Posthegemonic Comments
"What earthly use is this map?"
You don't seem to understand why there wasn't intended to be a "use" for the map (in the sense I think you mean - the map as being useful as a standalone, fully contextualised, entity in it's own right?).
The post describes an approach for getting data out of an html table in an arbitrary web page and showing how, if it contains location doata, that location data can be geocoded so that it becomes plottable on a map without further work, and also how text elements from another row in the table can be added into the description element of an RSS or KML feed, along with other text.
The post was not to say: look at THIS map; it was to say - here's how to get data out of a web page and do something useful with it; the point of the post was not about what that use might be.
I figure you should also take the context of the post into account:
It was:
a) as a personal blog post (i.e. informal publishing, not a piece of offocial instructional material; not an academic journal article);
b) that was about the right length for a blog post;
c) that demonstrates a bit of wiring;
d) in a blog that is at times largely about exposing web wiring and/or acting as a back of the envelope notebook for work in progress...
Another thing worth bearing in mind that is that the blog is a personal notebook and each post is laden with assumptions about the knowledge of the reader. So for me - and I think many of my blog's readers - part of "the point" about getting things into Google maps is that the maps can be embedded back in arbitrary web pages.
There is a danger with this of course - a map that appears embedded in a page that provides context for the map can be taken out of that page and reused - misused - elsewhere.
The same is true of images, figures and diagrams, of course, which also appear in many places as 'components' intended for use elsewhere. How many screenshots on services like flickr, that appear with commentary and context in blog posts around the web, are fully contextualised in flickr if flickr is just being used as an image server?
So, if you really, really want an endpoint use, then the point of the post is this:
- the process described was developed as a prototype/specification elicitation exercise for a generic component in a progressive enhancement ( http://ouseful.open.ac.uk/blogar...ive/
014014.html ) routine that would allow certain sorts of table in a wikipedia entry to be automatically (progressively) enhanced with a map display.
As it stands, with a little bit of tweaking, *that* map could be potentially be embedded back in the wikipedia article to illustrate the table that appears there and to try and illustrate whether the geographical distribution of the cities mentioned appears to have any bearing on their population. The map could then pull in other map layers, such as overlays relating to local authority boundaries, ward sizes used as population count containers, or whatever the geogrpahers use, and so on.
Only, that wasn't the point...
PS "kewel" and "lurvely"? That's to try and lighten the tone with a spot of self-deprecation and splash of irony... . Some blog posts are just way too formally written and fun-sucking for my liking...
Tony:
"The post was not to say: look at THIS map; it was to say - here's how to get data out of a web page and do something useful with it; the point of the post was not about what that use might be."
I think I understand this exactly. And this is the crux of the problem: there's the vague assertion or implication of some kind of usefulness, without any examination of that implicit claim. I'm only discussing this particular map because it's the example that you gave us.
"The same [danger of misuse] is true of images, figures and diagrams, of course, which also appear in many places as 'components' intended for use elsewhere. How many screenshots on services like flickr, that appear with commentary and context in blog posts around the web, are fully contextualised in flickr if flickr is just being used as an image server?"
And I agree with this completely. Indeed, this is my point. Data literacy should surely be about examining the ways in which data is repackaged and misused. If you like, the point of my post was to apply some kind of critical data literacy skills precisely to an image such as this one.
But sometimes the transformations and repackagings applied to data sets make such literacy both harder and all the more vital. To go back to my comparison: the problem with the ways in which debt data was repackaged and resold was that the original context of the bad loans was almost impossible to discern.
Likewise, your map seemed to me an almost textbook case of progressive degradation, rather than (in your terms) progressive enhancement of the data that it presented.
Your assumption is the reverse: that this is enhancement rather than degradation. I'm sorry that you think that pointing out the problems with this assumption (whatever the forum) is "fun-sucking" or "BORING."
And to place my points in the context I outlined: I regard my job, and that of the university in general, to include a critique of such elisions that are presented in the name of head-exploding kewelness. Indeed, just such a critique would be the basis of a remedial data literacy class.
I've been wondering - did you view the original post in the context of it being presented as something to do with data literacy rather than as an example of how to use a Google data scraping function and pipe the result into a Yahoo pipe (which is, I think, how many everyday readers of my blog would have interpreted it?)
