Jeff: Hello, and welcome to EdTechTalk's continuing discussion of Dave Cormier's new book, learning in a time of abundance this week. Chapter 2, abundance. And you know that's important because it's in the title. We're gonna cover song lyrics, online recipes, Uncle Eddie. And more, I am Jeff Lebow in Busan Korea.
Jen: My name is Jennifer Maddrell, and I'm in Chicago, Illinois.
John: This is John Schinker. I'm in Stowe, Ohio.
Dave: And I'm Dave Cormier. I'm in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
Jeff: Wow! So much smoother than last week. Good job, team.
Jen: It's better you gave us something queues before we started.
Jeff: Before we get into the book. Any weekly updates, what was your week abundant in this past week?
Jen: Hmm. I gotta happen
Jen: getting off.
John: Tide a little bit
John: garden stuff.
John: Yep, that's.
Dave: Building guardians.
John: Lots of stuff you were building gardens. I was planting gardens.
John: Yep.
Jeff: Do you guys have jobs.
Dave: Not on the weekend.
John: Did those 2.
Jeff: Yeah, lovely weather here as well. Nice hikes
Jeff: I did include this week in one of my class tasks
Jeff: we were talking about generations. And so I had my students fill out forms. My generation is my generation is not. My generation likes my generation does not like worries about and views on other things which I may weave into our.
John: Did you play the who song.
Jeff: I did not.
John: As you were talking about their generation.
Jeff: They would roll their eyes, and you know, say, Hey, boomer!
John: Roll, their eyes.
Jeff: Although, although I have to say, like they have a, they have an appreciation for different eras of music.
Dave: That's good.
John: Hmm.
Jeff: And a lot of their cafes will have old Vinyl and be playing old tunes.
Dave: I brought my kids out to see Bluegrass on the weekend.
Jen: Go.
Dave: Music.
Jeff: What did they think?
Dave: It was Molly Molly Tuttle in the gold highway. So it's
Dave: kind of new bluegrass, and it's they're in a stunning band. They're unbelievable, so talented.
Dave: So the kids were right into it.
Jen: So they thought that was good, not Dad's old weird music.
Jen: but they don't. Your kids don't think you're weird right?
Dave: Me!
Jen: Yeah.
Dave: Oh, sure!
Jen: Okay. You are.
Jeff: And break.
Jen: But I mean, you get yeah. I was gonna say.
Dave: We, we are all self identified as just a little different. So we're yeah.
Jeff: Yeah.
Dave: Same side of the.
Jeff: A apples don't fall that far from the tree.
Dave: No? Well, you did.
Jen: That gives you a great job on social media cause. It always looks like they're having a good time.
Dave: Let's set of photographs. Yeah.
John: Does.
Jeff: Alright Jen.
Jen: Oh, wow!
John: And we still talking about this same book.
John: we are.
Jen: And I started looking at Chapter 3 today. So it's a good thing I remembered that we hadn't done Chapter 2, so I could go back and
Jen: prepare questions for the mid chapter. But so, as Jeff said, this topic is about abundance, and so I think it's a good place to start, and where you did at the chapter, talking about kind of comparing and contrasting kind of the 2 main categories of abundance you start talking about. So I'm gonna kind of.
Jen: I'll lead the witness here a little bit. Material abundance versus abundance of information. So take it away, Dave. Kind of where? Where do you see this and like, how did you kind of come up with that distinction as a way to frame the chapter.
Dave: So that comes from Glenn i. From 74. He makes a distinction between material abundance and and information abundance. So
Dave: material abundance is.
Dave: Maybe there's a lot of it, but it's still finite. So, in a sense like you could have
Dave: lots of coal in Ohio. I don't know if Ohio is coal
Dave: but there's still a certain amount of it. And so that, like it's materially attached. Whereas when we talk about information abundance
Dave: you know, I mean, you could make an argument that the server uses energy or whatever. But at the end of the day you could put up one newspaper article, and a million people could read it, or 100,000 people could read it. And it doesn't make it less like you don't lose it. It doesn't decrease.
Dave: and I think 78.
Dave: You.
John: Doesn't get exhausted through consumption.
Dave: Doesn't get exhausted because lots of people looked at it.
Dave: And so it's it's an initial distinction that seems to be really important in the abundance conversation. Because.
Dave: the first thing that people do when you start arguing about or start presenting things like this is they go. Whoa! What about this.
Dave: and much like everybody always says.
Dave: what if we trained our doctors this way?
Dave: So that that's just a it's a critical distinction, because
Dave: when we think of abundance in the sense of like
Dave: food in the world.
Dave: Right? So we clearly do a terrible job in the certainly in our countries of managing the amount of food we have versus the amount of food we eat right? There's an amazing amount of it that gets thrown out, and other parts of the world
Dave: that don't have access, the same abundance of food. But we just can't like move ours there, or I mean, we could would be better if we did.
Dave: But it's harder, right? Because it's attached to things, and it's fiscal and moves around
Dave: so that distinction ends up being the starting point of the discussion there, so that we're thinking about
Dave: how
Dave: just how it's different than things like food. That was a terrible explanation.
Jen: No, it was, it was great. And, John, you're that. You know. What you mentioned is what I put in our little show notes is that you know the abundance of information to me. Kind of my takeaway is that it's not limited by how many times we use it so which can then kind of contrast to scarcity. Right? I think you've kind of talked a little bit about scarcity.
Jen: Is there anything you want to say about scarcity now, or you want to kind of wait.
Jen: Okay, let me.
Jeff: One thing that occurs to me is that information. Not only it's unlimited, but the more it's consumed, the more abundant it becomes, the more likes, something gets the more proliferated it becomes.
Dave: That's interesting. I never thought of it that way.
Jen: Kind of did
Jen: you sort of did? Well, you talked about like social media, like we all then have interpretations of the information right? That. Then kind of feeds the beast a bit. Is that kind of what you're getting at, Jeff, too, a little bit.
Jeff: Yeah. Yes.
Dave: Serial abundance is never going to be viral, right? Like. So like it's never gonna
Dave: self propagate itself in the way that Jeff is talking about. So I think that's a really interesting sort of look at it, because
Dave: it means the more it gets looked at, the more it gets looked at which, with material abundance, that's never going to be the case.
Dave: Yeah, for sure.
Jen: Okay. So all of this, then to me, is a good time to talk about the implications cause so abandoned sounds great, right? What's wrong with abundance. So why don't you spend a little bit of time helping us think through kind of the good, the bad, and the ugly of abundance is kind of those implications, and trade offs.
Dave: And that's when you hang on the material. Abundance ends up being different. So one of the examples I use in the book is going to barbecue.
Dave: And so when you walk into any kind of barbecue, and if you're taking a pro social look at this place at all, you're gonna look around how much food there is. Who's there? Whatever else? If suddenly there are more people.
Dave: then there are space for food. You end up in that material scarcity sense where you're like. Oh, maybe I should only have one of those things, and I'll only have like I'll have a ha hot dog, but I'll share it with Jimmy, or whatever you end up doing. So, you deal in those scarcity kinds of ways.
Dave: whereas when there's clear this certain amount of abundance. You got a choice to make
Dave: you end up sort of deciding, based on maybe what's healthy for you. Maybe. What
Dave: you're going to be seen as doing. It may be the kind of place where people eating lots of food is very cool, and maybe the kind of place where it's considered respectful to eat more food. And there's certainly cultures where that's true.
Dave: But there you end up with a whole social set of rules around that right where, you know, doing that. And so for me, what's happened with information abundance is we've gotten to the point where we have
Dave: change the relationship that we have
Dave: to the amount of information right? So when I was
Dave: I was talking to ran my my old list about going to university, and I was talking about going and wanting to study history.
Dave: When I was
Dave: 17 years old. I didn't have history books in my house. I didn't have access if I wanted to know who the second Emperor of the Roman Empire was, there's no way for me to find that out.
