Feb

4

Delete this Post!

February 4, 2010 |  Tagged , | 2 Comments

Massive disks, cloud-based storage, and the dramatic decline in the cost of hard drives (figure 1) are turning many of us into digital slobs.

Everyone I know would be appalled to live in a home like that depicted at the left. Such “garbage houses” are featured in the news from time to time, and the relatives, friends, and neighbors of the inhabitants often react with shock, dismay—even sympathy. The compulsive hoarding that leads some people to choose to live in chaos, filth, and squalor confuses our sense of order. On a less extreme level, reality TV shows feature people who can’t seem to get their lives organized, can’t bear to throw anything away, and who figuratively and literally need to clean up their acts.

Ah, but peer into the hard drives of these sanctimonious do-gooders and I would bet you dollars to donuts that they, too, are hoarders of a different sort. Closeted disposophobes  with massive numbers of documents, folders, movies, music, photos, and other digital detritus out of sight, but never out of their computer’s mind.

Over the years I have helped hundred of computer users. Perhaps three-quarters of them, when I first begin to look at their computer screens or file folder structures, will utter apologies about the disorganized state of their desktop; files strewn across the screen as if a breeze from the hard drive itself had scattered them.

It’s no wonder they can’t find things.

But perhaps file organization no longer matters. In a previous post, I described how young people are resorting more to the search function on their computers to find documents and applications. But what I am talking about here is not so much as having to find something, but a more fundamental question: why keep so much stuff?

This last year my school switched email systems. Some of our users took this switch as an opportunity to start anew, and did not wish to take any of their old email with them. Me, on the other hand, as an early adopter of the new system, felt obligated to test the migration tools that would transfer old email to our new Gmail system. Worked like a charm. Hurrah! AND Drat!

So my new Gmail account has all of the stuff – both good and bad – from my old system. It’s like when people move households. Moving gives you a chance to go through your closets, toss out, sell, and give away the things you no longer use or need. But how many of you have moved unopened, packed boxes from house to house, each time promising to go through them but somehow never quote getting to it.

It’s one thing to watch your stuff pile up in a room like that pictured above. It’s mere presence shames you; and if nothing else there’s less room for new stuff. But when you don’t really see your stuff, or when the room it is in seems to magically expand to accommodate your needs, you lose perspective. New generations of hard drives make your measly 250 GB of stuff seem like nothing. The drive never even breaks a sweat. Google ups your storage limit without your needing to ask.

Several years ago, I had a conversation with one of the brightest computer users I know, who was giving me a hard time about disk quotas. His argument was with the price of hard drives so low, we should let people use as much disk space as they wanted.

But here’s the thing. I can’t bring myself to that point of view, for several reasons:

  1. The tragedy of the commons. File servers, even when in the cloud, are not free. They require energy and materials to make, energy and cooling to maintain, and the bandwidth to connect your computer to them is a shared resource, as are the drives themselves. If we’re all piggish, the commons suffers.
  2. There’s too much, well, crap that is on hard drives that of no value. Not little value, no value! It’s duplicate data. Or discredited, incomplete, or erroneous data. It’s crap.
  3. There’s something liberating about starting afresh; “a new day, with no mistakes in it yet!” as Anne Shirley exclaims in Anne of Green Gables.
  4. Finally, there’s 60 years of influence by my mom, who at age 93 was still going through the drawers in her little apartment finding things to throw out.

And if you’re still not convinced that it’s time to give your hard drive a thorough scrubbing, think of this: Your hard drive has been subpoenaed by the district attorney, and all will be revealed in court! Or imagine your children having to go through all your files when you’ve passed on. Or perhaps the video crew from a new reality TV show arrives on your doorstep, and the host barges in, ready to do an “intervention.” Scary!

Years ago I attended a human development workshop and among the messages we received was one about not putting our burdens on other people. We sang a little song to remind us of that. (Yes, it was one of those kinds of workshops). The chorus went something like this:

Don’t put your crap in my trashcan, my trashcan

Don’t put your crap in my trashcan, my trashcan’s full.

