In his May 5, 2013 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, “FCC priority should be faster bandwidth,” Blair Levin contends the FCC should focus on increasing available Internet bandwidth in U.S. communities. He compares available access speeds and prices in United States cities to Japan, which is leaps and bounds faster and cheaper.

Levin is correct to argue the United States government needs to adopt policies to promote faster broadband access. The FCC and other government agencies also need to pay attention to continuing policies of draconian content filtering in many public schools, however, which sadly remain opaque or hidden to most community constituents besides students and teachers. While some school districts have adopted more balanced approaches to content filtering in the past several years, allowing teachers to bypass content filters and allowing greater student access to websites for interactive publishing, we still have a long way to go. The FCC and other government agencies could do a lot of good by promoting research and amplifying research that highlights these restrictive content filtering policies in some schools.

As educators and advocates for blended learning in our schools, we need to find ways in upcoming months to highlight the digital divide that continues between school and business Internet access in the United States. Many school districts and school leaders continue to resist the imperative to help learners of all ages become responsible publishers online. As more educators work to Map Media to the Common Core in the years ahead, hopefully these dynamics can constructively change without intervention from the federal government.

If you are an academic researcher or someone interested in research to promote improvement in schools, consider researching the need for balanced filtering in education.

Hat tip to Doug Levin for sharing this article link via Twitter.

More Than Bandwidth: FCC Should Address Content Filtering in Schools originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 6, 2013.

For $99, project backers get a Skycam webcam that can record video on a micro SD card. Of course, you can access the camera remotely in real-time from practically any connected PC or Mac, tablet or mobile phone running iOS, Android, Windows Phone 8 or BlackBerry. The secret sauce here is the use of Skype.

To set up the Skycam, you simply add it to your Skype account where it becomes one of your favorite contacts. Want to pop in and check on the pets? Just call your Skycam through the standard Skype application:

I’ve actually set up several different remote access webcams in my home over the past few years and I have to say: I think more simplicity is needed for these products. Each camera I’ve used has its own software, which typically isn’t the greatest quality. I often rely on third-party apps to access the cameras, but even these have their quirks. And gaining true remote access to a home-based camera typically requires firewall configuration, static IP addresses and — in some cases — a third-party DNS solution.

That’s why I think this project is on to something. It alleviates all of the challenges I just outlined and makes a remote webcam more of an easy to use appliance. And it does so with software that’s commonly used already. I also like how this isn’t a standard webcam you’d typically use for video chatting: Skycam can be used to monitor a dark or lowly lit room; a feature I like on my existing webcams.

With a built-in microphone and speaker, you can even use Skycam to chat with someone nearby the camera. Of course, you’ll see them, but they won’t see you. I do wish the Skycam had tilt and pan capabilities, but that would be tricky to implement with Skype as the underlying transport solution. And it would complicate what looks to be an economical and simple way to monitor a remote area.

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Long ago when I was working at Maricopa, I called our computer repair department to fix some issue with an Apple computer. I was a bit incredulous when Bill the Repair technician opened the case, and whacked the hard drive with his screwdriver, calmly closed it up and said, “that should do it”.

Except he did fix it.

That’s how I feel like my coding method goes.

Sometime in the last few days (I know it worked Wednesday night), flickr changed something slightly in the divs and class names of te sidebars on their photo pages. To everyone else, they see nothing different, but for my humble flickr cc attribution helper script, any change to this structure ruins the script’s ability to find where to insert the attribution text.

If I was s bit more savvy with DOM and XPath, I might be able to avoid the dependencies now I have on page structure, but until then, when this happens, I have to find the right screwdriver, and whack the code til it works. Thanks to Jesse McLean (and someone else earlier) who mentioned the script was not working

@cogdog hey Alan, I tried to remove and then reload the CC attribution helper on chrome, didn’t seem to work, any advice?

— Jesse McLean (@jmclean77) April 28, 2013

I’ve been able to update the greasemonkey script for firefox- you should be able to update by installing from http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/49395. Chrome users, you will first have to remove the extension and then install again from the Chrome Store (Also on the list is to figure out how to set up an update option).

