Not Cool: Untimely Updates to an Event

OK, sure: the last post here promised some info from FETC. Well, our bad, but frankly time kept ticking away while other priorities begged for attention to make up for the absence caused by attending said event. Long and short of it is, there are other places to get FETC news, and those are your best bets.

Apple is podcasting many of the keynotes and some of the session speakers. Find these here, and peruse what you missed.

In addition, eSchool News (here) has a fair amount of coverage; they sent a couple of correspondents to the show and while you may have to dig around their site a little, this should be a good jumping-off point for more news about FETC.

Finally, a bit of editorializing: Compared to the last FETC we attended, in 2001, this show was a great deal smaller in scale (exhibits and sessions) and the sessions seemed to be much more focused on specific local districts/state policies that were relatively narrow in perspective, whereas in days of yore the sessions tended toward a broader strategic scope. For example, a session on one-to-one computing focused exclusively on one district's experience (Broward) but never really brought up the more global issues involved. The "tactical" information was helpful, but the "strategic" information was left to the deduction of the attendees.

In short, FETC was a good experience. Not a great one, not a bad one; not a waste of time, but not necessarily a vision- or life-altering experience, either. It was cool, but it didn't rock out to the extent of previous shows.

Read the full post here ...

Coming Soon: Notes from FETC

Over the next few days, WTKSC will be posting a few items that sum up some of the goings-on at FETC, the Florida Educational Technology Conference. While these won't serve as real-time news item posts, they'll focus on capturing the essence of some of the concurrent sessions and exhibitors' presentations for the geographically challenged folks who couldn't get to FETC their own selves.

Please note: WTKSC isn't big enough to offer comprehensive coverage of a conference this size. Although smaller than in years past, FETC is still a sizeable and well-attended event and covers more ground than one pair of shoes can manage in a day and a half. You'll have to settle for highlights.

Check back here starting Friday for a gradual release of posts, hacked out as expeditiously as a part-time effort can afford. Oh-- if you're attending FETC and want to contribute, please FEEL FREE to do so either by e-mail or via comments to the posts. WTKSC would be thrilled to have some additional perspectives on the show.

Read the full post here ...

Law Versus Lapsters

File this under "Luddite:" A professor of law at the University of Memphis has banned laptops from her class, claiming they create a "picket fence" between student and teacher. According to the Associated Press (here), she sent an e-mail to her students at the beginning of the semester advising students to pack paper and pencil for her lectures, citing the "distraction" caused by lappies. Apparently, June Entman feels that U of Memphis Tigers who use lapsters focus on transcribing her lectures, rather than applying any sort of critical thinking.

Presumably, the professor doesn't post her lecture notes, PowerPoint slides, or (gasp) a podcast of her lectures, either. Because, really, students should be focused on doodling, paper airplanes, or passing notes, and not on capturing any of the information digitally. Maybe she should advocate stone as the preferred note-taking medium, given its' durability advantage over papyrus.

On the off chance that Professor June F. Entman, faculty member at the University of Memphis since 1984, actually checks her e-mail, some of the more vocal students of "Generation i" might want to appeal her decision. Apparently they tried lobbying for a summary ruling by the Law Department, to no avail. Perhaps personal appeals would have more effect. Assuming the good Professor checks her e-mail. Go Tigers! (And props to Manchester [IN] Community Schools for the perfect clip art.)

Read the full post here ...

E-Ink Bound for Bookbags?

Remember the heady days of the dot-com bubble? When everything everywhere was "going digital," and the internets were going to revolutionize everything from commerce to pudding? Well, it's time to dust off one of the "also ran" technologies that made to the list of things that didn't make the big time: eBook readers. (Or E-Book readers, or e-book readers, or some other iteration blending a creative use of cApitalization or hy-phen-ation or lackofspace.)

Seems iRex, a European technology concern, has finally released details on the iLiad eBook reader they announced last fall. Sadly, the device fails to "revolutionize" much of anything, although the specs and form factor are a marked improvement over the technology of 1999. (Thinner. Lighter. More memory. Touch-screen interface. Longer battery life.) The only thing this eBook (iRex's spelling) reader has that wasn't around a few years back is e-ink, which is largely responsible for the extended battery life.

e-ink is a technology that only consumes power when it changes the image displayed. It uses bi-lobal crystals a la LCD technology but in a solid-state form that allows the display to hold its' image without consuming battery juice. You only use power when you re-draw the screen.
(Click the link to read the rest of this post ...)

Sadly, the iLiad doesn't pack much more of a punch. It reads PDF files, XHTML, raw text, and will play mp3's. Given the fact that Adobe is pulling the plug on DRM technology for the PDF format (2007), the likelihood of seeing visually appealing monochromatic pages on iLiad isn't high. Publishers, in their relentless pursuit of filthy lucre, are going to want some assurance that the first eBook copy they sell won't also be the last.

Sony, a brand with just a mite more muscle than iRex, also recently announced an eBook reader. Their boasts PDF compatibility, but ups the ante with an online bookstore boasting 10,000 titles at launch (any day now) and a proprietary (and ostensibly secure) file format called BBeB (BroadBand eBook). Sony's unit will reportedly sell in the $300 to $400 range, while iLiad is purported to run (yikes!) a whopping 650 Euros, which is more than $800 US (or else it's 39 degrees; we always get those celsius/metric conversions messed up).