Dave: They're just. I couldn't.
Dave: I mean. There was no library in my community. There was no I mean, I could have driven to the nearest city, walked into a library, maybe, or walked into a bookstore and tried to find a book that was about that. And then what flipped through the book to try to find a list.
Dave: It's hard to even imagine how hard it was to access information.
Dave: Now that draw towards discovery just isn't the same.
Dave: So when you look at, for instance and I. I don't have evidence of this, but I believe it's true. When you look at the the so Beth Mcmurtry just released an article in the Chronicle today where she was talking about
Dave: how
Dave: hard it seems to be for students to care about going to school.
Dave: and how much there is this sort of.
Dave: I I think part of that is that, like my students have told me, I don't have to come to class to get the information. I can just get it at home.
Dave: I have one student engineering who's like, I don't even bother like I show up because I have to. But I don't pay attention, because, frankly, my professor is so bad at explaining this. It does much better when I get home. I just need to know what the topic is.
Dave: and then I can go home and watch that guy on Youtube that I always watch. And then I'll get it figured out
Dave: right that really it, it totally changes the relationship between teacher and student.
Dave: Right? You become
Dave: the you were the only option before. So to good or bad, you were the only option, and that relationship has changed right? So you no longer, as a teacher, have control over the content because they have in like that, abundant access
Dave: and doubly different. You also don't have control over truth
Dave: so they can. Yes, go home and read the same thing that you were talking about, but they can also go home and read the opposite opinion of the one you were talking about
Dave: that's equally cited or equally positioned, and I don't have to believe you in the same way, either.
Dave: Now you could kind of do that with a library before, but that's real effort.
Dave: Now, I can be the worst slacker in the world and still check up online and find out that my professor had. There's a different opinion than the person saying
Dave: so. I think all of those impacts
Dave: end up being things that we don't have
Dave: new plans for
Dave: right. We don't have
Dave: at least that I've heard of, or in any agreed way, an idea of how we're going to, for instance.
Jeff: Generating.
Dave: Interest in students for going to school to learn
Dave: rather than school to credential.
Dave: Jeff. You're just.
Jeff: I'm so ready to go because I think, like I don't wanna get too far ahead of ourselves. But I feel like what that student is experiencing are my optimistic answers to the challenges you're talking about in this book because he's right. I don't think it makes sense to go to a physical space and listen to some human lecture for 60 min about the history of the Roman Empire, or anything when there's so much
Jeff: better resources out there. But I do think the role of the human, and the reason to go somewhere is to address what is true, to help moderate that students? Can can it be exposed that information, the role of the human can be? Okay. Let's come together. Let's discuss it. Let's what is valid, what's not valid like. There's still a role for human in that. But lecturing is, you know, so
Jeff: unnecessary for the most part, at this point.
Dave: That's the above
Dave: right there. How do you filter like? How do you get through it? How do you manage the fact that there are 27 opinions about this.
Dave: and sift your way through it to come up with some kind of decision.
Dave: Sorry, John.
John: Well, I think the other piece of that, too, is
John: that you can find the arguments to reinforce whatever you want to believe.
John: You know I I was in second grade publishing parties today, which are all the second graders, wrote books about nutrition, and so they had to pick 3 foods, and for each food that they picked, they have to give, like 3 reasons why that food is good for you. So this kid chooses broccoli, and it's high end fiber, and it has vitamins, and it has antioxidants. And they're explaining all this stuff and like you can.
John: It only takes 3 things right. I only that's what that's what an argument is. You have 3
John: things to support, whatever you're saying.
John: it's really easy to find 3 arguments for anything. And so you pick what your position is. You go out and
John: harvest the abundance of information to reinforce whatever your viewpoint is, and you don't have to listen to the 4,000 reasons why you're wrong.
Jeff: But that's where the education comes in like, that's where that's where the system or the the teacher should be helping to facilitate. Alright. Let's get those counter arguments going. You found those 3 facts. You found these different 3 facts. Let's sort it out.
Dave: Is that what we teach teachers to do.
Jeff: Not currently. But I feel like that's what we should be doing if we want a job.
Dave: Wonder what change you'd have to make like.
Dave: I mean, I'm certainly trying to do this in my own Bd courses with my students and trying to get to.
John: Certainly have to change how you measure learning.
John: and then change how you measure schools.
Jeff: And I think you come up with a better definition, because for ever
Jeff: students have just been coming up with those 3 arguments spewing it out, and there hasn't been the give and take as much. Now it's all about the give and take.
Jeff: Yeah.
Jeff: or it should be a number couldn't.
Dave: The food. One is hilarious, too, because this morning somebody was telling me about
Dave: vitamin C again.
Dave: and how that it actually doesn't help
Dave: anything related to colds. It's actually not related in any way that anybody seems to be able to discover.
Dave: And
Dave: though you could find a hundred people online telling you to take it to do it. So is that the citrus industry that was driving that in the first place, like, how did this thing start. In the first place.
Dave: It's good for scurvy, apparently. Is that still true?
Dave: and I think we end up in a situation where you can make anything true. And I think that's the real scary part about this, because I care less about the kid getting the second Roman Emperor question right
Dave: than I do about the kid being able to
Dave: make good arguments about the against the white Nationalist person who's trying to recruit them.
Dave: Right? That's the piece that I'm particularly interested in is giving people the tools they need to be able to see through some of these things.
Jeff: Like a significant slice of my social media consumption. Are people like Dr. Is who is a doctor, and like mediates these conversations, this person said this here, I'm gonna share the research. This is what the
Jeff: verified research says. And there's this back and forth in the nutritional social media space. That is
Jeff: what I think education can be.
Jeff: even if you don't find definite answers. At least let's bring it in. Let's discuss you. Try to convince me
Jeff: that your facts are better than I hate to say. Your facts are better than other person.
Dave: This is a very good.
John: Yeah.
Dave: This is where it gets tricky. It is fine when there is an easy path to discover what the actual fact is.
Dave: That's it's it's fine. If there's actually a truth out there.
Dave: if there isn't, if it's something that is always going to be contentious, or is always a factor of debate, or where there is research evidence in both directions. Then what do you do?
Jeff: That's where the premiums is. That's where the educational institution can gain reputation is by
Jeff: people trusting that they have looked at all the different perspectives and come up with something that is commonly seen as, okay. Yeah, that makes sense.
Jeff: By the biggest number of people. You're never going to convince everybody, but I can be. I trust doctor is.
Dave: Why do you trust this person.
Jeff: Because
Jeff: a he's got the credentials.
Jeff: He is a doctor, and he he doesn't always. I see John already questioning that.
Jeff: because I I like the way he he takes the information. He says this part's true. This part is not this one we're not sure about like he's not black and white.
Jeff: and I
Jeff: I'll have to think deeper about why I trust him, and I don't. 100% trust him. I want to see other people as well, but I trust him more than a lot of the other loons that come across my feed.
Jen: How do we decide alone from a not loom? I don't know.
Dave: He's going to help you make a better decision, if not the best decision. And I think that's another one of the qualities of abundance right like. If you've only got 2 choices, you're picking one or the other.
Dave: If there are 473 choices, you want to be in the top 20%
Dave: of possible choices. Right? You just you want you wanna not make the terrible one. And if the person helps you get a little bit better down the road. That's that's good. But again, our whole school system is based on things being right or wrong.
Dave: right? Almost everything in the K. 12. School system is about it being right.
John: And wrong.
Dave: And then first year, second year, third year depends on where you are.
Dave: Depends on your program. It depends on a lot of things, but still there's an awful lot of it. That's just you did this right? You did this wrong?
Dave: Which again, I don't think is a very good tool that there aren't facts that we out there. But for all the rest of those things.
Dave: second, yeah.
