Viruses via Twitter and FB

On the BBC website, there is an update in downloading videos that are said to be links to YouTube and Adobe downloads, but in reality they are trojans and viruses that hurt computers. (found from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7543014.stm). The article says that young adults are trusting on these sites and want to download them, but you should be very careful what you are downloading! It says it makes your computer like a zombie - very slow. Apparently it will only attack on Microsoft Windows platforms. (Good thing I got a new Mac! haha).
Although this is a very serious topic - students are very trusting in who they accept as friends on Facebook (it has been shown that people will add a friend even though they don't know them; they will add that person because of another mutual friend). Therefore, if they trust what that third person posts, they could be in danger of downloading a trojan that will track all of their information for a hacker to use. Personally, I have a FB page, but do not use it very often, much less download things friends have posted. So, there are some real dangers to using technology, and some lessons that can be learned/taught in a classroom setting about who to trust online.

Wikipedia in the Classroom

As per the article by Robert Cummings from Inside Higher Ed, the discussion of the perception of Wikipedia in the classroom has changed over time. In the beginning, Wikipedia was discouraged and now it has become more accepted in the ways that Wikipedia can be used. I am still more focused on Wikipedia as a starting point rather than the primary source of information. For example, if a student were writing a paper on the topic of Facebook (which I do have one student researching), then they can start there for history, important people, dates, etc. However, I think that the Resources section at the bottom of the page is more useful! Instead of reading the Wikipedia article as a second-hand reader, go to the primary source yourself and interpret the findings! So, I think that Wikipedia has some place in the writing classroom (Even listening/speaking classrooms) but I would require more sources than just Wikipeda - books, e-books, journal articles, newspapers, and magazines. Which is not asking too much. From the SCSU Library website (lrts.stcloudstate.edu) you can search for Books and More (including videos), click on eBooks in the middle of the page. On tab next to the Books and More is Journals and Articles which takes you to EBSCOhost - searching academic journals, magazines AND newspapers! Then, you can view and save them to your own computer instead of physically going to the library! How simple!

Sexting on Fox9 News

Last night, I watched the news and one of the headlines was a new technology in high schools. I thought, wow, maybe I can learn something. When the time arrived that the segment was shown, it turns out that it was about "sexting." I have not heard about this before, but apparently it is nude pictures sent via text message. The story began with a police woman talking about her daughter, and that she was looking through her text messages and found a nude picture. The idea here was that if a police woman's child is doing this, then other kids will also be likely suspects. Their advice to parents is to check their child's phone for text messages sent and received.
The reporter conducted a survey in a high school and found that only 40% of students let their parents check their text messages on their phone when asked, and 75% did not even have their parents ask to check their phone.
I was trying to think about how this could be included in our course discussion, and couldn't relate to teaching environment until I searched their website trying to find a contact person (The Jacob Wetterling Foundation). It turns out that an instructor had sent a nude picture to two teenage girls. So, I think it does have some presence in classrooms and education environments.
The more I think about it, technology is out there to put your life so people can fiew it (MySpace, Facebook, blogs, etc.) yet the individuals who post to these sites use their personal discretion as to what they want to share with the world. In connecting to sexting, the individuals who are taking and sending the photos are using their discretion in what is appropriate at that time. However, they do not think about what could happen in the future. One student was brought up on Fox9 that she sent the pictures to her boyfriend at the time. When they broke up, however, the guy sent the photos to all of his friends along with a message saying she was a slut, among other names. She was so mortified that she committed suicide.
Technology will always need some kind of supervision (take the boxes that you must check saying you are over 13 or 18 years of age to continue to the website or to purchase something online). These provisions are there for age-appropriate behavior to know what you are doing and the consequences. But to check a phone for nude pictures, I guess I never would have thought to check for something like that (if my daughter were old enough to have a cell phone). So, perhaps parents do need to monitor their children's behavior with cell phones, but oftentimes it is new technology that parents do not know about and thus the parent doesn't know what to look for. I feel it just goes in circles.

More on Facebook

I know we have passed the Facebook era of our class, but I was listening to KS95 on the 11th of March (I made a note in my phone but forgot to post an entry). The issue was with a high school boy suing Facebook because of a tormenting group. This group is a group from his school and they were not only tormenting him in real life face-to-face encounters, but also on Facebook now. So, the radio personalities were opening it up for discussion on whether listeners agreed or not with what was going on and if he should be able to sue this entity. I tried calling in but to no avail. A few individuals who were able to get through brought up the issue of why there was no surveillance on Facebook for what the purpose of this group was for (tormenting). One mother called in and brought up respect. If we respect others in real life, then we will respect them online as well. As another dimension, if parents show respect to their children, they will show respect to their classmates. This seemed like one area we didn't discuss in the class - how real life affects Facebook use, and how we treat people in face to face is directly related to how people act on Facebook.
There is a really funny YouTube video I found from our article we read on Facebook, but I don't know if anyone clicked the link. But it is how Facebook would be in real life. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrlSkU0TFLs

