Maybe they have it
right?
While most observers
claim that the current conflict over Ukraine is reminiscent of the
Cold War, a political economy analysis of the last three days would
au contraire underline how liberal economic interdependence has
modified the rules of the game.
If the sound of boots
on the ground is still very real in Crimea, the Ukrainian conflict
proved the incapacity of countries to engage in military conflict
without being vulnerable to exogenous economic forces or having to
suffer the consequences of capital flight and currency exchange rate
fluctuations.
The reaction from
oligarchs in Ukraine as well as the impact that the prospect of war
had on both the Russian stock exchange and currency are solid proof
that countries cannot operate bluntly as they did during the Cold War
without closely monitoring global economic dynamics.
(Related) for my visual
learning students... Note the pipeline maps.
Ukraine
Crisis in Maps
Food for thought.
Jeanne Price of idRADAR
interviewed a University of Maryland spokesperson
about their recent breach. The interview provides a nice insider’s
perspective on breach response, and you may wish to read it all here.
Perhaps the most startling revelation was this one:
UMD
did not have a data breach crisis plan in place before the event,
which continues to be under investigation.
In this day and age,
how can any university not have a data breach crisis response plan in
place? How often does this happen? And what, if anything, should
the U.S. Education Department do to foster better data security and
planning at the post-secondary level? Have they conducted a survey
that asks about security, risk assessment, and preparations for a
breach? I suspect the situation is much worse on the k-12 level than
on the post-secondary level, but post-secondary institutions may
collect and retain significantly more individuals’ data than k-12.
For years, we’ve
known that universities are targets of hackers, as university
databases contain a wealth of information that can often be used for
ID theft. Those suggesting that universities are a new target or the
“next target” in the wake of the UMD breach and a few other
recent reports simply haven’t been paying attention.
But given that we’ve
known for years, when will it be time to do something?
The
Federal Trade Commission currently does not have the authority to
enforce data security in non-profits (which most universities are).
The U.S. Education Department does not enforce. Pretty much, no one
enforces.
Is it any wonder, then,
that we continue to see massive breaches at the post-secondary level?
(Related)
EPIC
– After Weakening Privacy Law, Education Department Proposes “Best
Practices” for Student Data
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on March 8, 2014
“The Education
Department has issued recommendations
for schools that transfer student records to online educational
service
providers.
Following the Department’s changes
to a federal student privacy law, private
companies and government
agencies have access to student records without obtaining student
consent. In the recommendations, the agency explained that the
current regulations do not require written agreements for
schools to disclose student information to private companies. The
Education Department recommended that schools establish policies for
approving online educational services, create written contracts with
private companies for the use of student data, and explain to parents
and students how schools collect, use, and disclose student
information. The agency warned that student data held by private
companies may not be protected under federal privacy laws. EPIC had
earlier sued the Education Department for weakening the privacy rule
that prevented companies from getting access to student data. On
March 13, 2014, the Education Department will hold a
webinar
on its student privacy best practices. For more information, see:
EPIC:
Student Privacy and EPIC:
EPIC v. Dept. of Education.”
Not clear who provided
the grant. Also, not the most objective article I've ever read.
Big
Brother: Milwaukee To Give Away 2,000 Surveillance Cameras for
Citywide NSA Spy Grid
The city of Milwaukee
will be giving away 2,000
security cameras to south side businesses. A
grant has been provided to the city and they are eager to get
started.
… These cameras
will come with facial recognition and subsequently will track your
behaviors. They will also be able to collect meta data on your
habits, cell phone conversations, what you buy and who you associate
with. This information will be collaborated with your cell phone id
and facial recognition software provided by these cameras to monitor
your voyage around town and record your trends.
This information will
be trolled by the Milwaukee
Fusion spy center, used to track your internet, cell phone
activity and behaviors. Stored and saved for future reference
indefinitely.
For my Ethical Hackers,
who love a challenge – no matter how small.
Google
Says User Data Is Protected From Government
Speaking at the South
by Southwest festival in Austin Texas, Google CEO Eric Schmidt
assured his audience by saying he was “pretty
sure,” that the company’s user data was protected from
“prying eyes,” which included the U.S government. In response to
the Edward Snowden incident, where large volumes of classified
information were released to the public, the company has upgraded
their encryption process. Without divulging too much information,
especially about the specifics of these new encryption systems, Mr.
Schmidt stated that the only way to protect user data
was to essentially “encrypt more.” In addition to the
increased encryption levels the company also claims to have upgraded
many of their digital security systems.
Online CLEs?