With price points that high, Johnny won't be loading one of these full of his textbooks any time soon. But the technology has gotten better, and usability is coming into line with expectations. If it's just a question of cost, Moore's Law should render these at a more accessible price point within 18 months to 2 years. It might be too late to help the Class of 2006, but maybe by the time the Class of 2010 rolls around, students will be schlepping e-ink and spare batteries rather than textbooks and notebooks. By that time, tablet interfaces will be more common and elegant (witness Micro$oft's push of Origami), batteries will have more life in less weight, and e-ink may be ready for color.

But speaking of Origami, why would someone shell out $400 for an eBook reader when they can get a full-on tablet portable running Windows for one more Benjamin? Origami promises multimedia capability, real computing power, wireless connectivity, Bluetooth, and color. And yeah, it'll open a PDF file, too. Devices will come from several hardware playas, meaning competition and downward price pressure. These, too, will be subject to Moore's Law (which states that computing power doubles and prices split in half about every 18 months). And with Nicholas Negroponte's OLPC project, who knows? Maybe a hand-cranked version for the US market will bring computers to students for half the current going rate.

No matter how it shakes out, though, it's coming. Call it one-to-one computing or an eBook revolution or OLPC or Origami, the stars are aligning in the constellation Technologus, and students in schools around the world will soon be able to learn like never before. Cool, huh?

Read the full post here ...

Federal Judge Reads WTSC ... ?

Want to know something cool? The federal judge presiding over the DOJ/Google suit, US District Judge James Ware, must be reading this blog, and specifically, the post about the case. Witness his ruling, handed down late Friday, in the case.

Ware did not force Google to give up search data that could encroach on user privacy. Instead, the judge decided that Google would hand over 50,000 websites that have been "crawled" (or indexed) by the search giant's systems.

In an attempt to ameliorate privacy concerns, DOJ had altered their original request. Rather than a full week's worth of search terms and results, the plaintiffs sought just 5,000. Instead, the judge decided to block the government from gaining access to search terms, and instead ordered Google to hand over records that should serve the DOJ's original intent ... which is to gain a statistical understanding of the frequency with which adult content sites are returned in ostensibly innocuous searches.

This is a win-win-win solution, whereby DOJ can pursue its' aim to shield users from unsolicited pr0n content, Google can claim victory in the never-ending debate over user privacy, and consumers and their search terms remain anonymous to the government. Judge Ware's ruling establishes a solid precedent in favor of privacy, and everyone walks away happy. Clearly Ware was moved to careful consideration after reading the earlier post on this topic in WTKSC. Cool, huh?

Read the full post here ...

Oh, SNAP! Gates Disses OLPC?!

Well, William H. Gates III, who is at the top of the Forbes list as the richest person in the world, did a little trash talkin'. Seems he was giving this talk at the M$ Government Leaders Forum, an annual shindig in D.C., and he completely dissed the OLPC project. He didn't name Nicholas Negroponte by name, and he didn't exactly come out and say "the One Laptop Per Child" computer. But there was no doubt what he was talking about. In fact, his remarks sparked the following headline on the popular blog Good Morning Silicon Valley: "Hey Melinda, what do you call a crank on a computer? 'Nicholas Negroponte!'" (Their post, here, like their blog in general, is well worth a read.)

Said His Gatesness: "The last thing you want to do for a shared use computer is have it be something without a disk ... and with a tiny little screen." It's worth noting that Gates was in the middle of a plug for Origami, which is not so much a specific product as a "new" (yeah ...) line of small tablet-interfaced computers (think Newton or smart phone on the Barry Bonds regimen of dietary supplements). So, sure, Billy's gotta pump up da jam on the whole Windows thang. But he just reached right out and bit*#-slapped the OLPC project.

(To continue, click the link below ...)


Not content with subtlety, Gates went on. "If you are going to go have people share the computer, get a broadband connection and have somebody there who can help support the user, geez, get a decent computer where you can actually read the text and you're not sitting there cranking the thing while you're trying to type."

So, Bill, to be clear: you're not a fan? Oh, wait, we get it: Origami is the way to go ... those $600 wonders will fly far in the Third World. Hey, while you're at it, they probably ought to eschew the whole Open Source thing and shell out a couple extra bills for M$ Office, right? And probably put a nice big Novell server in the school, too, right? Because if you're going to hook up the people who are technologically underserved, ya gotta do it right. We're talking about places in the world where the Junta Du Jour can't afford a ThinkPad, n'est-ce pas? And Origami is the solution for the masses?

And the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, for whose work you shared Time's Persons of the Year honor, is going to front the price of entry? Gates can stick with XBox 360 and XBox live, and shrinkwrapped solutions that will serve the relatively well-heeled. That's fine. But unless he's going to roll Origami out to the needy at a $100 price-point, he oughta keep his mouth shut.

Note to Mr. Negroponte: Keep crankin', bro. Putting connectivity-- affordable, durable, accessible, connectivity-- into the hands of the developing world isn't any less sexy just because Microsoft's founder doesn't dig your plan. You go, boy. Crank it up, crank it out, and hook up the, uh, hookless. That's very cool.

Read the full post here ...

Off We Go, Into the Cyber Blue Yonder ...