More on Kindle

After posting the previous post, I went to the D2L news page and saw Judy had posted an article called "Resisting the Kindle" from The Atlantic. One interesting point the author points out is, as quoted, "My fear is that as Wikipedia is to information, so will the Kindle become to literature and the humanities: a one-stop outlet, a speedy and irresistibly efficient leveler of context." The author poses that the physical print book encompasses much more reality in reading than an electronic version. This said, he gave an example of someone trying to recall a sentence of a poem by Wallace Stevens but could not. So, they proceeded to Blackberry this inquiry and then accessed it. The author's fear, besides the previously addressed fear, is that no one will learn anymore... It will all be information floating and waiting for retrieval... Is this really where we're going? I use my iPhone for many things just for convenience when I don't have Internet access with my laptop, or to check stocks very quickly with one touch of a finger. But to search for a line of a poem, among other things, is pushing the limit.

Audiobooks, e-Books: more popular than physical book?

Ever since I was young, I loved to read books.  All kinds of books, but mostly mystery and horror books.  I have more books than I know what to do with!  But, as a college student for the past five years, I do not have the luxury of picking up a good book, let alone a book series, I have adopted listening to audiobooks.  The public library has many audiobooks to choose  from and I can do one of two things with the CDs.  For long drives, I can take the CD and put it into the CD player.  Although, one of our vehicles is a really small Mini Austin and you can feel every bump in the road.  Needless to say, CDs (even the radio) skip... a LOT.  So, the second thing I do with audiobooks is to download them to iTunes and sync to my iPhone.  This way, I can play it, put it on my lap in our Mini Austin and still listen without it skipping.  Also, when donating plasma for 1.5 hours, I can get through more than one CDs worth of audio in that time (and when I finished my 18-CD audiobook I felt pretty proud!) It still seems like a long time listening to audiobooks,  but I would be much slower at physically taking the book back and forth and reading it when I had a chance.  This way, I always have my phone with me and my earphones are much more portable than heavy, 3" books like Stephen King.  

The New York Times website (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/technology/personaltech/24pogue.html?_r=1) has an article called: The Kindle: Good Before, Better  Now.  It talks about the new e-Book reader and many benefits of it including no glare screen, less battery use than a laptop or iPhone.  Therefore, you do not need to worry about turning it off before going to bed, as they say.  Also one major benefit is the wireless connection through Sprint.  It's always on even when there's no Wi-Fi in sight.  There are some downfalls, and the major one seems to be the lack of bestselling books like the Harry Potter series, An Inconvenient Truth, The Associate, and anything by John Grisham.  So, there are 240,000 books available (between $3 to $10), 30 newspapers (~$15/month), magazines ($3/month), and blogs (~$2/month).  

So, they say that e-books and e-Readers will not make physical  books obsolete, but they will have their respectable places in accomplishing their innovator's purposes.  

Google Voice

On the New York Times website from March 12, there is a 3-minute video on Technology called Google Voice.  They demonstrated this new technology - what is it?  It's ONE voicemail that takes all of your voicemail messages from home, cell phone, and work phone into one.  One advantage to a software program like this is that you do not need to miss any voicemail messages if someone leaves you a message at home when you are at work all day.  Or, if you are out of town traveling and need to get a message to your cell phone but the person leaves a message for you at home.  So, some benefits are with this program.  However, there are some disadvantages that come with anything new.  

One downfall is that you will receive a new number for this feature, which is FREE, so you will need to update friends and family of switching numbers.  

Computing in the Classroom

From the New York Times article, Does Computing Add Up in the Classroom? found on http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/does-computing-add-up-in-the-classroom/ the issue of computers in a math class is brought up. According to the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, implementing computers into mathematics classrooms will increase the level of math in the United States. As has been stated in previous classes and blogs of ohters in this class, the issue lies in K-12 education system. They say that computers can help with math literacy; however, there have been some difficulties with implementing the computer usage, especially in K-12 situations. Reasons stated include access to computer lab, or more generally, resources in the classroom. Also stated was that computer science and math are still two distinct worlds, with no overlapping. If there is a change to come, it will be gradual.

Computers in General

The more I want to implement using computers in the tutorial sessions with my students for listening/speaking and reading/writing the more I think about the computers in the tutorial room. Why I say this is that they are so slow! It takes literally five minutes to sign on and load your desktop, and another five minutes just to open the Internet browser. I don't know what the problem is - it runs WinXP and it is a campus (SCSU) computer. Other computers in B51 or Atwood are not this slow - just Eastman Hall.

So, I have been recently debating about bringing my own laptop with wireless mouse for students to use, just because it's faster! Not only this, but I believe that many students already use their own laptops (some bring them to tutorial sessions) and they are already familiar with using laptops, the quality of laptop screens, and keyboarding/typing differences between an external keyboard. Quite frankly, all keyboards are different - from make and model to even laptop to laptop. The smaller the laptop, the smaller the keyboarding space is.

To sum up, the technology in the tutorial room could be faster so as to be more efficient for both students and instructors (and tutors). Slow technology means that time is lost.