focus on the thoughts I’m trying to reveal. The biggest benefit for me is how the software extends the functionality of my 5yo iPad Mini and my 4yo Samsung Note. I can use the rugged Brydge Mini keyboard on the smallest tables aboard Irish Rail. I can sync the work I’m doing on the iPad across to my Android phone.
I sync content I create in iA Writer to text files stored inside a Drive folder. I can also export documents in various formats (e.g. PDF, HTML, or MD). The workflow I use is more convoluted than the easy OneNote process I used during COVID but it’s the one I’ve learned to depend upon since I’m often shifting gigs of video and audio content and I want to be in the same Drive space to easily tap into “Recent” files.
I’m eager to get a peer review from friends as I continue to explore ways to produce original content after reviewing streams of information from trusted sources.
[Bernie Goldbach teaches creative media for business on the Clonmel Digital Campus.]
By Fortune Ndlovu
YouTube has revolutionized the way people learn new skills. With just a few clicks, anyone can access a vast collection of videos on almost any topic, from cooking and cat videos to programming and graphic design. YouTube has also become a hub for learning creative and technical skills. YouTube Link: YouTube
One channel that stands out in this regard is Fortune Ndlovu's YouTube channel. Fortune's channel focuses on sharing his love for technology with others. He creates videos that cover a broad range of technical and creative topics, including programming, app development, web design, graphic design, and more. Fortune's YouTube Channel: Fortune Ndlovu's YouTube Channel
By Fortune Ndlovu
What sets Fortune's channel apart is his approach to teaching. He creates a safe and welcoming environment for his viewers, where there are no right or wrong answers, and there is always room for improvement. This approach encourages his viewers to learn and experiment without time wasted.
"Join the Fortune-ate few who subscribe to my channel for laughs, insights, and a whole lot of heart! Don't miss out on the fun, hit that subscribe button now!" Please: Subscribe to Fortune's YouTube Channel
Thanks For Reading ❤️!
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
WE TEACH the concept of personal influence in a digital literacies module for the Technological University of the Shannon. I peel back the concept of "influence" until I reach the layer of "skills" because to have influence you need to have skills worth showcasing.
I measure my skills by the number of direct requests I get. For example, I got a request for a broadcast interview because someone thought I had a message worth hearing after they saw a video I created. A text message beeped on my phone from a graduate who asked me for a reference because a panel member in an upcoming interview is directly connected to me through a community group. These direct contacts tell me I have developed some influence. By looking back through my emails and inside my Obsidian Vault, I know the number of direct requests has dropped.Since I want to boost my influence alongside a group of students I'm teaching, I'm going to follow my own suggestions. I have a plan.
Complete a baseline auditI will quantify my online presence across three virtual spaces. I will list the number of followers or contacts that I have in each space. Then I will discuss the most-viewed and most-commented content that I have produced since we emerged from COVID.
Content ProductionI will produce several forms of online content that I believe will increase views, connections, and direct contacts. I believe I need to make several pieces of long form content that demonstrates the following attributes:
- I embrace new technology.
- I have meaningful engagements with a trustworthy brand as well as with a reputable thought leader.
- I share my evolution as a student of digital transformation.
Endpoint AuditAt the middle of May, before the ICT in Education Conference, I will publish my results. I plan to create a few podcasts about my journey.
[Bernie Goldbach teaches creative media for business on the Clonmel Digital Campus.]
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
I WORK ON a small university campus in County Tipperary and have major concerns about the Clonmel Sports Hub. I plan to walk around the new amenity with Councillor Michael Murphy in order to point out specific areas worth consideration.
[Bernie Goldbach teaches creative media for business on the Clonmel Digital Campus.]
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
I'M LETTING ChatGPT work away in one of my Chrome browser tabs. I value its conversational responses to questions I raise and I respect it more for the context it offers as part of its responses. Because of the length of its answers, I've moved around some money. I reckon I'm $17 ahead each month because of advice the AI gave me.