Props to eSchool News online and their story (here) about a new course being offered at Rome Catholic, a K-12 parochial school in Rome, NY. Based on a similar course created a few years ago by the Air Force for ROTC cadets, the class teaches data security, network security, infrastructure, and other critical skills in the Interactive Age.

Students, from 10th to 12th graders, stay after school four days a week for 45 minutes, with at least two of those sessions being practical hands-on time in a new 12-seat computer lab (re-fabbed in a mouldering Home Ec classroom-- cookies, indeed!). Read that part again: 45 minute classes four days a week, AFTER SCHOOL. And the kids are lovin' it.

More props to Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, who is chairman of the House Science Committee, for scaring up the duckies to put this program in play. According to Boehlert, the Air Force has assured him that if the pilot program at Rome Catholic is successful, the Air Force will find the money to take the program statewide in 2006-2007 and possibly even national the year after.

High-schoolers fronting firewalls, hiding data, encrypting wireless network traffic ... it's a just such a geekalicious dream! But the truth be told, these students will leave high school with valuable skills and, perhaps, an inclination to pursue their future studies in the fields of computer science or security. And that is very cool, huh?

Read the full post here ...

On The Other Hand ... Protected Speech is Protected, Right?

Now flip the coin. Sure, you're all awash in activist hormones about Bully (see earlier post here) but hold the phone.

Looks like a judge may allow the Justice Department's motion to force Google to turn over search information on a bajillion searches undertaken by everyone in a specified week's time. That's right ... the Justice Department is going to know whether your granny was searching for pr0n. (Or instructions to make home-made laughing gas, which were circulating last week and which actually work if you don't heat the ... oh, never mind.)

This is all in furtherance of the DOJ's case against pornography, believe it or not. Seems that DOJ thinks that if they can get all the search data returned in a given week, they can somehow extrapolate that into a statistically-relevant predictor of how many poor, innocent chilluns get hits on adult content when they do innocuous searches. (This assumes the little lambs were not searching for porn in the first place!)
(Click the link to read the rest of this post ... )


Troubling, considering that DOJ isn't looking for any single individual by means of a subpoena or a warrant ... they just want ALL THE SEARCHES AND RESULTS DONE in some randomly-chosen week. Which means that your searches could end up in Julio Gonzalez's files. Not because you did something wrong ... you didn't do anything wrong, though, did you? Because, hey, somebody may find out whether you did or not. Somebody is going to be looking at your search, from YOUR IP address, deciding whether or not it would be "appropriate" to return adult content in the search results. So a perfectly innocuous search on "Dick Cheney's Gun" would produce 6,510,000 hits (no pun intended there, and yes, that's an actual number-- see screen grab above) at least some of which will tie back to adult sites. And gun sites (again, no pun intended). And probably hate sites with gun ties, and probably a lot of other irrelevant stuff that wasn't intended. But do you want Karl Rove to see your name, your gmail account, your IP address, next to a hit for "blogslut.com?" (That's a real hit, too, though the underage intern at WTKSC didn't check it out.)

So on the one hand, you want Bully kept off the streets. And on the other, you don't want the government snooping your search records. The bird in the hand is a horse of a different feather, now, huh?

Read the full post here ...

Virtual Badness Goes To School

Thanks to Good Morning Silicon Valley, a publication of the San Jose Mercury News, who noted a story in the Miami Herald. This one gets filed under "You Can't Even Joke About This ...".

RockStar Games, the publisher behind the much-ballyhooed Grand Theft Auto franchise, is overdue but still apparently planning to release a new game, titled Bully. The game, according to previews released last Spring and a paltry few screenshots, will allow RPGers to take on the role of school bully ... punching, kicking, and giving swirlies to sundry bystanders, nerds, or other victims.

Miami School Board member Frank Bolanos has proposed and had passed a resolution asking the developer not to release the game, and also asking retailers and parents to boycott the product if it is released.

(Click the link to read the full post ... )


A video game in FPS style-- that's "First-Person Shooter" to the uninitiated-- is probably no less horrific than Grand Theft Auto's cop-killing, automatic-wielding, hooker-smacking loveliness. In fact, according to one person who saw the preview of the game in 2005, there are no automatic weapons involved.

That's hollow comfort for schools, however, who fear that the virtual schoolyard may become a training ground for the real thing. Ironically, the game's lack of assault rifles might make the game qualify for a lower "T" (for Teen) rating rather than the adult-only stamp earned by GTA. That means it could actually be marketable to teens, the very people school officials worry will take the gameplay to the next level by acting out in the real-life schoolyard.

No doubt, Bully will become a smash hit when it does get released, and it's unlikely to be held back now that RockStar has invested time and money in writing and designing the game. What's next, a mobile version teens can play on their phones? Maybe online play a la XBox Live, where teens can create virtual gangs and prowl the basketball courts and parking lots of virtual high schools? Free speech is just that, but yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is not protected. What about virtual training to be the biggest bad-@$$ on the playground? We may find out soon enough.

A footnote worth mention here: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the release which drew so much scorn and concern, was excoriated not for its' graphic violence or its' lawbreaking point bonuses. It was because the developers left an Easter egg with a graphic (and poorly animated) sex scene. The access code leaked to the internets, and that triggered congressional hearings and moral outrage. The fact that you could kill cops on the street in the "unlocked" part of the game only earned a rating of "M" (for "Mature", as if ...). It was the obscured sex scene that set off all the hubub. So apparently, it's OK to shoot women, but not bed them. Bad message ... and not cool.

