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OLDaily - Text Edition by Stephen Downes Apr 05, 2017
Vodafone Zambia introduces e-Learning portal
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Vodafone Zambia is launching something called the JUMP
Academy, "an internet-enabled application that offers
unlimited access to a wide range of educational materials,
tailored to the local curriculum and accessible through any
device." Access to the academy is free and it was planned
and developed locally in Zambia. "The JUMP Academy is a
major component of the company’s online portal dubbed
JUMP Linkwhich is an educational and
socially managed portal that serves to enhance e-learning
for personal development and growth."
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Computing Conversations: Bob Metcalfe on the First Ethernet
LAN
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From the description: "Computer magazine's multimedia
editor Charles Severance interviews Bob Metcalfe about the
creation of the first Ethernet local area network 40 years
ago at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center." We still use
ethernet today, and Metcalfe, of course, is the namesake
for "Metcalfe's Law", which states that"the value of a
telecommunications network is proportional to the square of
the number of connected users of the system" (per
Wikipedia). More on Metcalfe's Law
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Can pre-school children learn to do science?
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Of course the answer to the question in the headline is
'yes'. If you've ever tested the water with a toe before
diving in, you've done science. But what, exactly, is
science? This article is a bit weaker on this front. True,
it's not just measurement and units of measurement and it's
not just description. But science isn't just about asking
questions, either, not even if they're 'why' questions. And
children aren't "naturally prone to being good scientists,"
as the author avers. Science is, at core, about method -
it's a process of looking and discovering, trying things
out, seeing what happens, and reasoning about that in a
more or less systematic way. This is a process that takes
skill and development; it needs to be learned.
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It’s Not Their Pop Idol, but a Bot. Fans Cheer Anyway.
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I suppose the new form of fame and immortality will be to
have someone create a bot based on your personality. The
'Downes' bot will visit websites randomly and give them
negative reviews. More seriously, this article on bots
focuses - as it should - on the growing acceptance of bots
in society. It turns out that we don't mind communicating
with bots if they give us the sort of experience we're
looking for (and that experience is not 'press 1 if you
want to renew your account'). "“As A.I. develops,
everything is going to go into a mixed-reality world where
you could dial up a hologram of your favorite pop star and
have ‘real conversations’ with the artificially
intelligent version of that person." Or as Steven Tyler
would say, "Rock on!"
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What you’re revealing to your ISP, why a VPN isn’t
enough, and ways to avoid leaking it
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This is a long, detailed and technical post about what
information your internet service provider (ISP, called
'BIAS' in this article) can gather about your internet use
and sell to the government or other customers. It's written
clearly, though, and it should be easy enough for most
readers to follow. In a nutshell, here's what you should do
to protect your personal information (quoted):
Switch providers (see below) is at all possible, to one
that will not sell your data.
Use a VPN https://github.com/Nyr/openvpn-install to
protect and encrypt your traffic from your BIAS and to hide
your source (your home’s) IP address from others.
Enable DNS security, use DNSCrypt Link
target="_blank" rel="noopener"
data-href="Linkor DNSSEC and change your
DNS provider.
Use HTTPS as much as possible, install HTTPS Everywhere
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere" target="_blank"
rel="noopener"
data-href="Link
Be sure to use a device you control as your Internet
gateway, so none of the device’s unique identities
can be revealed. Setup your own wireless network and
replace any provided hardware if possible.
This is fairly comprehensive and not the easiest things for
an average home user to set up (corporate users already do
most of this, or should). At a certain point these need to
be bundled into a 'secure' internet service. ISPs will be
loathe to offer such a package. But a market exists.
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Why 'A Domain of One's Own' Matters (For the Future of
Knowledge)
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The hardest thing to convince people of in education
technology, it seems to me, is that students need a space
to create. This is what i discovered in the years working
on a PLE, where there were all sorts of ideas for content
recommending and resource consumption, but outright
resistance to creative workspaces of any kind. But this is
what is needed, and this is what is behind initiatives such
as Domain of One's Own. So I a, supportive of Audrey
Watters's argument in this post.
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Copyright 2017 Stephen Downes
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