Move Over Bake Sales - Using Crowdsourcing for School Tech Programs

Trying to get more technology into your school this year and wondering how to raise the funds? Take a look at this guide called “Raise Money for Your School Using Crowdfunding” from the folks at Edutopia. The guide covers ten steps to emulate as well as pitfalls to avoid. It also reviews 12 of the popular crowdsourcing platforms.

Do You Know Where That Photo Came From?

A photo posted to a blog that mocks corporate headshots has pitted ARAG North America, a company that provides legal insurance, against Google in a copyright lawsuit. It is a case that legal experts say exhibits an increasingly common clash over bloggers who post images online without permission. The lawsuit concerns a head-and-shoulders photo of Ann Dieleman, a senior vice president and chief marketing officer with ARAG. The photo was published in 2009 on SexyExecs.blogspot.com, a forum where users post photos of executives with satirical comments.

Google owns Blogger, the company that hosts the website, and while no new pictures have been posted to the site since 2011, the photo remains.

This is a good case to take note of if you or one of your family members posts a blog. Many bloggers (and members of the general public) don't realize that what they post online may infringe on copyrights. While there are many exceptions to the law, in general you cannot post someone else's photo online without their permission, even if you attribute it. Companies, like Google and Facebook, receive thousands of requests each day to remove content. Last month alone, Google received nearly 25 million take-down requests for copyright violations, according to the company's self-published transparency report.

This suit also says a lot about digital permanence. It is hard to get something you have posted to a public site taken down. We all need to remember that when posting any content, whether it is about others or ourselves. Once posted, it is likely to be very hard to remove.

Yet Another Kind of Digital Divide

We have often talked about the digital divide as being those who have access to technology versus those who don’t, but lately a new concept is beginning to emerge involving access and digital literacy. While much of the Internet is free, the truth is that it takes time, energy, instruction, and prolonged access to develop the skills and habits to successfully navigate and derive value from today’s media. Figuring out what is a trusted source versus just someone spouting off about an issue, understanding a meme, cross checking articles or sources against each other, and even posting a comment to disagree with something are skills that require some time and access to master.

Something we need to recognize is that not everyone has extensive Internet time every day. In fact, many people have jobs that forbid them from even peeking at what’s online during the day, with bosses who will write them up if caught checking their phone. These people–we often refer to them (derisively) as “average Americans”–are removed from the lightning-fast online media cycle for hours at a time and, often, for the entire day. It means then that they end up getting their news from Facebook or from the stories that are making the rounds on the Internet – or in other words, a very filtered reality. This also means that the new digital divide is between those who have the time and access to learn how to navigate and filter the misinformation and egomania that dominates the social networks and the news platforms and those that don’t. This is scary, since we are a country ruled by public opinion and it’s the media that frames those opinions.

The Language of Persuasion

As the election ads fade and the holiday ad blitz begins, this is a great time to dissect some of those ads with your kids. What techniques are these advertisers using and how effective are they? Would you like to brush up a bit so you can do more than just a surface job? Take a look at the three levels of persuasion list on the Media Literacy Project site. Try making up your own score card and after an ad goes off, grade a few on how they are trying to sway your feelings and how effective they are. You and your kids may find it is addictive!!!

Teen Use Of Digital Research is Subject of Teacher Survey

The Pew Internet & American Life folks recently surveyed teachers who teach Advanced Placement courses, and who voiced some serious doubts about the benefits of teens doing digital research. While some 77% of teachers surveyed say that the Internet and digital search tools have had a “mostly positive” impact on their students’ research work, a full 87% say these technologies are creating an “easily distracted generation with short attention spans,” with 64% saying today’s digital technologies “do more to distract students than to help them academically.”

What was their biggest complaint?  -- That students’ digital literacy skills have not caught up with the capabilities of the technology. Large majorities agreed with the notion that the amount of information available online today is overwhelming to most students (83%) and that today’s digital technologies discourage students from using a wide range of sources when conducting research (71%). Fewer teachers, but still a majority of this sample (60%), agree with the assertion that today’s technologies make it harder for students to find credible sources of information

Looking for ways to help your children with these issues? Check the resources in the Computers & Homework section (including the archives) and the Internet Smarts case study on Misinformation.

Employable in 2012?