Shared storage. It’s not a trashcan, it’s a treasure chest.

Figure 1

Jan

31

Paving the Road to IT Hell

January 31, 2010 |  Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

As a school technologist and IT guy, I am continually reminded of the gap between theory and practice, between what computer users should be doing and what they do do. Indeed, St. Paul could have been describing most computer users when he wrote:

I don’t understand myself. I want to do what is right but I do not do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate … It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what’s right, I inevitably do what’s wrong. (Romans 7:15)

The table below describes some of the more common gaps I see in others – myself included – when it comes to what we should do and what we really do.

Recommended
IT Practices		 Actual
Practices
regular backups I’ve been meaning to do that, but…
antivirus regimine I knew I shouldn’t have clicked on that link, but it was from my sister, or so the email said…
data disaster recovery drills We have pretty good server backups, but do you know how much time it would take do do a restore? And what if something went wrong?
periodic checks of your spam filter I told you. I didn’t get that email!
business and school continuity plans No one talks about pandemics anymore.
keeping liquids away from laptops This is the first time ever that I have spilled my coffee.  Really!
duplex printing I keep forgetting to check that little box. Sorry for the extra 400 pages.
turn-off LCD projectors when not in use Bulbs cost how much to replace?
save often I lost everything I had been writing for the past three hours!
good password practices I used that password for everything! Even my bank account. Now what?
ergonomic posture My doctor tells me that years of hunching over my keyboard has taken its toll on me.

So if St. Paul can’t get it right, what the less-than-saintly supposed to do? Well, I’ve noted that practices can and often do change, when you’ve been—ahem—punished for your “sin.”

Those who have had a hard disk failure learn to back-up. Regularly.

Those who have had an email sent out in their name, endorsing the latest erectile dysfunction treatment learn the value of a good anti-virus program.

And when you’ve spilled coffee on a brand new, $2000 laptop, you… Forget it. Coffee is too addictive. You’ll never learn.

Jan

28

iPad Doesn’t Make the Grade for Education… Yet

January 28, 2010 |  Tagged , | Leave a Comment

Like many Mac-loving educators, I was eagerly awaiting the release of a netbook-like device from Apple. Yesterday’s announcement of the iPad is the realization of Apple’s entree into this field. The iPad represents a powerful, promising, innovative, and beautiful computer accessory for consumers. But as it stands I can’t recommend the iPad to students for use as their primary computing device, especially in a 1-1 program.

There are several things that the iPad needs in order to adequately address the education market:

  1. A built-in camera for video production.
  2. GPS for mapping and data collection.
  3. Multitasking. Students are constantly moving between apps on a computer. Being able to use only one at a time is very old school.
  4. Ruggedization. My iPhone is pretty rugged, I’ll admit. And the solid-state drive in the iPad will help it survive a fall. But I am worried about the screen: scratches, sticky fingers, and the like.  And the body of the iPad will also be subjected to torque in backpacks.
  5. Less weight. 1.5 lbs may be okay for adults to use as a reader, but not for kids.
  6. A lower price. Given the significant limitations of the iPad as a content creation device, $499 is too much, for too little.
  7. Screen sharing, classroom management via ARD or similar programs, disk imaging, security policies, and all the sort of stuff IT managers will need for widespread deployment in a school setting.
  8. Support for networked drives and printing.

This is just a start. I hope readers will weigh-in on this post and add their ideas, or disagree with mine.

Nevertheless, it’s not what the iPad is, it what the iPad does. iPad changes the game and the goals for portable devices, both within and outside of the school. Netbooks now look clunky compared to the elegance of iPads. And a device that can serve as an e-reader and a computer is fantastic!

(I am not a fan of direct ports of existing textbooks to e-reader formats. That seems to me to be a bad use of an outmoded model of teaching. But reference materials that are dynamic, creative, and compelling are exciting, as are creative works of fiction, poetry, music, and drama that can likewise be appropriately enhanced with multimedia and web sources.)

