A couple of years ago a rural elementary school in California tried tracking students with RFID tags, as reported in Engadget's California school mandates RFID tags for students. Administrators felt the RFID would "simplify attendance-taking and reduce vandalism" and potentially "tracked in bathrooms and locker rooms". This sounds like the sort of thing that administrators can get excited about when left to their own devices (never mind that the school was being paid by the manufacturer for testing the product.) It seems like someone should have spoken up about what is problematic about proposing to "chip" kids like pedigree dogs.
If California school districts don't have IT managers that are ethically competent or sufficiently empowered to stop such a plan, the state legislature has saved them from this one particular issue. California's state legislature passed Identity Information Protection Act last year, but it was vetoed by the governor. This year's strategy is to try to pass it in pieces. This was the first to pass (for four years anyway), as The Register reported last week, in California Senate fights RFID tracking for schoolkids.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Reaching Students
Some higher education administrators were grappling with the question of reaching the student body even before the tragedy at Virginia Tech and the attendant question of a communication breakdown. Expect it to surge in importance in higher ed IT departments across the country, like disaster recovery did after Katrina. Any serious discussion of the future of effective communication channels must begin with an honest examination of current technologies.
The article E-Mail is for Old People (in the October 6, 2006 edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education) explores the varying philosophies regarding communication at different institutions. Some administrators are entrenched in their policy that all official school communication will come via email and it is the responsibility of students to check it. But most students don't have email on their mobile devices and find that it isn't instantaneous enough for them. Besides, students can begin to feel harassed by the number of contacts through their campus email, both official and unofficial. Content may range from college officials plugging under-filled classes, campus performances, students seeking a new roommate, or any of a number of other topics that most students consider to be spam. Students are likely to shun this email account and miss critical official notifications.
It is important to maintain separate student comm channels for separate purposes. For instance, an email account that is not regularly checked may still be a viable choice for formal notifications such as registration confirmation, grades and contact with professors. That can work but the "dilution effect" must be discouraged. Some colleges are creating MySpace pages for informal communications, performance and other event advertisements. For universities of mostly traditionally college-aged students, that's taking your message to where they live. (In keeping with the tone, a college so cited also has a posted cartoon declaring, "College prepares you for the real world, which also sucks.") But, as Putting Student Communication in Con-TEXT from the 2/15/2007 concurs, for urgent and timely communications it's all about reaching out and texting students.
The article E-Mail is for Old People (in the October 6, 2006 edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education) explores the varying philosophies regarding communication at different institutions. Some administrators are entrenched in their policy that all official school communication will come via email and it is the responsibility of students to check it. But most students don't have email on their mobile devices and find that it isn't instantaneous enough for them. Besides, students can begin to feel harassed by the number of contacts through their campus email, both official and unofficial. Content may range from college officials plugging under-filled classes, campus performances, students seeking a new roommate, or any of a number of other topics that most students consider to be spam. Students are likely to shun this email account and miss critical official notifications.
It is important to maintain separate student comm channels for separate purposes. For instance, an email account that is not regularly checked may still be a viable choice for formal notifications such as registration confirmation, grades and contact with professors. That can work but the "dilution effect" must be discouraged. Some colleges are creating MySpace pages for informal communications, performance and other event advertisements. For universities of mostly traditionally college-aged students, that's taking your message to where they live. (In keeping with the tone, a college so cited also has a posted cartoon declaring, "College prepares you for the real world, which also sucks.") But, as Putting Student Communication in Con-TEXT from the 2/15/2007 concurs, for urgent and timely communications it's all about reaching out and texting students.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
The High Cost of Anti-Plagiarism
Concerns about plagiarism may have always plagued educators, but the unbridled access of the internet has brought a shrill sense of panic to the question. As to be expected in the 21st century, there is an online service for that. Turnitin is not a cheap service but some 6,000 institutions in 90 countries submit 100,000 papers a day to be checked for authenticity against the archive of 22 million stored papers. Gradebook functions, peer review and plug-ins with the major course management platforms are all available features for faculty. What could possibly be wrong with that?
Well, it's the whole "being presumed a cheater" thing, according to the unnamed minor plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Turnitin. Oh yeah, and the copyright violations. Though the Washington Post reported it as a local story on March 29, 2007 in McLean Students Sue Anti-Cheating Service the 2 Virginia students are joined by 2 Arizona high school in the challenge. All are A students and resent the assumption that they have any interest in plagiarism. But that isn't the grounds on which they are seeking $150,000 for each of six individual papers.
The problem is that Turnitin keeps a copy of the students' papers. The plaintiffs maintain that they should be able to control how their writing is used. That is the basis of intellectual property rights and the students copyrighted their papers before they were submitted - some with explicit instructions not to be archived. But the papers were archived and it is unlikely that Turnitin will be able to make a very convincing argument for the principle of "fair use" reserved for educational, scholarly and news purposes. The real problem is that it is very tempting to think that technology can solve all of our challenges in the business of education. The father of one of the plaintiffs said it best when he said "he thinks schools should focus on teaching students cheating is wrong.'You can't take a person's work and run it through a computer and make an honest person out of them.'"
The problem is that Turnitin keeps a copy of the students' papers. The plaintiffs maintain that they should be able to control how their writing is used. That is the basis of intellectual property rights and the students copyrighted their papers before they were submitted - some with explicit instructions not to be archived. But the papers were archived and it is unlikely that Turnitin will be able to make a very convincing argument for the principle of "fair use" reserved for educational, scholarly and news purposes. The real problem is that it is very tempting to think that technology can solve all of our challenges in the business of education. The father of one of the plaintiffs said it best when he said "he thinks schools should focus on teaching students cheating is wrong.'You can't take a person's work and run it through a computer and make an honest person out of them.'"