Jen: We talked about. What the one class I taught this the spring. And I. We talked about it in the context of the Literature Review, which is one of their major assignments. And
Jen: I I think you could take the way we write literature reviews and take those into a lot of different types of assignments you could have students work on to get to this whole idea of
Jen: analyzing information, finding it, sorting it, coming up with contrasting
Jen: takes and opinions and research that's been done. And that's why I think it's kind of fun to watch the students, because they they, their their inclination is they're gonna start with a thesis because they think first of all, everybody thinks they know a lot about a topic when they start, or they have some like what they consider foundational knowledge. But usually what happens is you start digging into what other people have done in the research or whatever. And you realize, oh, wow! There are different ways to look at this.
Jen: And the cool thing about a lit review is that you start and you do your analysis. And then you then toward the discussion section, come back with your own arguments. And I think that's what you're saying. Jeff is like you like with the person you follow is they do that process. So I think was kind of interesting, is like, take that whole
Jen: like, I said example from that one assignment that I have my students to think about how that translates to how we
Jen: bring that into what we're trying to get folks to do in general when they walk out the door, whatever
Jen: class they're in or whatever is that they have those skills. And I as a segue that I'm I didn't mean to build it in as a segway, but I think it's a good one. To. What you talk about in the book is the difference between information and knowledge.
Jen: right? And the there's a quote that you've got on page 49 that for folks that have the book handy. That information is the raw material you have to work with. But knowledge is that is information put in a package by a person or a process. And so I think, Jeff, that's what you were saying, like you rely on that person to help process that. So what I think is really the interesting
Jen: conversation for educators is, how do we do that? And I don't wanna get too far ahead of ourselves. But to me a lot of this gets into like literacy information literacy and those types of things. And you talk. You use the word literacy, but not completely. Maybe we will get that to that later. But so what kind of what are your thoughts on that, Dave? Is that whole idea? Can you? Can you give us a little bit more context of what you.
Dave: Funny. You say that.
Jen: Between information and knowledge. And then, if you want to get into the literacy type stuff.
Dave: It's funny you say that cause I'm working on a talk for tomorrow right now about the difference between
Dave: information being information Literate and then being fluent
Dave: and the example that the New Zealand governments project uses is somebody who's literate in the water doesn't drown.
Dave: and somebody who is
Dave: fluent
Dave: could stop someone else from driving
Dave: like is a comfortable in the water, diving whatever else is able to make interpretations, and a whole bunch of other things. And I and I really love that distinction. And I think it's a really important one, because
Dave: one of the things with Jen AI. For instance, if you are not fluent, you can't tell if it's true or not.
Dave: Right? So it's really great for somebody who is looking for something inside their own field, because they can look at it quickly. Nope, Nope, on the rest of that's fine.
Dave: and off they go.
Dave: But that's not ever how that's almost never how it's gonna end up being used.
Dave: It's almost always going to be used by people who are not, or barely literate in whatever field. They're talking about right cause. Otherwise, why would you go?
Dave: So it's expert usage I'm not worried about. I mean, I have some concerns about bias and like
Dave: stuff that I think is important to talk about. But overall, I'm not as worried about it. What I am worried about is how
Dave: people take information at face value, and don't do the
Dave: the sort of processing to get it to launch right, and that is in an abundance landscape.
Dave: It's everywhere. Because
Dave: if you're going to a library to go find something out
Dave: you've gotten into your. You've taken your bike out of your basement. You've put on your helmet and you've gone down the road. You've found a place locked, the bike. You walked up the stairs, you walked in. You found the part of the library. You go and find the book, and by that point
Dave: the extra work of looking at 2 more books.
Dave: It's a very small part of the process that you're engaged in.
Dave: whereas for me to go
Dave: answer.
Dave: it takes twice as long to look at the second one.
Dave: right? In the first case it's a fraction very small fraction of my time that I've spent in trying to find this thing out
Dave: goes to doing the Confirmation work.
Dave: whereas it doubles the work for every point of confirmation whenever you're working in in, serve the Internet.
Dave: And so I think we don't bother to do that extra cross referencing the extra like they say the lit review part, like all of that sort of deeper approach to it. That's more about meaning making
Dave: Why would you?
Dave: And I think our students really don't
Dave: because they've never seen any need to, because they can just find whatever information they want.
Jeff: Is that true, Jen? When they're doing their lit reviews? Do they just like find an answer? And there's they're done or do. Are they seeking out different views. Well.
John: How do you know when you're done with the lit review.
Jen: Well, that's a big question we often have. It's like, Where do I.
John: Cause, you would spend the rest of your career working on the lit review.
Jen: 100 and so a lot of times I haven't. That's a scope issue, I'll say, then, let's narrow you. That usually is a sign. Let's you know you were looking at the issue like this for the purposes of the confines of our classroom.
John: Or maybe it's an abundance problem.
Jen: Yeah, yeah, right? Exactly. So, the way we handle abundance is we.
John: Super narrow.
Jen: We're a really tiny scope. But what I I guess that my biggest challenge that I have for them is
Jen: Don't start with a thesis, and then go find sources to support your thesis. Is that that's not what we're trying to model.
Jen: But I and maybe I'm just a bad teacher. But the the process part is hard. The synthesis is really, really, really hard.
Jen: Even just even there's this idea that if they get it in a research study, they'll they'll just keep quoting the pro that they'll say so. And so, said Blah, blah blah, whereas you know, if you've kind of been in this for a while, you like, talk about the thing, and then you'll cite it like that's what. But you don't like. Give the authority to that person for coming up. You know, it's just an idea. And so they have this idea that if if it's a scholar or an
Jen: academic. Then they that means means a ton. And you know, so we kind of they have this idea that
Jen: I don't know if they've and if they get it in the. We've talked about this before to a reputable journal. Some are more reputable, and others, and that we can have long conversations about that. So those to me become almost like information literacy things I but I think it's that to me is really, really, really hard to teach is how to detect. Decide where you put all your egg. You know whose eggs you put in your basket, I guess, is maybe a way to think about it. But,
Jen: I don't know. What have you thought about through like this process idea, Dave, is, how do you get folks
Jen: on a path toward analyzing and synthesizing this information effectively.
Dave: I think so much. It is just the amount of time people rolling to commit. So I was doing a talk on
Dave: Friday
Dave: for our the Arts college attachment to our university.
Dave: and the person who teaches sculpture was talking about how she's struggling right now to get students to sculpt for longer than 20 min.
Dave: And
Dave: there's always this, you know, kids these days, and whatever else. But in this case it's it's an attention issue.
Dave: right, so they'll start to do it, and then they'll look at her and go. Is this done?
Dave: And she's like
Dave: I, is it? I'm I don't know. It is your sculpture.
Dave: And so she's finding that there's a suite of things that affect that affect this. That part of it is
Dave: an unwillingness to master. Discomfort is how she described it.
Dave: That
Dave: the her students seem to be very hyper, aware of their current state of physical wellness.
Dave: and they need they? They sort of have structured this this language of breaks
Dave: that's brand that's like 5 or 10 years old and didn't exist before at all. People just wouldn't. And like she says, I'm I'm not saying that's bad.
Dave: but they won't persist.
Dave: and they don't seem to be able to manage their attention.
Dave: and I think that that's one of those critical pieces. Right? So if your relationship to information acquisition is a 30 s
Dave: process, the idea that I would take all this time to go through all this blankets tldr like. Just tell me what it is.
Dave: Just let me know. I find that that's the biggest challenge
Dave: cause I've seen the same thing that you have. It's written by. It's written in a journal article. It must be true.
Jen: Nope.
Jen: and I actually.
Dave: Don't buy the the the whole like better journal stuff at all.
Dave: But
Dave: I still think that
Dave: it's just a process. There's no magical one that's happening. It's a human who went through a process. And you can understand and trust that that process happened.
Dave: But that process has its own strikes and weaknesses.
Jen: Yeah. And it's okay to. I think they're all. I'm thinking that there's gotta be all right and alright like a 2. Now, my London, whatever! What is it? What does Tia? What does it stand for? I say that.
Jeff: Too long. Didn't read.
Jen: Yeah. Couldn't say it out loud or say the whole thing. But anyway, the idea that it's okay to.
Jen: And it's it's a good thing. Actually, you're you're you're providing value within your alert review to be able to say that there are contrasting opinions. And they're contrasting findings, and that those are things we need to dig into more. Because there is this idea. Well, I'm I'm writing a paper, and I'm coming to my conclusion. So I should have conclusions that are answering the question that I'm trying to, you know, seeking? It's like, No, no, it's it's actually okay to say, this needs to be looked into more and these people.
John: Somebody had that problem with a book recently where he spent the first 6 chapters, asked asking questions.
John: and then had to find a way to answer a couple of them.
Dave: So let me ask you guys a question, then. So you guys are all curious people who do all kinds of different things.
Dave: do you find that
Dave: there are more things that you're meant to decide like? Do you find
Dave: that there are a lot of things to decide about like positions on like
Dave: coming at you in different ways.
Dave: So for me, one of the challenges is that I'm expected to have an opinion.
Dave: not on 10 things, but on a thousand things.
Dave: And so I think part of the other thing that happens
Dave: is that because there are a thousand.
Dave: I just start putting them into boxes.
Dave: because there's too many to deal with.
Dave: Right? So if you're out functioning in public, if you're sitting by yourself in your basement, and all you're doing is watching Netflix, and whatever else, then I don't think
Dave: this is happening to you.
Dave: But if you're sort of out functioning socially.
Dave: I find it
Dave: challenging to deal with people who are tell, asking me why I don't care about the fact that we.
Dave: where the new hospital is going in the city.
Dave: why, we're not using fourplexes in my city. There's a whole suite of these arguments, and I'm approached as if I'm expected to know.
Dave: like, somehow, I had access to all the research which I do.
Dave: I don't know where it is, but I I have access to it.
Dave: and somehow I meant to be informed about all of these things.
Dave: and I just can't
Dave: right. So the defensive mechanism that I had to come up with was to say.
Dave: I have no idea it's not that I'm not interested in this thing that you are very passionate about, because the other response is, I don't care
Dave: which I think of is disrespectful.
Dave: You clearly care.
Dave: and I'm I'm trying to listen to you, but I'm not. You're not explaining it to me as if I'm somebody who doesn't know you're explaining to me because you expect me to know.
Dave: and it because it's your thing, and maybe you and your 5 close friends are always talking about it. So you expect that everybody knows this thing.
Dave: But for me there are hundreds of those.
Dave: Does that resonate for you guys at all?
Jen: Oh, 100%. Yeah.
Jen: it's actually why, I'm quite UN comfortable, even doing like presentation keynotes. Anything like that is because
Jen: I think the more you start to dig in that you realize how much you don't know about the thing, wh, whatever the thing is. And so you almost start to kind of panic that I don't
Jen: wanna say anything, because I really there's so much more I don't know kind of. But get getting back to what you were saying, John is like, when when is enough, and
Jen: you know what is the the right thing. But yeah.
John: And it's both a matter of of uncertainty and not
John: being sure, because you haven't looked at all of it. And also.
John: you know that there's somebody out there who just wants to fight right? They just want to argue.
John: and they can find
John: 50 counter arguments to anything that you say, because
John: there's an abundance of all of the perspectives.
Jeff: Yeah, and that is the consequence of of abundance is, the information is out there. It's accessible. So we could have an opinion if we cared, and I I think there's a spectrum between. I don't care. I really don't care versus. I don't know, but I'm interested in learning
Jeff: versus I do care, and I'm somewhat informed.
John: Well, and we can't be experts on all in all the things, even all the important things.
Dave: On, the.
Jeff: Unless we're 20 years old.
Dave: It's.
Jeff: First person.
Dave: So this is so. This, this argument's only whispered at in the book. But this is where I think the the rise of the demagogue in the last 10 years has really come from
Dave: is that people are looking for guidance because there's so many damn things for them to think about. Sorry John's car from 10 years ago.
Dave: I didn't mean to
Dave: bad language. I know that John really objected to our to my language many years ago.
Dave: But I think there's so many things for people.
John: Yeah.
Dave: To know about.
Dave: All they want is somebody to just take some of that off their plate.
Dave: and when you mix that with the fact that we're accustomed to having people in positions of power. Teachers
Dave: have the answer to things, and that's how we're taught to relate to knowledge.
Dave: You put in one loud, obnoxious, terrible old man! I won't mention any names.
Dave: and people are just like it doesn't matter, is it? Isn't a matter of what he's saying is true. It's just. I can follow that.
Dave: and I don't have to process it. Now. I've been told what the right thing is
Dave: as opposed to
Dave: having to negotiate my way through understanding the ways in which gender has changed as a relationship to culture
Dave: just like, oh, my God! Can you just not tell me what it is. And why do you guys keep changing your mind about what it's called
Dave: But it's I.
Dave: I'm not saying that I'm aligned to that. But I understand the frustration.
Dave: No, there's a great article. I wish you could find it that came out after the 2016 elections in your find country?
Dave: That was talking about people in
Dave: people who were
Dave: not going to be rewarded by the policies that were coming in. They were poor people who are not going to be helped by this process.
Dave: who felt like they had been left out of the conversation.
Dave: And we're looking for someone for something, some kind of answer.
Dave: And I think that's that's where this stuff becomes really important.
Dave: Is that
Dave: something very significant has happened to the way we come to decide things in our world, and I mean, schools are important places, but that's not even the
Dave: if if any of you are are ever unfortunate enough to read the entire book. It's not really about schools.
Dave: it's about learning, and how important it is that we understand how we decide things
Dave: right, because
Dave: it used to be that you were pretty safe
Dave: making random decisions on on things, because there's such a narrow process, and they came at you seldom enough that you had time to catch up with them, or your opinion wasn't going to impact anyone else's.
Dave: So if you like.
Dave: Tommy, from my hometown.
Dave: we'll mention his last name, but who is an awful man and had terrible opinions, was only really influencing the 6 people on shift with him.
Dave: Right? That's where it stopped.
Dave: And so his awful opinions just
Dave: they were there, whereas now.
Dave: like you, said Jeff, they it it magnifies and expands and magnifies and expands right.
Jeff: And I don't think the human nature behind all of this has changed. I think we've always wanted simple answers, whether it's in zodiac interpretations, or the local shaman, or to some extent religions. I think
Jeff: the fact that we're expected to know so much more
Jeff: about so many more things. And we're having so many
Jeff: knowledgeable people tell us what's the truth
Jeff: that is is new to this. I've always been a devout. I don't knowest
Jeff: when someone asked me about religion, and I'm comfortable with that. But I think a lot of people are not.
John: You don't. You don't have to know all the things you just.
John: If you decide, did not know all the things, then you have to trust somebody else.
John: and then
John: take their view of what the things are and and what to think about them.
John: And a whole lot of people do that.
Dave: And what we see is people aligning, not even with the answer, but with the person.
Dave: So we're in a number of
Dave: counter, protests.
Dave: people who are protesting
Dave: a variety of
Dave: trans issues in their K 12 school system.
Dave: and the stuff that was being shouted at us, and the several disagreements I had some of the people in the
Dave: protest.
Dave: We're clearly not.
Dave: They were party line repeated expressions
Dave: in any actual question about what they were talking about. There was no content to it.
Dave: There was just a veneer. It was just
Dave: membership, it was belonging.
Dave: not knowledge seeking, but just belonging.
John: And it's not even really about the issue. It's about. You're not part of the group, and I have to hate you because of it.
Dave: What's right?
Jen: Yeah, and by the way, you had a quote in the book along these lines.
Jen: just call up, Yeah.
Dave: Friday. I guess it's not surprising that I mentioned it.
John: Please please tell us, Hermione.