The iPad points the way for a new way of computing, and in a couple of years the iPad will have matured to a point where all of the shortcomings mentioned above have been addressed. Meanwhile, I will likely get a unit or two for testing at school, and undoubtedly one for my own personal use. But I don’t think I’ll be submitting an order for any iPads in quantity… yet.

Jan

25

3 Things I’m Hoping for in the Apple Tablet

January 25, 2010 |  Tagged | Leave a Comment

Apple’s Tablet has garnered more pre-release press than many products that have been on the market for years.

Most of the speculation is about what it will have.

Here are several things I’m hoping it won’t have:

1. Apple always tends to put too little RAM in their base products. And to add Apple branded RAM afterwards is much more expensive than it should be, by a factor of 2x to 3x the market rate. Let’s hope for several gigabytes of memory.

2. Manufacturing delays seem to accompany new technologies. Apple has been doing a much better job of anticipating demand and ramping production as needed. Let’s hope they’re ready this time for what is likely to be hundreds of thousands of sales in the first week.

3. Over-priced. The market is hoping for something in the sub $500 range. I hope so, but I’m betting it will be closer to the $995 range – at least at first. Apple will skim the early adopter money, and then drop the price six months later, pissing off some folks, satisfying those who wait. But those who wait will have their chance to be pissed when Apple releases an updated model at 8-9 months into the process, that is much more for the money.

Let’s see how I did in a couple of days.

Jan

8

Even Kansas Isn’t in Kansas Anymore

January 8, 2010 | | Leave a Comment

Beginning in the 1950s, and arguably marked by the Brown v Board of Education of Topeka court case of 1954, the United States began to face the issue of race relations as the fundamental moral imperative facing our nation. Religious and political leaders, authors, artists, students, and ordinary citizens came to understand the immorality of racism and to both change their own thinking and behaviors as well as to challenge other people and our institutions to change as well. Two generations later, we are still working to eliminate racism, but there can little doubt that generation by generation we are shedding ourselves of its worst vestiges.

Our nation now we face an even more pressing moral imperative. Of greater importance, I think, than racism, nuclear arms, human trafficking, or even genocide. It’s an issue that many people know at least a little bit about. Indeed, many of these same people are taking personal action. At the same time scores of people deny that there is a problem, or if there is a problem it’s not important, or it won’t affect them. Nonetheless I maintain that the problem is so dangerous that leaving it unsolved may lead the extinction of humankind. Yes, extinction. A world like that featured in The Road.

Global warming

Yes, we know the ice caps are melting. And it’s really too bad about the polar bears, they little one are so cute. An perhaps, in the far future the seas will rise and some people will need to move. But I think technology will save us. It always has in the past. Meanwhile, I’ll do my part by recycling and sending money to the Sierra Club. Please don’t make yourself a nag about it and ruin my latte.

This problem is different. It’s not about a few people, or a few countries. It’s about all of us. And it’s also about inputs that are already part of the global system, a system that takes years and years to fully manifest itself. Even if we were to stop all coal-fired electrical generation TODAY, take all of the cars and trucks off the road TODAY, and stop eating meat TODAY, the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere are still so high that we may not be able to stop the Titanic that is spaceship earth has become from running into the iceberg of 350 parts per million.

And of course, we can’t accomplish any of the things mentioned above in one day, ten days, or perhaps even ten thousand days.

This is why it is time for President Obama and the Congress to take action, one might even say drastic action, to curtail global warming. The U.S. must unilaterally lead by example. We can’t sit back and say we have to wait for China or India to get on board. Our role as the major contributor to global warming requires that we be the leader in mitigating it.

Our actions now, this year, with regard to global warming reverberate for generations to come.  Are we able to get over our own short term self interest to think 20 and 50 years into the future and recognize the warnings that scientists are now sounding demand immediate action?

