Many years ago, back in the 90's ('97, I think) I had a mailing list for folks who were interested in getting some Mac Tips. We had just installed a Mac lab and I was HOOKED on a computer with a mouse, baby!! Woohoo!!!

Anyway...

One March 31st I sent out (forwarded) a notice that the Internet was going to be shut down starting at midnight that night in order for "them" to flush out the bad links and to reset the servers. It would take 24 hours, so don't make plans for the next day. Disconnect everything! ("Step awayyy from the computer...") I THINK I put a smiley face at the bottom of that email, but I'm not sure. Regardless, I THOUGHT it was perfectly obvious what this was about.

However, the next morning I received an email from someone who thanked me sincerely for giving that heads up. He had quickly forwarded it on to his Superintendent so he could alert the rest of the staff of this outage.

I emailed back right away to tell him that it was an April Fool's joke. (for Pete's sake!) There IS NO "them" who go around cleaning out dead links nor resetting servers. It was a JOKE!

A few minutes later I received another email from this person (the last time I ever heard from him) saying that I had no idea the amount of trouble I had caused, and that the 'joke' was neither funny nor appreciated.

Well, here is the Snopes entry for this not-so-obvious hoax (for some, at least). http://www.snopes.com/holidays/aprilfools/cleaning.asp

It DOES sound official, doesn't it? If Snopes is blocked, here's the text:

"DO NOT CONNECT TO THE INTERNET FROM 12:01 AM GMT ON APR. 1 TO 12:01 AM GMT, APR. 2 !! *** Attention ***

It's that time again!

As many of you know, each year the Internet must be shut down for 24 hours in order to allow us to clean it. The cleaning process, which eliminates dead email, inactive ftp and www sites, and empty USENET groups, allows for a better working and faster Internet.

This year, the cleaning process will take place from 12:01 a.m. GMT on April 1 until 12:01 a.m. GMT on April 2 (the time least likely to interfere with ongoing work). During that 24-hour period, five powerful Internet search engines situated around the world will search the Internet and delete any data that they find.

In order to protect your valuable data from deletion we ask that you do the following:

1. Disconnect all terminals and local area networks from their Internet connections.

2. Shut down all Internet servers, or disconnect them from the Internet.

3. Disconnect all disks and hard drives from any connections to the Internet.

4. Refrain from connecting any computer to the Internet in any way.

We understand the inconvenience that this may cause some Internet users, and we apologize. However, we are certain that any inconveniences will be more than made up for by the increased speed and efficiency of the Internet, once it has been cleared of electronic flotsam and jetsam.

We thank you for your cooperation.

Kim Dereksen
Interconnected Network Maintenance staff,
Main branch,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Sysops and others: Since the last Internet cleaning, the number of Internet users has grown dramatically. Please assist us in alerting the public of the upcoming Internet cleaning by posting this message where your users will be able to read it. Please pass this message on to other sysops and Internet users as well.

Thank you."

Posted: March 31st, 2009 under Education.
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What Can You Do With This? is the most fun I've had this school year. I could do week after week of times table review if my students and I were allowed just thirty minutes per week to sharpen our minds with mathematically rich multimedia¹.

I have received two suggestions recently I wanted to address, two suggestions that would put us off a useful trail and into the bramble. Here is one.

FlickrCC Won't Work

Scanning Creative Commons-licensed photography databases for math media simply isn't a scalable solution. These media must be unaffected. The student must lift the heavy weights. The student must decide for herself what is important about an image, audio sample, or video. Most photographers, meanwhile, are very interested in artistic expression, in affectation, in imposing their own point of view on a scene, rather than stripping the scene of their point of view entirely, which is essential for classroom work. So instead of something unaffected, and artistically value-neutral like this:

You get expression like this:

… with the camera positioned at an artistically interesting but academically unhelpful angle. You can't model a parabola onto this. You can't model a circle onto this. The photographer was (naturally) unconcerned with measuring the scene, which rules out basic photogrammetry. It begs the question, "who shot this?" rather than an interesting question about the parabola itself.

This is a generalization, true, but a useful one. You can't find the really effective WCYDWT? media. You can derive surface-scratchers like "what shapes do you see here?" from Creative Commons-licensed Flickr media but if you're looking to propel a meaningful discussion or a rigorous activity, you have to make it yourself.

1. If you're the sort who sees potential in these blog things for professional development then the fact that I developed this classroom fixture organically, spasmodically, like a wobbly baby giraffe, here on this blog, in full public view with full public input, might be a useful data point. [back]

Posted: March 31st, 2009 under Education.
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This podcast is a recording of a presentation shared by Beth Knittle titled, "All a Twitter about Twitter: Micro-Blogging as a Professional Networking Tool." Beth shared this presentation on November 19, 2008, at the MASSCUE 2008 conference in Sturbridge, MA. I helped out a little bit sharing some ideas too. The official program description was: Twitter is a free social messaging service for staying connected in real- time, using the web, your phone, or IM. It is a cross between chat and micro-blogging. Twitter can play a key role in developing a learning environment. Participating in the network can provide just-in-time support and continued learning, and it facilitates a better understanding of the people you collaborate with. Come discover some tips and tricks to make Twitter work for you. (We’ll also examine Plurk, another Twitter- like tool.) Wesley Fryer, a world-class Twitterer, will join the discussion.