Jen: So
Jen: we had any. We have no one to turn to you to help us decide what we should be doing now that we've moved from information scarcity to information, abundance. And so when I read that I was thinking about like my parents when I grew up in the eighties, we would sit and watch
Jen: Walter Cronkite. Was it Cbs, ABC. And Nbc. You had 3 choices in the evening that you sat down and had your like literally watch, you know, have your TV tray watching TV with your, and maybe they would cover what 10 stories. So your whole view of the world was based on, you know, whichever one you picked of those 3 here in the United States. And then that became like our collective understanding of the world.
Jen: And now to your point. You can have take, you know, confirm your bias in any way you want to, and you'll be able to find all kinds of places to go do that.
Jen: So I'm just stating what it my observation is. I don't know the answer. Obviously I don't know if anybody knows the answer to this, but I think that gets to what you're speaking to
Jen: in the book. Right? Is this
Jen: idea? Who do we? Who who do we go to. And how does it matter to us as educators and members of society?
Jen: Go ahead, Jeff. Sorry.
Jeff: I'm curious. Who do we go to individually? Who do.
Dave: Good question.
Dave: Lots of them.
Jen: Places. I don't.
Jeff: I'm sure we all feel like we get. But I mean, yes, other people. They're overwhelming, confused. But I get reliable information because of what.
Jen: Well, sure. And then the algorithm will feed you as you look more of the things. So yeah, so it's almost like a struggle to go find the things that I don't necessarily my my beliefs don't necessarily align with.
Jen: as I start adding it.
John: I made a conscious effort.
John: I don't know. 5 years ago, 8 years ago, to try to find
John: balanced.
John: lose reporting. And so I landed on Associated Press and Reuters.
John: New York Times
John: to some extent, national Public radio
John: and what I what I realized very recently, and I blogged about this last month was that all of those were on the media bias charts. All of them were right in the center, and now they're all left like they've all moved left.
John: And my theory on that is, there's so much
John: crazy stuff on the right. It's pushing the mean
John: and so like everything has shifted.
John: If you want
John: balanced, you're comparing.
John: you know Mother Jones to OAN.
John: And the center line is way further right than it used to be
John: so I think balanced is difficult. I think we need to have multiple sources.
John: And I try to avoid the things on on the edges and try to stay toward the middle, but
John: it's a
John: it's not something that is is as cut and dry as I go hear from my news, and I get an unbalanced or unbiased source.
John: and apparently I have gestures on.
Dave: Yeah, I saw that.
Dave: So this week. I was building outside of my work time. Thank you very much. Chef
Dave: and
Dave: I had to figure out whether or not
Dave: the new pressure treated lumber was actually safe for eating with vegetables.
Dave: Okay? So there's a fact in there somewhere, maybe
Dave: depending on whether or not the research has been conclusive.
Dave: And there's a lot of sort of carryover. So the first thing I figured out is that the newer pressure treated lumber, which I had some suspicion of.
Dave: And actually, there's a lot of talk like this in the book. And I, if this talk doesn't sound good to you. Please don't buy it.
Dave: Which is just me sort of going through. Here's the story that hopefully gives you a sense of how this thing goes.
Dave: So because when we go to find something out, it's never like
Dave: the way that it's set up in a classroom. Here's this question go to find it. You're kind of you got a morass of different things, right? So I had this sense that there was a new kind of pressure treated lumber
Dave: which I then tracked down and figured out that there is, and the old stuff ended in arsonate.
Dave: which I'm assuming is bad.
Dave: and the new one doesn't.
Dave: So right on the surface, I'm like, that's different. The new new one doesn't have anything that sounds like arsenic in it. So
Dave: that's getting better.
Dave: I then reached out to John
Dave: that John, and asked him what he thought cause he'd done the similar thing, and seemed to have used pressure to the job treated lumber. Not that I could tell from the pictures, but I guess.
John: He did.
Dave: He confirmed that he had, and then he looked at it. So I trust, John
Dave: to search this thing. So that's that's another building of trust. I read a couple of journal articles about it
Dave: where people actually did some testing over time.
Dave: Figured out what they were looking for, which is the copper in it. I didn't know that copper was poisonous, but apparently it can be
Dave: and so I figured out that
Dave: in the research. That's there.
Dave: People say that no one's ever been able to observe any of this particular thing translating into vegetables in a way that could hurt ugly.
Dave: So that's not, it doesn't. But no one has found it.
Dave: And then on the websites.
Dave: all of the websites or the people who sell it say we think it's safe, but we do advise you not to do it, which I'm assuming is a legal distinction.
Dave: And so that's the map that I have. Right? So I'll read some journal articles. I read some Reddit articles. But for this kind of thing Reddit's not great cause. You just end up with a bunch of people shouting back and forth, it's only good. If people actually drop the links in which in this case I couldn't find any
Dave: And to me. That's that's how I do stuff. Now.
Jeff: Alright. So A, that is definitely not going to fit into a 60 s clip
Jeff: B on my, I don't care.
Jen: I'm glad.
Jeff: No spectrum. That's way toward. I don't care. But if ever I do care, I'm gonna trust Dave because Dave has done the research so, and I find him to be a generally trustworthy guy.
John: Trusted me, and I realized, as Dave was talking, that I also did that research and forgot that I did it because once I made the decision. I moved on with my life. I remember asking my dad, who is a master gardener and does all of this stuff, and and is also a woodworker. And he said, Yeah, don't worry about it just. But he's also, you know, going to be 80 in a year. So he's not thinking long term about things that could kill you 20 years down the road, so.
Jeff: And as far as trusted sources a follow up on. Why I like doctor, is because he embraces the counter argument because he takes the criticism. This person said, I'm full of
Jeff: BS. Because of whatever.
Jeff: and he addresses it. So I value that engagement, and, like I seek news sources kind of in the middle, and, like I miss the old point, counterpoint reasonable argument, which is so hard to find in a
Jeff: Of.
John: Can you add on
John: about the pressure treated lumber thing.
Jeff: I will. I'm not sure he's gonna grab onto that. But I like dw news. It's German news.
Jeff: and I find it kind of very
Jeff: informational, and this point that point.
Jeff: I'll I'll watch, you know. I certainly watch a lot of
Jeff: what would be considered left of center news. But I also watch Al Jazeera.
Jeff: Me, too.
Dave: I like Al Jazeera, actually.
John: Just just the the
John: close, the loop! What kind of lumber did you use.
Jeff: Oh, it was.
Dave: I appreciate it. Yeah.
Jeff: I I'm I'm sure listeners were left hanging there. I appreciate, but.
John: They would have come back next week just to find out.
Jen: Coming in next week.
John: And we'll find out if Dave's family is dead.
Jen: Like. Okay. We got what? 15 min mark or so. Not quite.
Jeff: Talk about recipes, and thank Dave for serious Eatscom because it addresses like
Jeff: you know you you how do you make whatever? And there is a not just. Is this reliable information. But is this annoyingly presented
Jeff: like, why don't tell me about everything behind? Just I want the recipe, that's all I want. Why are you putting it?
Jeff: Why do I.
Jen: To, the.
Jeff: Yeah. Patty.
Jen: Jump, to recipe.
Jeff: You know, Tommy, just.
Jen: Said that conversation. He's like what this this recipe doesn't have jumped to recipe. I know annoying.
Dave: So series seats and
Dave: oh, God! What's his name? I have his cookbook.
John: Kenji Lopez alt.
Dave: Benji.
Dave: Yeah.
Dave: So he
Dave: does what I think of as science.
Dave: So he will take
Dave: 12 frozen steaks
Dave: and cook them
Dave: under the best same conditions you can.
Dave: Thought
Dave: half thought.
Dave: Cook it on high heat.
Dave: whatever else, and try them all out, and then what he does is shows you the results of it.
Dave: on whatever cross reference he can find. So the weight of it, his ballpark figure on how much it, how well it tastes, and whatever. So what he's done is shown you the process of his experiment
Dave: shown you the results of this experiment, and then hands it to you
Dave: so you can. It's not necessarily a conclusion.