How can the future of humankind, a future threatened by our actions, not be a moral issue? Yes, there it is also an economic issue. It is also a technology issue, and an environmental justice issue, and a national security issue. But beyond all of this, it is at heart a moral issue and I think should be framed in this way.

Let’s be clear. The developed nations have had it pretty good for the last century. If we are to survive as a species, humankind in the developed world will have to do with less. Scarcity, the unwelcome companion of millions of people in the under-developed world, will become familiar to us in ways only our grandparents, who lived through two world wars and the Great Depression have known. This is not the kind of news that helps politicians get re-elected.

Living with less is not a doomsday scenario, but it is a realistic scenario, a humane scenario—a moral scenario. To raise all of the people in the world to a standard of living like that in developed nations in North America and Europe would require the resources of 2 to 3 Earths or more. There is simply not enough resources to go around. So you tell me, how is this distribution of resources to be accomplished if we don’t live with less so that others can have more?

When Dorothy was lifted by the Tornado and plopped down in Oz, she knew that she was somewhere so foreign, so different, that it could not possibly be Kansas. So it is with the Earth. We have passed a point of no return where it is no longer the Earth we once knew, but a different planet that has a new plan for homo sapiens. Even the heartland of America is not spared. Kansas, isn’t in Kansas anymore. Kansas is the world, and the world is Kansas.

Jan

5

Obsolete Technologies

January 5, 2010 |  Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Two wonderful, related posts appeared this week in Business Insider and Inside Higher Education about obsolete technologies. The first of these posts describes general technologies that have become obsolete (PDAs, landlines, AOL, etc), while the second focuses on educational technologies that have become obsolete (overhead projectors, VCRs, scantrons). While islands of use remain, especially in underfunded schools where technologies have a longer life than business, I believe that these authors have largely got it right.

So what’s the enterprising blogger to do when an interesting topic has already bee covered so well? Well,  since this is the time of year when predictions are made, let’s fast forward to 2020 and see what technologies currently in use might be obsolete in another ten years. I’ll focus on schools, but there will be overlap with the enterprise.

So here’s my baker’s dozen list of technologies that will by end of life by 2020:

  1. Wire-based lans. Wireless speeds will be such that the average computer user will no longer need to be tethered to an Ethernet connection, even for network intensive processes such as video.
  2. Extra batteries. Battery life increase and you will be able to use your device of choice for several days without a recharge. To top it all off, recharging will primarily use tiny fuel cells or sunlight (wall plug optional) to top off the battery.
  3. Mechanical disk drives will disappear, supplanted by solid state drives of low cost and humongous capacity.
  4. Paper. Anything produced or consumed in a school on paper can and will be produced and consumed electronically. So long to textbooks, yearbooks, tests, and Xeroxed handouts.
  5. Language Labs. De rigueur in many schools nowadays, such dedicated labs will fall by the wayside to be replaced by handheld and other portable computing devices.
  6. Separate still and video cameras. So far to have decent quality in one area, you have to sacrifice in the other. This won’t be the case for consumer level products in ten years.
  7. Passwords. We all have too many, and there’s really no need for this nonsense to continue. Will biometric devices be better? One can only hope, but they are the most likely replacement for password overload.
  8. Backups. Data will automatically be backed up and versioned for you in the cloud. Indeed, you will have to work hard to delete data, which may become the next headache for end users as echos and shadows of old data never seem to go completely away.
  9. Scanners. Used mainly to convert analog media to digital form, the use of scanners will fall precipitously by 2020 as more content is created in a native digital format.
  10. LCD Projectors. Fans, bulbs the burn out… Who needs ‘em when you can have large LCD displays that last for  years and give a better picture at a lower TOC?
  11. Mechanical keyboards. Oh, we will still be able to type using a keyboard, but it will have entirely virtual keys that can be configured on the spot for your preferred layout (Dvorak anyone?) or language.
  12. USB connections. Or connections using wires of any sort between devices for that matter. Say goodbye to desktop clutter and wire management.
  13. Local server rooms. Everything that is currently running in your school’s server room will be in the cloud in another ten years. With super redundant and self-healing network connections, your life as an IT manager has changed—for the better!

