Don't worry about performance too early though - it's more important to get the design right, and "right" in this case means using the database the way a database is meant to be used, as a transactional system.

You see — if software is to have soul, it must feel more like the world around it. Which is the biggest clue of all that feeling is what’s missing from today’s software. Because the value of the tools, objects, and artworks that we as humans have surrounded ourselves with for thousands of years goes so far beyond their functionality. In many ways, their primary value might often come from how they make us feel by triggering a memory, helping us carry on a tradition, stimulating our senses, or just creating a moment of peace.

The novel workflows that a technology enables are fundamental to how the technology is used, but these workflows need to be discovered and refined before the underlying technology can be truly useful.

This costs about $650 USD to operate

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework

The fundamental mistake of Node.js was diverging from the browser

instructional designers and educational technologists (IDs/ETs)

We don't need the threat of repo men to keep you paying your car note – miss a Tesla payment and your car will phone home and lock its doors. When the tow arrives, it will flash its lights, honk its horn and back out of its parking space for repossession.

Trailblazer offers you a new, more intuitive file layout in applications.

Instead of grouping by technology, classes and views are structured by concept, and then by technology. A concept can relate to a model, or can be a completely abstract concern such as invoicing.

Concepts over Technology

While Trailblazer offers you abstraction layers for all aspects of Ruby On Rails, it does not missionize you. Wherever you want, you may fall back to the "Rails Way" with fat models, monolithic controllers, global helpers, etc. This is not a bad thing, but allows you to step-wise introduce Trailblazer's encapsulation in your app without having to rewrite it.

An Introduction and Guide to Enhancing Online Instruction with Web 2.0 Tools

Characteristics of Adult Learners With Implications for Online Learning Design

News can no longer be (only) about the mass update. Stories need to be targeted to those who might be able to improve the situation. And journalism’s products — which are more than its stories — must be designed to facilitate this. News needs to be built to engage curiosity about the world and the problems in it — and their solutions. People need to get lost in the news like they now get lost in Wikipedia and Facebook. There must be comprehensive stories that get the interested but uninformed up to speed quickly. Search and navigation must be improved to the point where satisfaction of curiosity is so easy it becomes a reflex. Destination news sites need to be more extensively hyperlinked than almost anything else (and not just insincere internal links for SEO, but links that are actually useful for the user.) The news experience needs to become intensely personal. It must be easy for users to find and follow exactly their interests, no matter how arcane. Journalists need to get proficient at finding and engaging the audience for each story. And all of this has to work across all modes of delivery, so it’s always with us. Marketers understand this; it’s amazing to me that the news industry has been so slow to catch on to multi-modal engagement.

you could say the same thing about a lot of new productivity apps as well - they’re trying to capture something intangible about the way we work, collaborate, share and organise. Now that we’re all locked down, half the software engineers on earth are sitting at their computers swearing at their tools and thinking of new ways to collaborate, with video, text, voice, screen sharing, or something else again, and with synchronous or asynchronous models, or something else. But the interesting ones here aren’t just ‘video’, or ‘screen sharing’ or ‘notes’ - they’re bets on how to present that differently, and to work differently. They’re bets on psychology and on how people might feel about working that way.

Training and Development Policy Wiki

1Engaging Adults Learners with TechnologyThrough

Section 1.3 Theories of Education and the Online Environment

Technology

As educational technologies, instructional design and online learning/content delivery platforms keep evolving, more learners with more needs and motives will be drawn to taking online courses – a growing demand that in turn will spur further improvements in technology and delivery.

From Peg Cheechi, an instructional designer at Rush University: informing faculty members about the advantages of working with experts in course design.

How to Design Education for Adults

Training Older Adults To Use New Technology

Instructional Design Strategies for Intensive Online Courses: An Objectivist-Constructivist Blended Approach

“The ADDIE model consists of five steps: analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. It is a strategic plan for course design and may serve as a blueprint to design IL assignments and various other instructional activities.”