The world has gone digital and blogger Shelly Palmer translates what that means in a list of what it means to be employable in 2012. As he points out, knowing how to play the social networking game safely puts people at a distinct advantage and for adults and kids that means being part of the action. Facebook and LinkedIn (and 500 other social networks) are replacing email, and so much more, so knowing how to take advantage of those tools and use them safely, wisely, and with a bit of finesse, makes all the difference. It also means that our schools need to get onboard with helping students properly prepare for employment in the Information Age.

Kids & Technologies: How Student Learn

A fourth grade teacher, knowing of my interest in kids and technologies, advised, “You’ve got to read Rewired by Larry D. Rosen. It explains so much about what those of us in education and parents need to know.” She was right. This book and other resources by Rosen give us a glimpse into the “psychology of technology” so that we will be better able to understand how our kids learn. According to Rosen, the iGeneration, those students born in the 90s, expect “instant access” to information and people.  These are kids who are constantly connected through digital devices and believe that anything is possible. Additional information about Rosen’s books is available on his site and at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

A Word About the Computer as Tool - Not Solution

These days when everything is about technology it is good to be reminded that it is the tool and not the solution in and of itself. I wish some of the educators I have come across who are still waiting for technology to be the silver bullet that will solve all of education’s ills before they deign to make use of it in any substantial way would remember that. Like most tools you can read the manual on how to use them but you only really get proficient when you put it to use to solve the problem at hand. I was reminded of this by an excellent article that appeared recently in the New York Times called Achieving Techno-Literacy. Take a look at this list of techno-truths from the article:

• Every new technology will bite back. The more powerful its gifts, the more powerfully it can be abused. Look for its costs.

• Technologies improve so fast you should postpone getting anything you need until the last second. Get comfortable with the fact that anything you buy is already obsolete.

• Before you can master a device, program or invention, it will be superseded; you will always be a beginner. Get good at it.

• Be suspicious of any technology that requires walls. If you can fix it, modify it or hack it yourself, that is a good sign.

• The proper response to a stupid technology is to make a better one, just as the proper response to a stupid idea is not to outlaw it but to replace it with a better idea.

• Every technology is biased by its embedded defaults: what does it assume?

• Nobody has any idea of what a new invention will really be good for. The crucial question is, what happens when everyone has one?

• The older the technology, the more likely it will continue to be useful.

• Find the minimum amount of technology that will maximize your options.

Words to live by.

OnGuard Online: A Gov't Safety Site

OnGuard Online: Your Safety Net offers practical tips from the federal government and the technology industry to help you guard against Internet fraud, protect your personal information, and secure your computer. It includes games, videos and expert advice on computer and tech security. Topics such as email scams, cross-border scams, kids' privacy, identity theft, Internet auctions, laptop security, online shopping, P2P security, social networking sites, wireless security .... Some of the games are: Cyber Criminal, Beware of Spyware, Wireless Hackers, ID Theft Faceoff, and Phishing Scams. While the games won't be the most exciting your kids have ever played, they are interactive and offer valuable information.

Kids Aren’t The Only Cyberbullies

This is a truly heartbreaking story about cyberbullying and while it is a year old, it as been revived in the press in the local community in Missouri where it happened. It bears looking at because, in this case, the cyberbullies weren't kids, they were adults.

"Megan Meier, a 13-year-old girl who has struggled with issues of self-esteem and depression, is greeted on MySpace by an older boy. He strikes up a flirtation with her over a series of weeks. Then, inexplicably, he starts sending accusatory messages, then nasty ones.

Megan, crushed by the turn of events, takes her own life.

Further twisting the tragedy is the fact that the boy wasn't a boy at all. Rather, he was the creation of adults, including the mother of one of Megan's friends, a girl with whom she had a falling out." So summarizes Ina Fried in her blog on CNet.

Of course this whole incident has stirred up a debate about the facts, why the paper has decided now to bring this up, and why the girl who committed suicide is named and not the people who are accused of bullying her so subtly. BUT regardless of the debate, and you can read the newspaper article yourself and see a Today show interview with the girl's parents, it is just one more reminder that sites like MySpace can become a whole virtual world to kids. Adults need to sensitive to this (it's not that easy to just "give up" this kind of companionship) as well as monitor what's going on online. Kids also need to be reminded over and over again that things online are often an illusion. If it seems too good to be true, it usually is. Would love to hear your comments on this.