Read the full post here ...

Why You Should Care That Google Bought Writely

"Yawn. Another day, another tech-sector acquisition, blah blah blah." The Devil you say! No matter your opinion of the "Do No Evil" crowd at Google, their purchase last Friday of Writely could have some major impact on education. Particularly keyboarding/office technology/computer instruction, but not just there.

Writely is an online word processing application. It facilitates (yawn) ... Oh, forget all the geekspeak for a minute. Here are the only two facts that matter to education:
1) Writely is FREE.
2) Writely does stuff M$ Office doesn't.
Now, can you stay awake long enough to finish this post?

(Click on to read the full post ...)

Writely lets you create a document, only it's not really a document yet ... it's just content that's tagged. It's metaphor-agnostic. Writely doesn't create a .doc or a .pdf or a .htm file until you tell it to, and you may never do that. But if and when you do, that binary file is rendered "on the fly." The reason that's cool is you don't have to focus on delivery when you create your stuff. You focus on the content. You can tag it further if you wish; you can even add semantic tags (geekspeak for "metadata," which is geekspeak for "information about the content).

When you've got a draft of some kind, you can share your content with others to collaborate. Writely sends them an e-mail with a link to the content, and they can edit, add, format (bullets, numbers, type styles etc.), add graphics, or what-have-you. Changes and versions are tracked (doesn't this sound a bit like a wiki??). When your content is ready, you can "publish" it. You can do the bland old "save as ..." and create a document file, or you can publish the content as a web page like a blog. You can then distribute a link to that page, rather than sending a document all over creation.

There's no question that Writely is different, and it may not be to everyone's liking. But let's remember item number 1 above: Writely is FREE. This means schools can teach the basics of word processing and document formatting without buying 30 copies of M$ Office. It means that a teacher can create a starting document and assign students to correct mistakes. It means groups of students can easily collaborate on their English or social studies projects, with the teacher able to log on and make suggestions or corrections along the way while the work is in process. It means that content can be "freed" from its' container (a document) and massaged, managed, manipulated, and published in a format-neutral environment.

Cool, huh?

Read the full post here ...

New OLPC Design Concepts

Well, sooner or later, word was going to get back to Negroponte and the MIT Media Lab, home of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. These are the geniuses (literally, geniuses, no sarcasm intended) who are working on the $100 laptop for the developing world (you read about them here at WTKSC). Problem is, these folks are seriously brilliant in lots of ways, but style wasn't their forte.

Somebody, somewhere, finally found a "comments" link, or they sent a snail mail via general delivery and broke the news: that green number with the big-@$$ handcrank was ugly. Not just homely, we're talkin' "U-G-L-Y, you-ain't-got-no-alibi, you're-UGLY, yeah-yeah, you're-ugly!"

To their credit, the crew went back to the drawing board, and came up with a couple of new design concepts. These, while certainly not a threat to Apple, represent a significant improvement in style and marketability (as if you need fancy-schmancy design to market a $100 lappie).

(Click the link for more pics and d33ts ... )

Remember that OLPC is a mesh-network node, with auxiliary power via hand crank, a ruggedized design, and a rock-bottom price point based on open-source OS and firmware. The initial design (pictured here in dashing its' Kermit-toned glam) was good enough for a press release, but wasn't much of a head-turner. Now, OLPC is giving Hello Kitty and Fisher-Price a run for their money, though it seems unlikely that this lapster will ever reach the must-have status of a cellie or a Crackberry.

Nonetheless, props are due for OLPC's foray into fashion, as these two new concepts designs are far and away more attractive than their predecessor. Plus, the swivel-screen e-book style flip-and-fold screams "versatility and style," while the dual four-way controllers on either side of the screen suggest game-like capability. Also note the extra-wide touchpad below the keyboard ... something similar appearing on the USPTO website not long ago from the design gurus at a certain fruit-flavored hardware/software maven. Scroll on for more pics below.

Read the full post here ...

Software Teaching Software Development

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is bustin' a move to build enrollment in computer science. Having used Alice, a now-outdated application, for ten years, the university is turning to one of the world's most popular game developers for help. (News item at CMU site here.)

Teaching program Alice's current version is short on animation of any kind, using just a few public-domain images of characters from Lewis Carroll's novel. The school originally chose Alice as a theme in a nod to the novelist's knack for explaining complex things in simple ways.

Now, CMU is turning to EA Games, a developer known for realistic animation in such classics as Madden NFL Football and NBA Live, to pump up the jam on the computer science program. EA jumped in hard, seeing the new Alice 3.0 as a means to an end for themselves as well.

(Click the link to read the rest of this post ... )

"EA is very seriously committed to having a workforce that is not all white males," said CMU computer science professor Randy Pausch, who directs the software project. "Everybody says that. This is EA's way of proving it."

The cool part is that EA and CMU are turning to the Sims, a wildly popular franchise for the game maker, to draw interest in development from non-traditional demographics ... particularly girls.

CMU makes Alice available free as a public service to build interest in computer science among high school and college students. Now, the Sims characters will actually go into teaching some of the basics, hoping to draw more students by making code cool again.

