WebedtecH

A couple of important facts for your next discussion around, “Why should we be teaching our students this stuff?”

Some 54% of enterprise-size organizations use Web 2.0 technologies, as do 74% of companies with fewer than 500 employees, according to a study Web 2.0 technology adoption and the future of social-media initiatives in enterprises.

Blogs are the most-used Web 2.0 technology (87% of respondents), followed by communities, wikis, RSS feeds and social networking.

The most successful are blogs (44% of respondents), communities (42%) and wikis (39%).

96% say all Web 2.0 technologies they’ve used have been successful; 83% reporting no clear failures.

The greatest obstacle to Web 2.0 deployment is limited internal resources.

Some 64% of those using Web 2.0 technologies rely on a combination of internal- and external-facing media/tools.

“The Awareness research found that…28% of organizations with over 500 employees have budgets greater than $50,000 for web 2.0 tools or social media. The top tools planned are blogs and wikis (56%) but many are also planning to deploy online communities,” writes FASTforward’s Bill Ives.

Is there any greater recommendation or reason for a topic to be included in the curriculum of a school than the ability of that curriculum to help students get a better place in tomorrow’s workforce? Isn’t that the argument used all the time? Well…let’s make sure we use our facts to reinforce the need to use these tools with our students…NOW!

Trends in Adopting Web 2.0 for the Enterprise in 2007

Open Thinking & Digital Pedagogy » Freedom Sticks For The Classroom

Alec has posted an interesting article about his efforts to get around overly restrictive filtering and access controls.  In our back and forth comments a thought occured to me.  What if we were to use USB drives as “keys” to the internet.  Here’s the idea:

1. The teacher is given a USB key that includes a file with an encrypted sequence of characters that acts as their “authorization code”.
2. When they log into the network,  the login script looks for the key file and verifies the authorization code on the USB drive is the same as the one associated with the teacher’s account.
3. If they match, the teacher is granted full access.

What if scenarios:

1. Teacher logs in without the USB key - teacher is given standard network access (student level)
2. Student logs in with teacher’s USB key on student account - no special permissions are granted and a notification is sent to IT
3. One teacher logs in with another teacher’s USB key - only student level access is granted.
4. USB key is lost - the authorization code for that teacher is changed on the server, immediately making the old code invalid

I’m sure there are dozens of other situations we would need to take into account (and that it’s similar to VPN connections but not quite), but I’m curious what the IT people and teachers out there would think of this?

There’s an excellent data gathering exercise over at Tech4Teaching about 1 to 1 laptop programs. I don’t know all the statistical details of the survey, but some items jumped out at me:

The majority of schools allowing 24/7 access require some form of parent payment, whether parents purchase directly from the vendor, through the school, or via lease payments.

I’m curious as to how those programs requiring parental financial investment were launched and positioned to the families. How does it handle those with financial limitations? Does it create a situation of “have’s” and “have-not’s?”

The programs with mixed laptop environments are primarily independent schools with family purchase of hardware (and family choice). Most of these schools set some sort of standard – antivirus, software required, minimum hardware – and parents make the purchase, either independently or from a specific vendor.

Establishment of a recommended standard for machines brought into the school is an excellent idea to maintain a standard level of access and compatibility. I have to ask though…what level of support is provided by the school?

A number of schools have laptop program models which are either optional family purchase and/or have choice of platform. As someone who’s taught in a 1-1 Mac school and in a 1-1 PC school, I can’t imagine laptop-optional or mixed-platform being very effective models for significant integration. I know I could teach in a mixed-platform classroom, but the level of integration, beyond using web-based tools, would be lower than in a classroom with like platform access. (Note: The MacBook with dual boot would likely bridge the gap pretty well.)

The use of web-based tools is an excellent solution to this situation. Applying technologies that are platform independent open up experiences for the students as well as give them access to the same materials no matter their location. This is one of the reasons the new low-cost solutions such as the Asus eee PC are becoming popular.

Tech4Teaching Blog » Blog Archive » Laptop Survey - Final results are in

There’s a growing discussion surrounding the concept of tiered content filtering in schools.  The idea that staff and teachers should have access to a broader selection of content and materials from the internet than students is not new but is gaining traction.  Personally I like the idea of having the controls in place to allow teachers who have demonstrated the ability to manage and manipulate the internet effectively to have greater access to content.

Notice I did not say all teachers.  For staff members to receive enhanced access, and thereby accept a greater level of risk and responsibility, they should be required to complete additional staff development on internet safety and behavior.  This not only protects the staff member but also the students.  The paper trail on the training mitigates some of the risk for the school making the policy more palatable.

Technically, this type of tiered filtering can be managed at a network and account level.  This is not the challenging part.  The challenge comes from structuring the policy in such a way that access is greater without the sacrifice of safeguards for the students, staff, and the school.

Issues with tiered content filtering » Moving at the Speed of Creativity

For those of you in the Ed-Tech space who aren’t afraid of uttering the “F” word in front of teachers (that being “filtering”) the service OpenDNS has expanded their free offering to new categories of filters for more selective control of what can and cannot be grouped together. Based on the feedback I’ve heard from teachers as to what their main issues are with filtering, I think OpenDNS is on the right track with this. Here’s their new category sets (click to enlarge):

Now combine this with the ability to whitelist any URL for access and it looks like a pretty good compromise. Any thoughts?