Social discussion of CS in K-12

[Charles Schultz <sacrophyte AT gmail.com>]

I want my red stapler back. *sly grin*

And oh, by the way, is that a gmail account you are using? :)

It seems to me that if we acknowledge and understand how information itself has become a commodity, we begin to see why privacy is such a big concern. Because of my own involvement with boards and occasional brushes with politics, I also see a cross-over to democracy and how we have given too much power away, at the benefit of a few who grow more powerful and more rich. We don't even know what we are giving up, let alone how to get it back. There does not seem to be an undo button for this thing we call "progress".

Also, because I am a database professional and I go to tech conferences, I hear (and even understand) how big tech companies are getting excited about this "internet of things" (aka, IoT), and how there is a lot of buzz that seems to be self-generated, self-congratulatory kind of "because we can" mentality. There is not much thought as to what we really need. Instead, we constantly seek out new solutions in need of a problem.

Going back to politics, how many laws (of all the insane, burdensome, overwhelming laws that we have on the books) actually address a root problem, as opposed to the symptoms? Look at the spaghetti code which governs our taxes. Who are the people who are really benefiting from exploiting all the loop holes? We don't really know. Oddly, in our "information age", those that really should be most transparent and accountable are turning the tables to force it upon everyone else but provide shadows for themselves to hide in.

The funny thing is, there is a general assumption that people will tell the truth about themselves via social media. My daughter was born in 1905 and she is male, according to her google profile. I am just waiting to see how that plays out in the long run. If we cannot control who gets our data, the least we can do is have some fun with it.

On Wed, Nov 5, 2014 at 12:43 PM, Katrina Kennett <katrina.kennett AT gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all!

Last night I mentioned this piece of journalism about Terms of Service and wanted to pass it along - I definitely found it worth the read. Lots to think about opting-in to big data.  

Katrina 

Katrina Kennett

Literacy & Language, Doctoral Student

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 

Education Resources Consortium, Consulting Practitioner 

kennettenglish.blogspot.com // @katrinakennett

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Charles Schultz