civic innovation summer education council curriculum

Civic Innovation Summer

Education Council@ejacqui

@danxoneil

@ejacqui @danxoneil #civicsummer

Welcome students!

• Introductions• Dan X. O’Neil: director of Smart Chicago

Collaborative, cool tech guy• Jacqui Cheng: tech writer, editor at large at

Ars Technica• Why are we here?


Who are you?

• Student introduction• What’s your history with tech? • What devices do you use?• Which services do you rely on?• What technology gets you the most excited?


Why you’re here

• What is this class for? Five topics:• History of the web and principles of “open”• Field trip to 1871 and a look into startups• Open data and privacy• Getting into programming• How to be a civic “hacker”/tech person

History of the Web


What constitutes the Web?

• What do you think of when you think of the Internet?

• Web pages are not the Internet, but they have become synonymous with the Internet


Pre-Internet (days of the cave man, a.k.a. pre-1968)

• A phone call works by connecting one end of the line to another end

• This is called circuit switching• Neither side of the conversation

can communicate with anyone else during the time they are connected


Building blocks of today’s Web

• Neither side can communicate with anyone else during the time they are connected



US Department of Defense came up with “packet switching” inthe early 1960s.

This method started being used to communicate on small (non-military) networks in the late 1960s.



• Unlike circuit switching, packet switching allows computers to group “packets” of data and deliver them to the receiving ends from multiple sources at once

• Packets of text, video, images, audio, other data could be grouped together

• Efficiency is the name of the game



• Packet switching is like having a mailbox that receives things instantly. Can receive from many sources at once.



• Packet switching was developed into TCP/IP by the Department of Defense as ARPANET, or Advanced Research Projects Agency Network

• TCP/IP sets the standard for how certain kinds of data is delivered, like addressing an envelope

• Packet switching + TCP/IP together formed the base for the Internet



• ARPANET researchers Robert Kahn and Vint Cerf were responsible for TCP/IP



• One of the key elements to TCP/IP is the IP address, or Internet Protocol address

• IP address is a series of numbers assigned to every device on the Internet that tell other devices how to get there



• Devices can figure out the “route” to get to another device (or a Web page, or a service) based on the IP address

• If a building’s address is 1500 W. Roosevelt, and the apartment is 310, we can figure out how to get there



• IP address is similar, and each thing you connect to online has an IP

• Each part of the IP tells the computer something about where to find the data



• A website is a collection of “pages” on the Internet

• Each website has its own IP address, but you don’t see it. You see google.com, or smartchicagocollaborative.org

• For your browser to find the IP for Google, it must look up Google’s IP on a Domain Name Server, or DNS



• DNS is like a phone book



• Look up a name and find the corresponding number. Same with a domain name (google.com) and IP address (139.130.4.5)

• When you get there, a page is displayed that you can read and interact with



• Timothy Berners-Lee: a cool guy, and also inventor of the Web

• He was a researcher at CERN and came up with a way to help Web browsers find their way to a Web page



• Previously, there was no way to just “bring up” information online

• Instead, you had to dial into specific networks, and you were limited to the documents they had stored there

• Like going to a library that only had a handful of books



• The code behind a Web page tells a browser how to present it to the user and how it’s supposed to behave

• Not like a magazine, where I decide how it looks and send it to you

• I provide the instructions for how it’s supposed to look, and your browser “translates” it to you

• This makes the information travel faster


The code behind the Web

• HTML is HyperText Markup Language• It’s a series of programming “tags” that tell a

browser how to format something• <blink>Back in the day, this text would blink

because of the surrounding tags</blink>• First tag is an opening tag, and the second tag

is a closing tag



• HTML is even in some mobile (phone) apps that you might not think of as the “web”



• CSS, JavaScript, Ruby, and other languages help dictate the behavior of these pages

• JavaScript and Ruby help the page decide how to act when you interact with it using your mouse or finger

• Other languages generate, or sometimes interact with, the HTML on a Web page


Creative Commons

• Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization• Creative Commons is also a type of copyright

license available as part of US Copyright Law• But what is copyright?


Creative Commons

• Things that are copyrightable:• Artwork• Music• Poetry• Writing• Crafts• Photography• Code


Creative Commons

• A Creative Commons (or CC) license is for photographers, artists, writers, musicians to make their works available to others in the public interest

• Normal copyright reserves “all rights” for you to determine on a line-item basis

• Making your work CC gives all rights to the public except for the ones you choose to take back


Creative Commons

• What does CC mean to you as a consumer of content?

