EDUCATION NEWS
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DEMYSTIFYING LEARNING TECHNOLOGY STANDARDS, PART II: ACCEPTANCE AND IMPLEMENTATION
In our March issue, Part I of this two-part article on learning technology standards introduced the development and evolution of standards and presented the key organizations promoting these standards. Here, Part II provides a glimpse into acceptance and implementation, illustrated by SCORM specifications as they may be applied to courseware development.
http://www.syllabus.com/syllabusmagazine/article.asp?id=6240

PRESIDENT'S BROTHER TRAVELS WORLD PROMOTING ONLINE EDUCATION VENTURE
A decade after his ties to a failed savings and loan brought his family unwanted attention, Neil Bush is crisscrossing the globe promoting a company with a mission to transform the way children are taught. The president's brother has raised at least $18 million in capital for his Ignite startup from investors from as far away as Egypt and Japan.
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/business/technology/3021016.htm

CLASSROOMS NEED UPGRADES, TOO
In today's schools, it's not unusual for students to sit in the same kind of desk in the same kind of classroom as their parents did. Schools have made progress integrating computers and PDAs into the classroom, yet one design firm believes that more drastic changes are needed, so they created a prototype of what a future classroom may look like.
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,51518,00.html

SCHOLARS EYE ASIA-PACIFIC CYBER-UNIVERSITY
Scholars from nine universities in six Asia-Pacific countries gathered at Ewha Womans University to discuss a proposal to launch a "cyber-university," which will enable students to take classes offered by foreign institutions via teleconferencing or the Internet. Once the virtual campus, the first of its kind connecting Asia-Pacific universities, is launched, the participating schools will develop and exchange Internet-based educational programs, conduct joint research and establish a shared database for member institutions.
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2002/03/26/200203260050.asp


ADL AND SCORM: CREATING A STANDARD MODEL FOR PUBLISHING COURSEWARE
Founded by the U.S. Dept. of Defense in 1997, the Advanced Distributed Learning initiative is a public-private partnership working to create the globally distributed learning environment of the future. Where do higher-education, medical and IT publishers fit in? [Note: This article is from the current issue of Seybold Reports and requires a subscription to access. Hopefully most of you will be able to access through your library.]
http://www.seyboldreports.com/TSR/0201page1.html

LESSON ABOUT E-LEARNING--VIRTUAL CLASSROOMS MAY HURT RATHER THAN HELP
Many students find the flexibility of online learning a practical alternative to sitting in a campus classroom for hours on end. But researchers say online learning's positive attributes may actually cause problems for some students.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/TechTV/techtv_virtualclass020403.html

STOP THIEF! ELECTRONIC LIGHT FINGERS MULTIPLY IN ONLINE ENVIRONMENTS
Cheating happens. More so in the Internet Age. The search and retrieve Web has given students an almost effortless way to purloin term papers. Electronic cheat sheets can be hidden on the hard drives of PDAs and laptops for swift and silent reference during computer administered exams.
http://www.geteducated.com/vugaz.htm

SCHOOLS PLAN FOR MOBILE TECHNOLOGY
Cupertino High School gives struggling students Palms. East Side Union High School District is working to get laptops for all 24,000 of its students. Across the nation, schools are taking the radical step of putting portable technology into the hands of children. After years of debate over the use of computers in schools, educators say the new mobility finally will make technology a classroom tool as ordinary as textbooks and paper.
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/2994192.htm

STANDARDS UPDATE: AN INTERVIEW WITH ED WALKER
For many faculty, standards are a series of buzzwords that have little relevance to teaching, even in the context of distributed learning. But with the widespread adoption of education technologies—particularly Web courses or Web-based resources—standards and specifications have taken on real importance as the underpinnings of the courses created and taught by those faculty.
http://www.syllabus.com/syllabusmagazine/article.asp?ID=6239
 
 
TECHNOLOGY NEWS
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INVENTING THE FUTURE
So often, signs of the future are all around us, but it isn't until much later that most of the world realizes their significance. Meanwhile, the innovators who are busy inventing that future live in a world of their own. They see and act on premises not yet apparent to others. In the computer industry, these are the folks I affectionately call "the alpha geeks," the hackers who have such mastery of their tools that they "roll their own" when existing products don't give them what they need.
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2002/04/09/future.html

