The combination of the Microsoft Windows operating system and Internet Explorer is notorious for security issues. Now, it appears Microsoft is attempting to respond. The company is beginning to produce its own software to deal with security issues. If you use the Windows operating system, take a look at the Microsoft AntiSpyware Beta
The following message appears on the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse web site.
The staff of the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse (ENC) regrets to inform you that the U.S. Department of Education will not continue funding for a national mathematics and science education clearinghouse beyond ENC???s current contract year ending September 30, 2005. We believe that ENC has provided a valuable service to the nation???s K-12 mathematics and science teachers over the past 13 years, and we look forward to continuing that work. We are currently developing plans to deliver ENC???s products and services through subscriptions to schools, organizations, and individuals beginning in October 2005.
I think ENC is a quality site, but I wonder how many schools will be interested in subscription access. If there are enough schools interested in subscription access, I wonder which schools will be interested. Will it be the schools most in need of support? This may be the wave of the future. Many of the organizations making resources available to educators and schools without commercial bias were likely receiving support from somewhere. Will the Dept. of Education invest in providing such resources and which organizations will be given this opportunity?
An eSchool News article summarizes educators concerns that students lack critical approach to online information. Tend to take first source they encounter and do not cross reference.
Happy New Year from Grand Forks, ND, USA.
It is snowing here and I made my way through the drifts to reset the log on my server for the new year. Edutech originates in the Psychology Building on the University of North Dakota campus.
I work hard to counter my Mac bias. I try to understand that not everyone sees the world as I do. If students end up being involved, it is important they have useful tools. It is simply not my fault that Mac tools are built in and easy to use.
So what if you wanted to approximate iPhoto? My recommendation would be a free product from Google (I am not certain how this came to be the case) – Picasa. Actually, Picasa and Blogger are both new services available through Google and a special feature of Picasa is the ability to upload images to Blogger.
Comparative review of iPhoto and Picasa
Picasa allows you to import and organize your images.
Picasa allows you to do some simply editing (red eye, enhance, crop).
This is a 3.5 out of 4 star program. iPhoto has some additional tools for “publishing” images that I think are useful.
Time to do a post on podcasting. I must admit I am not certain of the origin of this term. I am guessing it has something to do with the iPod, but clearly podcasting does not require an iPod. I assume the term refers to methods for offering audio (mostly spoken comments in my experience) over the Internet. (wikipedia definition)
Here is a text description of how the podcast was created. 1) record with camcorder, 2) bring into iMovie, 3) split audio track from video and delete video (I actually then used Quicktime Pro to extract the audio), 4) save out as Quicktime. 5) drag Quicktime into iTunes, and 6) convert to MP3 (note that my audio comments on this conversion are misleading – the audio is first converted to MP3 using a menu option and then burned to CD also making certain the MP3 option is used). I am not certain this was all worth it and stopping with the Quicktime audio file would have been fine with me. I understand that some offer MP3 content because it can be collected via RSS feeds and perhaps downloaded to an iPod for mobile access. I tend to use my iPod for music and an occasional audiobook rather than collections from audio authors.
Click on the forward arrow to play.
David Warlick blog post on podcasting. This is the post I reference in my own podcast. His post ends with some great links if you are interested in pod casting.
Andy Carvin post on podcasting. Please review most recent posts on this site for Andy’s comments on Tsunami Relief Efforts.
Unless an emergency presents itself, I always save work on my server for break times. So often something goes wrong and I spend hours or days attempting to recover. Break time gives me a little cushion in case something goes wrong. Today, I upgraded WordPress – the software that runs this blog. Everything went smoothly and you are now reading this through a supposedly improved system.
If you want to operate your own blog on your own server, WordPress is the way to go.