Yesterday I wrote about the new Google Latitude software for a mobile phone that can monitor your location and transmit this information to friends, family and anyone else you choose. But today Privacy International raised what it called a “fundamental design problem.” What happens, they ask, if someone borrows your phone and activates the Latitude software without telling you? In some cases it appears there is no safeguard to this.
Privacy International suggests the possible scenarios:
* An employer provides staff with Latitude-enabled phones on which a reciprocal sharing agreement has been enabled, but does not inform staff of this action or that their movements will be tracked.
* A parent gifts a mobile phone to a child without disclosing that the phone has been Latitude-enabled.
* A partner, friend or other person gains access to an unattended phone (left on a bar on in the house) and enables Latitude without the other person’s knowledge.
* A Latitude-enabled phone is given as a gift.
* A phone left unattended, for example with security personnel or a repair shop, is covertly enabled.
Privacy International says Google has created an unnecessary danger to the privacy and security of users. It says Google is aware of the need to create a message alert on Latitude-enabled phones but has chosen to launch the service without universal access to this safeguard.
The Director of Privacy International, Simon Davies, said: “Many people will see Latitude as a cool product, but the reality is that Google has yet again failed to deliver strong privacy and security. The company has a long way to go before it can capture the trust of phone users.”
“As it stands right now, Latitude could be a gift to stalkers, prying employers, jealous partners and obsessive friends. The dangers to a user’s privacy and security are as limitless as the imagination of those who would abuse this technology.”
President Barack Obama stuck to the script almost word-for-word in his address to schoolchildren across the nation earlier today. Critics of the speech complained last week that Obama would try to indoctrinate schoolchildren with his “socialist ideology.” Some said they would keep their children home today.
The White House posted the speech text online Monday so that concerned parents could read the text themselves and decide whether the content was suitable for their children. Some parents still insisted that Obama could stray from the text and deliver extemporaneous subversive ideas.
Roger Cooper, an insurance agent who was out shopping with his wife and three school-aged children, told the Wall Street Journal said he hadn’t read Mr. Obama’s speech but had read about it on the Internet. “It’s propaganda,” Mr. Cooper said as he emerged from an Apple Store in Dallas’s Knox-Henderson neighborhood. “I don’t trust the man. He’s been nothing…
As a sign of our partisan times, Google News shows more than 5,000 articles have recently appeared concerning the suddenly controversial speech President Barack Obama is giving next Tuesday to students across America. Many conservative pundits and parents have decried the speech, saying Obama will use the occasion to promote his “socialist agenda.”
The speech text will be posted online at whitehouse.gov the day before the President speaks to students at a Virginia high school.
According to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Obama will discuss the importance of education as the new school year begins. “The president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning. He will also call for a shared responsibility and commitment on the part of students, parents, and educators to ensure that every child in every school receives the best education possible, so they can compete in the global economy for…
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a lifelong champion of equal rights and educational opportunity, died late Tuesday at his home in Hyannis Port, Mass. He was 77.
The Chronicle of Higher Educationpublished today an obituary, written by Kelly Field, that recounts the Senator’s tireless efforts to improve higher education.
Mr. Kennedy, who represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate for more than four decades, had a hand in the creation of nearly every major federal student-aid program, from Pell Grants in 1972 to the Academic Competitiveness and Smart Grants for high-achieving, low-income students in 2006. In the 1990s, he was a chief architect of the federal direct-loan program, in which the government lends money directly to students through their colleges, and one of its staunchest supporters in the Senate.
Senator Kennedy was also one of the most reliable defenders of student aid,…
Education Secretary Arne Duncan responded earlier this week to a new report that documents the poor showing of American students relative to the students of other countries. In math, America’s 15-year-olds’ scores now lag behind those of 31countries. In science, eighth graders’ scores now lag behind their peers in eight countries, and in reading, five countries have improved their performance and surpassed the U.S.’s 4th graders.
Today’s report is another wake-up call that our students are treading the waters of academic achievement while other countries’ students are swimming faster and farther. Our students have stagnated educationally, putting our long-term economic security at risk…
These results show that for us to stay competitive and move forward we have to get our students ready for global competition. That’s why I so strongly support the work of our governors and chief state school officers to develop a set of common internationally-benchmarked, college and career-ready standards…
The U.S. Department of Education has just released a report comparing traditional face-to-face classroom instruction to learning supplemented or completely replaced by online learning. The conclusion: “Students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction.”
The most effective teaching method blended face-to-face learning with online learning. The study notes that this blended learning often includes additional learning time because students can proceed at their own pace and lets them repeat material they find difficult.
The 93-page report, entitled an Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies, was conducted by SRI International.Researchers looked at more than a thousand studies conducted between 1996 to 2008. Analysts then screened these studies to find those that (a) contrasted an online to a face-to-face condition, (b) measured student learning outcomes, (c) used…
Jenn Savedge has a blog on the Mother Nature Network and today she posted her interview with Alaskan teenager Bart Grabman, who has converted an old Volkswagen Super Beetle to run on electricity. Grabman is a high-school student and avid skier, and worries about global warming. He says the declining snow levels he is witnessing first-hand in the northern state motivated him to build the eco-sensitive car. The vehicle is not yet finished, but he has taken it out for test drives in front of his house. It’s a good example of the Net Generation’s desire to innovate.
Bart Grabman’s electric Volkswagen Super Beetle
Some excerpts from the interview:
Mother Nature Network: What inspired you to build an electric car?