OPEN EBOOK FORUM USABILITY STUDY FINDINGS PUBLISHED
The first results of the Open eBook Forum's usability study, carried out by Open eBook Forum Research Fellow Harold Henke, have now been completed and are online and available for public consumption. According to the original announcement the study is to result in "a series of white papers designed to assist publishers, retailers, and manufacturers with their focus on eBook trend lines and customer needs."
http://www.planetebook.com/mainpage.asp?webpageid=323

MICROSOFT RESTATES ITS MAC ALLEGIANCE
Microsoft still loves Apple's Macinstosh, even as the current five-year deal between the companies comes to a close. Microsoft's plan: Remain focused on creating products that make it easier for Macs and Windows PCs to communicate. Microsoft will soon take that plan so far as to make Apple products compatible with its much ballyhooed .Net plan.
http://idg.net/ic_846066_1794_9-10000.html

MICROSOFT TOOL SCANS FOR FLAWS, MISSING PATCHES
Microsoft Corp. released a free tool designed to scan for vulnerabilities and missing patches in many of its most popular enterprise products, including Windows 2000 and Windows NT and Internet Information Services.
http://www.eweek.com/article/0,3658,s=1884&a=25249,00.asp

ANDREESSEN: COPY PROTECTION EFFORTS ARE DOOMED
Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen told the nation's broadcasters that efforts to copy protect music, movies or television shows are destined to fail. As film studios and recording studios urge Congress to extend copy protection to every home entertainment device, Andreessen said the entertainment industry need look no further than the software industry's own expensive, failed attempts at encryption to realize it is ineffective at stopping piracy. "If a computer can see it, display it and play it--it can copy it," said Andreessen, in a keynote address to the National Association of Broadcasters convention.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3031836.htm

INTERVIEW: INTEL CTO OUTLINES FUTURE OF DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING
Given its market dominance and financial stability, Intel can afford to have a very long-term view of computing. CTO Pat Gelsinger outlines a future of distributed computing that spans the globe, thanks to the ever expanding principles of Moore's Law.
http://www.idg.net/go.cgi?id=665542

TECH VISIONARY SAYS NEW IDEAS NEEDED TO ADVANCE WEB SERVICES
John Seely Brown, the longtime chief scientist of Xerox, offered some outside-the-box thinking Monday on the much publicized but as yet largely unrealized Web services computing model. Brown said technology leaders need to step back from the growing complexity of their projects and look at some social and economic models to inform their thinking.
http://www.idg.net/go.cgi?id=665704

DIGITAL-COPYRIGHT BILL SLAMMED
A digital-copyright bill introduced last month has inspired howls of protest from consumers and high-tech firms who say it could slow technological advances and dictate how consumers listen to music or watch videos at home. Well-connected lobbyists and everyday users alike have flooded Congress with faxes and e-mails over the last several weeks to lodge complaints against a bill that would prevent new computers, CD players and other consumer- electronics devices from playing unauthorized movies, music and other digital media files.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/04/10/digital-copyright-bill.htm
 
SIEMENS DEBUTS VIRTUAL KEYBOARD
Siemens Procurement Logistics Services debuted the first virtual keyboard from developer, VKB Inc. at the CeBIT fair in Hanover, northern Germany, this March. The virtual interface from the Israeli developer can be integrated into mobile phones, laptops, tablet PCs, or clean, sterile and medical environments and could be a revolution for the data entry of any mini computer.
http://www.executiveinsider.com/reviews-technology.html

E-MAIL IS EVOLVING INTO FEE-MAIL
Christopher Larson has been suspended from MSN Hotmail six times recently. His crime: exceeding the new 2-megabyte storage limit that Microsoft's Web-based, ad-supported free e-mail service gives users.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/04/01/fee-mail.htm

INTEL TURNS UP THE JUICE ON PENTIUM 4
Intel Corp. rolled out its newest and fastest PC microprocessors and is in the process of shifting their production to a more efficient manufacturing process.
http://money.cnn.com/2002/04/02/technology/intel/index.htm

INTEL TO CUT CHIP PRICING BY 57%
Intel Corp. is set to slash prices on its top-performing Pentium 4 chips by as much as 25 percent this month and up to 57 percent this spring, according to sources close to the company. In one example of the potential savings awaiting customers, Intel will slash the price on its top-speed, 2.2GHz Pentium from $562 to $241 in just six weeks, a savings of more than 57 percent.
http://www.eweek.com/article/0,3658,s=701&a=24794,00.asp

