http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Tarina/~3/180760041/

I wrote recently about privacy issues related to Facebook, especially how private companies get away with it and the public just loves them. Everyone who reads Slashdot has already seen this, but anyway here are a couple of additional resources for the issue for those who are interested:

• Clay Shirky on privacy
• Facebook employees monitor what pages you look at

Clay Shirky has some interesting observations there. Employers can use the information they find about you online for anything they want. He points that if you aim a shotgun mic at someone or listen into the conversations of others on a public place that turns you into a weirdo. In the other hand, if Facebook employees aim “shotgun mics” at you it cannot be detected and they can get away with it much more easily.

A recent study also found that an average American is largely unaware of their privacy online and most (about 55%) falsely assumed that company’s privacy policies prohibited it from sharing their online activities with third parties.

“The more they know about you, the less you are.” - Marshall McLuhan

ps.

I will be in Netherlands, Utrecht next week for the SURF Education Days, as is Stephen Downes. There is a blogger dinner on monday.

pps.

I plan to start a videoblog about some of my activities at Dicole, 5 minutes per day. Because I’m quite busy I can’t do all this by myself so I need to find someone from Helsinki area who can help me. He/she should know some graphic design, video editing, sound processing, speaks english, can operate a video camera and has a great attitude. If you know someone or would like to work for an innovative company on a good spot looking at the adoption of social media within organizations, please contact me.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Tarina/~3/186825140/

I interviewed Stephen Downes at SURF Education Days 2007 in Utrecht, Netherlands. The conference was mainly about professional learning and education.

I’ve known Stephen’s great newsletter since 2001. He covered my previous project MimerDesk on March 29, 2002 with the following words:

For those of you looking for alternatives to six-figure learning management systems, here is an alternative that my be easier on your budget (and may change the way you approach online learning).

Well, MimerDesk really didn’t change the approach to online learning in general but it teached me many things. The project has been discontinued since 2003 once I started my work on Dicole.

In february 2005 I interviewed Stephen Downes for a podcast and since then we have been watching the work of each other closely. Finally we had the opportunity to meet in person at the dutch edu-blogger dinner (thanks to Wilfred Rubens and Keith Russell) and later at the SURF Education Days 2007 conference.

We both had presentations at the conference. I recorded Stephen’s great presentation on free learning vs. control learning and my own that will be available later. Until then, here is a video interview with Stephen Downes as we retreated from the conference to a restaurant to have a conversation on all things learning:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Tarina/~3/188715084/

This is a recording of a presentation I delivered at the SURF Education Days 2007, in Utrecht, Netherlands. I used VCASMO to sync the slides with the presentation afterwards.



The industrial revolution changed the meaning of the word “speed” from “good luck, success, prosperity and advancement” to something that resembles machine-like mechanical speed, effectively disconnecting context from time.



This thinking was later captured by increasing focus on efficiency in industrial organizations, a model that was also adopted by our educational system to meet the demands of efficient organizations of tomorrow. As we move towards a real-time economy, social software is shifting our thinking from efficiency to responsiveness and ability to adapt. Context is once again connecting with time and as a result, our system is facing increasing pressures to change. What opportunities, challenges and new ways of relating will emerge?