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Where Is The Classroom Going?
Advanced Teaching Technologies: Brave New World is an article from the 12/28/2006 issue of Campus Technology that outlines the state of two developing technologies expected to impact the future of education. The new teleconferencing products - I'm sorry, I mean "next-generation telepresence solutions" - are very cool. These technologies are permitting the subtleties of human interaction to enter into teleconferences, making the experience barely distinguishable from a face-to-face meeting. However, it is doubtful that many of these systems will find their way into educational institutions while the pricetags run from $250,000 - $425,000 with monthly costs as high as $18,000 per room.
The other half of this "Brave New World" of teaching technology is prophesied to be the use of multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs). It's "The Sims Go To College" but only more so, I guess. The crux of the idea is that learners (especially today's) are predisposed to effectively use a 3-D virtual avatar to fulfill a constructivist pedagogy. That is to say that students can explore at their own pace, building their own learning experience in their own way. Is this really the way of learning in the new millennium? Or is it dumbing down education because kids won't pay attention to anything if it isn't a game?
There are several MUVEs introduced, some developed with NSF grants. Whyville is targeted at younger kids learning (virtual) social skills. Quest Atlantis has 9-12 year olds role-playing through units along a storyline. The River City Project addresses national education standards for science, technology and the "21st century" and a varying content standards for grades 5-12. The Harvard-heavy development team has created an American town plagued with illnesses in 1878. From their 21st century understanding of scientific process, students interact with a local reporter to solve the health crises. How much structure is needed to qualify as a learning tool? If you're thinking, "What's next? Universities in Second Life?" - you're too late.
The other half of this "Brave New World" of teaching technology is prophesied to be the use of multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs). It's "The Sims Go To College" but only more so, I guess. The crux of the idea is that learners (especially today's) are predisposed to effectively use a 3-D virtual avatar to fulfill a constructivist pedagogy. That is to say that students can explore at their own pace, building their own learning experience in their own way. Is this really the way of learning in the new millennium? Or is it dumbing down education because kids won't pay attention to anything if it isn't a game?
There are several MUVEs introduced, some developed with NSF grants. Whyville is targeted at younger kids learning (virtual) social skills. Quest Atlantis has 9-12 year olds role-playing through units along a storyline. The River City Project addresses national education standards for science, technology and the "21st century" and a varying content standards for grades 5-12. The Harvard-heavy development team has created an American town plagued with illnesses in 1878. From their 21st century understanding of scientific process, students interact with a local reporter to solve the health crises. How much structure is needed to qualify as a learning tool? If you're thinking, "What's next? Universities in Second Life?" - you're too late.
RIAA v. College Students
The March 23, 2007 Associated Press story, RIAA: Students Settling Piracy Claims, describes the latest front in the digital music wars. Whether one calls it "music sharing" or "piracy", regardless of philosophical and ethical positions, this issue is one of the banes of higher ed IT departments. At colleges and universities, the IT departments have additional responsibilities because they serve as an Internet Service Provider - even more so when that institution provides residential facilities.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has conducted an extremely aggressive legal campaign against ordinary individuals that has fostered much more animosity and ill-will than sympathy or fear. The RIAA has served a couple of rounds of pre-litigation notifications in the name of John Does at the colleges and universities based on IP address, "many" are accusations of copyright infringement (and what were the others?) The RIAA then attempts to use the lawsuits to discover the names of the students. These educational institutions find themselves in a difficult legal and policy position, between the copyright infringement law and protecting the rights and privacies of students.
The RIAA has taken an interesting new approach, offering deals for those who are willing to engage them. This article references a letter to an individual Ohio University student, valuing her 787 counts of infringements at $590,000. However, the RIAA is making offers through schools' attorneys of $3,000 to $5,000. How are we to understand the discrepancy in value for this offense? What makes a plaintiff eager to settle a lawsuit for less than 1% of claimed damages? Certainly one of the motivating factors has to be the difficulty in identifying and prosecuting defendants. To that end, the RIAA is offering to settle "P2P" suits online. At the time of the writing 116 students had settled. Stay tuned to see how these institutions will respond to this strategy.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has conducted an extremely aggressive legal campaign against ordinary individuals that has fostered much more animosity and ill-will than sympathy or fear. The RIAA has served a couple of rounds of pre-litigation notifications in the name of John Does at the colleges and universities based on IP address, "many" are accusations of copyright infringement (and what were the others?) The RIAA then attempts to use the lawsuits to discover the names of the students. These educational institutions find themselves in a difficult legal and policy position, between the copyright infringement law and protecting the rights and privacies of students.
The RIAA has taken an interesting new approach, offering deals for those who are willing to engage them. This article references a letter to an individual Ohio University student, valuing her 787 counts of infringements at $590,000. However, the RIAA is making offers through schools' attorneys of $3,000 to $5,000. How are we to understand the discrepancy in value for this offense? What makes a plaintiff eager to settle a lawsuit for less than 1% of claimed damages? Certainly one of the motivating factors has to be the difficulty in identifying and prosecuting defendants. To that end, the RIAA is offering to settle "P2P" suits online. At the time of the writing 116 students had settled. Stay tuned to see how these institutions will respond to this strategy.
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