TECHNOLOGY: Tech Talk for April 2006
Everyone: Here is the latest edition of Tech
Talk, provided for your reading pleasure…
SIS REVIEW UPDATE
A quick update this month. We were going to meet with Chancery
about their Chancery SMS solution for student information,
but further investigation found that they are conspicuously
absent from the California market. They have only one district
in California using Chancery SMS, and they have not fully
implemented California support for it. Connie Ducey and
I met with them to go over the product. While we were impressed,
we felt like we couldn’t bring forward a company that wasn’t
able to meet some of our basic needs right now. As a result,
the SIS Committee is meeting next week to evaluate the
systems we have seen, make recommendations on which one
(or ones) we will look more closely at, and to structure
those demonstrations to ensure that we have input from
a representative group of stakeholders. We will pass along
information as we have it.
The committee members are: Donna Alexander, Fran Bozdech,
Steve Butler, Barton Clark, Terrie Crotti, Cory DeMars, Connie
Ducey, Carol Eber, Chris Erlin, Joel Hames, Vickie Loustalot,
Jackie Lucero, Rod Milstead, Nancy Neu, Dorothy Ruppanner
and Charlie Uhl. If you have any concerns or questions, feel
free to contact me or any one of these group members. We
would be happy to share with you what we have seen so far.
SCAMS, HOAXES & PHISHING
The Internet is a fantastic research and learning
tool. It can be both a time-saver and a time-sink. Its phalanx
of e-mail, mailing lists, web sites, downloads and more all
serve as an effective tool to increase communication and
learning. Unfortunately, all of this convenience comes at
a cost. As with any activity, technology-related or not,
there are individuals sitting in the shade, waiting to pounce
on unsuspecting newcomers. These criminals have adapted to
the Internet, and to its occasional inability to distinguish
trustworthy from dangerous. The best method for countering
this assault is to understand the tools used to lull victims
in.
SCAMS are nothing new. People have been scammers and scam
victims since time immemorial. With the Internet, though,
the stakes are raised, as the opportunity cost is diminished
and one scam can be effective if only 1 in 1,000,000 fall
for it. A perfect example exists as the 4-1-9 Nigerian Fraud
scam. Many of us have seen the emails from the son of a former
dictator, the wife of a Nobel laureate, or the banker for
a prominent businessman. These emails detail some unfortunate
events that have caused the sender to reach out and find
a “trustworthy” suitor that can help move millions
of dollars in or out of the country. Because they originate
most commonly from Nigeria, and the Nigerian criminal code
uses “419” as the descriptor for these crimes,
they are known as Nigerian 419 scams. The scam culminates
in asking the potential victim to give up bank information
in order for the transaction to go through. With the promise
of a small fee as a reward, the scammer uses this information
to empty out bank accounts and disappear.
Further information about these scams can be found at the
following sites:
http://www.secretservice.gov/alert419.shtml
http://home.rica.net/alphae/419coal/
HOAXES, while much less dangerous, are still among the most
common types of perpetual misinformation on the Internet.
You may have seen these yourself — claims that Microsoft
will pay you $5 for every forwarded email, or information
about viruses that will erase everything on your computer.
I see hoaxes quite a bit, often forwarded from concerned
people who are unsure of their validity. I am always happy
to help investigate whether something is a hoax. I also tend
to steer people towards sites like Snopes (www.snopes.com),
which is a fantastic (and fun) compendium of truth and falsity
surrounding various Internet rumors and urban legends.
PHISHING, unlike hoaxes and like the scams above, are much
more dangerous. This is another increasingly common ploy.
You would recognize these by the serious tone they take in
trying to get you to give up financial information. Phishers
will often copy almost exactly the contents of a website,
whether it is Citibank, Bank of America, PayPal, EBay, or
another site. The emails look official and often tell you
that you have information expiring, or that they have important
information for you. The key is that they want you to click
on the link in their email. The link looks harmless, but
it actually redirects you to an unofficial website. That
site prompts you for a username and password, or for personal
financial information. Because it is a fake site, it is wholly
intended to gather sensitive information and exploit it.
If you were to put your credentials into one of these sites,
there is a high likelihood that those would be used soon
after to obtain access to your accounts.
One of the key tips in avoiding Phishing scams is to never,
never click on a link to a financial site in an email. Almost
all major institutions, when they send email out, will avoid
asking you to click on a link to login to the site. If you
do get something like this, it is always better to open up
your web browser, navigate to the site yourself, and input
your credentials that way. By avoiding clicking on the link
in the email, you avoid the possibility of being redirected
to a fake site.
More information about phishing can be found here: http://www.antiphishing.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
GRANTS
• Document Cameras from AverMedia
AverMedia Technologies
is sponsoring an essay context that gives U.S. teachers and
administrators the chance to win one of five new AverVision
document cameras for their classrooms. The contest requires
teachers, administrators, or their students to write a 100-
to 300-word essay describing how a document camera would
benefit their classroom. Four prizes, ranging in value from
$500 to $1,500, will be given to the best and most creative
entries. Only one submission per classroom is allowed. Deadline:
April 28, 2006
More information: http://www.avermedia-usa.com/contest.shtml
• Wireless lab equipment and other
technology
CDW-G
and Discovery Education have partnered to give away two wireless
computer labs and more than 30 additional technology prizes!