- I stopped five euro a month going out to buy coffee for a podcaster I don't hear anymore. ChatGPT confirmed he wasn't active where I last heard his voice.
- I moved several hundred contacts from Lion Desk because ChatGPT told me that Zoho CRM had respectable reviews for its Android app.
- I decided to continue paying for Craft.do because ChatGPT affirmed the presence of laudatory comments concerning its UX and task management functionality.
Right now, I'm writing these words inside Craft.do, wondering if I can push out these short statements as a public URL, then capture the page into a blog post where I highlight a section with Readwise so the core elements lands inside Obsidian.
[Bernie Goldbach teaches digital transformation on the Clonmel Digital Campus of the Technological University of the Shannon. Chat GPT is an element of digital transformation.]
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
I ASKED OUR CAMPUS AI to cite the most significant accomplishment of CESI.ie and here is what I learned.
The Computers in Education Society of Ireland (CESI) has a long and impressive history of promoting the use of technology in education in Ireland. One of the most significant accomplishments of CESI is its establishment of the annual conference, which has become the largest and most important education technology event in Ireland.
The CESI conference, which first took place in 2005, brings together educators, researchers, and technology experts to share their experiences, knowledge, and insights on how to use technology effectively in education. The conference provides a platform for educators to learn about new tools and techniques, explore best practices, and connect with other like-minded professionals.
In addition to the conference, CESI has also been involved in a number of other initiatives that have had a significant impact on education in Ireland. For example, CESI has supported the development of a number of online resources for teachers, including the popular Scoilnet website, which provides access to a wealth of educational resources for teachers and students.
Overall, the CESI has played a vital role in advancing the use of technology in education in Ireland, and its contributions have been felt by educators and students throughout the country.
One of the most vibrant elements of the CESI Conferences is the resonance of the voices in conversation. Some of those conversations have been recorded and shared by Ireland's Youth Media Team.
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
I'M TEACHING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION to a crew of Masters Degree student and we know it's difficult to automate everything. And automation probably doesn't work at all, perhaps with early childhood education.
And if you want to effectively integrate automation into manufacturing, you need to complete a granular breakdown of tasks, deciding which of the jobs can be done by a machine. Then you might need to spend thousands of euro designing a robot that may not work as expected.
So perhaps we should be looking at RaaS (robots as a service). With RaaS, you map a company's operations, figure out the tasks that are best suited for automation, and then set up a robot that performs at an hourly rate. If the robot doesn't perform, it doesn't get paid.
I'm trying to automate my morning cross-checks. So far, no robot has rowed in with ideas.
[Bernie Goldbach teaches digital transformation on the Clonmel Digital Campus for the Technological University of the Shannon. The huggable above is from the MIT Labs.]
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
HIGH HEATING COSTS have knocked winter strawberries out of our shopping basket.
Keelings, the Irish fruit company, told the Sunday Times that "energy costs have resulted in a 30 per cent decresase in its raspberry production and are unsustainable for its strawberry crop". This means fewer Irish berries in our local supermarkets and it feels like smaller amounts of berries in the standard packages.
Listen to "Finding Martin's Fruit and Veg in Clonmel" on Spreaker.Laura Roddy -- "Energy crisis puts berries in a squeeze" on the front page of Business & MOney in The Sunday Times, February 19, 2023.
[Bernie Goldbach shops local. The berries in the top shot were purchased in England.]
by Bernie Goldbachin StradballyI AUDIT MY SOCIAL annually and in early 2023 I'm joining a group of aritsts in County Laois to get their appraisal of how I create and share online.
I started this blog post while sitting in limbo at Limerick Junction.
[Learning from the elbow view of creative journaling.]
Be Real.It helps if you have an identity that is complemented by a real place like an artist studio or an exhibition venue. I have greater trust in creatives who I meet in real life. I often put stars on my maps that correspond to places where I can find creatives at work. I also enjoy putting pins on my calendars that correspond to opening and studio visits.