Posted: March 31st, 2009 under Education.
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Two girls got caught sending nude pictures of themselves to their friends. But, they did it while in school. The question now is, "Now what?" "How should the school react?"

Should they:
1) Stiffen the rules and penalties for having cell phones in school?
2) Hold an assembly to help to educate the kids on why this is inappropriate, etc

Geez, I hope you didn't pick #1 as one district is doing.

Posted: March 31st, 2009 under Education.
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Two primary schools use one-to-one sessions to improve literacy

read more

Posted: March 31st, 2009 under Education.
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Improving primary literacy through a Reading Recovery Programme

read more

Posted: March 31st, 2009 under Education.
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Barry Dahl is asking the question, “Is Blackboard losing clients?” and has created a wiki for people to enter information on whether they are migrating to Blackboard, migrating from it, or re-evaluating their installation. In general, it would be great to see more visibility of information of this kind. I’d love to see a wiki or database where schools can enter the LMS(s) they are using and their state of evaluation for the future, regardless of brands they adopt or consider. But at a coarse-grained level, we already know the answer to Barry’s question. In November of 2007, bolstered by the excellent financial forensic work of Jim Farmer, I wrote a post entitled “Blackboard Is Losing Customers, But What Does It Mean?” Then in March, 2008 I reported on a survey by the American Association of Community College’s Instructional Technology Council (ITC) showing a loss of Blackboard’s market share within the American community college cohort.

The main takeaways from these data points are as follows:

• Blackboard is losing market share.
• Most or all of this loss is happening at the low end of the market.
• The two main drivers for loss on the low end are (1) Blackboard raising their average price to $50K/customer, and (2) Blackboard announcing the imminent death of WebCT CE, which is forcing low-end campuses to re-evaluate their vendor situation.
• Despite the market share loss, Blackboard is growing both revenues and profits.
• The reason Blackboard is growing both of these is that they are able to cross-sell and up-sell more product to their higher end customers (and even some of their mid-sized customers) while acquiring new high-end customers. 
• So far, it appears that Blackboard is continuing to do very well on the higher end of the market, probably because they are perceived as a “safe bet” by the average risk-averse university.

So the answer to Barry’s question is yes, Blackboard is losing clients, but that doesn’t mean that they are losing net business.

Related posts:

1. Blackboard Is Losing Customers, but What Does It Mean?
2. Bad News for Blackboard, Good News for ANGEL
3. Bad News for Blackboard, Good News for Moodle

Posted: March 31st, 2009 under Education.
Comments: none

Authored by woodchurchscience. Hosted by Edublogs.

Posted: March 31st, 2009 under Education.
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• Tagga Media
  Tagga allows anyone to create instant SMS and Mobile Sites so that you can interact, sell to, or simply communicate with mobile users. Promote your band, your house for sale, your business, organize your sports team, club, events... anything!
• The Amazing iPhone: Apps, Skills, and Opportunities
  The Amazing iPhone Project has published two reports on the iPhone Opportunity and they’re available to download for free. * The Amazing iPhone: Is a report on the iPhone Opportunity for business owners and strategists. * The Making of Coffee Buzz App is a report on how Kisky Netmedia a UK based Social Mobile consultancy developed Coffee Buzz a social coffee app for iPhone. (The report offers an insight into developing for the iPhone platform).
• Sexperience on Channel 4
  People asking about whether their sexual experiences are normal, or not, and thanks to the anonymity of the site.
• Tribewanted: "eco-timeshare"
  As well as being an adventure of a lifetime, the aim of Tribewanted is that the evolving island community becomes a model for sustainable living that positively impacts and inspires both locally in northern Fiji and globally online to improving the way we live. Tribewanted and the local team are developing a cross-cultural community from scratch, fusing traditional Fijian customs and ways of living with international ideas for sustainability and innovation. On-line, Tribewanted has built an award-winning social network of 10,000 members who participate with and follow the island project.
• Aardvark
  * Ask any question via IM or email * Live answers from your friends and their friends
• Artstream - enjoy art with others
  Bookmark favourite artworks in museums and galleries for your personal digital collection Capture your first impressions as you go simply by replying to our invitation SMS or using a kiosk in the gallery Find out what other people think and what's popular; meet like-minded people

Posted: March 31st, 2009 under Education.
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Thanks to Sakai Foundation Executive Director Michael Korcuska for providing a nice review (with some thoughtful analysis good suggestions) of my team’s (relatively) new white paper.

Related posts:

1. Oracle’s New Academic Enterprise White Paper
2. Review of Oracle AES White Paper
3. Oracle, Sakai, and the LMOS–Part 2

Posted: March 30th, 2009 under Education.
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