Your school could be one of the winners. Enter now, encourage
your colleagues to enter too, and come back every day until
the sweepstakes ends on May 1 to increase your chances. The
two grand prize labs are valued at more than $40,000 each
and include: HP Lab - 20 HP Tablet PCs, 1 HP projector; Lenovo
Lab - 20 Lenovo Tablet PCs,1 InFocus projector. Both wireless
labs are installed on a Bretford wireless cart with three
NETGEAR access points enabling educators to easily transport
the equipment from one classroom to another. In addition,
the labs include one HP LaserJet printer, a PolyVision calibration-free
interactive whiteboard, a networked collection of Discovery
Education science CD-ROMs, 20 Corel software licenses, an
APC backup unit, and onsite training from CDW-G and Discovery
Education. Deadline: May 1, 2006
More information: http://school.discovery.com/cdwg/
CURRICULAR WEBSITES
From
eSchoolNews:
•
National
Archive videos
Through an agreement with the National Archives, Google
Inc. has added historic video footage of such events as the
Apollo moon landing and Japan’s surrender in World War II
to its internet search engine. Students, teachers, researchers,
and others now can access these digital video clips free
of charge through the Google Video search portal.
From Educational Leadership Magazine:
•
Knowledge
Network
Blue Web’n is an online library of 2,000 outstanding Internet
sites categorized by subject, grade level, and format (tools,
references, lessons, hotlists, resources, tutorials, activities,
projects). You can also browse by broad subject area or specific
sub-categories. See “About this Site” for a scoring
rubric and answers to other burning questions!
TECHNOLOGY & LEARNING DISABILITIES
There are a number of
very good websites for students with learning disabilities.
The challenge is to cull through these sites and find resources
that are applicable in your classroom, or in your environment.
•
One good website that has compiled a list of useful resources
is LD
Resources.
Their “Computers
and Software” section
has a fairly comprehensive list of websites, resources and
devices that can be effective in many classrooms.
•
LDOnline is
another website that has both articles and resources specifically
focused around learning disabilities.
REDWOOD HIGH’S INTERNET RESOURCE
PAGE
If you'd like access to more curriculum sites like those
introduced in the last issue of this newsletter, please take
a look at the “Curriculum & Lesson
Plans” webpage
on the Redwood Library website.
It’s recently been updated and the links verified. If you
have any suggestions about additions to the page please let
Tom Kaun know and he will add appropriate links to the page.
We are especially in need of good Phys Ed and World languages
links. Tom is also working on a separate page of links to
online audiovisual collections like Mediasite and Learnoutloud.
Look for an announcement about that page when it is ready.
WIKIPEDIA & ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA
— The Feud
Last month, I wrote about Wikipedia,
and how this community-created encyclopedia is fast becoming
one of the premiere research sites on the Internet. One
of the articles that I linked to was here —
in which the journal Nature compared the accuracy of Wikipedia
to Encyclopedia Britannica. The results were favorable for
Wikipedia, but these results generated a fair amount of controversy.
The editors of Encyclopedia Britannica responded with their
own critique of the results of the study. Their response
can be found here —
and deconstructs many of the individual comparisons that
Nature used, showing how Encyclopedia Britannica was treated
unfairly. They use this opportunity to suggest that while
the Britannica is not perfect, it is much more accurate than
Nature suggests, and certainly much more accurate than Wikipedia.
This wasn’t the end of the controversy, however, as Nature
responded to Encyclopedia Britannica’s critique. Where the
Encyclopedia Britannica’s editors found mis-attributions,
Nature suggests that they misinterpreted the intent of the
comparison. Britannica viewed it as a comparison of traditional
encyclopedic sources, whereas Nature approached it from the
viewpoint of an Internet researcher seeking information about
a particular topic. A short summary will not do it justice,
so links to the entire back-and-forth are below. In the end,
both resources are valuable, and which one you use should
be based on your comfort level with the collection, verification
and attribution characteristics of the resource.
The
original Nature article
Britannica’s
response (PDF format)
Nature’s
response to Britannica's response (PDF format)
ATOMIC LEARNING
This is just a quick reminder about this
service. Please don’t forget that this can be a great resource
when you are using an application and just can’t quite figure
out how to do something. This is freely available to all
of our employees, students and student families. From within
the District, just go to www.atomiclearning.com and you will
be automatically logged-in.
Joel Hames
Director of Technology
Tamalpais Union High School District
jhames@tamdistrict.org
(415) 945-3798
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IN THIS ISSUE:
• SIS Review Update
• Scams, Hoaxes & Phishing
•
Grants
• Curricular Websites
• Technology & Learning Disabilities
• Atomic
Learning
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