Listen to "Activating Artists On Social E606" on Spreaker.Find a flow that works.I create better when I'm in the flow. It's a creative concept outlined by Don Norman in The Design of Everyday Things and I enjoy learning how creatives gets into the flow. Sometimes I learn about 'flow' from podcasts or from YouTube clips.
I also use an Artificial Intelligence (AI) that helps me in my flow. My preferred AI sits inside Magisto, a video production app.
Share and Share Alike.Especially your concept drawings or your scratch work.
I know an artist is not an AI because I can see how they create by the scratch work they share.
If you want to dive into hands-on social networking with other artists, consider taking the MA in Change Leadership with the Technological University of the Shannon. We have artists and mid-career professionals mingling and learning in the hybrid MA programme that we're running.
[Bernie Goldbach teaches creative media for business on the Clonmel Digital Campus. He's been blogging for more than 10 years.]
journaling
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
I GOT A WALNUT Writer's Box as a combination Christmas Birthday present and now am mesmerised by the thought that I have a tool that my Irish ancestors might have used as they integrated into America in the late 1800s.
The box is modeled after one used by Thomas Jefferson but mine is made of walnut instead of mahogany.
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION module offered by the Technological University of the Shannon attempts to ensure the people who immerse in the study of digital transformation will refine and improve themselves through an iterative refactoring of specific digital processes that thought leaders have identified as prime movers in the arena of digital transformation.
We start with an inventory of our digital lifestyles and discuss in groups of 20 how digital transformation is bubbling below the surface in all of our lives. We will contribute to a Digital Transformation Vault throughout our academic process.
[Cognification is happening]
During the current academic term, we share our baseline digital processes when starting a 15 week journey in January 2023. And then we review any changes that happen with those processes a few months later. Our shared Digital Transformation Vault will look very different when we finish our academic work. It will contain sketches, screenshots, photographs, and workflow diagrams that show how we can leverage the process of digital transformation at work and in our personal lives.
Like all worthwhile journals, a Digital Transformation Vault will document and complement our journeys in our current lives and it should serve us well in our careers.
[Bernie Goldbach teaches digital transformation on the Clonmel Digital Campus.]
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
I AM SETTING UP several new academic modules for early 2023 and believe I we can learn from images that students snap, scrape, and share. The process involves using Flickr groups in which students can directly upload content from their handsets' share sheets.
The first experiment involves MA students learning Digital Transformation. I want students to upload images in support of 12 inevitable trends cited by Kevin Kelly. Each student should upload images to the Flickr Digital Transformation Group in support of the 12 trends. Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is running behind the scenes to create a mailing list that summarises work by the academic group. I want to port the RSS feed into Feedly and Inoreader where the best elements of the group's imagery drops into an Obsidian Vault for group work.
Students should sign up for the weekly email updates below.
|
| Images of digital transformation |
| Name: | | Your email address:* | | | | Please enter all required fields Correct invalid entries |
| Content from colleagues. Powered by FeedBlitz |
|
I will update everyone on how this project unfolds at the end of January 2023.
[Bernie Goldbach teaches digital transformation for the Technological University of the Shannon.]
by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
If you follow my Instagram or my Flickr photos, you'll know that I have a lot of old equipment along with some new stuff. I talked about both of those types of equipment and also about how we are setting up behind the scenes recording "Heritage and Stories" with the Tipperary libraries. This is important because I'm hoping that some of the people who join us--young kids on the youth media team and the librarians that are part of the staff--might listen to this Topgold Audio Clip and learn what's happening behind the scenes.
[Using Rode Wireless II as Laptop Mic]
Wireless Rig Number OneWe're trying to put mics onto the lapels or onto the collars of people who want to share stories about heritage points around Clonmel. We're using square Rode Wireless Go II microphones. They can send audio hundred of metres away to a receiver that is wired into my Android handset. I call this setup "Rig Number One". I can make this rig work with an iPhone as well.
