On January 13, a UK magistrate ruled a 23-year-old student can be extradited to the United States for running a website posting links to pirated TV shows and films; this despite significant doubts over whether such sites break any UK laws. He has become the “guinea pig” of expansive U.S. justice. About four years ago […]
Four Initial Answers from Apple’s Education Announcement
In a recent post I offered four key questions for the Apple Education Announcement held today (Jan 19th). Now that the event is over and the blogosphere is responding, I thought it would be useful to answer those four questions. Once I’ve had time to digest all the information coming out, I’ll post more of […]
The Tide is Turning – SOPA May Not Make It Out of Committee
Over the past few days, there have been three significant developments that indicate the tide is turning on SOPA (and the Senate version, PIPA). As I have written previously, SOPA poses a threat to open education and educational technology in general, while most educational publishers are actively supporting this legislation. At the end of 2011, […]
Four Key Questions for the Apple Education Announcement
There is growing buzz online about Apple’s planned media event on January 19th in New York City. Most speculation is focused on Apple distributing textbooks through iTunesU, as described in a New York Times blog. The basis for most speculation seems to be the short comments in the Walter Isaacson official biography of Steve Jobs. This […]
Analysis of Instructure Security Testing
Instructure has engaged Securus Global to test the Canvas LMS product for security vulnerabilities. Instructure also invited me to be an independent observer – participating in the process and independently reporting on the testing and Instructure’s response to any vulnerabilities identified. Part 1 of this series of posts described the concept. Part 2 gave a mid-term update, describing the […]
(I Hope This Isn’t a) 2012 Predictions Post
Happy 2012. After writing a blog series outlining some of the major ed-tech trends of 2011 as well as a few obligatory posts with predictions for the new year, I figured I’d be off to the races, energized about my work as an education technology writer, excited for the potential for better teaching and learning […]
The Zone of Proximal Curiosity
Gardner Campbell has a great piece at Campus Technology that asks the following question: What if we took another tack, specifying that students should not only remember information but also demonstrate increased curiosity? I have enormous sympathy for this line of inquiry. In this post, I’m going to cover why I think it’s so important, how educating […]