Gwen Mueller is an IT Professional, #dnd Gamer-girl, #coffee drinker, geek in Secondary Education, editor on tumblr #education, curating #science, and #tech resources to inspire lifelong learning with 1/4 cup of #fun.
Showing 201 posts tagged internet
I have seen a number of prompts that ask students to move beyond the evidence and expand on why that evidence is included in a passage, or to make direct connections to situations in a student’s personal life. However, these scenarios are not the norm, even though they should be. What can we do to move from scavenging to digesting of information? Here are three “simple” ideas…
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Bonding With Your Virtual Self May Alter Your Actual Perceptions
A group of students who saw that a backpack was attached to an avatar that they had created overestimated the heights of virtual hills, just as people in real life tend to overestimate heights and distances while carrying extra weight, according to Sangseok You, a doctoral student in the school of information, University of Michigan.
“You exert more of your agency through an avatar when you design it yourself,” said S. Shyam Sundar, Distinguished Professor of Communications and co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory, Penn State, who worked with You. “Your identity mixes in with the identity of that avatar and, as a result, your visual perception of the virtual environment is colored by the physical resources of your avatar.”
image via flickr:CC | Dr._Colleen_Morgan
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A Hal Pomeranz from 2010 suggests a great way to teach TCP/IP header structure to students: he builds header diagrams out of legos, then mixes them up and has the students reconstruct them.
The use of color here really highlights certain portions of the packet header. For example, the source and destination addresses and ports really jump out. But there are some other, more subtle color patterns that I worked in here. For example, if you look closely you’ll see that I matched the color of the ACK bit with the blue in the ACK number field. Similarly the colors of the SYN bit and the sequence number match, as do the URG bit and urgent pointer field.Actually I wish I had a couple of more colors available. Yes, Lego comes in dozens of colors these days, but they only make 2×8 blocks (aka one “Lego Byte”) in six colors: White, Black, Red, Yellow, Blue, and Beige.
So while I tried to use Beige exclusively for size fields, Red for reserved bits, Yellow for checksums, and so on, I ultimately ended up having to use these colors for other fields as well– for example, the yellow sequence number fields in the TCP header. Maybe I should have just bought a bunch of “nibbles” (2×4 blocks) in other colors and not been so choosy about using full “Lego Bytes”.
A little ingenuity and a toolbox equipped with digital tools are all teachers need to flatten traditional learning environments and discover the real size of today’s modern classrooms…infinity.
I think that’s a great way to describe the classroom - with anytime, anywhere learning opportunities the classroom size is infinite!
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10 Most Popular Languages Used Online
Did You Know?
- 90% of the worlds languages are used by less than 100,000 people
- 26.8% of the information on the internet is in English
- There are 6912 languages spoken in the world
- Mandarin Chinese has the most native speakers
- English has the largest number of non-native speakers
When the Government Comes Knocking, Who Has Your Back?
Hat tip to Josh Stearns for making us aware of this 2012 report.
Via the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
When you use the Internet, you entrust your online conversations, thoughts, experiences, locations, photos, and more to companies like Google, AT&T and Facebook. But what happens when the government demands that these companies to hand over your private information? Will the company stand with you? Will it tell you that the government is looking for your data so that you can take steps to protect yourself?
The Electronic Frontier Foundation examined the policies of 18 major Internet companies — including email providers, ISPs, cloud storage providers, and social networking sites — to assess whether they publicly commit to standing with users when the government seeks access to user data. We looked at their terms of service, privacy policies, and published law enforcement guides, if any. We also examined their track record of fighting for user privacy in the courts and whether they’re members of the Digital Due Process coalition, which works to improve outdated communications law. Finally, we contacted each of the companies with our conclusions and gave them an opportunity to respond and provide us evidence of improved policies and practices. These categories are not the only ways that a company can stand up for users, of course, but they are important and publicly verifiable.
While some Internet companies have stepped up for users in particular situations, it’s time for all companies that hold private user data to make public commitments to defend their users against government overreach. The purpose of this report is to incentivize companies to be transparent about what data flows to the government and encourage them to take a stand for user privacy when it is possible to do so.
Read through for the report’s findings.
