I am an advocate for moving the control of server technology as close to the user as possible. Everyone’s computer would function as a server if I had my way. In keeping with this way of thinking, I have the opportunity to run the server and software responsible for this blog.
This blog operates on open source software. The software for the blog is WordPress and WordPress requires that the server also be running PHP and MySQL. If you are interested or just want to learn a little about what it takes to do this (might be less of a hassle than you anticipate), I have run across a useful audio/video tutorial that describes the process of setting up a WordPress blog.
Michael Geist, columnist for BBCNews, has added his commentary on the Blackboard patent claim. His comments describe the confusion that exists within the education community among academics who have worked with other learning environments for years and now are uncertain whether the software they use is in some type of patent violation.
In commenting on the Blackboard postion, Geist notes that Blackboard claims to be making a specific rather than general claim.
For its part Blackboard claims that the patents only cover narrow company-created innovations.
A recent White paper provided by the Berkman Center for the Internet and Society contends that copyright law represents one of the major obstacles to the use of the Internet in education. Their paper provides a nice summary of copyright law (copyright fundamentals) and through several case studies examines some significant areas of frustration. As an instructor, this resource would make a good “assigned reading” and provide a nice way to generate discusison.
I find myself identifying with the examples and situations the authors provide, but I also identify with a party not well represented in this review – those who created the content being copied. While it is true that without copyright it would be easier to access content, utilize content effectively in instructor presentations and incorporate content in student authored products, I feel the authors of this review make a fundamental assumption that may not be realistic. Would the content exist without the protections afforded by copyright law? When I read the white paper, my reaction is often – it would be nice to be able to that, but if you could do that someone else might do this.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has released a recent study entitled Online Victimization of Youth: Five Years Later. Given recent political consideration of this topic focused on school and library access (DOPA), I read the report looking for some specific things. While any danger directed at our sons and daughters should concern us (I encourage you to take the time to read the report rather than rely completely on summaries such as this), each of us must also acknowledge that as adults responsible for children (as educators or parents) we constantly make decisions that expose our children to some element of risk. How do the risks match up with the educational potential of applications that may involve a certain element of danger?
A couple of data points from this study:
Four percent of those surveyed indicated experiencing an “aggressive sexual solicitation” (perpetrator made an effort to take the “experience” offline through phone contact, mail, or face to face meeting).
Location of computer when experiencing an agressive sexual solicitation – 79% home, 12% friend home, 9% school, library, or other.
Age of solicitor associated with “aggressive solicitation – 44% <18, 34% 18-25, 15% >25, 7% – no clue
Means of access – chat 32%, IM 54%, other 13%
Reaction – 44% removed self from situation, 23% warned solictor, 7% changed online name, 15% ignored, 2% reported to parent or authorities, 7% met person
It is the combination of these percentages we have to process. Is there a risk to adolescents? Obviously! Are school uses of communication technology involved? Rarely! Do adolescents act responsibly? Mostly!
While harsh, we have to make decisions about how a technology with a less than perfect record, but benefits to our children is to be implemented.
As a parent, I made a similar conscious or unconscious decision every time I let me children drive to school or take public transportation. It would probably have been safer for me to take the time to provide transportation myself. Maybe I was lazy. Maybe I decided that learning to drive responsibly or to handle the people one meets on the bus was part of the process of growing up.
What are the odds my son might have experienced permanent damage to his knee playing football? What are the educational benefits of playing football when evaluated against this potential for physical harm? Do a search on “high school”, “football” and “heat stroke”? You might be surprised by the number of deaths. It is interesting which risks seem to generate a response from the politicians.
My wife and daughter are in Europe and are soon to take several flights that will eventually get them home. We have been following the latest terrorist threat very closely.
I noticed something while reading the latest news (see below). Note the ad that accompanies (probably automatically) this story from CNN – Oil of Olay. The ads were generated by Yahoo (Advertiser links are provided by Yahoo! Search Marketing through its Content Match product.) and this is a great example of context “sensitivity”.
As you might expect, I am monitoring Cindy’s journey home. Here is her most recent email:
We are in the Budapest airport and I picked up a free wireless. We had no trouble checking in and I am able to take my computer and camera on the plane. Kim had pop in her backpack and they didn’t even make her throw it away. Our plane was to have taken off at 8 and it looks like it won’t go until 9:15. So far it has not been a problem but this is a small airline. I was very impressed by how quickly they got all of us processed.
Tim Lauer’s blog contains a post describing a Flickr photoset display script called photoshow. A photo set is a subset of your flickr image collection that you have identified. The following link takes you to a demonstration of this script I have added to an independent web page (the script runs automatically when the page opens and I did not want the script to automatically activate when everyone connects to this blog).I don’t like the way the bottom of each picture seems to be cut off, but the script works well.
Note: Clicking on an image from the set takes the viewer to the full size image and annotation within Flickr.
My demo and Tim Lauer’s demo stopped working this afternoon. Perhaps the Photoshow server was unable to handle the pressure of the interest generated by the new app. We will have to see if they are able to get their system working again (the message that follows was captured from my screen). I guess you should wait to try this until it is known if they can work out the bugs.
Why is this capability useful? It allows someone with a substantial number of Flickr images to identify those he/she would like others to view for a given purpose.
Technorati, a popular blog aggregator, has released data allowing a look at blogging in general. Technorati claims (as of today) to follow 50.6 million blogs.
The number of blogs continues to grow at a dramatic pace and is presently doubling every 6.5 months.
Blogs appear to be very responsive to current events (i.e., bloggers digest the news) and a graphic in the David Sifry post shows how peaks in the rate of daily blogging can be linked to current events.
Approximately 39% of posts are currently written in English (Japanese was second). The time at which blogs are written appears to vary with culture and the author notes that English blogs are more likely to be written during the work day and Japanese blogs after the work day.
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