Here is an article from the Globe and Mail (and you thought I was not widely read) on the subject of generational changes in writing proficiency. The article paints a positive picture and attributes improvement to social media. I have no idea if this is good science or not, but I also cannot vouch for the position taken by the doom -sayers.
If you are interested in teen use of social media you have likely encountered the name dana boyd (I know. The no caps thing is weird). I have several of her books including the newest (as far as I know) it’s complicated. Yesterday I learned through social media appropriately enough that a pdf of the book could be downloaded from Yale University Press at no cost – access to the pdf. This would seem an interesting read for teachers and parents.
The contention that nature and technology are incompatible has offered me great opportunity over the years. It is fun to play on stereotypes not be demonstrating they are over stated but by demonstrating they have it backwards. I never thought you should learn about nature by heading inside to read on your computer, but rather take your camera, phone, and probes outside to make sense of experiences that were previously pleasant but not necessarily informative.
Anyway, The National Wildlife Federation (Ranger Rick) offer a resource focused on Connecting Kids to Nature. The message in this resource is mixed by my approach, but educators may find it valuable in their classrooms.
Amazon has two new services that may be of interest to Kindle users.
First. you now can store up to 5 gigabytes of documents using your Kindle account. You may have already sent pdfs to be read on the Kindle, but this is an expanded version of the service. I wonder if this is response to the added capacity offered by Google.
Personal documents are now in Amazon Cloud Drive: Starting today, all personal documents that you have archived in your Kindle Library will be available to access, delete, organize, and share from your Amazon Cloud Drive. You can see these documents in a new “My Send-to-Kindle Docs” folder alongside all of your saved content such as photos and personal videos.
There is no action required on your part. Your personal documents features will continue to work just as they have in the past. And as always, you can use Manage Your Kindle to see a list of your documents, re-deliver them to Kindle devices and free reading apps, delete them, or turn off auto-saving of documents to the cloud. Documents will be delivered just as they have in the past and you will continue to have 5 GB of free cloud storage for your personal documents. Just “Send Once, Read Everywhere.”
I also noticed a message indicating that I set whether I want automatic updates to my Kindle books. As a Kindle author of what I consider a textbook, I think this is a great feature and a service not available through traditional publishers. I can update the book when appropriate and offer students access to more current content. This is a significant limitation of traditional publishers who tend to consider updates every 3 years or so. If you are a Kindle user, sign in to your Amazon account and you should note a link allowing you to turn updates on (or leave it off if you want).
Documents stored in their native format: Also starting today, new documents that you save to the cloud with Send to Kindle will be stored in their native format (e.g. MS Word, TXT) so you can access them anywhere from Amazon Cloud Drive.
After posting yesterday about the challenge of changing passwords, today I came across this tutorial from Leo Laporte describing the installation and use of LastPass. Too much time devoted to the selection of a master password, but the rest is helpful.
Yahoo! sent an email yesterday indicating that because of the Heartbleed vulnerability, my account was being locked and I needed to go through a process to change my password. I am a heavy Flickr user so this required a response. I was initially skeptical because of the built in form, but I then tried to connect directly to Flickr and found that I was indeed blocked and the same form appeared. Changing passwords is a hassle. I explore so many services using so many devices that any adjustment even for one account requires considerable effort. I am guessing I will have to now update a dozen devices (phone, ipads, desktops, laptops) in order to access my Flickr account. I know, I know – I should be a model of sound security practices. I also should not complain for what my son refers to as a “first world problem” and appreciate I have this number of devices. Still …
I do use multiple passwords limiting the damage I would experience should one of my passwords become known. My Google resources are protected by two-factor authentication (I receive a passcode on my phone when I attempt to connect from a different machine, a different location and some other unknown situations I have yet to figure out). I also understand there are ways to use a one password system that controls multiple passwords for individual accounts, but these systems scare me and I am afraid to place all of my accounts under the control of a single company.
Anyway, there is a way to check for the Heartbleed vulnerability – https://lastpass.com/heartbleed/ (lastpass is a provider one of the one password solutions I describe above). I tried the technique on a server I use and discovered the following: 
Time to make some more changes.
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