I’m in the midst of a full blown geek identity crisis. At one point I was becoming known as the one who was switched on; the guru; the one who’d know about an emerging technology if anyone was going to know. I don’t think I fit that description anymore.

It started with a post today on ReadWriteWeb (“What Ever Happened to…Start Pages“) about how passe start pages like iGoogle and Netvibes are.

Then I start seeing exchanges on Twitter such as:

[tweet https://twitter.com/briancaldwell/status/210533511394893825]

All of this got me to thinking. I still have a start page; I like my start page, and it’s iGoogle. I also use Netvibes occasionally and think it’s still really handy.

I’m not one to abandon older technologies simply because something shinier comes along. I still prefer to read text on paper than on screen. I voluntarily take notes with a pen (or “biro” to the Aussies) rather than an iPad; scribble to-do lists in the margins rather than digital sticky notes. I’m very selective about what I post to Facebook or online elsewhere. All of this works for me.

So the thought that older methods are somehow “training wheels” helping us become digital grownups just isn’t sitting well with me. Either I’m growing old fashioned and out of date, I’m losing my geek street cred, or Silicon Valley is increasingly out of touch with reality. To be honest I think it’s a bit of everything.

The influence of Academia

It’s undeniable to me that Academia is in the tail end of the Long Tail when it comes to technological innovation. Especially in a research-intensive institution like the one I’m at, the pressure is constantly on tradition and “the way it’s always been.” So I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if that has seeped into my perspective and I’ve become more risk averse.

Further, in education more broadly there is the ever present expectation of a new method proving its efficacy and effectiveness before it replaces an existing process. That’s the whole nature behind “evidence based practice” and “scholarly endeavor;” though the ideas of Action Learning and Experiential Learning have slowly begun to advocate different approaches.

Yet despite the innovative, “let’s give it a go” ethos behind Action and Experiential Learning, many staff in higher education don’t pursue these practices themselves. So given my familiarity with conservative, risk averse academic opinion and the fact I’ve developed strategies to connect with them in their own contexts, it’s not a far cry to starting to share those philosophies myself and losing sight of my own.

Have I become a conservative pseudo-academic? The ones in the staff meetings screaming “You can SOE my PC but not my Pedagogy!” My God, tell me it isn’t so!

Quick, quick. I need to think of something reckless to do!

Music streaming service Spotify just launched in Australia.  After seeing a number of excited posts from people I follow around the web I was intrigued enough to have a closer look.

On the surface it sounds brilliant. Search for just about any song you like, and stream it over the web via a downloadable program you run on your machine.  Excellent, I thought. So I went to create an account to have a closer look:

Let’s say that again: “You need a Facebook account to register for Spotify.”  Why is that exactly?  The logic behind the decision totally escapes me.

No one, I mean NO one, gets access to my Facebook details.  I don’t trust Zuckerberg and his mob enough to do much with Facebook natively, let alone start integrating my web-use elsewhere through my Facebook account.  I regularly ignore all app invites I get in Facebook, even from family members.  The Privacy goal posts have been moved far too many times for me to be willing to take a risk with my data.

So for Spotify to use Facebook integration as their sole means of user access is an enormous mistake.  Sure, a vast collection of people around the planet use Facebook, but there is also a reasonably large percentage of people who just don’t trust Facebook.  So I  don’t see the logic behind putting all your eggs in one basket.

Twitter can be used for authentication; Yahoo! can be used; even Google can be used.  Why limit yourself to Facebook?  It makes no sense whatsoever.

So despite my inherent interest in trying out Spotify – which by all accounts is a freaking cool service – I just won’t go there, because I don’t share my Facebook details with anyone.

I’ve fired off some snippy comments over the last day or so regarding the kerfuffle about Banksy’s stencil of a parachuting rat being destroyed in Melbourne and want to unpack this a bit.

Banksy

The ABC reported (“Banksy rat destroyed by builders“) that the 15-year old piece was destroyed to make way for some piping, and some Melbourne residents are none too happy about it, with one person saying:

“They have unconsciously taken a part of Melbourne, taken a part of history which is really important to do with street art, and just destroyed it without even thinking about it.”

Looking at the footage in the ABC article, it looks almost as if the builders intentionally aimed at the stencil, as if to clean up a piece of graffiti.

I must admit I don’t find the stencil the least bit inspiring, but it is sad that someone’s work now has a drain running through it.  Yet it strikes me that arguing that this piece was worth $50,000, as was said in the article, misses the point entirely.

What intrigues me about all this is the whole movement behind it.  My understanding about art in general – let alone street art – is ham-fisted and perhaps even Philistine - but I get the part about rallying against established norms; what is (or just perceived) to be societal pressure to be or act in a certain way; and the general compulsion to stand up and make your voice heard.

To me that’s the important part.  Anything that emerges from this ethos is more an artefact of the philosophy and not necessarily something of intrinsic significance.

If the local business owner cited in the ABC article is correct, it would seem that Banksy might agree:

“I’ve had contact with [Banksy] over the years and he paints with a friend of mine in New York, but he would probably laugh that there’s so much attention around something that he’s just done as a part of his lifestyle every day,” she said.

edupunk

To put this in a different context, let’s take the whole notion of edupunk (though that term may no longer mean what it used to).  The philosophy of DIY ed tech is to combat the corporatisation of education, and to actively rally against software that caters more to a business’s bottom line that it does students and teachers; to call shenanigans on institutional rules and regulations that serve no purpose for the learning process.

This is an ethos.  It’s a philosophy.  The blogs, wikis, and other external tools are adopted as part of the process and the philosophy, not the end result of it.  If sites are shut down along the way, it’s unfortunate, but the ethos remains regardless.

The ultimate sacrilege would be the death of the ethos, not the decommissioning of a blog that emerged from it.

So while the Death of the Banksy Rat is an unfortunate loss of an artefact, it is not the death of the movement that inspired it, and that’s a really important distinction.