Where's Brian...?
Just out of interest, if I had embedded the map in the wikipedia post to illustrate the table, how would you have critiqued it as a visualisation in that context? (Genuinely interested in your response - maps get used all over the place to vacuous USA Today style 'points').
If I had found a page with a data table where a simple visualisation of the markers was show, such as locations of English Civil War battles, and then embedded the map and written a post saying: "here was a wikipedia page I thought might benefit from a map, here's how I used a Google spreadsheet and a Yahoo pipe to create the map", would that have been of more "value"?
Because it would have been exactly the same pipe. And that post was about pipework - tagged Pipework, Tinkering and Visualisation (the latter just because of the map).
Tony:
Heh. Yes, I came to the post via Brian's blog. As such, it was framed for me in terms of data literacy. On the other hand, I don't blame Brian for putting that spin on things: I disagree with him (obviously) on his particular interpretation, but he was trying to give some meaning to what you were up to. Plus I think the issue of data literacy (which he in turn was picking up from you) is indeed important. I think we're all agreed on that. We may disagree, however, on what precisely we mean by the term.
As to the question of whether or not the map had been embedded in the Wikipedia page... Obviously, then it wouldn't have the problems I'm suggesting. I'm still not entirely sure how helpful the map is; I think in that case, for added value, you'd have to resize the towns and cities according to population. There might also be a discussion as to how much that particular list (with its idiosyncracies) could be visualized in such a way. But it would be worth opening up that discussion. I wouldn't be against that, at least not prima facie. Indeed, having the two modes of representing the same information side by side could enable a critical assessment of both the visual and the non-visual presentation. (I'm not against images!)
Likewise perhaps with your civil war battles example. I can also see how that would be less problematic as a stand-alone visual.
Again, I'm not against mashups or the technology per se. I simply think that (maybe case by case) there needs to be a discussion of the effects of that technology. Technology isn't bad in itself. But likewise it's not cool or nifty in and of itself. I was reacting against the suggestion that it was.
"Where's Brian...?"
He's sitting at his kitchen table at 8:30 in the morning, home with a sick boy, reading the new verbiage that's piled up since he went to bed and wondering if there's any point to jumping in again...
I'm a bit frustrated with the way this discussion has played out, as I feel like some valid critiques have gotten lost in what I perceive as vitriolic and rather broad characterisations. There are two points that I'm glad have come up:
1) As I've acknowledged, my initial formulation of data literacy was clumsy, and incomplete. I suppose 'blithe' is a tag I must wear yet again. Of course any form of literacy worthy of the name should involve a willingness and capacity to dig deeper than what is presented. If I wasn't feeling so grumpy right now (maybe coffee will help), I might sketch out the framework for that remedial data literacy class, and ask both you guys to contribute to it.
2) It was important to note how data gets stripped out in the conversions, and drawing out a discussion on "maintaining provenance info" is important. I know all too well about Tony's fear in boring (or, in my own experience, overwhelming with detail) an audience that is completely new to the subject. But that concern is important, as Tony has repeatedly acknowledged, here and in past posts.
It's true that context is critical, but it's in how this context has been represented that underlies my frustration with this discussion. Tony highlights his take on the context in the first comment above. Maybe my own quarter-baked use of a term like "data literacy" is at fault, but it seems like what Tony was actually doing (testing and trying to extend the capacity of some tools) has been effaced. My own hope is that if that work gets enough hands on-board (hence the motivation for my whoop-up post), the techniques might become accessible to cartographers, demographers, historians of the English Civil War, maybe, someday, cultural and political theorists who want to apply their work via Latin American case studies. If the tools are actually useful to them, I would hope we could count on these scholars to apply the rigour of their disciplines to bear.
Again, the promise and perils with this sort of work remind me a great deal of the early days of weblogging.
And really, encapsulating "everything wrong not just with educational technology, but also with the university today"? *Everything*? I read now in this expanded post that you are building on your previous critiques of corporatization of the university. Fair enough. Sadly, I honestly don't suppose it matters much that the powers-that-be are indifferent (at best) to work that tries to put publishing and data management in the hands of individuals. Jon, you know how successful I have been in attracting significant any funding to support more effective syndication and representation in the context of courseblogging. I can assure you that Tony is one of a miniscule percentage of educational technologists who not only to care about such things, but actually do some work to make it happen.
