A short story to illustrate the facebook privacy debacle

In order to convey the ridiculous nature of the facebook privacy debacle, I came up with this short story.

Imagine a company that comes to your home and says to you, "hey we are going to build an awesome community center for you and your friends for FREE, in exchange for allowing us to post advertisements on some of the walls within the building. Don't worry the ads are small and not that noticeable and in exchange we're going to give you an awesome place for you and your friends to hang out, play games, talk about life, share photos and videos, and enjoy each others friendship." The company made a visit to all the homes in town with similar news and soon everyone in town was really excited about these new "hang outs" the company is building for the people. Over time, more and more of your friends started joining your community center and hanging out. Even grandma comes by to say hi, share some photos, and talk about her day. You think to yourself, "this is pretty special." However, you get a knock on the door and it's the nice folks that built your community center and they have some interesting news. They said that they have done lots of research and think it's best that you share all the happenings from inside your community with everyone else in the world so that people with common interests can get to know you better, companies and organizations can serve you better, and in general, it will just make your life better. They also mention that they would like you to wear a device so that when you walk into a store you can immediately announce the store and what you like in it to not only your close group of friends but also to everyone in the world, including the people that own the store. If the store knows this about you they might be able to cut you some good deals on the stuff you like. You think that sounds pretty cool, but that you'd prefer to just share that kind of info with my own group of friends. When you politely say to the man that you're not interested he says, "well you at least have to share your Work and Education, Current City, Hometown, and all your Likes and Interests with everyone in the world or you can't tell anyone in your personal community about those things." You noticed the tone in his voice change and the look in his eye got a little meaner. He then hands you a book about 5 pages thick with new rules and laws about how to share some things in your community and not others and he reminds you the rule book changes as they see fit. You think to yourself, "Darn, it was the old 'Bait and Switch', I should have known. I wonder if anyone else will build these community centers for me and my friends and not ask me to share all my info with the world?"

I am all for openness online but I think it should always remain the choice of the user, not pushed on the user by the company. Also, it should never be confusing when you are sharing info and when you are not sharing info online. Check out this search engine that exposes all public info on facebook. Also, I wonder if Diaspora will ever take off?

My Interview with McGraw Hill on Distance Education and Online Technologies

This past year I was interviewed in the "Thought Leader" section of McGraw Hill's Principles of Management Newsletter. In the interview I respond to the following questions regarding distance education and online technologies:

• How did you come to do work in distance education?
• What is your favorite distance learning activity or experience?
• How does distance learning enrich your life … your career... as opposed to traditional in-class teaching?
• Describe a “zinger” that unexpectedly challenged you in your distance teaching? How did you address it and what were the results?
• What are your distance learning principles for success?
• Is there one distance learning principle you hold most dear, that you will always do? Is there one thing you will never do, no matter what, in distance education?
• How do you see distance courses changing over the next 5-10 years?
• What are your hopes for the future of distance learning in higher education?

Click Here to Read the Article

How does distance learning, social networking, and other new media enrich your life?

I was recently asked the question, "How does distance learning, social networking, and other new media enrich your life … your career?" and here was my reply:

I define distance learning as any method of teaching and learning that is not dependent on a geographic location. Therefore, most of our world is falling into this category and enriching our lives in one way or another. Online banking, shopping, music, education, etc...The distance technologies enable us to prioritize our lives around the things that matter most to us, such as our families, friends, community, and organizations we are passionate about. Distance technologies facilitate a brand new form of asynchronous communication that enables us to prioritize and schedule our lives more effectively. This is a major reason why distance learning in higher education has spread like wildfire and continues to grow. It's not that online learning is easier or of lower quality (see research), it is that formal education can now revolve around a person's life rather than the other way around. It's only the next natural step. I have seen the growth and increased demand of distance education at BGSU first hand and am very excited about BGSU being chosen by the Ohio Board of Regents as a Center of Excellence for E-learning in the State of Ohio. E-learning doesn't replace face to face universities but enhances them by meeting the new needs of a new generation of students, both young and old.

Let's change gears and look at facebook and twitter as two distance technologies that are changing the world around us. Twitter allows me to get news and information from the people and organizations that interest me the most. Therefore, by subscribing to various twitter feeds, I can get the latest deals from amazon, stay on top of the latest technologies from apple, google, and other tech companies, and get words of inspiration from my pastor or other pastors I listen to online throughout the day. This is awesome. I am also able to re-tweet those to my community of followers, and they, their followers. You see how information is exploding there? With facebook, I am able to "keep in touch" with hundreds of friends at a distance. For example, this enables me to see pictures of my niece and nephews right after they were taken, which prompts me to comment on them or call them. You see how this technology interrupts our lives, but can do so in a positive way. Ever wonder what happened to your old high school buddies? With facebook, you can stay in touch with them on a surface level so that if your relationship with them ever re-surfaces when you run into them in person, you will have much to talk about and build on. The technology is not meant to replace relationships, but if used with wisdom, enhance them. RSS feeds, blogs, podcasts, Wikipedia, YouTube has greatly impacted my career in that I am able to subscribe to content all over the internet and have it directly imported to my email inbox or RSS reader. This enables me to stay on top of the latest in the field of distance learning as well as contribute to the conversation with my own blog posts or tweets.

Facebook App for BGSU News and Blogs

A FACEBOOK APPLICATION MAKES STAYING ON TOP OF BGSU NEWS EASIER!

There is now an application available for all Facebook users to keep track of what’s going on at BGSU. This application collects information from the top blogs at blogs.bgsu.edu, The BG News, and Campus Update straight to your Facebook so that you don’t have to go hunting for the latest news. Simply add the application found at http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=41501853292 and click on the arrows to see the top headlines from The BG News, business, sports, technology, and education related feeds at BGSU.

http://blogs.bgsu.edu/secondlife/2009/04/29/read-us-on-facebook/