Dec

28

Faceless on Facebook

December 28, 2009 |  Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

A fascinating article appears in this month’s Scientific American Mind on a subject of interest to many of us in the intersection of social networking and adolescents. In Are Social Networks Messing with Your Head? author David DiSalvo reviews research on mental health and the use of social networks. The article is definitely worth tracking down. You can purchase it on the Scientific American Mind website, or check your local library or book store.

DiSalvo says that “As social networks proliferate, they are changing the way people think about the Internet, from a tool used in solitary anonymity to a medium that touches on questions about human nature and identity…” As educators of the youngest users of social networks, we are, of course, concerned about the possible effects (both positive and negative) that social networks may have on our students. Our concern is exacerbated by a relative lack of experience on the part of many educators in using social networks, IT blocks that prevent social network use on campus,  school policies prohibiting “friending” between faculty and students , and the undeniable allure that social networks have for teens.

DiSalvo reports on the work of psychologist John Cacioppo, an expert in the field of loneliness, and the “notion that people used the Internet to replace face-to-face interactions and that relationships formed online would stay online.” Face-to-face interactions with real people can be messy while online relationships can be dismissed with a mouse click. There’s a fear among some people that online relationships could replace real-world relationships with their nuances and depth with seemingly endless drivel.

But as with most things concerning the human mind, it turns out that it’s not that simple. As researchers delve more deeply into the social networks and mental health, a more complex picture begins to emerge:

  • - Loneliness amongst adolescents is not correlated with time spent online (Subrahmanyam, Lin), nor does time online correlate with “higher levels of anxiety or depression.” (Campbell).
  • - The use of Facebook (and presumably other social networks), can actually lead to “an increase in social capital… especially those with low self esteem.” These “positive effects were most profound for teens, who seem set top profit over the long term.” (Lampe, Ellison, Steinfield).
  • - On a more cautionary note, DiSalvo reports that “a connection between loneliness and social networking only emerges [when] researchers study loneliness as a precursor to membership in social networks.”

On this last point (a “chicken and egg” question) DiSalvo cites brain imaging research into loneliness that seems to indicate that lonely people are more sensitive to rejection, and filter online interactions through a dismal lens that may reinforce their loneliness. Taking more than a few minutes to reply to a Tweet might signal that someone no longer cares about you.

As with monetary capital, the old saw “the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer” seems to apply to social capital as well. Those people with rich real-world relationships will flourish in online communities, while those who struggle off-line to connect with people may be equally challenged while online. There are, of course, exceptions, and I encourage you to read the entire article to learn more about other issues DiSalvo touches upon such as online narcissism, Internet addiction, and the future of social networks and mental health.

Dec

17

The Escalating Cost of Google Apps

December 17, 2009 |  Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Screen shot 2009-12-16 at 5.15.16 PMWe moved to Gmail and Google Apps this past spring, and I’m happy we did. While there is room for improvement in Google Apps (see previous post 1 and post 2), on the whole I am thrilled by the new features and fixes being rolled out by Google on almost a weekly basis. As a Google Education customer, we’re receiving all of these new features and bug fixes automatically, and for free.

But there’s another side to Google Apps that, if you want to use them at “enterprise strength,” is definitely not free. An entire industry has sprung up to address the shortcomings of Google apps in large settings.

Two areas being addressed by these third parties in particular are of interest to schools:

  1. archiving and e-discovery for email, and
  2. archiving and e-discovery for Google docs.

Email Archiving

For the last several years at my school, we knew that we needed to address email archiving to comply with new federal regulations. We knew that should the school be served a subpoena  over some legal grievance with us, that the subpoena would likely ask for email and other electronic records. Our duty at that point is to make sure that nothing related to the suit is deleted, and to provide the authorities with access to those records.