Dave: not necessarily deciding what's right, but running an experiment that allows you to go. Oh, I am definitely going to go for the cook from frozen, which is the answer that I pulled out of that?
Dave: Because, of whatever reason, whatever I'm going in for, because it's transparent. I can understand the process, and I can actually react accordingly.
Dave: so they do. Great stuff, love series seats.
John: Kenji does a podcast and they've been going through. They just started a few months ago. And they're they've been going through like simple things like macaroni and cheese and pancakes. And you know, like, like, really basic stuff. And like coming up with, how do we do these things? And one of the things that he got called out on was pancakes, because in his book
John: he describes this ridiculous process for making pancakes, and they're fantastic pancakes. But you have to create a pancake mix, and then you're adding buttermilk and sour cream, and it like it's this like, use all of the dishes in the kitchen kind of thing, and and take all morning to make pancakes. And he said, Yeah, I actually don't make those pancakes, because I have other things to do with my life rather than make pancakes all morning. So he then said, Well, it!
John: What's the trade off? If I don't want the world's best pancakes. But I only want to spend 20 min making them. Here's what I do. And and that's the kind of stuff that they do in the podcast which is pretty cool. How do you make macaroni and cheese with 3 ingredients in one pot, and have it come out pretty good.
Jeff: So he becomes a trusted source, and I am holding out hope.
Jeff: System like I feel like truth seeking is sort of a bell curve you've got. You're gonna have the people who just want raw meat, and they're gonna
Jeff: seek out information that supports that or I want overcooked. Well done, meat. But most people and that's probably not a great metaphor. Most people want some kind of, you know, reliable information. And so Benji
Jeff: has earned your trust by doing Dave doing research, showing you his process, engaging with criticism. And so people trust him.
Jeff: People generally trust Wikipedia. You know, there's gonna be.
Jeff: That's the premium. I I feel like the those
Jeff: sources that have earned the trust of
Jeff: the bulk of the people.
Dave: But the problem is is that for a lot of people that's Joe Rogan.
Jen: He dissects a whole bunch of really complicated things, and, Jeff, your 60 s sound bite he can. He's a master at being able to.
John: If you've ever tried his hash brown recipe.
Jen: Yeah. And I do think that's that's the problem, too, is, you know, you said at the we've all kind of said versions of this. But, Dave, you said, how do you get your students interested in spending the time necessary to to do this? Or my? I was also gonna say to you, Jeff. I think the greatest thing I could do as a teacher is to create a bunch of
Jen: people who or everybody who walks out the room, feeling that they could be that you know the person you were saying. You trusted source that they should have the skills to be able to do that. That's that's one kind of comment, I think, is kind of an interesting thing to explore. But the the time we we're in a timeframe people want this stuff quick, and people who can serve it up, saying, Here's your answer.
Jen: this is what, and then get enough people to think you're an expert at it. That's that's been the formula.
Dave: They have 999 things that they have to decide on after this one
Dave: like I don't blame them for wanting a click. And I think that's the thing that
Dave: a lot of the pushback here is, let's move slower. We need to call down the phone.
Dave: How does that happen
Dave: like? How has it.
Jeff: Ever.
Dave: I think part of the path is is the one that Jeff is talking about is just like I I don't know about the thing you're saying, and it's very interesting. I'd like to learn more. And learning that language.
Dave: peek ahead to Chapter 6.
Dave: More importantly, I would like to make it very clear that Jeff got an answer to a question in Chapter 2, and I just want to put it because clearly clearly Siri seats.com, was the answer to a question.
Dave: and I would like to make it clear that there are answers somewhere in the book, for some people.
Jeff: Is this jeopardy? Are we supposed to guess the question?
Jeff: Where should I go to find my reliable recipes? I would also like to talk about song, lyrics.
Dave: Oh, yeah.
Jeff: You talk about being in the basement trying to interpret phrases from Edmund Fitzgerald.
Jeff: and I think we've all been there of misinterpreting song lyrics. I thought little red corvette was pay the red collect
Jeff: pay.
Jen: But so you just had the lyric wrong, let alone, like with the interpretation.
Jeff: And you know, last week we were talking about change is never a bargain
Jeff: and kind of settle. Well, change is never free like. Do you lose something? I feel like what we've gained in this era
Jeff: outweighs what we lost
Jeff: because I did.
Dave: Lyrics.
Jeff: Yeah.
Jeff: or around songs and engaging with music because I did a unit a couple of years ago during Covid on Olivia Rodrigo's driver's license. Are you bloomers familiar with this song?
Dave: Oh, yeah, for sure.
Jeff: It is just the quintessential 16 year old heartbreak song, written by 16 year olds, just beautiful song riding great tune.
Jeff: and the way people have engaged with this song. You know there are all sorts of like alternative versions written from the perspective of the boyfriend or the blonde girl, or the driver behind the driver. And it's all funny and clever and engaging, so like the depth of understanding of the song. Or, if you ask the swifties like their level of engagement with the music, I don't think has been
Jeff: harmed, because they can easily access the lyrics.
Dave: Wow!
Dave: I feel like you've made a very controversial claim.
Jeff: Bring it on.
Dave: Well, I'm not. I've I've never heard anyone make it before.
Dave: So
Dave: the the the in vogue
Dave: position is that all this stuff is wrecked music.
Dave: from the way that auto tune has impacted it to the way that
Dave: you know, people get attacked online. And all the rest of this business.
Dave: that community approach that you're talking about is really cool.
Dave: I think that saying that they're all positive is probably wishful thinking.
Jeff: Positive. I just said that the depth of appreciation and understanding of music has has
Jeff: has had lots of benefits. There's been lots of gains there.
Dave: Yeah, I think it's one thing that this is, we were talking about this 15 years ago. But
Dave: I think one of the things we forget is how much
Dave: that was super banal that happened before we all knew that it was out there.
Dave: We've always had sort of random been all bad thoughts about things. It's just now they're all recorded, although less so now, because again, social media is not what it was 10 years ago.
Dave: People don't post as much as they used to.
Dave: But
Dave: yeah, I guess I could see what you're saying, Jeff.
Dave: and there's.
Jeff: Even an engagement with physical things like you ask any K. Pop fan here, and when the new album comes out they want the physical stuff. They wanna hold something. So it's not even like a whole digital
Jeff: life. It's
Jeff: they. They still want the material possessions and the community interaction.
Jeff: So yay, change.
Dave: Yay, things are getting better.
Jeff: What about, I mean your kids and their level of engagement with music? Do they appreciate music less because they don't have to struggle to figure out the lyrics.
Dave: This is for someone who is passionate about music.
Dave: This is the most unbelievable time.
Dave: Wren's knowledge of music is
Dave: astonishing.
Dave: Was it? I'll give you an example. I was out back
Dave: on the weekend, not during my work time working on my outsour thing.
John: No.
Dave: Thing, and Ren comes out and goes. I have to stop you.
Dave: I'm like, why I need to play this for you, and Ren plays me this, this is just released by motown in 2,006. They recorded it 1966. Okay?
Dave: And can you figure out who this is? And I'm listening. I'm like I can't figure out who this is.
Dave: and Ren says that is a 16 year old. Rick James, did you recognize the guitar playing. I said no, and he said, they said, It's Neil Young playing guitar, and the bass player is the bass player that eventually is from Buffalo, Springfield. This is the minor birds.
Dave: The minor birds was a very short lived band that
Dave: was formed
Dave: because leave on helm, I say.
Jeff: Get me.
Dave: Like the second clip, either
Dave: from leave on helm save Rick James from a bar fight. And then Joni Mitchell suggested that Neil go on and play with Rick James in the bar that Levon took him to.
Dave: And this is what I get from Ren.
Dave: right.
Dave: You just can't.
Jeff: Sometimes abundance is awesome.
Dave: There were sometimes abundance as well.