• Basic idea: you can search for CC works and use them in your own work without worrying about breaking someone else’s copyright

• There are some restrictions, like crediting the original creator, but no payment or licenses


Creative Commons

• What does CC mean to you as a poster of content?

• Works don’t become CC by default, but you own the copyright to something you created by default

• You get to decide whether you want your work to be CC licensed and what restrictions to use

• CC helps the public by making work available to others


Creative Commons

• Where is Creative Commons in everyday life?• Wikipedia: all images are available for you to

use anywhere (not just school) via CC license• YouTube videos and elsewhere on the Web

often use CC licensed music• Flickr Creative Commons search• Google Images Creative Commons search


“Open Source”

• “Open source” is to code and software as Creative Commons is to photos/art/music/writing

• Software that is released as open source means it’s a “free” license to use AND modify without having to pay

• Benefits the public good, encourages innovation


“Open Source”

• As a computer user, it means you can use open source software without paying because the software creators want you to benefit

• As a programmer, it means you can download someone else’s code and modify it freely

• Under normal copyright, you cannot just take someone else’s code for use in your own work


“Open Source”

• As a programmer yourself, releasing something as open source means you’re making it available to others

• Others can use it or modify it to make it better/different

• People like open source because multiple brains are better than one


“Open Source”

• Even though there are no paid licenses, people build careers on open source software

• Examples of companies who have built empires using open source?

• What do we know about Twitter?• What about Reddit?• Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple• Public Library of Science, Whitehouse.gov


“Open Source”

• It’s nearly impossible to build a modern company without open source

• Open source software makes things more efficient, more cost-effective

• Lends goodwill to the community• Our modern tech landscape would not exist as

it does today without open source


GoToSchool

• What is GoToSchool? http://cps.go2school.org• Site offered by Chicago Public Schools and

hosted by SmartChicago• Goal is to allow parents & students to find a

school, enter an address, indicate how they plan to get there (CTA, walking, driving), and a time

• Shows them various options on how to get there

http://cps.go2school.org/

http://cps.go2school.org/


GoToSchool


GoToSchool

• Is this an effective tool?• How can it be improved?• What other digital tools could be useful to

students being re-routed to new schools?• What about parents?


Which social networks do you use?


Social media tools

• What are some social tools people use every day online?

• Facebook• Twitter• Snapchat• Instagram• Vine• Tumblr• What else?


Social media tools

• How do these tools differ from each other?• What is the culture on Twitter vs. Facebook?• What is the culture on Snapchat vs. Facebook

or texting?• How does Instagram contribute to the

conversation?• Is there a place for Instagram video, or Vine?


What to say and how

• What do we mean when we talk about your “tone” online?

• What you “sound” like when people read your posts: what feeling do they come away with?

• As tempting as it is, angry/sarcastic/inebriated posts and messages are not only unprofessional, but they may hurt or upset peers as well


What (not) to say and how

• Avoid personal attacks• Threats (even if they are empty)• Direct insults of someone’s character or

intelligence• Swearing and cussing• Heavy sarcasm• Drugs or alcohol


What (not) to say and how


What to say and how

• Your ability to sound like a smart, thoughtful young person is directly proportional to how successful you’ll be in your career

• I have a Twitter rule called the “mom rule”• My mom reads every single one of my tweets

(for real) and sends me feedback on them• It’s annoying, but thinking “what would mom

think?” has propelled my career


What to say and how

• What are good things to post publicly to Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/etc.?

• Links or commentary about interesting articles you’re reading online

• Observations/opinions on what’s going on in your community or city

• Reposts from mentors, city officials, writers/photographers you like, community leaders


If you need to vent…

• Everyone needs to vent sometimes• …and we live online, so how do we vent?• If you must vent on social media, make HEAVY

HANDED USE of the privacy controls• Keep it to close friends, don’t blast to public• We’ll teach you more about privacy controls

on social media in a few weeks


The case for sharing more and less

• The more you share publicly online, the more visibility you’ll have in the community

• Repost and reply to others generously• Just because we share a lot doesn’t mean we

have to share everything• Social media is as much about what you don’t

share as the stuff you share• If in doubt about a post, hold off until later

civic innovation summer education council curriculum

Technology