As a former Netscape employee, I can recall hearing about its suit against Microsoft concerning unfair business practices associated with Internet Explorer, and how a trail of email evidence within Microsoft was key to Netscape’s claims. At the time, Netscape also had a policy directing us to routinely delete email messages more than 90 days old. (How would that go over in your school?)

The upshot of this is that having a clearly defined records retention policy, as well as a clearly defined means for archiving email, is necessary in schools and businesses. Yu also want a system that can be accessed by authorities without disrupting normal school activities. As a result, we looked to Google’s recently acquired company Postini (which also offers spam and anti-virus services for email, free to Google Ed customers) for their archiving options. It’s great, works flawlessly in the background, and not only covers our posteriors in case of a lawsuit, but also provides our end users with a means to recover any email messages they may have accidentally deleted.

Postini’s email archiving is not free, but it’s reasonably priced. We archive all of our faculty and staff  at a cost of $15.00 per user, per year. You do the math for your institution.

Google Docs Archiving

If you use Google Docs, you probably already know that when you delete a Google Doc, the document is moved into your Google Docs trash. Just as with your computer’s trash, the document will remain in the trash indefinitely until you empty the trash.

But did you know, that if and when you empty your Google Docs trash, the document is permanently deleted. There is no backup.

This could be a problem for people who are used to LAN-based systems which typically have backup systems on them. Google Gears does enable you to have a local copy of my docs on your computer’s hard drive. which is a must-have for laptop users. And while it is true that Google gears does this, it is not a substitute for true back-ups. Google Gears synchronizes documents with the server, so if you deleted the document on the server, the next time you connect to the Internet, Gears will delete the file from your laptop to keep the two in sync with one another.

Users can export Google Docs, of course, and put them on your computer or LAN for additional safekeeping. But we all know the problems with trusting end-users to do their own backups. I’m not against people learning the “hard way” about the need to backup regularly, but if the person in your office with a toasted hard drive is your boss or a colleague, the backup lesson may reflect poorly on you and your department.

So we’re looking into other systems, systems similar to what Postini offers for us with email archiving. Indeed, I wish Postini would simply add this to their existing services. Perhaps they will at some point in the future, but for now we need to look elsewhere.

Two companies that seem to fill the bill are Salvair and LTech. Like Postini, they charge for their services. I don’t have quotes from them as yet, but I would expect them to be in the same ballpark as Postini’s email archiving services. LTech allows you to archive to your own servers or to Amazon’s s3 environment, while Salvair only uses the Amazon system. If you’re looking to outsource your storage to the cloud, both systems will work for you.

My best case scenario is that Google will continue to develop the enterprise portion of their business and add backup and archiving services. After all, Salvair, LTech, and similar firms are making use of Google’s APIs to create these add-ons. Then again, Google may be content to allow these industries to  flourish, to add value to their offerings and support developers.

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Dec

15

Teaching to the App

December 15, 2009 |  Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment

A common complaint in public schools is that teachers spend to much time “teaching to the test.” By this, critics maintain that high stakes testing, such as those examinations required by No Child Left Behind legislation or other mandated tests have become so important to the funding and reputation of a school that teachers spend an inordinate amount of time preparing their students for these tests to the detriment of a broader education. In some cases, the pressure for higher test scores have even lead to allegations to cheating by teachers and school administrators.

Independent schools hold themselves above this particular fray. They are not required to take such mandated tests, and are therefore less subject to these charges. True, there are those who out AP and IB Exams in the same category as other standardized, high-stakes assessments. And it is undeniable that AP and IB curricula serve as a constrain on innovation in the classroom. But as these exams are held to be standards of excellence, people do not consider them in the same light as public school examinations.

There is yet another type of examination that has weaseled its way into American education, a test of one’s ability to demonstrate competence in using a particular software application. I call this teaching to the app.