Virtual
LegalTech show
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on March 8, 2014
Via Wilhelmina Randtke:
”For anyone who is interested, there is a virtual tech show
version next week by the hosts of Legal Tech NY back in Feb. The URL
for the virtual tech show is here
http://www.virtuallegaltechshow.com/r5/home.asp.
It’s set up in INXPO, which is OK for interaction, if you are in a
session with chat enabled, and better than most online platforms that
try to simulate a conference. Still pretty close to a… webinar.”
There's an App for
that? (coming to KickStarter soon!)
Vineyard
not required: The Miracle Machine lets you make wine on your kitchen
counter
Want to be a winemaker?
With the new Miracle
Machine, it's easier than you think.
There's no need to buy
a winery. All you need are a few ingredients, the soon-to-launch
Miracle Machine smartphone app and the Miracle Machine. It's a
tabletop device that turns grape concentrate, yeast and a couple
other ingredients into wine.
… Using wi-fi
connector Bluetooth, sync your machine to the app and the Miracle
Machine's fermentation chamber gets to work making the wine. It uses
electric sensors, transducers, heaters and pumps to create a
controlled environment for the first and second fermentation stages.
Because I don't want my
students reading their textbooks while driving to school.
Read
Aloud As Google Text To Speech Gets New High Quality Voices For
English
Google has just come
out with Version 3 of its text-to-speech Android app. It is a
significant update with a better interface, natural sounding voices
in English, and support for more languages. If you like to read your
eBooks aloud, then this news should be pleasant to the ears. The new
version of Google
Text-to-Speech is rolling out on Google Play.
I'm thinking, “Math
Guy!”
5
Ideas for Teaching With Comics and 5 Free Online Tools for Creating
Them
(Related)
4
Powerful Tools For Making Your Own Interactive Content
Many teachers today are
using
infographics, both in their classrooms and for their own
professional development. There are so many tools out there to make
your own infographics. In the education realm, most people I
chat with say that they use Piktochart
because it is free and very simple to use. One of the (newer) trends
we’ve been noticing lately has been that more and more infographics
are interactive.
StatSilk
is a company that offers several different programs to make
interactive content.
ManyEyes
is a free data visualization software by IBM that allows creation
of different types of charts, graphs, maps, and visual text analysis.
You can use Google
Public Data and either upload
your own dataset and create a visualization, or explore
and adapt visualizations of already collected data (such as data
on world economic factors) to have them suit your needs.
Amusing. Note: Khan
Academy is moving too quickly to measure?
… On stage at the
College Board announcement was Sal Khan as Khan
Academy will now offer free
SAT test prep, arguing that this will enable a “future
determined by merit, not money.” (As it currently stands, students
whose parents have higher incomes score higher on the SAT.)
… The
anti-plagiarism software company Turnitin has
launched a new product Grade Anything. According
to Campus Technology, it’s a tool “to assess ”virtually any
type of assignement,“ including presentations, spreadsheets,
designs and calculations, according to a company news release, and
provides a grading template for assessing assignments such as
performances and recitals.” I wonder if Grade Anything makes the
same sweeping copyright claims to student content that the
essay-checking stuff does…
… Edu wiki provider
Wikispaces has been acquired
by TSL Education.
… Maine
governor Paul LePage has vetoed
a bill that would stop the creation of virtual schools
in his state.
… The Kansas
State Supreme Court ruled this week that the state’s funding
system violated the Kansas Constitution. More on the ruling in The
New York Times.
… SRI International
has finally released its research on the use
of Khan Academy in Schools. (And do note, it
said “usage” and not “effectiveness,” which was I totally
thought the research was supposed to examine. But hey.) (PDF)
Research was conducted on Khan Academy implementations at 9 school
sites, but as the report notes,
“During
the study, Khan Academy worked with schools participating in the
study to update and refine its tools and resources. Simultaneously,
teachers and students were using Khan Academy tools and resources in
considerably different ways across the nine study sites, and some of
the sites also changed the ways they used it during the course of the
two-year study. For these reasons, it was
methodologically unsound to conduct a rigorous evaluation of Khan
Academy’s impact on learning during the study period,
including any use of randomized control trials, which would have
required Khan Academy tools and resources to remain unchanged during
the study and for teachers and students to use Khan Academy the same
way. Moreover, at all but one of the sites, Khan Academy was
principally used as a supplementary tool—not as the core primary
curriculum—so the effects of Khan Academy cannot be separated from
those contributed by other elements of the math curriculum.”
… Khan
Academy has released
demographic data about students who complete its CS material.
Across all of Khan Academy, users are 48% female and 52% male; but
when it comes to the CS content, 34% are female and 66% are male.
86.2% of males complete the first coding challenge; 86.7% of females
complete the first coding challenge.
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