On Android, I use HiQ MP3. On iOS I use Voice Record Pro. As soon as a clip is recorded, it goes up to a Google Drive location where someone can edit the file or catalogue it with the name of the file, the date the people talking on it, and anything else that provides context.
So Rig Number One was just using the wireless mics clipped onto the lapels of the people and then the receiver for the wireless mic is cabled into the bottom of either an iPhone or an Android phone. The cabling and the 3.5 mm jacks make this setup work. We use a cable with two 3.5 mm pins on each end. We need a 3.5 millimetre pin to plug into the Rode Wireless Go receiver. We need another 3.5 mm pin to plug into the phone. Because iPhones don't have the 3.5 millimetre hole, we use a lightning-to-3.5 mm adapter cable.
This cabling can confuse people. And cables can get lost. They can break. Or fittings might become loose. Fortunately, the Rode Wireless Go receiver shows the signal strength. You can see a blue light on the transmitter that appears when the unit is communicating. The Rode Wireless Go Receiver shows green and yellow moving lines when it receives a good audio signal. And the recording app on the handset displays lights or levels.
Rig Number TwoWe use a Zoom H6 field recorder with a X-Y module on the top of it that accepts the cables from the Rode Wireless Go II receiver. In my experience, it is easier to record with traditional gear such as Zoom recorders. You just push cables into fittings, press the record button, and monitor the recording as it's underway. We have cables and mics for two other positions when using the Zoom H6. This means we can record two people with the Rode mics, and two more people with the mics stored in the field case with the Zoom H6.
Reposted from Dan York;s Disruptive Conversations
“How do I choose which Mastodon server to join? It’s SO CONFUSING! I just want to sign up to ‘Mastodon’!”
This seems to be a common refrain from some people exploring Mastodon as part of the Twitter migration/exodus.
The reality is that the Mastodon server you join is most important in the beginning when you are trying to discover new users. Over time, and as you follow more and more people, the server you are on becomes less important.
via www.disruptiveconversations.com
Find Bernie @topgold@micro.blog or follow me at https://topgold.micro.blog/subscribe/
Photo by Daniel Oberhaus. Insights by Fintan O'Toole.I'M ADDING CONTENT from today's Irish Times opinion column because the commentary by Fintan O'Toole helps explain the demise of Twitter, a social networking site I've used since 2006.
Irish Times Opinion by Fintan O'TooleMusk's tantrum capitalism explodes myth of bucaneering liberarianism.
It used to be cocaine that was, as Robin Williams had it, God’s way of telling you that you have too much money. Now it’s buying Twitter for $44 billion and setting fire to it.
But perhaps there is some continuity here. Both drugs heighten the sense of invincibility you feel while you are making a complete fool of yourself.
Elon Musk has made himself the idiot savant of our times, half genius, all man-child. Yet he has, in the process, illuminated two important truths about contemporary culture.
The first is that there really is such a thing as having too much money. Right-wing economics is based on the belief that the super-rich will ultimately use their vast wealth for the common good. Musk seems to have set out to disprove this thesis by a spectacular demonstration of the wanton wastefulness of excessive riches.
We’re living in an age of grotesque inequality in which a tiny number of people have cornered a vast share of the wealth. We’re no longer even talking about the top 1 per cent, or the top 0.1 per cent. Or even the top 0.01 per cent.
Musk belongs, rather, to the top 0.001 per cent in the United States. That’s 2,400 people who had (in 2016, the latest year for which there are such detailed calculations) $1,631,821,000 between them.
The theory is that these are the “wealth-creators” whose accumulation of such astronomical riches somehow benefits all of humanity. They are the Medicis or the Carnegies of our time.
Agent Musk has set out, presumably on behalf of the worldwide communist conspiracy, to explode such notions. For he has shown – like a global version of our own Seán Quinn – that there is a level of accumulation beyond which “wealth-creators” become wealth-destroyers.