I can validate it works on a number of photos I have looked at in Chrome and Firefox, this is for a photo I just posted tonight, and the attribution script is in the lower right again:

If it does not appear for you please send me a message via twitter, sometimes there are some combinations of page options I miss when testing.

• Narrative journal. Observations on life. God's blessings. Questions I'm seeking to answer.
  
• Joy Journal. I aim to write 20 things a day I'm thankful for. Research studies have shown that keeping a 5 minute a day gratitude journal will "increase your long term well being" more than winning a million dollars in the lottery. I started my joy journal this spring break as my eye was bandaged from skin cancer surgery. (See 11 ways to be positive when spring break isn't all you planned.)

1. Add meaning to the moments.

2. Process emotions.

“What would H. think of this terrible little notebook to which I come back and back? Are these jottings morbid? ...But what am I to do? I must have some drug, and reading isn’t a strong enough drug now.”

3. Capture thoughts.

4. Gain clarity.

5. Leave a Legacy.

6. Remember.

7. Develop your voice

8. To Create.

9. To Release.

How can teachers encourage journaling and respect privacy?

A cluster of media organizations (see right) are organizing the National Summit on Plagiarism and Fabrication, which will begin April 5.  The participants, invited by the American Copy Editors Society, will be conducting research aimed at producing a practical set of recommendations for combating and dealing with plagiarism and fabrication.  Their conclusions will be presented at the ACES conference in St. Louis that begins on April 4.

It is hard to predict what will come out of the summit, but the conversations have already begun, much of it aimed at bringing some sanity to how we treat the practice. Roy Peter Clark tried to describe the difference between plagiarism and carelessness in a Poynter blog post,

A classic case of overcharging occurred in 2007 when journalism teachers at the University of Missouri condemned a colleague of plagiarism after he used quotes from a student newspaper in an opinion piece without attribution. I argued then that while the practice may have been sloppy, to call it plagiarism was like “shooting a fly with a bazooka.”

Clark goes on to suggest four books on the subject:

• “The Little Book of Plagiarism,” by Richard A. Posner
• “The Anxiety of Influence,” by Harold Bloom
• “Stolen Words,” by Thomas Mallon
• “City Editor,” by Stanley Walker

Listen

In a 6-3 ruling, the court rejected publisher John Wiley’s interpretation of a rule known as the “first sale doctrine” which prevents copyright owners from exerting rights over a product once it has been purchased legally. This rule is what allows used book and music stores to sell used items without the copyright owners’ permission.

In recent years, copyright owners facing a wave of imported good have argued that “first sale” only applies to goods manufactured in the United States. Lower courts have till now sided with the copyright owners, producing considerable uncertainty about whether or not retailers can import and sell goods they legally purchase abroad.

Writing for the majority, Justice Stephen Breyer rejected John Wiley’s argument that the phrase “lawfully made under this act” implied a geographic limitation. He also cited the concerns of library associations, used-book dealers, technology companies, consumer-goods retailers, and museums — all of which had urged the court to reject the restricted notion of “first sale.”

The John Wiley ruling comes three years after the Supreme Court failed to resolve the same issue in a dispute between watch maker Omega and the retailer Costco. In that case, Omega had put little pictures on its watches and then argued that Coscto infringed on its copyright when it imported them; that case produced a 4-4 tie which meant the lower ruling against Costco was upheld. The result was different this time with different judges on the bench.

The ruling is likely to be a relief for used booksellers and others who feared that geographical limits on first sale would harm their business. In the case before the Supreme Court, the defendant was a college student who had arranged for his family in Asia to buy textbooks and mail them to him in America where he sold them at a profit.

Justices Ginsburg, Kennedy and Scalia dissented from the ruling. To learn more about the first sale doctrine, read our background on the Wiley case here.

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Textbooks are unbelievably dull and dense … no one should scratch their head at students’ lack of interest in reading when schools require students to read the most uninteresting writing that exists day after day

Iowa high school student Nicholas J via http://listentostudents.blogspot.com/2013/01/90-theses-of-textbooks.html

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At what point do we stop talking about digital literacy and recognize that people who cannot apply their literacy in digital situations aren’t really literate any more?

