EDUCATION NEWS
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THIN LINE SPLITS CHEATING, SMARTS
Most teachers wouldn't be surprised to hear that students have bribed friends or siblings to do their homework in exchange for a few bucks. What might surprise them is that Google Answers sometimes takes school kids up on the offer. Staffed by a cadre of 500-plus freelance researchers, the service takes people's questions--for example, a calculus problem or a term paper topic--and provides answers and links to information. Google charges a listing fee of 50 cents and, if someone comes up with a satisfactory response, the user pays that researcher a previously entered bid (minimum: $2).
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54963,00.html
 
GOT CHEATERS? ASK NEW QUESTIONS
Jamie McKenzie has spent his whole career trying to get schools "to ask better questions." But now that he preaches better questions as an antidote for rampant Internet plagiarism, a lot more teachers are listening. In the professional development seminars he gives, McKenzie said, 60 to 80 percent of teachers cite cases of plagiarism in their classrooms. A more formal study, conducted by a professor at Rutgers University, found that more than half of high school kids "have engaged in some level of plagiarism on written assignments using the Internet."
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54996,00.html
 
BRINGING INDUCTION TO THE TEACHER: A BLENDED LEARNING MODEL
As we bring new teachers into the district, how do we optimize our time during induction week so that we can focus on our critical goals and not be sidetracked by so-called "administrivia"? What is the best way for them to learn our previous districtwide professional development experiences? How can we do a better job of getting them in the loop with how we do things? How do we make learning, knowledge building and knowledge sharing core values for new hires? These were the central questions we asked ourselves as we began planning the next induction period.
http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A4158.cfm
 
SKILLSOFT AND SMARTFORCE BECOME E-LEARNING GIANT
SkillSoft and SmartForce, already big players in the e-learning market place, have now combined forces under the SkillSoft name. The merger has been touted for sometime but with the eventual approval of the US authorities, the deal has now been closed and looks set to shake up the e-learning market place.
http://www.it-director.com/article.php?id=3183
 
SIX PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE E-LEARNING: WHAT WORKS AND WHY
To readily identify effective e-Learning, we need fewer end-user and expert opinions and more data. Decisions about e-Learning courseware must begin with an understanding of how the mind works during learning and of what research tells us about the factors that lead to learning. Here are six principles that have emerged from controlled experiments in how to best use multimedia to optimize learning.
http://www.elearningguild.com/pbuild/linkbuilder.cfm?selection=fol.38
 
READY OR NOT--PDAS IN THE CLASSROOM
And so it seems that regular old mobile computing isn’t mobile enough. Now we have an explosion of devices that promise to be even more mobile than our mobile computers—they promise to be supermobile. The business world has seen the evolution of small, special-purpose computing, from personal information managers (PIMs) to personal digital assistants (PDAs), which have now grown into the nearly full-featured PocketPC. This evolution of mobile technology from organizers to supermobile computers has led many educators to begin thinking about how to put them to use in the classroom.
http://www.syllabus.com/article.asp?id=6705
 
NEW LEARNING SPACES: SMART LEARNERS, NOT SMART CLASSROOMS
We keep pouring piles of expensive multimedia equipment into our classrooms and declaring them to be smart classrooms. We want our classrooms to be smart because of the mistaken belief that most learning occurs in classrooms and that smarter classrooms will somehow produce better learning. In many cases we have turned classrooms into complex tangles of technical gadgets that are nearly as difficult to operate as Boeing 747s.
http://www.syllabus.com/article.asp?id=6702
 
ENTERPRISE LEARNING: A SPENDING SUMMARY
The enterprise-learning market is 37 percent larger than the U.S. motion picture industry—and more than twice as large as the burgeoning video-game industry. Even in the midst of the most recent economic recession, enterprise spending on learning grew 1.5 percent. As part of its ongoing analysis of the training and learning market, CLO, Chief Learning Officer Magazine and Fairfield Research Inc., a full-service market research company, surveyed learning and training professionals at U.S. enterprises. The information that follows is part of this larger study.
http://www.clomedia.com/content/templates/clo_fairfield.asp?articleid=4&zoneid=38
 
OF POWERPOINT AND POINTLESSNESS
When one envisions the typical Microsoft PowerPoint user, the first image that comes to mind is usually a suit-clad yuppie crowing over a screen of bar charts. But if recent trends in elementary and secondary education hold their course, that stereotype could be changing.
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54675,00.html
 
 
TECHNOLOGY NEWS
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FLAW IN MICROSOFT'S WORD SOFTWARE COULD ALLOW FILE THEFT
Microsoft's flagship word processor has a security flaw that could allow the theft of computer files by "bugging" a document with a hidden code, the company disclosed. It was exploring how to fix the problem and whether to extend the repair to an older version of the software still used by millions.
http://www.detnews.com/2002/technology/0209/13/technology-585687.htm
 
WASHINGTON ISN'T SWOONING OVER OPEN SOURCE
Despite strong pleas from some open-source proponents for the government to encourage the use of open-source software, at the exclusion of proprietary wares (read: Windows), Washington isn't about to upset the status quo.
http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020912S0009
 
WEB ACCELERATORS--SPEED WITHOUT BROADBAND
Overblown promises of speedier Web connections have yielded mixed results on the Internet. But a new class of products offers accelerated Internet browsing for consumers looking for higher speed without paying a high price.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/09/11/web.accelerators.reut/index.html
 
