Absent an ethical framework to guide our decisions, I am increasingly of the mind that the answers to the important questions about educational technology are ‘turtles all the way down.’ I’m hardly the first to observe it, but perhaps there is some significance to how I have come to the recognition. What do I mean? Zeynep Tufekci shares her experiences more broadly (beyond education) in this provocative talk from June 2016:
I’ll be spending some time later this week with friends and colleagues at the EdTech Efficacy Research Academic Symposium and look forward to the dialogue. I enter with many questions; after all, this isn’t my first rodeo. Perhaps I will be inspired to write a post on my reactions.
Several new additions to the K-12 Cyber Incident Map this week as well, including finding a new source to help identify and vet new incidents. Perhaps the most notable cyber incident of the week: Pekin Community High School (IL) has fallen victim to a ransomware attack.
Finally, I want to call out a piece by Audrey Watters on web annotation. I find myself both (a) completely and utterly sympathetic to her concerns for a few reasons (her own and – as a content producer myself – my own) and (b) wondering whether I should revisit how I should treat commenters and annotation on this site going forward. There have been many updates to the backend of this site over the last few months (HTTPS + DNSSEC + cleaned up domain name re-direction nonsense that worked well enough for a while, etc.) and suspect there will be more to come.
A day late perhaps, but here’s what caught my eye this past week – news, tools, and reports about education, public policy, technology, and innovation – including a little bit about why. No endorsements; no sponsored content; no apologies for my eclectic tastes.
Strong opinions may be weakly held.
A Thinking Person’s Guide to EdTech News (2017 Week 17 Edition)
face up to... | the ethical implications of Facebook in education →
This site is intended as an accessible and easy to understand guide enabling visitors to draw their own conclusions about the appropriateness of Facebook in education.
Tagged on: May 1, 2017
Google's Chromebook End of Life Policy stops support after 5 years | PCWorld →
Planned obsolescence: Google's End of Life Policy sets a schedule for retiring older Chromebooks, but the details are murky.
Tagged on: May 1, 2017
School District finds cost savings and flexibility with Linux | Linux Systems Administration →
The author says: "Being a big proponent of Linux on the desktop I was excited to have the opportunity to talk with Aaron Prisk of the West Branch Area School District, who has recently helped migrate 80% of the school district’s infrastructure to Linux."
Tagged on: May 1, 2017
Can zapping your neck help you quickly learn a foreign language? | STAT →
Is this the future of edtech?
Tagged on: May 1, 2017
Navigation of Computer-Based Tests Matters for Young Students, Study Finds | Education Week →
The assertion that neither mode nor UI would lead to different behaviors (and hence inferences) is what should be astounding. Everything we know about how people interact online with content suggests we are incredibly sensitive to how info is presented. That we go through elaborate theater to suggest that this is NOT true of online testing says more about education policy than technology.
Tagged on: May 1, 2017
“Is Our Children’s Apps Learning?” Automatically Detecting COPPA Violations →
This paper presents a first look at a COPPA compliance testbed. The preliminary analysis of apps finds strong evidence of apps explicitly targeted at children sending private information to third-party services and advertisers - in apparent violation of COPPA..
Tagged on: May 1, 2017
Kanawha school board could vote Monday on Apple contract | Charleston Gazette-Mail →
The contract remains secret until the vote. Hard to see how this is in the community's interest.
Tagged on: April 30, 2017
Missoula schools district technology not going to stop needing consistent updates | Missoulian →
Much of technology is set up for obsolescence.
Tagged on: April 30, 2017
Someone scraped 40,000 Tinder selfies to make a facial dataset for AI experiments | TechCrunch →
Whether intended or not, once information about you is posted online it can be re-used without your consent and in ways that you never imagined. A caution for schools and educators in encouraging school communities to avail themselves of online tools and services.
Tagged on: April 29, 2017
"It is not surprising to learn the xDedic crew is mainly targeting servers belonging to educational institutions. Schools and universities often have the least mature security departments and are unable to detect or mitigate such attacks. Plus, their servers often have the RDP protocol enabled as students want to access course material from home. Unfortunately, that makes the servers a prime target for the xDedic group as well."
Tagged on: April 29, 2017
Data Breach | Courthouse News Service →
"Employees of a rural Tennessee county’s [Tipton] school system claim in a $19 million federal class-action lawsuit that their confidential information was released to a third party when the school board responded to a phishing email with their W-2 and tax information."
Tagged on: April 28, 2017
Unroll.me's shadiness is exactly why people don't trust tech companies | Mashable →
Users have a right to know exactly how and when their data is being used. And it's up to tech companies to make that clear — not bury it in privacy policies no one reads.
Tagged on: April 28, 2017
As Chromebook sales soar in schools, Apple and Microsoft fight back | TechCrunch →
Another in a series of horse race stories about how device makers are competing for the education market. The goal is locking schools' into their ecosystem of devices, apps, and partner services. I am of the view that there are compelling arguments that vendor lock-in is not in schools' best interests.
Tagged on: April 28, 2017
This Program Gets Rural Schools Online. Will It Survive Trump’s FCC? | Fast Company →
"In 2013, only 30% of school districts could offer internet connections at a federal target rate of 100 kilobits per second per student, while in early 2016, 77% of schools met that target, according to a January report from officials at the FCC." That federal target was the one we set and advocated for at SETDA during my tenure, and that report would be the report I archived on edtechstrategies.com after Commissioner Pai disavowed it.
Tagged on: April 28, 2017
Next steps toward more connection security | Chromium Blog →
Starting in version 62 Chrome - expected out in Oct 2017 - will show the “Not secure” warning when users type ANY data into HTTP sites.
Tagged on: April 28, 2017
Open Educational Resources: Equity & Opportunities | NAACP →
"Providing all students an equitable education has been a cornerstone of NAACP since the origination’s inception. For too many years, too many children, particularly African American, other minorities, and poor from all groups have been subjected to lesser educational opportunities, leading to lesser opportunities for success in their personal and work lives. A major contributing factor to the disparities continues to be the lack of appropriate instructional materials."
Tagged on: April 27, 2017
Analyzing Cyber Insurance Policies | Schneier on Security →
"In this research paper, we seek to answer fundamental questions concerning the current state of the cyber insurance market."
Tagged on: April 26, 2017
Stop talking about Uber. Start talking about Apple. | Doteveryone →
It’s time to question the monopoly gatekeepers of our technology and whether they have the right principles at heart when they decide what products and services we can use. Even more than that, it’s time to stop trusting these companies blindly and start making sure they live up to their promises.
Tagged on: April 25, 2017
Working Though Questions in EFF’s “Spying on Students” Report | Jim Siegl →
A terrific in-depth technical review of EFF's latest student data privacy report. It is important that we address the need for changes to privacy/security policy and practice based on rigorous, replicable analysis and methods.
Tagged on: April 24, 2017
Weak security controls and droves of useful data are attracting hackers, but a new report argues schools could do more to break the chain of cyber illiteracy.
Tagged on: April 24, 2017
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