David Wees via https://plus.google.com/109984287766356192435/posts/NzZYBxrfDit

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Touchscreen devices aren't supposed to require a stylus. But there are times when you might want to use one. You probably draw better with a stylus. Your handwriting is more legible with a stylus. You don't leave fingerprints with a stylus. Using a stylus doesn't block your view of the screen.

Because modern touchscreens are capacitive sensing, they take the conductivity of the human body as input. It doesn't matter how much pressure you apply. It's the electricity flowing through your fingers that cause a change in the screen's electrical field. That change is interpreted by the device as input.

That's why you can't use your touchscreen device while wearing gloves, and it's the reason why using a fingernail, pen, eraser, or non-capactive stylus doesn't work. The screen works when it comes in contact with flesh.

Capacitive styluses have a fat tip because the touchscreen requires a somewhat large contact area. That tip is connected to material that conducts the static electricity from your fingers to the screen.

You can walk into a Best Buy and spend $15 to $40 on a stylus. That seems like a lot of money for something that in all likelihood will be misplaced within a few weeks. To save money, you can buy a three pack of touchscreen styluses for under two dollars from Amazon. It can take a few weeks for these styluses to arrive, but the shipping is free of charge. For less than $5 you can get a three pack that are of slightly higher quality and have somewhat less mushy tips.

If you think you might lose your stylus, consider buying a case for your device that has a holder for it. Or, buy a stylus that stays attached to your device. You can buy styluses that stay tethered when inserted to the headphone jack. Amazon has a pack of eight for less than $10. There's even a colorful pack of 10 that are under $3 and shipped free. They are short, so they aren't as nice to write and draw with. Even shorter is the MicroStylus, which just might be the world's smallest stylus.

It might be fun for you or for students to make do-it-yourself styluses. CNET shows you how to make a stylus in two minutes using a Q-tip and foil. Make Use Of has instructions for constructing a styles from foam, wire, and an old pen. Students at Anastasis Academy made with own iPad styluses for less than 10 cents using a sponge and wire. 

Kelly Tenkely blogs about students making their own styluses.

Make Magazine has a video on how to make a Do It Yourself Stylus using foam, a wire, and a pen.

For youngsters who are just learning to hold a pencil, the AppCrayon promotes a control grip. Its three-sided shape is designed by teachers. Having three sides means that it doesn't roll away when placed on a table. You can purchase AppCrayon at Target, Walgreens, and Bed Bath & Beyond for $9.99. Educators can get AppCrayon at a hefty discount by contacting the company. 

Here is a short essay on MOOCs that Drs. Steve Vardeman and Max Morris, Statistics faculty at Iowa State University, gave me permission to share. Their essential premises? That MOOCs are going to rock state (and other) universities’ worlds, that most institutions should immediately institute moratoriums on hiring new faculty and building new facilities, and that universities need to focus on clarifying their value proposition in a world of ‘commodity [higher] education.’

The full essay is below. What do you think?

—

The Inevitable Coming Impact of Online Education on State Universities and Rational Response to What is Coming
Stephen B. Vardeman and Max D. Morris

The recent appearance and publicity of organizations created to provide “massively open online courses” (MOOCs) is a truly revolutionary development in higher education. The free-for-anyone web-based courses offered by professors at select universities, and produced by Coursera, EdEX, and Udacity, were initially offered without traditional college credit. But this is already changing; participating universities are already offering credit for courses delivered through these outlets, at prices (split between the university and the MOOC provider) well below standard tuition levels. It seems clear that in relatively short order, there will be MOOC versions of many of the large-enrollment freshman- and sophomore-level courses taught at most major universities, and that students will be able to acquire transferable credits for these courses at the accredited schools for substantially less money than the tuition now charged for similar on-campus courses. In 21st century America, where many new college students reach graduation only by acquiring a mountain of personal debt, this can be regarded as welcome news. But for the nation’s educational institutions, the changes (which we believe will unfold very quickly) will present massive challenges.

In the following, we outline what we see as the “realities” and “consequences” of this revolution, and “options” that should be considered now for university administrators and faculty. Our particular perspective is in the context of the generic “Well Respected State University” (WRSU), which represents an enormous proportion of the traditional American college system.