Key: set a schedule, tell students, and stick to it!
“What are parents doing at home? Are they creating websites with their children, assessing what is good and bad information, creating videos and podcasts, and so on? The majority of our students see the Internet as a place of consumption, not creation. We need to shift that focus.”
“The conventional wisdom is that Facebook use is merely a time sink and leads to an assortment of negative consequences. But our research shows that it can be a psychologically meaningful activity that supplies a sense of well-being at a relatively deep level,” said co-author Dr. Jeff Hancock, Cornell professor of communication, and computer and information science.
“The extraordinary amount of time people spend on Facebook may be a reflection of its ability to satisfy ego needs that are fundamental to the human condition.”
“Once considered nice but non-essential, access to Internet and technology is now critical to closing the opportunity divide in the United States. Still, 100 million Americans go without an Internet connection at home according to Pew, and it is estimated that nearly 62M do not use the Internet at all. Unconnected Americans, disproportionately low-income, risk becoming increasingly isolated in today’s job market, where 77% of all jobs will require basic digital skills by the end of the decade, and already 80% of all job listings by Fortune 500 companies are found online.”
Moving America Forward: Tech Tools for 100 Million “Offline” Americans
(launching EveryoneOn to promote the importance of digital literacy in improving the correlated social outcomes for education, jobs, health, and civic engagement)
So This is What the Internet Looks Like
Peer 1 Hosting has released free mobile apps for Android and iPhone that map the Internet.
Via Peer 1:
Users can view Internet service providers (ISPs), Internet exchange points, universities and other organizations through two view options – Globe and Network. The app also allows users to generate a trace route between where they are located to a destination node, search for where popular companies and domains are, as well as identify their current location on the map…
…[T]he app’s timeline is rooted in real data that uses timeline visualization to display 22,961 autonomous system nodes joined by 50,519 connections based on Internet topology from our partner in this project, CAIDA. We were also able to project what the Internet will look like in 2020 by using an algorithm based on current data, as well as predictions for the growth of the hosting industry by various independent research agencies.
The iPhone app is here (iTunes). The Android app is here (Google Play).
Images: Selected screens from Peer 1’s Internet Map. Select to embiggen.
“The study found that 76 percent of teachers “strongly agree” that search engines have conditioned students to expect to be able to find information quickly and easily (and “equate research with Googling,” they say), while 71 percent agree that digital technologies “discourage students from finding and using a wide range of sources for their research.”
Yet 87 percent of the teachers surveyed use Wikipedia, compared with 53 percent of U.S. adult Internet users. More than 80 percent of the teachers surveyed say they use the Internet tool to gather material to help them create lesson plans or find content that will engage their students. And virtually all of the teachers surveyed (99 percent) say they use search engines to find information online.”
(via world-shaker)
“Arkansas teen Leonard Cooper’s recent win on Jeopardy went viral on social media. But why? Is it because so many either sympathize or empathize with a story about a kid who, already perceived as unintelligent due to his mannerisms, actually beats the competition? Is it because some of us have a very limited understanding of “knowledge” or what an educated person looks like? Do we still perceive intelligent as natural to some and exceptional in others?”
Online Dating for Teachers: Finding the Right Classroom
If online dating works so well for people looking for love and happiness, maybe the same concept can apply to people looking for other types of fulfillment, say maybe even teachers looking for the right school to work at, and educators looking to hire the right teacher for their school.
myEDmatch, an education technology start-up based in Kansas City, is using the same principle behind online dating to create a matching service for teachers and schools.
The website allows teachers, both working and unemployed, certified and non-certified, to sign-up for a free online profile, and search for open positions at schools around the country based on their “fit” — this includes information you wouldn’t normally find on a school’s website, such as expected work hours, working environment, and a school’s educational and cultural values. The service promotes transparency for teachers, letting them review and compare schools much like a car buyer would in Consumer Reports.
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How Technology Is Shaping the Future of Libraries
Key Takeaways
- There are over 121,000 libraries in America and 69% of Americans use libraries
- 67% of libraries offer downloadable e-books and 28% lend out e-readers and mobile devices
- 95% of libraries have some kind of online, social media presence
Some other interesting notes:
