ConnectEd

Posted on June 7, 2013 by admin

On thursday, the President announced ConnectEd – a program aimed at the digital needs of K-12. Here is a pdf that explains the focal points of the program.

The program identifies three target areas – high connections for schools (I see nothing about home, but specific mention is made of rural schools), better support and training for existing teachers, and encouraging private partnerships. Funding is a little vague. It appears that connectivity is the responsibility of the FCC and e-rate. The text of the announcement also describes better use of existing educational funds.

My read is that the value here is in the statement of goals which may encourage certain uses of existing funds. It appears this is a message for states, but there is nothing I see in the allocation of tax funds. I think the e-rate makes use of money collected from you and me through the telcos.

 

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Battle Mode

Posted on June 3, 2013 by admin

If want to live in the digital world, you have to learn a little about those who would take advantage of you.

I found a message on my answering machine when I returned home from the weekend questioning a $5000 charge on my credit card. Evidently someone in San Francisco used my number to pay LBC Express (a financial services and courier company doing business with Asian countries). I am having difficulty getting them on the phone just to follow up.

My online content requires the same attention. I find myself dealing with strange activity on my server. One of the tools I now use logs rejected logins to my blogs. The idea is to block anyone attempting to use an algorithm to guess the password. The system locks anyone out for 24 hours if there are 4 failed attempts to login. If the problem persists, I block the IP.

battlemode

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The best camera is the one you have with you

Posted on June 2, 2013 by admin

The best camera is the one you have with you. One of the things I wish I had said. Actually, I recall the line from a Leo Laporte and friends podcast.

Summer time is here and it is time to travel. At least for me, photography is part of my travels. My trip this year will be quite an adventure. I am heading to Russia with Cindy. She is a pro at this venture. She has gone several times to share her tech expertise and this time I was invited to go along.

I just encountered this post from MacOberver with photography advice explaining how you might get by taking a trip with your iPhone and your iPad (I am thinking the source may have been a bit biased). Photography is as close as anything I can think that I would claim as a hobby and I have all of the fancy toys. Still, it is a hassle to drag all of the equipment around. I will take my good stuff with me, but I have been using my phone more an more (I have a Galaxy Nexus). The cool thing my phone can do that even my 7D can’t is geotag photos. This works amazingly well. I seem to be able to locate my position when taking a photo to within a few yards. Even when I am shooting with the 7D I often use the phone so I can geolocate the photos when I eventually organize the ones I want to keep.

phonegps

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Lack of competition among telcos

Posted on May 24, 2013 by admin

This NYTimes feature proposes that the lack of competition among telecommunication companies increases the revenue for the companies and limits innovation.

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New Flickr look

Posted on May 22, 2013 by admin

Flickr has undergone a major facelift and I think the results are impressive. This is the new look of the photostream.

newphotostream

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Home access is not enough

Posted on May 22, 2013 by admin

An as yet unpublished study conducted by Farley and Robinson used a quality methodology to address the question that low income children are disadvantaged by the lack of computer access at home. The study randomly providing resources to some low income families and concluded:

“We find that even though the experiment had a large effect on computer ownership and total hours of computer use, there is no evidence of an effect on a host of educational outcomes, including grades, standardized test scores, credits earned, attendance, and disciplinary actions,” explains the new report, contradicting previous evidence that children without Internet had a severe disadvantage on exams.

I will have to see if I can access the present working paper through the university library to read the original document. The details are important, but the random assignment method used to provide access is a treatment few researchers interested in this topic can employ. The summary provided by TechCrunch speculated that an increase in online homework activity may have been off set by increases in other activities that may have been counter productive.

 

P.S. If you are interested in reading the paper, search for the authors. They are making the paper available as a download.

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