So I find myself in the position of being a corporate sell-out, but nobody's buying. Story of my life.
Since I hope it will work as a transition, I'm going to note something that strikes me as ironic. The New York Times Ideas blog noted the Edupunk phenomenon today, linking to the Wikipedia article -- which I know you love, Jon. (In case you are wondering, I've never edited the article.) Anyhow, the work on Jon's "Murder, Madness, and Mayhem" project, and Tony's fun video "Changing Expectations" are listed side-by-side there.
Which I would normally just treat as the dumb coincidence that it is... but Edupunk brings us to "kewel" and exploding heads. In an academic environment, I suppose it's hard to resist opening fire on those big fat fish sitting at the bottom of a barrel. You have plenty of company in that. As someone who has taken fire for unserious, unacademic language, all I can say yet again in my defense is that my job rarely provisions time to write about my interests, and I find it challenging to get quiet time together in my off-hours for contemplative writing. So when I see something that I want to share or promote, I default to using my blog as a space where I can bash something out (even when, as I noted in the 'data literacy' post, I haven't had a chance to fully understand it). I effectively am taking the time another employee might use chatting around the coffee machine... I've always thought of my casual language as something of a cue to readers acknowledging my constraints and limitations, not to mention my own determination to make that time, well... fun.
Which leaves me to accept that I'm the (beer-bellied) Keanu Reeves of higher education. Bummer, dude.
Brian, I think the Sarah Palin-approved term is "verbage" rather than "verbiage." On which, incidentally, see this recent New Yorker piece, which is not ungermane to the present discussion.
Anyhow, I'm sorry you're frustrated and grumpy. I do think it was important that you framed your presentation of Tony's post in terms of data literacy. I think that's an important concept, and it would certainly be worth thrashing out what it could or should mean. Hence my using that idea as the hook for my discussion of Tony's post, and the reactions it generated.
It might also be worth having a conversation about boredom, enthusiasm, and critique. Brian, you've been to enough of my presentations to know that I try not to be boring. (Perhaps hence what you describe as "vitriol.") On the other hand, a bit of boredom can be good for one. I've written about this various times before. It might be a bit of a tangent, but I'd be happy to talk more about boredom. I do worry about the cult of enthusiasm, which was evident not only in Tony's post but also in the comments and reactions to it.
Two more issues. I recognize that I've put you in a difficult position, as you are the link between the two of us... and indeed, with Jim Groom, Mr. Edupunk. I'm happy enough with the edupunk label (and don't have anything particularly against the Wikipedia article, by the way; and I have contributed to the discussion about it, on the talk page). I'm also happy to be alongside Tony as an instance of edupunk.
What I worry about is not edupunk, but eduhippy. (I've noticed you're not the biggest fan of hippies yourself, so perhaps we can make common cause?) Sitting back, out of it, saying "far out, dude!" While by contrast, isn't the ethos of punk precisely that of relentless critique?
...Which can of course still be friendly critique. I do hope we've got somewhere in these discussions. Again, I'm not against mashups, pipes, visualizations, and so on. And I'm quite prepared to accept that Tony's on the "right" side in pursuing creativity in the face of bureaucratic indifference, and so on. But if critique has any value, it has to include our "friends" as well as our "enemies." Even if, with our friends, we ideally have our arguments over beers rather than over the Internets.
Beers? Let's do it tonight.
Promise me you'll say more bad things about hippies.
Geography permitting, I'd want to invite Tony and Jim too. I'd be in heaven.
Your critique is spot on, I'd just like to let you know.
I've had similar issues with my publicwhip webpage (link included), where people keep insisting on playing with the attendance rate of the MPs (which is utterly meaningless), while entirely ignoring data about what each vote was for.
I got so sick of this that last month I made these statistics unavailable on the main table.
I wished that those who did pointless mash-ups of data would graduate to doing useful mash-ups of data, but this never happened. Unfortunately, the judgment between what's useful and what's meaningless seems to be missing in the first place.
Julian, interesting... Many thanks for the example.
I like this post. Today I got called "technophobic" again because I don't think that if an antiquated teaching methodology is repackaged "with technology" that somehow makes it good.
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