It may well be true that, up to a point, the profit motive drives innovation. But profit gets boring. Too much of it leads to satiety and saturation.
A much more potent and primitive force takes over: megalomania. Beyond the satisfaction of basic needs, beyond security and comfort, there is the search for status, the need to be number one.
And this drive is unbounded. The manic ego knows no limits. Its hunger for domination is insatiable. It eventually takes the shape of an ouroboros, the ancient symbol of a serpent eating its own tail.
It becomes, even by the very narrow measure of money, destructive. Musk has managed, not just to incinerate his own investment in Twitter, but has seen the value of its main enterprise, Tesla fall by half.
The top 10 investors in Tesla have alone lost $133 billion since Twitter’s board accepted Musk’s buyout in April. It must surely be dawning on them by now that, even for lovers of buccaneering capitalism, the madness induced by excessive wealth corrodes the very thing it seeks.
We also have to thank Musk for exposing the myth of libertarian devotion to free speech. His fairytale transformations from self-declared “free speech absolutist” to whiny little snowflake to authoritarian censor is this season’s premature Christmas panto in which the whole Twitter sphere gets to call out: “Oh no he isn’t.”
It has long been obvious that the libertarian commitment to free expression is mostly one-sided: I have absolute freedom to say what I like but if you answer back, you are oppressing me. For the over-privileged (and yes they are still nearly all rich white men) “free speech” really means “Shut up and listen to me.”
Yet no one has managed to make this point so clearly and memorably as Agent Musk. What he got for his $44 billion is a big red card to wave at his enemies and rivals and send them off the pitch.
Presumably he got jealous of Antonio Mateu Lahoz, the referee who issued 15 yellow cards in the Argentina-Netherlands match at the World Cup. Musk needed to prove he could be an even more ridiculous martinet. It does not seem to have occurred to him that if he keeps sending people off there will be no one left to play the game.
Musk banned an account that uses public information to track his private jet and those of Russian oligarchs. Then he banned journalists, some (like Donie O’Sullivan) more or less randomly, some (like Linette Lopez) because they have been reporting critically on his business practices. Then he banned links to the rival social media platform Mastodon.
This is tantrum capitalism. Any notion of making Twitter a profitable business comes a very distant second to the instant self-gratification of banishing the insolent and the impertinent from the perfect realm of Musk’s digital Freedonia.
Rampant egomania is not creation. It is not even, in the jargon of neoliberalism, creative destruction. It is merely destruction.
The (not unreasonable) criticism of Twitter used to be that it is an echo chamber. Yet, in the Greek myth, Echo was ultimately destroyed by Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection. At the end of the story, the echo and the narcissist both withered away and died.
Musk has provided 21st-century feral capitalism with its own moral tale of self-destruction. The narcissism that springs from excess wealth kills the thing it loves most: itself.
[Opinion column written by Fintan O'Toole, The Irish Times, December 20, 2022. Links inserted by Bernie Goldbach to aid in classroom discussion with a class of students studying digital transformation. Paper copies of this opinion piece have been archived in the Clonmel library of the Technological University of the Shannon.]
becoming
By Bernie Goldbach in ClonmelWE WERE A CAMPING family several years before COVID and as a teen, I spent several weekends in a snow-covered campsite. I'm thinking about these passages of time as I head to the annual Media Literacy Ireland conference where I will learn about programmes to alert people to the importance of fact-checking things such as the challenges of winter weather.
The current Irish winter has been very challenging. I've slipped twice on black ice. On Irish social media there's a story going around about a young girl who died in a tent in Dublin. The story is plausible. During COVID, two homeless people were found dead in Dublin and the current winter weather is a lot worse than in 2020.
Although the temperatures can be fact-checked, the story of the young girl passing away in a tent cannot be confirmed. And yet several far-right groups and conspiracy theorists have lionised the imaginary woman to buttress their anti-immigration agendas.