COMPANIES, COLLEGES, FAIL COMPUTER SECURITY
The security holes exploited by Code Red and Nimda, worms that experts said had the potential to knock the entire Internet offline, attacked long-standing vulnerabilities in Microsoft's IIS (Internet Information Services) Web server software caused by a type of error made through bad code writing: the buffer overflow.
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/04/05/020405hnsecurity.xml

 
INTERNET RELATED NEWS
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MOZILLA POISED FOR REVIVAL
A comeback is exactly what the open-source project hopes to pull off in the next few weeks, when the Netscape Communications-backed effort releases the first official version of its Web browser. After four years in development, the pending event has renewed excitement in a project that once was hailed as a possible Microsoft killer--only to tumble into obscurity after lengthy delays.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-881529.html

MICROSOFT PUTS HAILSTORM'S 'MY SERVICES' ON HOLD
Microsoft has put its "My Services" (formerly known as Hailstorm) Web services offering on hold because of resistance from potential corporate partners, according to reports. The service was intended to provide a central database that would create a virtual wallet for consumers. Users would have been able to access e-mail, contacts and calendar information without having to log on to a specific PC.
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/17225.html

WEB SURFERS BRACE FOR POP-UP DOWNLOADS
Web surfers who thought online advertisements were becoming increasingly obtrusive may be dismayed by a new tactic: pop-up downloads. In recent weeks, some software makers have enlisted Web site operators to entice their visitors to download software rather than simply to view some advertising.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-877568.html

KIDS SAY THE NET IS THE DARNDEST THING
According to a study from Knowledge Networks/Statistical Research (KN/SRI), one-third of children ages 8 to 17 say the internet is the medium they would choose if they could only have one, topping television, telephone and radio.
http://www.emarketer.com/estatnews/estats/edemographics/20020410_kids.html

INTERNET FRAUD COST $17.8 MILLION IN 2001, FEDERAL STUDY SAYS
Business lost more money to Internet fraud last year than individuals, and men lost more money than women, according to the annual report (download PDF) of the Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC).
http://www.computerworld.com/storyba/0,4125,NAV47_STO70007,00.html
 
THE BEST STATES FOR E-COMMERCE
State governments can make a big difference in how easy it is for their citizens to fully take advantage of the Internet to buy things, engage in legally binding transactions, and interact with government. This report measures how state laws, regulations, and administrative actions support or hinder Internet use by Americans. We hope our findings encourage states to examine carefully their laws, particularly those designed to protect incumbent bricks-and-mortar companies against e-commerce competitors, with an eye toward giving their citizens more choices and options as Internet users.
http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=107&subsecid=294&contentid=250162

THIS JUST IN: PORN IS OUT
People using Internet search engines are less interested in sex sites and more interested in business, travel and jobs than they were five years ago, according to a study led by a Penn State University researcher.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/732351.asp

SOUPED-UP SEARCH ENGINE TEOMA TO TAKE AIM AT GOOGLE
Apostolos Gerasoulis has a message for everyone who's been relying on Google as an online guide: It's time to move on. After spending the past six months fine-tuning the technology, Gerasoulis and his development team in Piscataway, N.J., are rolling out a souped-up search engine called Teoma and taking aim at Google, widely regarded as the best way to find anything on the Web. "We are the next generation in search," said Gerasoulis, a Rutgers University mathematics professor who has had Google in his sights since founding Teoma in 1999. "Google has reached its maturity."
http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/337110p-2800855c.html.com

YAHOO'S 'OPT-OUT' ANGERS USERS
Internet portal Yahoo may want to think about changing its advertising slogan from "Do You Yahoo?" to "You DO Yahoo." In e-mail messages, Yahoo advised its users that their account preferences had been changed, by Yahoo, to indicate that they wanted to receive advertising solicitations through spam, snail mail and telephone. Yahoo has also added users' home addresses and phone numbers to their "Yahoo ID" profiles.
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,51461,00.html

P2P NETWORK HIDDEN IN KAZAA DOWNLOADS [WARNING]
A California company has quietly attached its software to millions of downloads of the popular Kazaa file-trading program and plans to remotely "turn on" people's PCs, welding them into a new network of its own. Brilliant Digital Entertainment, a California-based digital advertising technology company, has been distributing its 3D ad technology along with the Kazaa software since late last fall. But in a federal securities filing, the company revealed it also has been installing more ambitious technology that could turn every computer running Kazaa into a node in a new network controlled by Brilliant Digital.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-873416.html

