I have to say I love a company that can have some fun. Today is Chuck Norris’s birthday (3/10) – the guy is 70!!! – and Google decided to have a little fun.
If you type “Chuck Norris” into the search window and click “I’m feeling lucky” you’ll get the following result… hilarious!!!!
Happy Birthday Chuck!
Updated: 3/7/2010
The news around the case in the Lower Merion school district (Harriton High School) is troubling news for many school that either have or are planning to launch a 1:1 program, as my school is about to.
The concern over “big brother” like control is something that students are concerned over and this case does nothing to dismiss those fears.
So what can schools learn from this?
Take page out of the book of social media and be as clear and transparent as possible.
Clear, consistent, transparent communications is the key. You need to get out in front of the issue before it even becomes and issue.
One thing that my school has done is to involve students in the planning process of our 1:1 program. They have helped us guide and shape the programs and have given us a voice with students that we as faculty and administrators would never have. They have helped create training materials and videos to address a multitude of issues, including privacy concerns. Whenever the school gets involved with a student’s life, particularly when they are going to provide something as personal as a laptop and ask them to make it their primary device, having trust and involvement is key.
The students are able to talk to their peers and help them understand the program, its goals and what they can expect. This type of student involvement and communications can help deliver a message, but it is not all that is need when dealing with issues of privacy.
A school needs to have clear policies and guidelines in place. Our school has been very clear that the school will log all activity on its network. Every device, laptop or otherwise, is given the same IP address and all traffic on the network is logged by this address. If there is ever an issue or concern the logs are reviewed and by tracking the IP are associated with a device and the person who is associated with that device. This is done not only for monitoring purposes but to assist in the proper functioning of the network. This type of information helps informs decision about bandwidth needs, hardware questions and wireless performance. All of theses a things needed to ensure the proper learning environment in a 1:1 program.
If a school is going to install and use software that is used to monitor or otherwise control a laptop the school needs to be clear and transparent about how and when it will be used. This will be key as schools will need the trust of those using these school issued laptops.
Our school is installing two pieces of software to aid in troubleshooting and maintaining the laptops. While one of these pieces of software will allow for remote monitoring and control of the laptop, it is only for use within the school. The other allows for remote installation of software and by providing audit information back to the school. While it is active off the school’s network, no personal information is transmitted and the only information reported back from off-network laptop is the IP address it is using.
There is an entire market out there where their entire focus is on creating software that teachers can use to monitor their students screens. It is something that you hears teacher and administrator say is needed to reduce distraction in the classroom and keep student “on task”. This is done by good teaching and good classroom management skills not through software!
It is important to remember as more is brought to light on this case and the questions about privacy and the software used in these 1:1 environments are raised that it is not the technology or the software that is at fault, it is the manner in which it is used. Clear communications, policies and guidelines can go a long way in solving these problems before they happen.
Related resources:
District Press Releases
Court Document
News Articles:
I was just thumbing through the February 1, 2010 copy of eWeek in which they identify the “Top 25 Technologies That Changed The Decade” and I was struck by a few things.
1. Open Source
Two of the top 25 are Open Source technologies. Firefox (9) as a browser has turned the browser battle on it’s ear. Explorer is no longer the browser of choice (if it ever was and there’s not longer an Apple version) and the number of browsers available has increase. Just when you thought Microsoft was taking over.
In another turn against Microsoft is OpenOffice.org (15) which showed how you can get a powerful suite of productivity tools and that those tools don’t have to come from Microsoft. Apple even jumped back into this game after ClarisWorks/AppleWorks went away with the iWork suite.
[Note: I may be missing Solaris 10 (24) here, but I'm not sure if it's open source.]
2. Social Media/Networks
Social networks(18) in general, whether they be Facebook or something else are a force to be reckoned with. If your organization, company or school isn’t playing in this sandbox you are not participating in the conversation going on about your brand… whatever that brand is.
Twitter (20) is like crack for anyone with ADD. Talk about the distraction, but powerful distraction. I admit it… I have an addiction to it, but that addiction is a professional one and Twitter has helped me connect with and build my own professional development like nothing before it.
3. Apple
Both the iPhone/iPod (11) and Mac OSX (12) made this list and both for the same reasons… they were game changers. The iPhone changed the smartphone landscape and OSX let people know you could have a powerful OS that was easy to use as well… who knew UNIX could be easy.
4. The OS
A bit of a repeat from above but Mac OSX (12), Red Hat Enterprise (21), Solaris 10 (24) and Windows XP (25) made the list. The base from which you work is always important and the operating systems took these bases to new levels. What I find interesting is how XP is still for many the OS of choice in the PC world and how Apple was able to make the shift from OS9 to OSX… will Microsoft every make such a leap?
Check the article out either online or in print and let me know what you think.
Recently I retweeted (RT) something from Will Richardson (@willrich45) on one of his blog posts called “Transformative Technology? Really?” – http://weblogg-ed.com/2010/transformative-technology-really/. Will’s blog post focused on a Smart Technologies promotional video which I had written about here a few days earlier and shared similar thoughts.
In the RT I included a link to my blog post and mentioned how I felt the same way about the video. Also, that same day, there was a comment left on Will’s blog which referenced my post.
What happened after these two things was amazing. I was able to see what the direct result of these two actions were able to do to boost the traffic to the site and this particular post.
The following are the site statistics for February 3rd through the 9th.
| Date | Total to Site | Direct to Post |
| 2/3 | 9 | 5 |
| 2/4 | 14 | 4 |
| 2/5 | 12 | 0 |
| 2/6 | 5 | 0 |
| 2/7 | 6 | 0 |
| 2/8 | 29 | 14 |
| 2/9 | 24 | 4 |
The numbers for the 8th represent that largest single day the site has since I’ve started this little experiment and they can be tracked by analytics (getClicky). Once enough people started to see the post on the 8th I number of referring links the post began to change as well. The use of these analytics help as while Will’s post got a lot of comments (good for you Will), mine got none (boohoo….).
This example goes back to a point made at one of the sessions I attended at WordCamp Boston where Karen Rubin (@karenrubin) from HubSpot pointed out that by leaving a comment and sharing a useful link on another persons blog can help “Rock Your Blog” (Karen’s presentation title). This to me was another great example of how you can pick up one thing from a conference and put it to use and really see results.
Thanks again to Will Richardson and Karen Rubin for sharing your thoughts and ideas and providing a way for others to build on them, get the word out and learn!
If you’re not familiar with the IT Crowd you need to stop what you are doing and watch them now!
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