Realities

The coming impact of MOOCs is begin made possible by a number of factors. First among these is clearly the technical capability, via the evolving internet, to physically produce courses that can be viewed at little or no expense by a huge proportion of the world’s population. But there are other factors involved as well, including the public perception of the nature and value of higher education, and economic forces. In particular,

1. The American public now views most of “higher” education (extending through masters level) as a “commodity,” something thought of primarily in business terms, that will be sold primarily on the basis of price and convenience, subject to meeting of a minimum standard of quality (for the given species of product). University administrators have generally adopted this viewpoint as well, often using terms such as “customer,” “stake holder,” and “marketing” to describe how the school relates to students, their parents, and others.
2. Technology is now enabling mass production and mass distribution of increasingly low cost coursework of acceptable (and increasing) quality. The organizations that produce MOOCs are well-funded and have selectively associated themselves with universities that have the capability of meeting any “quality” challenge that could arise.
3. The economics of commodity education (as with all other commodities) will always be driven by competition toward increasing efficiency, lower cost, and improved quality. The innovation of combining high-quality on-line education with traditional college credit at a reduced cost can be compared to the innovation of the Model T Ford. Just as mechanization forever changed agriculture and mass production forever changed the making of hard goods, these innovations will change commodity education forever.
4. Specialty/niche markets can exist where “hand crafting” with relatively high “profit” margins carries on, while commodity prices decline drastically. Highly respected liberal arts colleges will continue to attract the small minority of students for whom the element of personal involvement is important … and who can afford to pay the required fees. The majority of state universities, however, will not be able to continue operating as they have in the past.
5. To be absolutely clear, in almost every case, WRSU is not positioned to be at all successful competing for commodity sales. The well-funded start-ups and consortia already have huge professional production staffs working with the best academic institutions on delivering very carefully made courses. In contrast, most university “Distance Ed” programs could be carried out as effectively by arming every faculty member with a tablet PC and capture software. Existing (or even improved) on-line courses, produced by most educational institutions, offered at present rates of tuition, cannot hope to compete with the coming alternatives. And there will be no incentive for any of the current MOOC providers to affiliate with more schools than are really needed to support the new system. The inevitable fate of most state universities is that more and more of their future graduates will be taking (and paying for) fewer and fewer of their courses at their alma mater.

Consequences

The realities described above carry with them consequences which will constitute a massive change in the environment in which WRSU must operate. Our belief is that these will evolve more quickly than most people expect, but whether the time-frame is 1 year, 2 years, or 5 years, these consequences are very predictable:

1. For most state universities, tuition income will drop precipitously, as students do more and more of their courses at their kitchen tables. In addition, the state revenue reductions of the last few decades will surely continue, especially as on-campus enrollments drop and legislators are even more tempted to spend public money elsewhere. Together, these two trends will force dramatic decreases in funding available to state universities. Except at the very best research institutions (and despite the self-images that may exist on campus, very few WRSU’s can claim to be these exceptions), funded research cannot begin to cover these losses.
2. It will be increasingly hard to justify the expense required to maintain the faculty and physical plants of most state universities. In the worst case, draconian measures will be necessary to reduce faculty head counts, some institutions will simply close down, and university assets, no longer needed to physically educate so many on-campus students, will be sold. In general, pressure on faculty and departments will increase dramatically as the issue becomes one of institutional survival.
3. Especially for large departments that have, in the past, justified faculty lines with large-enrollment service courses, there will be increased pressure to justify their relatively large departmental budgets.

Options

As outlined above, the rapidly changing environment of higher education will impose severe constraints on most public universities. However, there are choices that can be made. While many of them will be unpleasant (at least in the minds of those invested in the traditional system of higher education), they should be addressed by WRSU administrators and faculty now, because delay will only reduce the number of alternatives available. First of all, current strategic plans, based primarily on pre-MOOC logic, should be immediately reviewed, and much in them modified. In particular:

1. For most state universities, a hiring freeze should be seriously considered immediately. Even if enrollments have seen recent increases, the evidence that this cannot continue is overwhelming.
2. For most state universities, serious consideration should be given to radically changed building plans immediately. In place of big lecture halls, testing centers should be built. Physical inefficiencies should be addressed, and the overall strategy of physical plant development should be reoriented toward the idea that less, rather than more, facilities will be needed.