Grabman: I was taking a class at school called Passages, and the purpose of…
I posted yesterday about the national poll released by Common Sense Media that looked at some of the potentially negative aspects of teenage online behavior. But on the whole, of course, the possible drawbacks pale in comparison to the Internet’s enormous benefits, such as helping teens support charities, volunteer, be creative, and improve their academic performance. To wit:
- 54% have joined an online community or a “group” on Facebook or MySpace in support of a cause
- 53% post online creative writing or artwork that they’ve created.
- 50% post or share videos or music that they’ve created
- 45% organize or invite people to an event using a social networking site like Facebook or MySpace
- 34% volunteer for a campaign, nonprofit organization, or charity
- 26% participate in online study groups
Parents and children agree that the Internet is helping their academic performance.
Information technology in the private sector didn’t make a substantive difference until users realized IT’s real purpose was to do more than simply digitize existing processes. IT enabled new processes and new business models.
A number of states are looking at e-books to help cut the cost of education, with California being the most well-known example. The idea: give every student a laptop or Kindle-style reader and distribute the reading material digitally at a discount. Conventional textbooks would be cheaper since the costs of paper and printing would be eliminated. And the savings could be even greater if teachers collaborated to produce an open-source compendium of information they had created themselves,
But that is not the real prize of the exercise. As the Times noted, “Textbooks have not…
I posted yesterday about the release of IBM’s Smarter Planet University Jam report. Because three-quarters of the Jam participants were students, and skills and education is something they can relate to, this topic proved to be the most active. The highlights from the report are reprinted below. Readers of Grown Up Digital will recognize many of the arguments from the book as to why today’s education system is failing and why it must be more student-focused.
1. Success in the services-based global economy requires academia, government and industry to work together to create “T-shaped” people. T-shaped people are those who have deep knowledge in one discipline and broader knowledge in others. These people were identified as possessing the types of skills industry will most likely employ. But the methods used to develop those skills in academia today lack the needed…
A new report released yesterday shows that eight of 10 students around the world want universities to revamp traditional learning environments while over 90 percent want to join or start a Green Advocacy group at their campus. 64 percent of students believe that the world has a chance to reverse carbon emissions by 2025, and 60 percent believe that education and efficient transportation offer the best hope for sustainability of our cities.
These are just a few of the findings of a remarkable crowdsourcing process held earlier this year by IBM called the Smarter Planet University Jam. Nearly 2,000 students, faculty, IBM business leaders, technologists, governmental officials, and industry partners from 40 countries around the globe took part in the Jam and demonstrated both enthusiasm and optimism about opportunities to work together.
A team of Jam hosts, facilitators, and subject matter…
The Bard school was jointly created in June 2001 by the New York City Board of Education and Bard College. It is founded on the belief that many young people are ready and eager to do serious college work at age 16. It enables highly motivated students to move in four years from ninth grade through the first two years of college, earning the associate of arts (A.A.) degree as well as a high school diploma.
It is a public education institution, and no tuition is charged. The student body is diverse ethnically and economically. There are about 500 students and the average…
Today, at Macomb Community College in Michigan, President Barack Obama outlined a plan to reform the nation’s community colleges, calling for an additional 5 million community college graduates by 2020 and new initiatives to teach Americans the skills they will need to compete with workers from other nations. He outlined initiatives to increase the effectiveness and impact of community colleges, raise graduation rates, modernize facilities, and create new online learning opportunities.
Following are excerpts from his remarks:
Time and again, when we have placed our bet for the future on education, we have prospered as a result - by tapping the incredible innovative and generative potential of a skilled American workforce. That is what happened when President Lincoln signed into law legislation creating the land grant colleges which not only transformed higher education, but also our economy. That is what took place when President Roosevelt signed the GI Bill which helped…
There are a number of reasons why the actual spending by teens and young adults for online goods and services drastically understates the importance of the Internet in the total volume of young consumer purchases. Many young consumers research products online but make the purchase at a regular store because they don’t have a credit card. Often the product they research simply isn’t sold by regular online merchants.
A good example of the latter is universities, which gather hundreds of millions of dollars in tuition every year. Choosing a college is a daunting decision, and if advertisers could reach this young demographic and help them in their decision-making process, it could form the basis of a long and trusting relationship.
That’s the premise of YOUniversityTV.com, which was founded last year. It is designed to help students in the college-selection process by providing videos and educational resources for colleges across the U.S….
Don was recently interviewed by Arthur Griffin, Jr. of the District Leader’s Podcast. The 16-minute audio interview can be downloaded or streamed here. Don discusses the world of ‘digital natives’ and how the explosion of the Internet into mainstream society has necessarily and completely changed the process of k-12 education.
The District Leader’s Podcast and website is sponsored by McGraw-Hill Education’s Urban Advisory Resource comprising former education leaders and other experts with extensive experience in managing large school districts. The podcast co-hosts are educational experts who have been on the “front line” either as a former superintendent or as a school board member.
After paying hefty amounts for tuition and room and board, many university students feel their financial spirits are completely crushed when confronted by sky-high textbook prices. While ebooks are often cited as a promising solution, a Silicon Valley company is successfully applying the NetFlix model of renting products by mail to help students slash their textbook costs.
Profiled in the New York Times, Chegg.com says that students can save 65-85 percent of the cost of buying a book by renting it instead. The company calculates that it has saved students more than $40 million since it began renting books in 2007.
As an added bonus for N-Gen eco-sensitive students, for every book that is rented, bought or sold, Chegg will plant a tree through a partnership with American Forests Global ReLeaf® Program. “More than 20 million trees a year are destroyed to make books. By planting…