Here are several examples of teaching to the app that occur in many schools:

  • how to set margins, create footnotes, track changes, add comments, and so on in Microsoft Word
  • creating formulas and charts in Microsoft Excel
  • creating an Apple iMovie
  • creating a podcast in Apple GarageBand
  • editing photos in Adobe Photoshop
  • making presentations in Microsoft PowerPoint

In the above cases, a specific tool and one’s ability to use it is more important than the underlying job that the tool is helping you accomplish. It’s like saying that the hammer is more important than the nail that hangs the picture on the wall. But, of course, there are numerous ways to hang the picture on the wall. If the goal is getting the picture on the wall rather than teaching how to hammer, then one must allow more more than one approach, more than one tool.

If we were to take the list of applications mentioned above, it would be easy to recast them in broader terms, focusing on skills instead of tools:

  • word processing
  • spreadsheets and graphing
  • moviemaking
  • podcasting
  • photo editing
  • presentations

Using this list is much more expansive and liberating. Users are free to choose their own tool or tools, focusing more on the outcome than the process. One can write the next great novel, screenplay, volume of poems, or essay in any word processor. MS Word not required. Indeed, a word processor isn’t even required, per se. Word processing itself is a means to an end.

As an educational technologist, I am quite aware of the market share held by Microsoft Office in business. I am also aware that most users use a very small set of the tools built into MS Office, or any office suite. Further, I recognize that the .doc and .docx format of documents have supplanted .rtf as the lingua franca of word processing document interoperability. Practically and word processor can now read and write .doc and .docx formats. One way or another, Microsoft is trying to have its way with us. I respect that, for it is their job to maximize market share. But it is not our job to help them do that. Nor do we need to kowtow to the market dominance of any tool to the neglect of teaching the more important product the tool is supporting.

Regular readers of my blog will know that I no longer use MS Office. I have replaced it with Open Office and Google Docs. And I am not the only one who is doing this. The latest figures for Open Office and Google Docs installations confirm that. Students will not be disadvantaged by learning how to create great writing using any word processor versus using MS Word. It’s time to stop teaching to the app.

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Dec

14

Consumer Reports for Schools

December 14, 2009 |  Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment

CR for Schools proposalI have been a subscriber to Consumer Reports for several decades. Whenever I wanted to purchase anything from a toaster or tires, to a computer or a mattress, CR was part of my research regimen. In additional to the product reviews, I appreciated the magazine’s other contents, including warnings of deceptive advertising, product recalls, and consumer advocacy.

Recently, a thread on the CAIS listserv for technology coordinators talked about where technologists can go for accurate, unbiased reviews of technology products. The list was pretty thin: CNET & NewEgg, plus trolling various listservs. Neither of these organizations has any special expertise in education. True, there are a few magazines such as T.H.E. and Technology and Learning, but in all fairness to these magazines, I can’t trust the editorial neutrality of publications that are supported by their corporate advertisers.

To my knowledge there is nothing that  subjects the products that schools regularly use to the type of rigid, laboratory-based testing like Consumer Reports. And given the millions of dollars that schools spend each year on equipment, equipment that needs to be built to standards beyond that of consumer products, affordable, standards-compliant, and adaptable to different learning needs and multilingual users, we deserve to have the facts available to us.  In additional to typical product review categories, reviews could include total cost of ownership estimates, total carbon emissions from manufacturing to disposal, and links to purchasing cooperatives, state contracts, or other information that may help schools get the best price.

If the Department of Education in Washington D.C. wants to help school’s save time and money, create an independent foundation, or fund an initiative at a university, modeled on Consumers Reports Labs, and set it to testing school equipment, furnishings, and other items. Offer a subscription to schools on a sliding scale, with poorer districts getting it for free, and more affluent districts paying a modest fee.

In the absence of this, or perhaps as a supplement to such an endeavor, an open-content repository of school user reviews of equipment, collected with surveys such as those that CR sends every year to its subscriber base would be another boon to educators. Free from the influence of vendors and manufacturers, and their too-close-for comfort colleagues in state and national departments of education, we might actually be able to help one another make better purchasing decisions.

Are you listening DOE? Consumer’s Union? Anneberg?

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