Jen: Stubborn stuff.
Dave: Like. Sometimes it's awesome.
Jeff: Hey? Can that be the new book? The next book, the sequel.
Dave: Sometimes.
Jeff: Sometimes the class is awesome.
Jen: Oh, Jeff, I just have to throw my thing in. Okay, so you talked about Taylor Swift. I kind of become a swifty. But have you followed it all? You know everybody is. Everybody always has dissected her lyrics, but the one that cracks me up is from. But, Daddy, I love him. And so she said, I'm having his baby, and everybody's thinking she's gonna be talking about Travis.
Jen: and then she goes. No, I'm not. But you should see your faces because she loves to watch people dissect her lyrics. And so she knew she threw this, and she would get these like reactions of people going. But I just thought like to your point. I just this whole. That to me is like very meta, very circular, right? Like she's writing lyrics, knowing people are gonna react to them and dissect them, and then she can like turn it right back around and say, I watch.
John: I'm just glass onion.
Jen: My lyrics, but.
Dave: Yeah, I would.
Jeff: Sister. She's phenomenal.
Dave: Genius, absolute genius.
Dave: especially in that way, like her understanding of how the community works
Dave: unbelievable.
Jen: And then it translates nicely, too. Right?
Dave: It does work out for her nicely. Yes.
Jen: It sure does.
Jeff: Yeah, I mean, she's a pioneer, not in just music and songwriting, but in business. And then self determination, or
Jeff: taking your power.
Dave: Yeah, cause it's been a while. And just even what she did with her, with her own albums, like re-recording them, and stuff and all that.
Jeff: But just the access to music that we can listen to whatever song we've ever heard, and 3 different remixes. And
Jeff: so can kids today. And I can.
John: If you want to play it, you just Google the chords and you play it.
John: But yeah.
Jen: I guess, to your point to what you're saying, Dave. The the songs always existed, but they were pay wall. So there was built in scarcity. You had to buy the album, and then eventually the CD. Now, with streaming you just like holler over to Alexa and tell tell her what you want to hear, and then, you know, 2 s. You get whatever you want.
Dave: Okay, what Beatles song it was. But there's a story that Paul Mccartney tells often about having to go across town to find the guy who knew how to make that proper be
Dave: shape.
Dave: and then he learned it from the guy, got back on the bus, went back and played it with the band
Dave: like that's what you're. There's the one guy who knows how to make. I don't know. There's a B 7 or whatever it was. But there was one guy, so we had to go find that guy.
Dave: Jimmy.
Jeff: I do worry about AI's impact on the music.
Jen: Oh, yeah, that's a whole.
Jeff: Now write a Taylor swift song about my lousy ex name.
Jeff: Whatever you guys see.
Dave: You know.
Dave: have you guys tried? Suno?
Jeff: Tried it. No.
Dave: So you wanna see the future of music
Dave: go click on that.
Dave: and where it says song description put in the description of a song.
Dave: It will write the song.
Dave: make music for the song, and sing the song.
Dave: Somebody sent me a song yesterday, Friday.
Dave: He goes. I kind of feel like it's been
Dave: like like a whole week of Mondays.
Dave: And he goes, I'm like you should give us a little song, a little manic Monday a little wish it were Sunday, and when I was made a joke, what was just before the meeting started.
Dave: and he goes oh.
Dave: and I see him doing the background, and I get a message in the back channel where he just sent me a song called It's Been a week of Mondays.
Dave: and I played it, and it sounded like a song that was on the radio.
Dave: It.
John: Wow!
Dave: So. Yes, Jeff, I am also concerned.
Jen: Yeah, I don't. I don't know like on what what? That's the good, the bad, and the ugly, I mean in some ways.
Jen: How? How? Well, okay, maybe I'm making too big a stretch here. But I remember when my sister she had a degree in computer programming from I don't even know what year? 82, let's say. And so when I started using Wordpress and I just would take plugins and throw them in. And I'd be like, I need a website. Look at me. And she's like you didn't make a website
Jen: you took this module made in, you know, wherever Montana and whatever. And so like. I don't know how much different is that? Then just saying, Hey, I want this and this and this I'm giving you back out of song. I made a song. I don't know.
Jen: I don't know.
John: It just changes the definition of made.
Jen: Yeah.
John: Right you. There's a website that didn't exist before that.
John: Jennifer's responsible for. But
John: she didn't start with a text editor, so it doesn't count.
Jen: My sister would say, I never made a website in my life. Yeah.
John: And.
Dave: And it. It changes the literacies we need to use, too. Right? So
Dave: I was doing for the same creativity talk I was doing for the arts. Ca, Art School. On Friday
Dave: I did a search for one of the image generating websites because I was trying to give them a sense of like different AI sort of stuff as it's working.
Dave: And there was like.
Dave: Woman
Dave: on a horse who's riding on a beach in front of an ocean, whatever else, and I just use random button and click.
Dave: So it did in a, and you could pick the style, and it was like.
Dave: whatever the style. Was
Dave: it so? Was a woman on a horse in a like a top of their top was all riding outfit, and whatever else but she's wearing no pants.
Dave: Because inevitably, when you're searching through our understanding of women who are presented in these kind of situations, they're not wearing pants on the Internet.
Dave: which is the problem with it
Dave: is that
Dave: it is we're we're auto generating. But we're replicating the Internet.
Dave: which is often a test pool, particularly as it affects race and gender.
Dave: So I think there's a bit difference.
Jen: Yeah. And I think going back to Taylor Swift before her new album came up. There were all these fakes that did exactly what you just said, and then they were released as her music, and then she's like, no, it wasn't. Well, that was easy, because she's usually able to say, that's not mine. But the question then becomes, What if we can't pinpoint what is and what isn't beyond a sign? Or if it's something really really important something that
Jen: Biden said. Start said that started World War 3, because we have a video of him saying something that
Jen: type of thing.
Jeff: Still be a premium on the authentic, you know, just like on Star Trek people drink synth. But, like, you know, Gyne's always got a bottle of this real, you know
Jeff: Cardassian brandy, or whatever that's the real thing behind the bar.
Jeff: But I people drink mostly sent the whole.
Jeff: which scares me that we might be consuming. I'm sorry. It looks like God, you guys didn't get my Star Trek metaphor. I got it. Thank you. Also.
Dave: Scotty. Scotty used to also drink.
Jeff: Scotch.
Dave: I was there with you.
Jeff: I appreciate that. But most people drink the
Jeff: artificial stuff, and that may be the future of music.
Dave: No hangover.
Jeff: Yeah.
Jeff: but less less flavor.
Jeff: All right. Anything else, Jen.
Jen: Nope.
Jeff: Anything else. Dave.
Dave: Thank you very much for asking me such interesting questions. I appreciate the fact that you guys have managed to get it to Chapter 2.
Dave: I'm still suspicious whether or not Jen has read any of the other chapters, and is reading them as she goes along.
Jen: When when at a time.
Dave: But yeah, I want to spoil.
Jen: No, I have no memory. I like, I said. I.
Dave: Clicking it.
Jen: As I was looking at Chapter 3, he was forgetting that we hadn't talked about.
Dave: Literally telling me about stuff I've written, and I'm like.
John: Did I say I did?
Jen: Plays a.
John: 4.
Jen: Okay, I put the page numbers in there for you, so you can go.
Dave: Appreciate that.
Jeff: Alright. Well, stay tuned for a post show, cause I have some questions
Jeff: and tune in next week, when we deal with Chapter 3. How abundance is a problem for learning.
Jeff: Alright! What are your post? Show questions, John.
John: Anybody. Listen to spark this week.
Dave: What's up?
John: Did you listen to spark this week? Oh, there's an announcement at the end of spark
John: work is being discontinued.
John: But in June
John: oh, spark at tech weekly episode 100
John: dave mentioned Nora Young, and he said, Nora kind of does the same sort of thing we do.
John: and I didn't know whether Dave was talking about Nora's radio show or Nora's. Podcast so I started listening to both of them.
John: And now, however, many years later, this is the radio show's ending.
John: And it's a, it's a Cbc program about the intersection of technology and culture and how they affect each other and and impact each other.
Jen: So.
Jeff: Way that, and.
Jen: Is it? Yeah? Is it ending because of the.
John: Just said that the
John: Canadian broadcasting companies decided to end the show.
Dave: Or 7.
John: 15 years.
Jen: Hmm!
Jen: I'm googling it now.
John: I'm saying this so that you know you know you have like a month to get on the show before.
Dave: And no.
John: You're out of luck.
Jeff: Guys listen to any educational podcasts? And if so, which ones.
Jen: Don't!
Jeff: And what is your podcast
Jeff: what is it they Podcatchers? What? What do you use to access podcasts?
Jeff: And I'm Google again, heartbreaker, I was very happy with Google Podcasts. But
Jeff: they're going the way Google, reader and feedburner.
Jen: Oh, yeah.
John: Are you?
Jen: Music.
John: We use. Wait. What is this thing called podcast addict, which I've used for years and works reasonably well.
John: K, 12. Tech talk, which is very technology, focused and and sort of making the stuff run more than the instructional part.
John: what other podcasts do? I listen to
John: better education.
Jen: I don't listen to any.
Jen: I really don't listen to all that. Many podcasts.
Jen: I don't really have the attention span. I guess anymore. I don't know.
Jeff: But me.
John: I mean, you know, Ted Tech, Ted education, but
John: those don't really count. I don't think.
Jen: What do you listen to? Jeff?
Jeff: Education. Not that much. I subscribe to teachers talk radio. Graham Stanley is on there now, and it's a whole network of shows.
Jeff: Although they've got like these commercial breaks that I find jarring.
Jeff: And one of them was for
Jeff: Tate. What is it, Andrew Tate?
Jeff: It's like woo.
Jen: Really.
Jeff: Personal in the middle. That doesn't feel right.
Jen: That's awesome.
Dave: Wow! That's a terrible dude right there.
Jeff: Yeah.
Jeff: you know.
Jen: I like
Jen: business one sometimes like how I built this. Have you ever listen to that one?
Jeff: Planet money and.
John: I've been. I've really been liking fixable lately. I don't know if you've Jen would in particular would really like this, and it's they're only half an hour long. And they're.
John: you know, they're business focused
John: and they they take a problem or a situation, you know, working with coworkers or within an organization or within, you know, certain challenges and how to overcome those challenges or
John: alleviate
John: them. It's it's super cool and and they're only half an hour long. It's.
Jen: That's not good.
John: Yeah.
Jeff: I'm sorry. What was the name of that.
John: Fixable.
Jen: He just put it in the
Jen: if you put in the text.
John: In the chat.
Dave: Yeah, I'm watching stuff. I'm listening to stuff on Youtube.
Dave: So I watch them and listen to them on Youtube.
Dave: which is now A, podcast which I still have not gotten over.
Jeff: That Youtube and Youtube.
Jen: There!
Dave: That that people's Youtube video is a podcast.
Dave: My brain still hasn't quite made that leap, but they keep calling them. But they've called them podcasts for long enough. Now that
Dave: so like I watch a lot of
Dave: music criticism.
Dave: So a lot of
Dave: people doing deep breakdowns of
Dave: songs.
Dave: Those kinds of things.
Dave: John and I watched the same guitar podcast.
John: Yeah, there's no new episode this week.
Dave: I know, he said there wasn't going to, so.
John: I know. I remembered that after I board my Martini, that I usually drink while I was listening to him, or watch him fix guitars.
Dave: Did you pour the Martini out.
John: No, I drank it.
Jen: I actually have to leave our post show. Tom is doing a sleep study tonight, and we have to start watching the videos on how to do.
John: At the same time.
Jen: Basis
Jen: watching. Yeah.
Jen: and like.
Jeff: Send you a video to post on the A. Tiktok Tiktok.
Jeff: Jen.
Jen: Me!
Jeff: Yes.
Jeff: because you're a tiktoker.
Jen: Yeah.
Jeff: Do that.
Jeff: I want you to post it because the Korean audience isn't really
Jeff: particularly into what we're talking about.
Jen: Oh, so you want me to post it under my account.
Jeff: And at you under that tech talk I'll send you that.
Jen: Oh, sure, yeah, I was. Gonna say, I've never actually posted that. I'm a big consumer
Jen: content. But I've never posted so absolutely.
Jen: Yeah.
Jeff: Alright! I will send you that, and good luck with the sleep study.
Jen: Yeah, I hope it's not real disruptive to me. I think the partner might have
Jen: a very disrupted sleep tonight. I'm not. Already I was told. I have to take off my apple watch. It will somehow interfere with whatever device it's got, like
Jen: electrodes and things.
John: You think it's gonna be hard to sleep with the cameras.
Jen: There better be no cameras.
Dave: And hotel.
Jen: No, at the couch. I've already been told that I might have to come out the couch. But it's a weird thing you you get. I haven't looked. I literally have not looked at it, and he has to put it on in the hour. But he has like like, I said, like a chest electrode, and then something he wears on like his fingers thumb, and then like an wearable.
Jen: and then you chuck it in the garbage. You don't return it anywhere, and I'm like that just seems wasteful.
Jen: So.
John: You do have another house right.
Jen: Well, it's in another state. It's 4 h away.
John: Whatever whatever.
Jen: Might be a line.
John: But it's West. You have more time.
Jen: Today? If speaking of did everybody see the Northern Lights? Or did people see it.
John: We did sort of did.
Jen: Oh, we had an excellent view.
John: Yeah, right out in the backyard. But.
Jen: Not you, Jeff, but I don't.
Jeff: We don't have sky here.
Jen: Yeah.
Jeff: It's a big city.
Jen: Yeah, I was out in the sticks. We had really good ones.
Dave: We're at the Molly Total Concert.
Jen: Oh!
John: We were in the backyard.
John: To me it looked like clouds.
Jen: Oh, alright! It's cool.
John: Cause like I couldn't. I can't differentiate the colors well enough to.
Jeff: You come?
John: Anything out of it. Yeah.
John: So
John: the photos were better. I wish I had known to actually take more than like one.
Jen: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
John: Set night mode and do those those kinds of things so.
Jen: We'll touch on. Good luck.
Jeff: Good luck with the sleep.
John: Study.
Jen: Thank you. Bye.
Dave: Bye, guys, later. Thank you.
Jeff: John, did you get the Ed tech talk audio this week?
John: I think I had the same error.
John: Why am I not?
John: That's right there
John: and tech talk collaborative.
John: May sixth.
John: An error occurred. Try watching this video on youtube.com, or enabled Javascript, if it is disabled in your browser.
Jeff: Okay.
John: Now with the
John: it's gonna go here to be in focus. And now it's backwards.
Jeff: Okay.
John: Never mind.
Jeff: I I redirected it to rss.com, and we had 15 downloads, but I guess you were not one of them.
Jeff: I want it, cause like the
Jeff: you might be subscribed to a different feed.
Jeff: because@techtalk.com slash feed was redirected. But you might be having.
Jeff: Or at tech.
Jeff: Not at that tech talk, feed.
John: Check. How do I find? My
John: beamed.
John: what a podcast. Yeah. URL, ed techtok.com slash, node, slash, feed.
John: Should I change that.
Jeff: No, it's alright cause it was just one week free. So I have to figure out what we're good. I'm gonna do.
John: Ed tech talk.com slash node, slash feed is where where I'm going.
Jeff: Okay
Jeff: to know.
Jeff: Alright, sir.
John: Alright! Well, enjoy work, have a.
Jeff: Thank you, enjoy work and play.
John: I get to sleep first.
John: yeah.
Jeff: Sleep well.
John: Alright!
Jeff: See next week.
John: Cheers, bye.