According to a UCLA study conducted in 2005, enrollment in US computer science has dropped 50 percent in the past 5 years. Meanwhile, the job market continues to grow for qualified geeks. Says Jared M. Roberts, managing director of the Pittsburgh Technology Council to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "Over the past year we have seen a spike in job postings to both the local Java and .NET User Groups. This helps support the idea that more developer-type IT jobs are available in the region and individuals with programming backgrounds are in demand." (Article here.)

Software-generated avatars teaching software development ... cool, huh?

Read the full post here ...

Whose Vision is More Impaired?

Chicago Public Schools have a graduation requirement: All students must pass a driver's ed course, measured by a written test on rules of the road, in order to graduate.

Problem is, the district REQUIRES blind and visually impaired students to take the course and pass the test.

So whose vision is more impaired? The students', or the administration's?

Here's the "send us your feedback" link from the CPS website.

'Nuff said.

Read the full post here ...

Virtual K-12 Schools: Effective, or Just Trendy?

As of summer 2005, 21 states offered virtual K-12 schools. These state-wide programs are in addition to countless charter schools and district online courses or virtual schools. The Missouri Legislature is considering a bill that will allow students in districts rated as needing improvement to transfer into a virtual program, freeing students via NCLB from districts who need improvement system-wide, or who offer only one building at a particular grade-level. (NCLB currently allows students to transfer within a district when their school is rated as needing improvement.)

In this very blog, we discussed the Chicago virtual school under consideration. Utah leads the nation with 35,000 students enrolled in virtual schools (Utah?!?), followed by Florida with 21,000. Rapidly increasing numbers of students are taking a "blended format" course of study, attending brick-and-mortar schools but also taking one or more courses online.

What began as rural districts offering correspondence-type courses to students challenged by their geography has exploded into an Internet-empowered subset of education that blurs district (and even some state) borders. Virtual or hybrid charter schools dot the landscape along the information superhighway, and independent districts, as well as statewide departments of education, are exploring online options like never before.
(Click the link to read the full post ... )


What seem sorely lacking are efficacy metrics. Particularly in the era of NCLB, where performance measurement figures so prominently in funding and accountability, it seems odd that it's so hard to find solid statistical analyses of student performance in online courses. Online study may be represent a relatively small portion of the student body, but it's hardly new. It seems like such an evolving and rapidly expanding metaphor would be carefully observed. Best practices and white papers and studies and performance metrics would logically spring from this font of teflon-coated, low-drag, technologically-empowered, communication-focused subculture.

But it's not there. There are papers hither and yon, there are metrics about how many students and how many schools and how many states are participating in some form of online education in the K-12 space. But there's precious little in the way of results. The dearth of information could be interpreted a number of ways, one of which would hold that efficacy isn't being published because it's not positive. Of course, the void could also be explained by the fact that online education is effective that practitioners are too busy handing out As to publish results. Likely neither extreme is true; more realistic is the possibility that online K-12 education has evolved so organically that centralized study has been difficult-to-impossible and so disparate in its' implementation that comparisons across systems is unreliable.

That's not the point, though. The point is, somebody ought to be doing some form of measurement. If that means eleventy-jillion small studies, so be it. If it means first categorizing online models and grouping like systems, so be it. Meanwhile, enrollments swell, and processes become more institutionalized and less fluid, meaning that required change (if any) will be that much harder to affect.

What's cool, though, is that parents, students, teachers, administrators, and now even state departments of education have so widely embraced the ever-fattening pipes and accessibility of online delivery. Experts suggest that in a few years' time, the majority of students will be taking at least part of their course of study online. This makes measurement and study and process just that much more important. There are ways to reach and engage and enlighten and inform students that didn't exist even three years ago, and they're so simply implemented that almost any teacher can use them (blogs, wikis, podcasts, class websites, online multimedia instruction, study materials for download, parent-teacher communication, online gradebooks, and more). Integrating online study has never been easier, and its' strengths are being siezed upon in explosive growth. Cool, huh?

Read the full post here ...

What's the Difference? High School Teachers and College Profs Disagree About Student Preparedness

According to surveys conducted by the Chronicle of Higher Education, there is a large gap between the perceptions of student preparedness of high school teachers and college faculty. Most notable is the assessment of writing skills, with a plurality of surveyed college faculty noting students are under-prepared, versus a majority of high school teachers who feel they're graduating kids that are well-prepared for college.

The results of the surveys were posted in a story by the Chronicle (here, no subscription required) on March 6.

Rather than analyzing the gap statistically, it might be helpful to ask a more fundamental question: What are the criteria for judging preparedness? Do college professors have the same standards as high school teachers? Probably not. But there must surely be some common ground.

Click the link to read the full post ... )

More and more, we hear about a "K-20" approach to education. The Chronicle's survey points to a distinct gap in the continuum, however. Where high schools are focused on meeting state and federal graduation requirements, institutions of higher education are more focused on students' work product. The K-12 space, being more and more regulated and standardized, may be failing to prepart students for what lies beyond the cap and gown.

Part of the Chronicle's analysis of their studies points to a decline in student preparedness over the past five years ... roughly the same timeframe as an increase in standards-based K-12 instruction. Could it be that the governing bodies who establish curriculum standards in the high school space are not looking beyond graduation, to the relative rigors of collegiate study? The article by the Chronicle would appear to illustrate that very point.