CREATE Overview

The association of alternative approaches to time with a rejection of technology reinforces dichotomies that do not reflect the way people relate to artefacts and systems (Wajcman 2015). As a result, these proposals not only risk being interpreted as nostalgic or backward looking, but also leave little space for integrating more complex accounts of time (particularly those arising in the social sciences) or for discussing more nuanced rhythms, as well as more complex forces and consequences related to temporal decisions. As a result, instead of challenging dominant accounts of time, these proposals arguably reinforce the overarching narrative of universalised acceler

gs done. Accepting an invitation for reflection inherent in the design means on the other hand that time willappear, i.e. we open up for time presence” (Hallnas & Redstrom 2001). A slow technology would not disappear, but would make its

In Slow Technology, Hallnas & Redstrom (2001) advance the need for a form of design that emphasises reflection, the amplification of environments, and the use of technologies that a) amplify the presence of time; b) stretch time and extend processes; and c) reveal an expression of presenttime as slow-paced. Important here is the concept of “time presence”: “when we use a thing as an efficient tool, time disappears, i.e. we get things done. Accepting an invitation for reflection inherent in the design means on the other hand that time willappear, i.e. we open up for time presence” (Hallnas & Redstrom 2001). A slow technology would not disappear, but would make its

In “Getting Real,” Barad proposes that “reality is sedimented out of the process ofmaking the world intelligible through certain practices and not others ...” (1998: 105). If,as Barad and other feminist researchers suggest, we are responsible for what exists, what isthe reality that current discourses and practices regarding new technologies makeintelligible, and what is excluded? To answer this question Barad argues that we need asimultaneous account of the relations of humans and nonhumansandof their asymmetriesand differences. This requires remembering that boundaries between humans and machinesare not naturally given but constructed, in particular historical ways and with particularsocial and material consequences. As Barad points out, boundaries are necessary for thecreation of meaning, and, for that very reason, are never innocent. Because the cuts impliedin boundary making are always agentially positioned rather than naturally occurring, andbecause boundaries have real consequences, she argues, “accountability is mandatory”(187). :We are responsible for the world in which we live not because it is an arbitraryconstruction of our choosing, but because it is sedimented out of particular practicesthat we have a role in shaping (1998: 102).The accountability involved is not, however, a matter of identifying authorship in anysimple sense, but rather a problem of understanding the effects of particular assemblages,and assessing the distributions, for better and worse, that they engender.

In her analysis ofcomputer-based work, Susanne Bødker (1991) has discussed the shifting movement of theinterface from object to connective medium. She observes that when unfamiliar, or at timesof trouble, the interface itselfbecomes the work’s object. At other times persons work asshe puts it ‘through the interface’, enacted as a transparent means of engagement with otherobjects of interest (for example, a text, or an interchange with colleagues).

Finally, the ‘smart’ machine's presentation of itself asthe always obliging, 'labor-saving device' erases any evidence of the labor involved in itsoperation "from bank personnel to software programmers to the third-world workers whoso often make the chips" (75).

Chasin poses the question (which I return to below) of how a change in our view ofobjects from passiveand outside the social could help to undo the subject/object binaryand all of its attendant orderings, including for example male/female, or mental/manua

One consequence of thisposition is a more radical understanding of the sense in whichmateriality is discursive (i.e., material phenomena are inseparable from theapparatuses of bodily production: matteremerges out of and includes as part of itsbeing the ongoing reconfiguring of boundaries), just as discursive practices arealways already material (i.e., they are ongoing material (re)configurings of theworld) (2003: 822).Brought back into the world oftechnology design, this intimate co-constitution ofconfigured materialities with configuring agencies clearly implies a very differentunderstanding of the ‘human-machine interface’.

A rich body ofempirical studies have further specified, elaborated, and deepened the senses in whichhuman agency is always inextricably tied to the specific sociomaterial arrangements ofwhich we are part.These studies provide compelling empirical demonstration of howcapacities for action can be reconceived on foundations quite different from those of anEnlightenment, humanist preoccupation with the individual actor living in a world ofseparate things. Insofar as we see the politics of technology to be based in fundamentalassumptions about where agency is located,and whose agencies matter, these approacheshave at least the potential to work as powerful allies to feminist projects. In particular,these scholars align with feminist theorizing in their emphasis on the always relationalcharacter of our capacities for action; the constructed nature of subjects and objects,resemblances and differences; and the corporeal grounds of knowing and action.

Must those not presentlyidentified as creative be shown in fact to be inventors in order tobe fully recognized? Thisquestion suggests that we need to pay close attention to the tensions and contradictionsthat arise when we adopt a strategy that distributes practices previously identifiedexclusively with certain people and places (for example, with privileged white menworking in elite institutions of science and technology) across a wider landscape (one thatincludes women). In distributing those practices more widely, they are givencorrespondingly greater presence. A counter project, therefore, is to question the valueplaced on innovation itself. The aim is to understand how a fascination with change andtransformation might not be universal, but rather specifically located and with particularpolitical consequences for women, both in termsof the possibilities that are available tothem, and the visibility of their already existing contributions.

Recent research on the actual work involved in putting technologies into usehighlights the mundane forms of inventive yet taken for granted labor, hidden in thebackground, that are necessary to the success of complex sociotechnical arrangements.

While not all of the authors and works cited would identify asfeminist, they share with feminist research– in my reading at least– a commitment tocritical, but also reconstructive engagement with received conceptions of the human, thetechnological and the relations between them.

we must not place the burden of safety on users in terms of who is responsible and who suffers the consequences

Community accountability is a community-based strategy, rather than a police/prison-based strategy, to address violence within our communities. Community accountability is a process in which a community — a group of friends, a family, a church, a workplace, an apartment complex, a neighborhood, etc — work together to do the following things:• Create and affirm values & practices that resist abuse and oppression and encourage safety, support, and accountability• Develop sustainable strategies to address community members’ abusive behavior, creating a process for them to account for their actions and transform their behavior• Commit to ongoing development of all members of the community, and the community itself, to transform the political conditions that reinforce oppression and violence• Provide safety & support to community members who are violently targeted that respects their self-determination1What would a community accountability approach to digital communities look like?

IDEAS FOR TECHNICAL MECHANISMSA technique called differential privacy1 provides a way to measure the likelihood of negative impact and also a way to introduce plausible deniability, which in many cases can dramatically reduce risk exposure for sensitive data.Modern encryption techniques allow a user’s information to be fully encrypted on their device, but using it becomes unwieldy. Balancing the levels of encryption is challenging, but can create strong safety guarantees. Homomorphic encryption2 can allow certain types of processing or aggregation to happen without needing to decrypt the data.Creating falsifiable security claims allows independent analysts to validate those claims, and invalidate them when they are compromised. For example, by using subresource integrity to lock the code on a web page, the browser will refuse to load any compromised code. By then publishing the code’s hash in an immutable location, any compromise of the page is detectable easily (and automatically, with a service worker or external monitor).Taken to their logical conclusion these techniques suggest building our applications in a more decentralized3 way, which not only provides a higher bar for security, but also helps with scaling: if everyone is sharing some of the processing, the servers can do less work. In this model your digital body is no longer spread throughout servers on the internet; instead the applications come to you and you directly control how they interact with your data.

We can do better. By designing the system so certain things are impossible, we lower the trust barrier for that system.

Non-technology folks can contribute to building consentful tech by:• Holding the platforms we use accountable to how they use our data• Advocating for consent-focused policy and legislation • Intervening in development processes through community organizing (petitions, demonstrations, etc.)• Signing on to platforms that are consentful • Learning more about code, policies, and legislationTech folks can contribute to building consentful tech by:• Advocating for diverse teams• Opening up design & development processes to people who those who are vulnerable to harm• Working towards a culture of consent in our companies and organizations• Mentoring newcomers, particularly those who are often excluded or marginalized from mainstream tech communities• Growing our knowledge on concepts like collaborative design processes and intersectionality • Consistently reviewing our development processes

Can people consent to Specific things in this system and not others? Can people select which aspects of their digital bodies they want to have exposed and have stored?

Are people Freely giving us their consent to access and store parts of their digital bodies? Can potentially harmful personal information about a person be displayed or stored without their consent? Does our system allow for Reversible consent? How easy is it for people to withdraw both their consent and their data?How are we fully and clearly Informing people about what they’re consenting to? Is important information about the risks a user might be exposed to buried in the fine print of the terms & conditions?How are we making sure that the consent is Enthusiastic? Is there an option not to use this technology, which means that people use it because they prefer to use it?

There are many ways to make technology more just and equitable, and consent is one important consideration. Non-consentful features and interactions can be minor nuisances for some people, but can be very harmful to others. When Facebook introduced photo tagging, anyone could tag you in a photo, whether or not you were okay with it. For some users, that could lead to embarrassment if the photo wasn’t particularly flattering. But for other people, the harm could be much more serious. For trans users, tagging photos from their pre-transition lives without their consent could lead to them being outed, which can have consequences for employment, housing, safety, and more.In response to user outcry, Facebook eventually implemented a process by which users can approve tagged photos. However, it required a critical mass of complaints to make this happen. And, Facebook still stores photos that are tagged with your face in its database, which informs its facial recognition algorithms. Whether you consented to being tagged or not, Facebook has a 98% accurate idea of what your face looks like.

In a 1992 paper in Organizational Science titled “The Duality of Technology: Rethinking the Concept of Technology in Organizations,” Wanda Orlikowski applied the structuration theory of sociologist Anthony Giddens to technology use and reached a similar conclusion. Giddens argued that human agency is constrained by the structures around us—technology and sociocultural conventions—and that we in turn shape those structures. Software, malleable and capable of representing rules, is especially conducive to such analysis.