iSean

free wireless for 900 sq. miles

Every home, school and business within the 910 square miles of Oakland County, Mich., will have mostly free wireless Internet access by late 2007. That’s approximately 1.2 million people from 500,000 households and 30,000 businesses in 62 cities, villages and townships. But users are in for a surprise if they think their online activities will be automatically protected from bots, spyware, worms and the cyberthieves who control them.

“Because it’s free and widely available, that means it won’t have encryption and other traditional security,” said Scott Oppmann, the county’s application services manager and the man in charge of the wireless project.

This will at least be the case for the free service being offered at the lower bandwidth. Those willing to pay for higher-end service could receive extra security.

wow, i hadn’t heard about this project, but i think it’s great to hear of something like this happening in michigan (that’s where i live, fwiw). free wireless internet to whole communities. and, regarding the security issue . . . duh, use a Mac. ;~)

this is really just for oakland county (near Detroit), but i have really worried about the big Internet companies (e.g., Comcast, SBC) squelching this type of service in many states and michigan has popped up as a state going through this debate. so, seeing this one get under way is a nice sign. and, seeing it offered for free is beyond just a nice sign. kudos to Oakland county. i can think of many businesses who could benefit greatly from having this service. if i was a small business or large business, i’d have to seriously consider locating my offices inside of this free wireless umbrella. that could be a huge savings.

link to ny times

The Fly is so fat because it contains an AAA battery, a computer chip, a speaker and, mounted half an inch from the ballpoint tip, a tiny camera. For all of its educational, interactive tricks, the Fly pen requires special paper whose surface is imprinted with nearly invisible micro-dots. As you write, the pen always knows where it is on the page, thanks to those dot patterns and the camera that watches them go by
. . .

STAGGERING possibilities await a pen that can read software right off the page as it moves, and the Fly package comes with a sparkling sampler. For example, as you tap countries on a world map, the pen pronounces their capitals or plays their national anthems. On a glossy, fold-out mini-poster of a disc jockey’s setup, you can tap buttons to get music samples, or tap turntables to produce record-scratching sounds; then you can record your own compositions or compete, memory-game style, against other players. There’s even a sheet of stickers that, when tapped, produce appropriate sound effects. (For my two elementary-schoolers, the belching mouth alone was good for 20 minutes of hilarity.)

wow, color me impressed. not that i think this thing will take off for $100, but here i have been talking about paperless classrooms for many years now and i’ve personally made it a goal to have a paperless classroom. now, i read this . . . a new pen that is a computer. sure, it needs special paper, but future versions of this thing could become very viable in the classroom. imagine a pen that recognizes your handwriting and is able to transcribe what is being written. later, students could use what they handwrite on the computer for the editing and revision stage of writing. or, the computer pen could work with students to help them perfect their handwriting (or even cursive writing) skills. 

the potential is vast. i am just surprised that this arrived without even appearing on my radar. hmph! heh heh.

technorati tags: the fly, computer pen

link here

Nathan Robinson, 16, was pulling together the horoscopes for the student newspaper when he ran into an eye-opening problem: The school’s Web filter blocked him from getting any information on astrology because it fell under the state’s filter for cults and nonmainstream religions.

Students taking the World Religions course at Pine View School in Osprey last semester had similar problems while researching assignments on Kabbalah, the latest religion in the news for being embraced by Hollywood celebrities.

The filter system administered by state education officials is meant to protect students across the state from violent, racist or pornographic material.

But a student activist group believes the system is blurring the line between protecting students and restricting their right to know about and research all types of religion.

well, the argument against school filters has always been that they restrict too much information. schools walk a fine line and i am sure they would rather block too much than not enough. sometimes though, i worry that students are being “protected” at the expense of learning how to safely navigate the internet. if schools think students are protected because of a filter then stuff that slips through might not be fully scrutinized for accuracy and/or content.

this week, i have my students visiting a website that is clearly not appropriate for the classroom because the authors preach hate and spew lies; however, they disguise the hatred enough that some students will be fooled. this is a great learning experience, but it’s this type of lesson that should be taught in the k-12 education. students need to learn to find valid information and to understand how to avoid inappropriate content, which is hard to do if the filter won’t allow one to fail. then again, no school wants to have that failure to have to explain to angry parents. ;~). bottom line . . . filters are the law so teachers need to learn to work around them. i just wish we had better filtering for schools. the problem will just grow and grow as the internet continues to grow and grow. i am keeping my eye on this one.

warhol sean

Originally uploaded by atticmooses.

so, i just figured out that apple’s new application called photobooth is available for regular Mac computers and not just the iMac. i downloaded it and just installed it. it works right with my iSight camera (or any web camera, i’d think). it comes with about 20 special effects if you’re in the mood for that.

i am not sure how this applies to ed tech at the moment, but i thought it was pretty nifty none-the-less.

well, if you notice that some of my articles have comments being added en masse daily, that’s because i am having my students read through a specific category of my blog entries this week and choose one entry to add a comment to. previously, i was getting mass comments because of spammers, so this is much better.

this is one way to draw traffic to my site, but that’s not the reason i do it . . . i have only a limited amount of time to spend with my students and there is much i’d like to discuss with them if given more time. using my blog allows me to comment on stories and subjects briefly and then to have my students sift through these various blog entries to find the one they wish to discuss further. the end result is that my students and i have a chance to ineract on a stories that pertain to our curriculum, but that provide an alternative means to cover this material and hopefully my students find the exercise to be worthwhile.

in the future, i am going to have my students visit other blogs that cover material and comment on those blogs. after posting a comment, my students are instructed to post a message on the class discussion board explaining where they commented so that i can check up on it easily. it’s a nice little system for getting my students involved with the online world in a productive manner.

Technorati Tags: blogging, teaching online

blog_spam

Originally uploaded by atticmooses.

well, you can imagine my surprise when i checked a rarely used email account today and found about 30 comments to my blog (the one you’re reading). i looked at the first comment and it said something to the effect, “great blog site. i hope you keep updating it.” i was flattered. i noticed some spam type stuff at the end of his/her message, but i quickly attributed it to the email program he/she was using (e.g., some free email sites add advertisements). well, come to find out, they all had spam built into them. the messages were all similar and they all had spam attached. i’ve been the victim of a spam attack on my blog site. aauuugh! i suppose i need to turn off the ability to link in the comments section. dang!

at least someone found my blog (or, some bot anyway). ;~)