CNET REMOVES KAZAA FROM DOWNLOAD WEB SITE
KaZaa lost a major distributor when San Francisco's Cnet Networks Inc. blocked downloads of the popular Internet file-sharing program for violating software policies. KaZaa had been the most popular program available on Cnet's Download.com site, with 2.6 million copies downloaded for the week ended March 31.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/04/05/BU228926.DTL&type=tech

TAMING THE DATA: THE INTERNET ARCHIVE SEARCHES FOR A WAY TO TURN A MORASS INTO A RESOURCE
The archive, a nonprofit organization created with the goal of preserving our common online history, is basically a giant digital filing cabinet that contains copies of virtually every document posted on the Web since 1996. Since the archive is constantly gathering new pages and archiving copies of old ones, it is an invaluable resource for scholars, historians, genealogists and others who depend on access to documents past and present. But archive founder Brewster Kahle is painfully aware that until his organization finds a way to make some sense out of all that data, the system isn't much more than an expensive and very interesting toy.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/04/01/intarch.DTL

CAN AIM ENCHANT STRANGERS ON THE NET?
Alexandria, Va.-based PresenceWorks will use its "presence technology" to embed AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) capabilities into Web sites. For example, putting the technology on Monster.com, a job search Web site, would allow job seekers to chat with potential employers who could leave their AIM contact information on the site. Shoppers on eBay, meanwhile, could interact with sellers, and the list of e-mail senders in a Microsoft Outlook in-box could be turned into one long "buddy list." [Comment: This could also be used to improve collaborative learning.]
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-875829.html

IS YOUR E-MAIL WATCHING YOU?
Watch out—the spam choking your e-mail in-box may be loaded with software that lets marketers track your moves online, and you may not even be aware that you've been bugged.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-875992.html

IBM, AT&T RELEASE FREE INTERNET PRIVACY TOOLS
International Business Machines Corp. is releasing free software that will allow companies to automate their Internet privacy practices, while AT&T Corp. has free software to alert Web surfers to different privacy settings on Web sites.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/2997058.htm

DISTRIBUTED PROGRAM TO TRANSLATE MANY LANGUAGES
A US software designer plans to harness the brains of the world's computer users to build a multilingual translation database. Brian McConnell believes it could provide a free way to translate the many languages not included in existing online translators. McConnell is releasing a new distributed computer program, which works like programs such as SETI@home. However, while most distributed computer projects make use of spare computer power to perform complex computational tasks, in this case people will be asked to provide short translations themselves. "It's a clever twist on distributed computing," says McConnell. "In this case the computers are people's brains."
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992115



 
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[NOTE: The selections above are from the Academic ADL Co-Lab News Report, a limited-distribution, weekly executive summary of trends, strategies, and innovations influencing the future of learning and technology in higher education. It is prepared by the University of Wisconsin System Office of Learning and Information Technology (OLIT) in coordination with the Co-Lab. Collegebuys.org is using these selections with permission. The selections from the weekly summaries were selected and edited by David Stuart of collegebuys.org.]
 
[NOTE: This information is provided for information purposes only. Mention or discussion of a product, company, or person does not represent any official endorsement or criticism of the same. All authors and organizations retain complete copyright.]
 
[SOURCE MATERIAL: The reference as specific as possible is provided to a source for each summary. When using an online link, ensure the URL has not been broken with a carriage return.]
 
[ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Judy Brown is the Emerging Technology Analyst for the University of Wisconsin System, OLIT. Brown conducts research and consults for the 15-institution UW System. She is Director of the Academic ADL Co-Laboratory at The Pyle Center in Madison, WI. Until recently she coordinated the WTCS Hardware and Software Purchasing Consortium and other statewide technology initiatives for 16 technical college districts comprised of 47 campuses. Brown was named one of the Top 100 women in computing by McGraw Hill's Open Computing magazine (December 1994). She writes a business technology column for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and is the coordinator of eWEEK's Corporate Partner Program.]
 
[COMMENTS & CONTRIBUTIONS: If you want to offer material, or if you want to comment on the contents, contact Judy Brown at judy@academiccolab.org.]