But simple reduction without a strategy for what comes next is not sufficient. WRSU will need to develop a clear value proposition, and put full energy into delivering it:

3. Institutions and departments must immediately face up to the value proposition required in commodity education. Most state institutions cannot participate in the MOOC movement and do not have the capability to justify themselves by shifting from “education” to “research.” The question that must be answered by WRSU is: What do we have, or can we quickly develop, that is of real value and can be delivered at a price the new market will bear and will support us going forward? And the first step in answering this question must be an honest reflection on the “ground truth” of the institution; these decisions cannot be made with a “Lake Woebegone” mentality that insists on an “above average” self-image.
4. Each institution will need to come to terms with what its role can be in commodity education. In nearly all cases, it will at best be a user of MOOCs, NOT a provider. One of its major roles will be in offering the kind of assistance that can only be provided personally (e.g. tutoring), and testing/providing credit for what is learned from externally provided course material. It is likely that courses that contain hands-on experience in laboratory facilities (e.g. chemistry), require one-on-one interaction (e.g. music), or rely on group experiences (e.g. engineering design) will be difficult to adapt to the MOOC model – How can WRSU make the most of its ability to continue this kind of education? Specific strategies will vary by institution, but they will all require huge changes.
5. All WRSU units, both administrative and academic, need to immediately focus on efficiency and activities that deliver unique value to the institution and students. Administrators must become much more responsive to the new, real challenges that face their institutions, focus on what roles their institutions can realistically play, and become much more willing to make well-reasoned hard choices concerning change. Faculty must understand that former cultures of “entitlement” cannot continue, that the concept of “academic freedom” is likely to be reshaped to focus more on the needs of the institution than the individual faculty member, and that these challenges will require substantial sacrifices from everyone.

Almost inevitably, the advent of large-enrollment, on-line college courses will put many colleges and universities out of business, and dramatically reduce the size of many others. In this new environment, there may also be opportunities for some educational institutions to offer new and valuable components to college education (even if much-reduced in scale relative to plans they have made in the past). But this will not happen without serious and realistic thought and planning – of a qualitatively different nature than has ever been needed before — by administrators and faculty.

Image credit: South Western (sic) University, Dallas, Texas

[cross-posted at Education Recoded]

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My niece posted an Instagram photo last night of a stack of textbooks. In her description she wrote, “I never thought I would be so happy to receive textbooks.”

I commented, “But isn't it all on the Internet?” — mostly in jest. She knows me.

The information is out there on the network, of course. But her need for those textbooks is absolutely critical, regardless of what she can Google and in spite of how she will continue her essential professional learning after her textbooks are digested. You see, my niece is preparing for her CPA — and the right answers for that exam are not on the Internet. You can count on that.

A textbook, as a product of packaged content, is essential when we are tasked to learn the right answers — when we are being certified in some way as having x knowledge or y skills. But in my opinion, based on my own rather peculiar career, this is not education. It's training.

Training is not bad. There are certainly elements of formal education that require training — to learn facts and skills that are both useful and stable. 2 x 2 will always be 4 and 9 x 9 will always be 81. Yet, what it means to be educated changes, when answers shift with a rapidly changing world and when a dynamic global library is accessible to us from our own pockets.

Both of my grandparents had college degrees. But after their degrees were conferred, they prospered in a relatively stable world of information scarcity. Being educated was based on remembered knowledge.

Today, we function within a networked, digital and info-abundant environment, whose conditions are constantly changing. Being educated today is being able to skillfully, resourcefully and responsibly mine and utilize this infoscape within meaningful and reliable contexts to accomplish goals — which often involves learning something new. Using a traditional textbook does little to help students become skillfully, resourceful and responsible learners.

If preparing our children for their future means certifying them based on a measure of their remembered knowledge or certifying schools/teachers based on the measured knowledge of their students, then bring on the books, the bigger the better.

But if it is not a trainable/teachable worker who brings prosperity today, but the imaginative information artisan with a lifestyle of learning, unlearning and relearning, then we need to completely rethink the tools of education.

I will confess here that this is not exactly the article that I sat down to write. But it may lead into a next, and slightly more specific (if not more practical) article about these learning tools.

So check back by!

Posted with Blogsy