Throughout 2023, Media Literacy Ireland will be publicising campaigns that encourage people to look at the sources of information around them. During the next semester, I'm guiding 40 people through a series of topics related to digital transformation and emerging trends. Those students will see first hand how they can filter information to offset the powerful effects of algorithms that promote content merely because many people have read it or upvoted it.
We need to be more responsible with information we see online, perhaps by cross-checking its sources before we share it or electronically indicate we like it.
Bernie Goldbach teaches digital transformation on the Clonmel Digital Campus.
MY TEENAGED DAUGHTER inspires me to read more because I see her reading paperbacks nearly every evening. She is a smart person because she reads a lot.
SOME OF MY BEST successes happen when I discover the items I own can be used in more than one setting. So I'm very pleased to discover that my Rode Wireless Go II microphones can be used along with my Microsoft Surface Book. They're detected as a standard audio input. This means I can walk around a classroom with the Surface Book's rear camera capturing broadcast quality audio from a conversation I have with people up to 200 metres away.
AS I RAMP UP teaching materials for a module I' teaching about digital transformation, I've decided to migrate my Personal Knowledge Management process from Notion and Roam Research to Obsidian. I'm migrating because I believe I can teach principles of Zettelkasten and PKM with a series of hands-on tutorials that students complete with their own instances of Obsidian.
FOR MY FIRST hour of my autumn 2022 academic schedule, I'm taking 20 animators on a field trip of local Culture Night venues in Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ireland.
I REVERTED TO FORM and started blogging during the four hours I spent on a Zoom call with 113 others who expressed an interested in learning more about how to successfully apply for research funding under RUN-EU. I saved my rough notes as part of this blog post because I think it's important to establish open and distributed nodes of communications between researchers who are scattered throughout the EU.
COULD I SHARE three quick discoveries I've made while using Readwise as a core tool of my personal knowledge management?
FOR THE FIRST TIME in 15 years, my blog has recorded parity because an equal number of people have visited using iOS and Android. My experience mirrors a global trend.
I SHOULD BE well able to maneuver through twists and turns associated with parenting. But sometimes I wonder if I've ever learned from the young people in my life.
THE HEADWINDS OF RECESSION are blowing relentlessly in Ireland. I'm listening to people venting on Twitter.
WE PLAN to deal with a flat tyre every two weeks. What can I do to figure out where the nails are coming from?
I'M IMPRESSED by the people using Micro.blog infrastructure because a wide cross-section of them are makers and thinkers. I plan to use a recent github repo to enhance my own presence at topgold.micro.blog with the Paper theme. I've copied the installation steps below.
DYLAN IS REFINING his podcasting skills by seeking out people in places he enjoys. He's using our Rode Wireless Go microphones when interviewing people he has met in various local venues, such as Sylvia in Martin's Fruit and Vegetables.
I NEVER EXPECTED to experience serenity with a fish tank but something about the slow and plodding Mexican walking fish in our kitchen takes me to a quiet place. I'm enthralled by our two Axolotls.
ALTHOUGH IT IS THE SILLY SEASON in Ireland, a time when items worth discussing wait until September, strong opinions are being aired about whether Ireland can achieve any of its meaningful climate change goals.
FOLLOWING A 90 MINUTE conversation with Larry Maguire, author of Sunday Letters, I've reset my goal of executing a meaningful clear-out of digital services this summer. I'm afraid to admit the extent of my usage of digital services. Fortunately, there are several proven strategies to help me dial down digital services.
BECAUSE I TRY to understand people who have political viewpoints very different from mine, I let myself fall into rabbit holes where some of my family get their political values. I remember my grandfather at the kitchen table in the 1960s telling me that "some people want to have a government that gives them everything" and once that happens those people keep voting to keep the socialists in office. But as all gun-carrying Americans know, socialism runs counter to American values. In the minds of some people, an armed citizenry needs to rise up to protect American values.
NOW IS THE TIME to reduce the number of streaming services in our home. I'm asking Mia (14) to edit this blog post as we run through and justify the services we currently use.