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The story in the newspaper is about a surprise that was ruined by Facebook’s new “Beacon” feature.  You know, the feature that allows Facebook advertisers to put up an ad on your friends’ pages alerting them to recent purchases you’ve made.  One embarrassed guy saw the surprise jewelry gift he had planned for his wife “ruined” when it was announced to her when she logged in to the site.

But the real story is about the surprise for Web 2.0 junkies who thought that all the free services that companies like Facebook provide maybe ain’t so free after all.  Apparently, our collective acceptance of google-ads, pop-ups, dancers promoting lower interest rates, little flash videos, and so forth says that we think the commercials are worth the information and services that we get for free.  But once the SQL servers start creating ads with our data, well, that crosses a line.  It takes a little shine off the Internet party when a billboard above the fireplace starts flashing data on where we bought our underwear, for how much, and invites the partygoers to make a similar purchase of their own.

Surprised?  I’m not.  When “old media” tycoons like Rupert Murdoch pay half-a-billion dollars for a social networking site like MySpace, you can surmise that he sees financial gain in it.  Half a billion is a lot to pay for a name, some software and servers, and a squirrelly bunch of teenage “users.”  Unless you see a big payday somewhere down the line.

Surprise!  Since you have input your likes, dislikes, and lured all your friends to sign up and sign in, I’m guessing that the terms of service you agreed to without reading them gives MySpace the right to use that information in just about any way they want, as long as they don’t, heaven forbid, sell that information to anyone else.  That was one way that folks imagined that they would be able to monetize their social networking investment but it hasn’t panned out.  And why should it?  These new service providers decided “why sell the information?”  It’s more valuable to keep it for themselves.  And it allows them to adopt the holier-than-thou position that they would never sell your information to anyone.  No one.  Ever.  But that’s because it is just plain too valuable to them, in business terms.

I guess we just didn’t see that one coming.  Surprise.

One of the topics that emerged this fall at TeacherPlaces Book Clubs is "play" and its role in education.  After reading several great posts on the topic by people much better informed on the topic than I am, I have arrived at this conclusion: the status of "play" in education is largely hypothetical.  To read some of these posts yourself, here are some links:

Bringing Play Into the Mainstream 

Yes, play gets lip service, mostly for children who are too young to read or writ.  But the minute that we could reasonably expect kids to track print with their eyes or hold a pencil, time for "play" is over and it is time to get down to the important "business" of learning the content and skills of academia.  Ned Hallowell, in his book The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness, refers to this impulse as the "great Harvard fallacy."  In other words, if we don't start working on that g.p.a. and SAT prep ASAP, getting into Harvard will slide off the table and a certain lack of adult happiness (read: earning power) will result.

So, even the most ardent defenders of play are very careful about what they say about its usefulness in certain situations.  Yet, it is easier to get into Harvard if you know how to play than if you don't.  It is axiomatic among college counselors that the so-called "perfect" record in high school (high grades, team captain, class president) can be the kiss of death at the most highly competitive colleges.  Those kids who show academic aptitude but who have done something more, something different, something exceptional, have a better chance at admission than those who followed all the rules to a "t."  Hallowell provides just such an example in his book.

So, how can we define play so that it sounds more productive and on point to those who think good grades are the key to success?