Blogger Update

Blogger.com, now a Google service, has been updated and certain features may interest educators looking for a safe and simple blog opportunity for their classes. These features can be quickly explored by following the “Take a Tour” link from the blogger start page. The features that would seem to suit the needs of educators wanting to provide security for students and create a simple environment within which students can post include the opportunity to add multiple authors to a blog (team blog) and limit viewing to those whose emails are contained within a designated list.

One potential issue – as I read the instructions, users must have a gmail account for permanent access (some type of short term guest pass exists). I know that schools often block Gmail access. My wife contents this is the case because gmail accounts can be created outside of the control of the school and the email addresses are not necessarily identifiable names of individuals.

For those not put off by these restrictions, blogger.com appears to have some very nice features and the blogger is given considerable freedom is setting up his/her blog according to personal preferences.

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Chickens

We are having a great time in Hawaii. One strange thing – there are chickens everywhere. Very early in the morning just as the sun is coming up, I can hear the surf and the roosters crowing. It is difficult for my still foggy brain to place exactly where I am.

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Spring Break 2007

I didn’t do the Spring break thing when I was a college students, but now that I am old I take the opportunity when I can. This year Cindy and I, two of our daughters, Jimbo (a sigificant other), and grand daughter Addison are taking a break in Hawaii (Kauai).
Addison and grandpa on the runway

Addison and grandpa ready for takeoff.

Kauai

Condo view

Surf is up

Huge surf today

I have an amazing record of having a server go off line while I am gone. Sure enough, the server I operate for the department and my book resources cannot be accessed. I used to think having a server go down when I am out of town was some punishment for taking a break. Here is my new hypothesis – when the university has breaks, the physical plant folks like to work on the electrical systems.

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Cost of Internet Radio

This is not an educational topic per se, but the comment does concern the general topic of copyright and appropriate compensation to content producers.

My interest in technology has expanded my interest in music. Most of the music I listen to moves through one of my computers. This interface adds an added dimension because of the potential social network that can be connected to this music. When I purchase something from iTunes, the recommendations alert me to similar artists who may interest me. I am actually more interested in services such as last.fm or mashups such as pandorafm. These sources provide a variety of services that deepen my interest in the music I listen to and the artists who create this content.

It appears that the RIAA intends to increase the royalties demanded of internet radio services. I learned of this because the increase costs threaten the continuation of Pandora. This increase is anticipated to be especially damaging to what were previously regarded as a special category described as small webcasters (e.g., Rogueamoeba). As I read the law, it appears the minimum fee is $500. The cost per performance is about a tenth of a cent. It doesn’t sound like much, but those offering services at the low end typically do not collect money (there may be an occasional request for a donation).

Copyright is such a complex issue to me because different media work in different ways and because the problem is not necessarily that an opportunity exists, but that individuals might inappropriately take advantage of that opportunity (e.g., capturing a personal copy from what was intended as a one time experience). Differences in how we tend to respond to media are interesting. Theoretically, producers may benefit from different exposure models, but such differences are difficult to document. There is a concept I teach in the intro psychology section on motivation that would seem to apply. For example, Maslow’s hierarchy differentiates deficiency needs and growth needs. Responding to a deficiency need reduces the need to respond again. In contrast, responding to a growth need potentially increases the motive to respond again. Music often seems to function like a growth need. Finding a song or artist that you like increases willingness to listen to that same song or artist again. Hence, it has been argued that listening to an occasional song via internet radio increases rather than decreases sales for quality material. Access to most video and text material in most cases operates like a deficiency need. If I have the opportunity to view a movie or read a book for free, there are only a few rare cases in which that opportunity would increase my desire to then purchase that resource and certainly the general impact would be to reduce sales. I guess I believe that producers should have the right to control access to their creative works, but at least in the case of music I would think certain forms of free exposure would offer a financial advantage.

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Minnesota Textbook Pricing and Access Act

The legislature of the state of Minnesota is considering a bill authored by Wiger, Pappas, Michel, and Robling with the intent of influencing textbook prices. They appear to believe:

  • textbook companies publish new books with minimal changes to encourage unnecessary adoption of more costly material
  • textbook companies bundle extra products that increase costs
  • postsecondary institutions can encourage a vibrant used book market.

As I understand the basic economics, extending the use of books through resale will either

  • drive up the cost of the original sale further so that publishing companies and the authors they support can achieve a profit on the one time they receive compensation for their product, or
  • reduce the number of competitors until a smaller number of companies can sell more copies of whatever books are still available.

Attempting to mandate the business practices of publishing companies is really unnecessary and misrepresents the scope of the issues that are involved. Extending the number of times a given book is recirculated is really dependent on the behavior of instructors. There is no requirement that instructors must adopt the current edition of a book. There are companies that collect and resell used books for years after new editions are available. Check on Barnes and Noble online for a given textbook and see if other editions are available. Every bookstore knows how to gain access to these books and this is the reason they attempt to impose earlier adoption deadlines on instructors – they want to see how many used books are available before they buy any new copies. Actually, the bookstores contribute little in this process and receive what typically amounts to a 50% markup for buying a book from a student and placing it back on the shelf. Pretty easy money when you only do this when the instructor signs the order to stock the book again. Evidently the legislators associated with this bill ignore this particular source of price inflation. Why not completely bypass bookstores and order used books online?

It is difficult to take such simplistic notions seriously and I always wonder whether legislators don’t understand or purposefully simplify complex issues to play to the stereotypes of the voters who elect them.

BTW – I am personally offended by the high price of coffee. With the exception of McDonalds, most coffee shops I frequent now charge in excess of $2.25 for a large cup of coffee. Perhaps the legislature could look into the cost of coffee.

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K-12 Online Courses

Data on general use of technology in education is hard to come by and typically outdated by the time it is distributed. My writing activities require that I constantly search for such data so that I can provide a sense of what is typical. Andy Carvin’s site alerted me to a new study concerning K-12 students enrolled in online courses conducted by the Sloan Foundation. While the rapid increase in online instruction in higher ed was obvious from my vantage point, I must admit that the level of online instruction in K-12 surprised me.

Based on these numbers, the researchers estimate that approximately 700,000 K-12 students are enrolled in online courses, up from less than 50,000 students in 2001.

One group taking heavy advantage of online opportunities is the smaller school in rural areas. I was interested in data from my state, North Dakota, but information on individual states is not provided.

The pdf is available for download at the Sloan site.

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WordPress Dangerous – Upgrade

WordPress dangerous – upgrade immediately!!

I hate running into messages like this after I am home and settled down for an hour of relaxing reading before heading off to bed. By chance, I was scanning the web2.ohh blog and encountered an urgent message to WordPress users. Supposedly, a cracker gained access to the WordPress servers and inserted malicious code in the upgrade available for download. I think I upgraded before the date this exploit supposedly was added, but it was not worth taking the risk. So, it was back to the office to install the upgrade. I must stay on the good side of the security people.

I must admit I have wondered about this before. Wouldn’t joining an open source project and inserting malicious code in a component offer a relatively easy way to insert access opportunities in many servers? I suppose the open source community examines contributions carefully. This was not the reported cause of the WordPress problem because scripts in a couple of WordPress modules were modified after being approved for distribution. As I understand the danger, the modules would allow PHP code to be submitted remotely in a form that would be run by the server. In contrast, if I would enter PHP commands as I enter the text for this blog, the PHP commands should not be interpeted.

echo “hi”;

The night watchman always says the same thing – “Working late Dr. Grabe?”

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