As is many parts of the country, there are tough financial times being faced by schools in Minnesota. With astronomically large state (and national) deficits, the job of a politician is more thankless now than ever. While I have been very critical of the direction of politics in general recently, I do want to take a moment to thank the members of the Minnesota Legislature for holding K-12 education generally harmless through the tough political decisions that were faced in the recently concluded session. Sure, there are still many underfunded initiatives and our kids are facing greater challenges than ever, but in a typical Minnesota response, "it could have been much worse." The fact that technology funding was preserved is of particular interest to those who might read these words.
Even if I don't always agree with them, I do respect the work that our political leaders are doing at a time of unprecedented global economic turmoil. Now, if we could just stop being so "gosh darn" polarized in our political views, maybe we could actually do some great things rather than just holding on.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
The Verizon Foundation has launched the redesigned Thinkfinity website. It provides easier access to some of the Thinkfinity resources from the home page. If you've never used this resource, you should really take a look. They work closely with nine national partners including the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, National Geographic and many more to bring high quality lesson plans, online activities and other educational materials to teachers and students.The redesigned website also introduces the Verizon Thinkfinity Community where educators can converse, ask questions, trade ideas and more.
Belt AND Suspenders - A Lesson in Data Backup
A college roommate of mine was once introduced at a banquet as the only person the emcee knew who was so conservative that he wore a belt and suspenders. That phrase has stuck with me over the years and I use it once in a while to describe security measures in technology. There are times when it means "overkill" and there are times when it serves as a good reminder - this one is the latter.
Two mutually exclusive events this week involving Data backup should serve as a reminder to all of us. Two stories of personal stress as two friends both lost years of digital photos. One accidentally deleted them and the other had a drive fail. In both cases, without any backup, the stress has been significant and the monetary cost may be steep. In both cases, many hours of lost time dealing with the issue.
One has recovered the photos at the cost of recovery software and an external drive to restore them to (and hopefully use as a backup drive in the future). The other will most likely get them back but will pay $600 to $1000 to a data recovery company.
Real examples to remind us all to practice safe computing. Back up that data early and often!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
National Broadband Plan
Recently, the FCC released the National Broadband Plan which was commissioned by congress in early 2009. While I haven't read through the 376 page document cover to cover yet, it has some ambitious goals and a direct impact on education. If you haven't seen it yet, you can download the entire report at:
http://download.broadband.gov/plan/national-broadband-plan.pdf
The plan website also has a great deal of information and is found at:
http://www.broadband.gov/
Goal #4 of the plan directly relates to education by suggesting, "Every American community should have affordable access to at least 1 gigabit per second broadband service to anchor institutions such as schools, hospitals and government buildings."
In the school cooperative I direct, ECMECC, we have a gigabit network connecting 14 member districts, several non-member districts, higher education institutions, public libraries, county and city government and a few other entities. While we share the internet access among all the entities and it doesn't amount to a full gigabit, we enjoy a broadband network that permits us to share a number of services that are often limited to individual entities and we have great access to cloud computing services, video and all that the Internet has to offer.
Having tasted that level of access, it is easy to support that kind of connectivity or greater to every American community. It appears that the FCC is suggesting changes to the Universal Service Fund (E-rate) program to help facilitate this level of access. It will be interesting to watch this take shape. It will be important for all of us in educational technology to follow these developments closely and work together to see that any changes are implemented in a fair and equitable manner. The telecommunications companies will wield their influence to be sure and we will need to be at the table as well.
The final paragraph of the plan's executive summary worries me a bit. It begins with, "The remaining half of the recommendations are offered to the Executive Branch, Congress and state and local governments." I'm not convinced, recently, that these bodies are capable of implementing the recommendations that have been left to them. They continue, " Policymakers alone, though, cannot ensure success. Industry, non-profits, and government together with the American people, must now act and rise to our era’s infrastructure challenge." This I think is true. It will be an interesting decade ahead to be sure.
http://download.broadband.gov/plan/national-broadband-plan.pdf
The plan website also has a great deal of information and is found at:
http://www.broadband.gov/
Goal #4 of the plan directly relates to education by suggesting, "Every American community should have affordable access to at least 1 gigabit per second broadband service to anchor institutions such as schools, hospitals and government buildings."
In the school cooperative I direct, ECMECC, we have a gigabit network connecting 14 member districts, several non-member districts, higher education institutions, public libraries, county and city government and a few other entities. While we share the internet access among all the entities and it doesn't amount to a full gigabit, we enjoy a broadband network that permits us to share a number of services that are often limited to individual entities and we have great access to cloud computing services, video and all that the Internet has to offer.
Having tasted that level of access, it is easy to support that kind of connectivity or greater to every American community. It appears that the FCC is suggesting changes to the Universal Service Fund (E-rate) program to help facilitate this level of access. It will be interesting to watch this take shape. It will be important for all of us in educational technology to follow these developments closely and work together to see that any changes are implemented in a fair and equitable manner. The telecommunications companies will wield their influence to be sure and we will need to be at the table as well.
The final paragraph of the plan's executive summary worries me a bit. It begins with, "The remaining half of the recommendations are offered to the Executive Branch, Congress and state and local governments." I'm not convinced, recently, that these bodies are capable of implementing the recommendations that have been left to them. They continue, " Policymakers alone, though, cannot ensure success. Industry, non-profits, and government together with the American people, must now act and rise to our era’s infrastructure challenge." This I think is true. It will be an interesting decade ahead to be sure.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)