The fundamental question is simple: How do we reconcile K-12 standards with college instructors' expectations? Also, if there's a gap, what's the best way to address it? Do we rewrite the high school writing standards? Do we introduce a more introductory writing course in the college/postsecondary career? Lowering expectations, "dumbing down" the collegiate rigor, would be counterproductive. It would only delay student acquisition of the required skills. Sooner or later, kids need to know how to crank out four-to-five-page essays with cogent arguments and well-constructed language. The technical skills of writing need to mesh with the critical thinking skills of higher learning, such that students are less focused on "how" to write a paper and more focused on the subject of that paper. These skills can be taught, but they must also be exercised to gain mastery.

The good news is, someone has identified the problem. The challenge now is to address that gap and better prepare students for their post-high-school study.

Read the full post here ...

AOL reads WTKSC???

Here's something cool: Just hours after the WTKSC post about AOL's proposed "e-mail tax," the company has decided to rethink their approach. Apparently, they're going to exempt not-for-profit e-mail senders from the fee which would allow mass mailers to avoid the company's spam filters.

In all seriousness, there isn't any real correlation to WTKSC, but Charles Stiles, AOL's Postmaster, said that "[there] will be no requirement, ever, for not-for-profits who deliver e-mail to AOL members to pay for e-mail certification and delivery."

In addition, AOL is talking about the possibility that they would actually pay for third-party verification of e-mail from some organizations.

Now that the AOL policy won't affect schools, it takes it off of the WTKSC radar ... schools won't have to pay to send e-mails. And that's very cool.

Read the full post here ...

Mail Tax Proposal Alarms Schools

Wouldn't it be cool to say goodbye to spam? Really, truly, be rid of those annoying messages that somehow avoid the spam filters and e-mail censors and find their way to your inbox offering increased stamina, discount V!4gr4, and superior endowment in the appendages? "Sure," you say, "less junk mail would be great." Well, America Online (known back in the day as "America On Hold") has a plan to grant your wish. How, you might ask, can AOL do this when so many others have tried and failed?

Taxation, friend. That's the plan, anyway. AOL is proposing to charge a fee to mass mailers that will guarantee said mailer's messages will survive the e-mail swirlie in the bowl of spam. Then, they argue, they can crank up the filters to Defcon 9 and prevent all unpaid, unsolicited mail from ever reaching you.

"Oh," you say, "so, like, any bulk mail would only come from 'legitimate' sources?" Well, yeah. If you define "legitimate" as "paid up." See, any schlub with a bank account can pay the tax, which some have forecast to be as high as one cent per message, the bulk of which will go to AOL.

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"Bah!" you say, "a lousy penny? Will that be a deterrent?" Well, yeah. Because your average spaminator zaps out millions of messages at a time. So those pennies would add up fast. "OK," you concede, "why is this a bad thing, then?" It's really very simple: lots of legitimate, non-commercial outfits ... like schools, say ... send out a ton of e-mail, too. Take a middlin' sized suburban Ohio district, let's say graduating 350 or so seniors this year. The district superintendent sends out a weekly bulletin to parents, teachers, and sundry such folks as might subscribe. Let's say, conservatively, that's 4200 students' worth of parents, teachers, grandparents, whoever. Safe to say six or eight thousand messages. Times 26 weeks that it goes out. That's over $2,000 just to send out a newsletter. Heck, it might even make more financial sense to print the dang thing and send it home with the chilluns.

Now let's say there's an event of some kind that prompts a need for immediate notification of all parents. Just for fun, let's say that some students at the theoretical district are caught selling theoretical drugs, and are arrested. There's a case where our theoretical superintendent would want to dash off a quick note. Not to mention maybe another one from the theoretical principal of the school. Maybe a different note to teachers. Is the district going to have an account with AOL that will automagically bill the superintendent's theoretical credit card for those messages? What about messages going to non-AOL accounts? Well, those'd still be free. So, wouldn't the district want to theoretically suggest that they could theoretically save some theoretical cash if the theoretical parents moved away from the very real AOL and had a different ISP?

Parenthetical note here: this treatise will not diverge into a discussion of the relative advantages and cost-benefit analyses of alternative ISPs. Doubtless some readers of this blog will be AOL subscribers, and we wouldn't want them to feel badly.

This e-mail "tarriff," by the by, would probably not deter at least some of the spamalicious content, because spammers might be willing to fork over some cash, assuming the laws of economics apply and there's actually a return on that investment (like the Nobel Laureate who has been bilked of more than $300,000 on a 419 scam over a period of years).

Apparently AOL is chock full of ideas to generate more revenue. They recently announced that they would increase the price of their dial-up service to be comparable to their own broadband access prices. That's right-- read it again: AOL is going to raise the price of their slow dial-up access plan to be the same as that of their high-speed broadband access plan. They claim this will actually make people switch to broadband. Well, duh! (But it probably won't be AOL High-Speed ... !)

Should you write your congressman to protest this e-mail tax? No, just cancel your AOL service. Then your school won't have to shell out money to reach you. Isn't that great business development thinking on AOL's part? Definitely not as cool as actually killing spam, though. Not cool at all.

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When is it Wrong to View a Website?

In Costa Mesa California, school officials are seeking the expulsion of one student at the middle school, and have suspended 20 others. According to a report by the Associated Press (here), a student at TeWinkle Middle School (OK, how does one live with that, and what is their mascot??) set up a group site on MySpace.com called "I hate _____," with a subtitle that included an expletive and an anti-semitic slur. A post on the site asked rhetorically (and graphically) whether anyone wanted to do harm to the girl named in the title of the group's page.

The student who put up the site is being investigated by police for a possible hate crime, and the district is moving to have the boy expelled. The school has already suspended 20 other students who viewed the site, though it is unclear what they may have seen as the posts to the site apparently changed at some point.

This kid, who put up the site, needs some serious attention. That may well mean expulsion from school and criminal charges, but at the very least a good dose of discipline in some form or fashion.

That being said, unless those other 20 kids actively participated by posting their own epithets or comments to the site, their suspenstions should be reversed. They may have been willing, and even vocally positive, consumers of the vile content, but viewing a web page, no matter how awful, should not constitute complicity with that site's author. If they accessed the site from school computers, in a manner contrary to school policy, then some form of discipline would have been in order. But that discipline should be the same whether they viewed the little nazi's page or did a Google search on Jessica Simpson. In this particular case, the wee dears did their viewing from home computers outside school hours.

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The point is, viewing objectionable content isn't, can not be, in itself, a crime. In this case, there was a thinly veiled threat, specifically, "who in [this group] wants to take a shotgun and blast her in the head a thousand times?" Such a threat is criminal, but unless the other little darlings posted comments along the lines of "sign me up," they did not commit an offense by viewing the threat on their screen. Inherent in the First Amendment is the right not only to voice an opinion, but to hear one being voiced. Passive consumption is a form of protected speech.

What was posted is horrifying. That it can come from a middle-school student, even more so. That kind of hate and invective is an acquired skill, and clearly the little bugger has had an example set for him to follow. The student who set up and administered the group should be punished to the full extent possible. But his "audience?" We're talking about pre-teens or young teens here. Were they suspended for their complicity, or for the poor judgment they exercised in viewing those pages?

We tell our kids, "if you hang around with bad kids, they're going to get you in trouble." This is true whether they're hanging around on school grounds or on MySpace. But is a witness to an assault "complicit" by virtue of just watching? Or does complicity require a more affirmative act, a more participatory role? The school, in this case, felt and acted on the grounds that by going to the site, these 20 students became active participants in the threat ... a subjective decision that implies witnesses are culpable in the misdemeanors they observe. That's a slippery slope.

The whole case stinks. What happened to the girl is horrible. What was said was horrible. But what happened to those 20 kids is troubling, too. Definitely not cool.

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Congress Clears Way for Tuition Assistance at Online Institutions

Here's something cool: Studying at an online institution of higher education can now be eligible for federal tuition assistance money. A new ruling by Congress eliminates the so-called 50% rule, which since 1992 required institutions to offer at least 50% of their classes in brick-and-mortar classrooms in order to qualify for federal tuition assistance dollars.


According to an article in the New York Times (here), the decision is a contentious one that seems to fall along a battlefront between traditional not-for-profit institutions and their private-sector counterparts in the higher education industry. Much of the article centers on the concerted lobbying efforts of for-profit institutions, implying that the decision went their way in part because of well-placed, well-funded lobbyists and friendly administration officials, whereas the traditional ivy-covered institutions lacked the political clout to fight the move.

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Debate also rages on the efficacy of online study, with traditional schools claiming "phantom statistics" and unproven results. Meanwhile, institutions such as the University of Phoenix, one of the largest and most well-known advocates of online study, claim that virtual classrooms offer access for working students, military personnel, or others for whom physical location poses a barrier to higher learning.

Critics point to the dissolution of one online university, the Masters Institute in California, as one example of unaccountable and suspect practices. But with more than 7% of students pursuing degrees online, a number which could almost quadruple over the next ten years, the elimination of the 50% rule means that student aid is more available. That means more students will have access to higher education than ever before. That, rather than a debate about whether commercial schools provide quality education, is very cool.

Let the debate rage over whether profit-driven education delivers comparable results to the consumer. Let fly the complaints about congressional lobbyists and political machinations. Let there be a public and thorough discourse about efficacy and education, which in the end will only mean a greater focus on the quality of learning. But meanwhile, let people go to school ... whether cutting across the quadrangle or connecting to the internets. More students with more financial aid at more institutions, whether non-profit or commercial, will mean competition in a marketplace that will drive innovation, quality, and measurable success. In spite of the debate, or perhaps because of it ... that's very cool.

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Indiana State Bundles ThinkPad

Now this is cool: Indiana State University (Alma Mater of the great Larry Bird) has arrived at an important decision. They're requiring every incoming freshman in the fall of 2007 to have a laptop, and they're recommending the IBM (by then Lenovo) ThinkPad.

There are only a handful of universities across the country that require incoming students to have a laptop as a prerequisite for study. Others include UNC at Chapel Hill and Clemson.

According to the Terre Haute TribStar.com, Susan Powers, professor of curriculum, instruction and media technology and chairwoman of ISU’s notebook implementation committee, had a very centered-centric quote:

“The notebook initiative gives us an opportunity to use technology to support learner-centered, knowledge-centered, assessment-centered and community-centered learning environments. It is a window of opportunity for true innovation. Lenovo ThinkPad will be an excellent partner in our strategies to expand the learning environment of ISU.” That's a very well-centered window.

Now, it's easy to say that such a requirement could make study at ISU unattainable for some would-be students of more limited means. But such a program actually makes the delivery of education more affordable and much more effective, so in the net-net-sum, it's probably a financial wash. But think of all those wireless lappies cruising the internets from dorms, classrooms, libraries, dining halls, and park benches. That's some serious next-gen-ness, which is very cool.

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Broward Schools to ban iPods?

OK, the blog is called "Want to know something cool?", ya dig, but here's yet another post of the negative variety. Although in this case WTKSC is probably on board.

Broward County schools are about to harsh the mellow of their iPodding matriculators. Officially set for consideration (and probably approval) of the school board on March 7, the proposal will add iPods (and, ostensibly, other similar devices) to the list of prohibited items for students to have in class. Many schools and districts have such lists, often including mobile phones, radios, CD players, and other similar gadgetry.

The harsh on the mellow, though, is that iPods, along with their less famous cousins in the mp3 space, can also rock content that can be part of a nutritious breakfast. Podcasts and vodcasts of all kinds are available, including lectures on European history and Operating Systems from Berkeley or poli-sci from MIT. That's not to say the little dears are actually jamming to educational content, but they could be. It's more likely they're putting their Black Eyed Peas on, or that they're rocking the beats of Kanye or Gwen. But hey ... what if they're really thumping Spark Notes, or the Engadget podcast? Sure, it's inappropriate when they're in class, but couldn't such listening be part of the course? Couldn't a teacher assign a free podcast as part of required homework?

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Broward is a progressive district who has made serious investments in infrastructure and student technology. One-to-one computing is a reality for many there. So what if, in addition to telling kids that it's NOT cool to jam during class, Broward also pointed out some of the more efficacious uses of an iPod (or a lappie)? Point these kids in the direction of quality content-- which, admittedly, can be hard to find-- and let them apply their gadgets to their ever-evolving quest for knowledge.

It's hard to compete with the likes of Tiki Bar TV or Ne-Yo in the valuable and limited space between the headphones, but hey: some kids are auditory learners. Some kids will tweak to content in this medium that they might otherwise never grasp. Of course nobody wants their students blasting earbuds full of Slim Shady during class. A classtime ban on iPods and mp3 players makes a lot of sense. But, let us hope that our friends in Broward County will recognize an opportunity to reach kids in a new, and popular, way, too. That would be very cool.

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Rhode Island ... the Ostrich State?

Picture our flightless feathered friends and their exposed posterior when they stick their heads in the gopher holes. Then picture the Ocean State, tucked serenely between Massachusetts and Connecticut, with its' posterior sticking out. This is Rhode Island, the state that has decided that more than 80% of its' schools should just institute an outright ban on MySpace.com. (Read the Reuters news item here.)

That's right ... 80% (eighty percent, not a typo) of schools in Rhode Island are currently blocking or planning to block access from school equipment to MySpace. This, in the interest of student safety, is the best plan they can come up with? What about other social sites? Do they block all of those, too? What about Blogger (your humble host here) or Yahoo or MSN? AOL? ICQ? Are these sites also to be blacklisted? And what about sites like del.icio.us? Or Flikr, or ... you get the point.

Let's be clear: Protecting students from online danger is very cool. But is site-blocking the best way to do it? Do the poor lambs have access from computers outside the school buildings? Do they know of sites that haven't made the blacklist yet? Are they smart enough to end-run the blocks entirely by coming at the urls sideways through a sub-window? In short, can we really build firewalls that can keep them out of danger?

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Mayhap the better approach is to embrace the fundamental characteristics that make MySpace so attractive to the 14-and-up crowd. Maybe-- hey, what a novel concept!!-- Rhode Island could approach MySpace or del.icio.us and say, "look, we know our kids want to be on your site. How about we build a secure subnet where only other students from the same school can see the kids' pages?" Maybe the school could even host an intranet solution that mimics the MySpace social network but keeps kids literally inside the firewalls? Plenty of districts, large and small, have implemented WAN and intranet and VPN. Why not give the little darlings a couple GB of space there and let them have at each other? If it's not safe to let them go to the park and play without an adult, don't lock the park gates ... let them play in the safety of a fenced backyard.

The other aspect of child saftey comes not from locking out the baddies, but from educating the students. Teach the kids how to do social networking safely. Teach them how to creat a secure password and to limit exposure to their MySpace with a narrow buddy list. Teach them about the sensitivity of personal information. Teach them that they shouldn't put anything on MySpace that they wouldn't want on a billboard next to the highway in a bad part of town. Teach them about stranger danger, about the hazards of irl hook-ups. About revealing too much and making themselves targets.

Not every kid will learn all of this well, and not every kid who does learn it will implement it. But by "cutting off" MySpace, Rhode Island has made it even cooler. The forbiddenness of it just adds to the allure for some kids. And by sticking their heads in the sand, school officials are ignoring the need to educate these kids about online safety, personal responsibility, and appropriate use of technology. And so when these kids DO get to MySpace, from the public library or their friend's computer or whatever, they're unprepared. Rhode Island is preaching abstinance and isn't teaching basic safety skills or the practical implications of online life. Doing so is irresponsible and dangerous. Their hearts are in the right place, but their approach is definitely not cool.

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