IDF: INTEL ENVISIONS MODULAR COMPUTING FUTURE
Call it grid computing. Or modular computing. Or policy-based computing or utiliy computing. Intel, which is opting for the modular designation, is preaching distribution of processing power to boost performance and reliability.
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/09/10/020910hnmodular.xml
 
TINY MEMORY CHIPS MADE FROM MOLECULES
Researchers at U.S. computer company Hewlett-Packard said they had created a computer memory chip using new molecular technology that takes miniaturisation further than ever before. Using previously patented technology, the H-P scientists have created a 64-bit memory unit that fits inside a square micron--a micron is one millionth of a meter. Some thousands of these memory units could fit on the end of a single strand of hair.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/industry/09/09/molecular.chips.reut/index.html
 
DATA EXTINCTION
It's too late for old word-processing files. But new technologies will preserve access to digital photos, music and other electronic records forever.
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/tristram1002.asp
 
A FUTURISTIC LIBRARY
Imagine a library where you can walk in with your laptop, plug in to an unobtrusive network jack, and access both the library's resources and the Internet through a common portal. This library of the future, dubbed the Millennium Library, provides patrons in the city of Cerritos, Calif., with networked access to a variety of applications integrated through a portal that patrons say makes information access itself a fun learning experience.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,508960,00.asp
 
MS PUSHES NEW TABLET ON STUDENTS
On Nov. 7, the first Windows XP-powered tablet PCs and so-called digital pens will hit the market. These machines will be lighter than most present-day mobile notebook and tablet computers and offer perks such as wireless Internet access, voice-recognition software and loads of educational programs. Users will write on them directly with the digital pen. While Microsoft plans to target all consumers with the tablet, the company considers it ideal for school.
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54545,00.html
 
NEW EVIDENCE MAY BAN LAPTOPS IN PLANES
Concerns over the safety of Ultrawideband (UWB) could see airplane passengers banned from using laptop computers while onboard a flight.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-956300.html
 
MICROSOFT UNVEILS WINDOWS MEDIA 9
Microsoft introduced its long-awaited digital media software, Windows Media Player 9 Series, in an effort to establish dominance for its operating system in distributing high-quality digital content.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-956643.html
 
APPLE KEEPS X86 TORCH LIT WITH 'MARKLAR'
As Apple Computer Inc. draws up its game plan for the CPUs that will power its future generations of Mac hardware, the company is holding an ace in the hole: a feature-complete version of Mac OS X running atop the x86 architecture.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,496270,00.asp
 
 
INTERNET RELATED NEWS
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ONLINE USAGE AT WORK JUMPS 17 PERCENT YEAR-OVER-YEAR, DRIVEN BY FEMALE OFFICE WORKERS, ACCORDING TO NIELSEN//NETRATINGS
Nielsen//NetRatings, the global standard in Internet audience measurement and analysis, reports that the active Internet population at work grew 17 percent in August as compared to a year ago. Nearly 46 million American office workers logged onto the Web, the highest peak since Nielsen//NetRatings began measuring the at-work audience in January 2000.
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/09-12-2002/0001798564&EDATE
 
ISPS GIRD FOR COPYRIGHT FIGHTS
A delicate detente is breaking down under pressure from peer-to-peer networks, placing two powerful industries on a collision course that could reshape the legal landscape for online file-swapping.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-957023.html
 
BATTLE HEATS UP OVER RIGHTS
An industry push to tighten security on personal computers could be either the salvation of electronic commerce or the bane of consumers, who view the Internet as their digital information playground. Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp. and nearly 200 other companies from the computer hardware, software and security industries are working on technologies designed to protect data in computers from being tampered with by intruders.
http://rtnews.globetechnology.com/servlet/ArticleNews/tech/RTGAM/20020909/gtcopy/Technology/techBN/
 
HOW SOME UNIVERSITIES ENCOURAGE THE CREATION OF PRIME RESEARCH WEB SITES
When a university produces one or two really good Web sites, it may simply mean the institution has a couple of really talented people on its staff, provides the server space for their work, and stays out of their way. When a university's Web server hosts dozens of outstanding resources, however, you have to think the university itself is doing something very right. I set out to find out what that was.
http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/sep02/Block.htm
 
IM TAKES OFF IN CORPORATE WORLD
IM is rapidly moving from teenagers’ computer screens to their parents’ in the workplace. Fans say it is improving efficiency and helping reverse a 20-year trend in which, thanks to e-mail and voice mail, it has become ever more difficult to determine whether a business associate is actually in the office or out on the golf course. And IM makes supervisors more willing to let subordinates work from home because it can verify who is really working at home, or is at least logged onto the computer there.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/803310.asp
 
MICROSOFT, PACKETVIDEO EXTEND DIGITAL MEDIA REACH
Microsoft said that PacketVideo Inc. has agreed to use its digital media delivery format, in a deal that gives the software giant a key foothold into the nascent market for mobile multimedia content delivery. PacketVideo, which had previously been seen as a key Microsoft rival in the race to bring rich video and audio content to mobile phones and mobile devices, said that the deal with Microsoft would help it expand its range of customers.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3989229.htm
 
 
 
 
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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