Billings Beta

This week the 6th grade was introduced to the concept of the “digital divide” - a division between those that have and use digital technology and those that don’t.  By moving application processes, banking and communication towards online processes, we have unintentionally created groups of people that can’t or don’t know how to engage.

In small groups, students read one of two articles:

• Seeing the digital divide and building bridges across - an article about a group who help those left behind by technology to gain skills and or receive help with digital tasks.
• Give a laptop and get one - an article about a non-profit attempt to reduce the divide by offering low-cost laptops to children in developing countries.

Prototypes for the OLPC low-cost laptops.

An example of a physical line between the “haves” and “have nots”.  This picture was taken in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

A second example, this one taken in Caracas, Venezuela.

More info on the Give one get one program available at laptop.org.
Photo reference: DeputyDog
Laptop photo reference: Pete Barr-Watson.

Someone took a photograph of a Dallas, Texas teen and then posted it to Flickr, an online photo-sharing website. Nothing out of the ordinary, thousands of people do the same thing everyday.

In this case, the photograph got downloaded by an Australian mobile phone company and was used in billboard advertisements in Australia. The billboard slogan was “Dump your pen friend,” making fun of the teen.

Turns out that when the photo was posted to Flickr, the photographer noted that it could be used by other people for almost any purpose, including making money. What control do you have over a photo, video, or any digital content that is accessible via the Internet?

In this case, the teen’s family is trying to sue the mobile phone company. Whether or not the family wins the case, will it remove the teen’s embarassment?

Original article: Family Sues Phone Company Over Ad

Response from Connor
Whether or not the family wins the case, will it remove the teen’s embarrassment?
I don’t think so because people will remember that picture for a long whether or not they win the case. It was a mistake to say that people could use that photo so commercial purposes but it would be a lot smarter to make people ask permission to use that photo. Especially if a huge company like virgin mobile put the photo on a billboard. There will be people that won’t know about the picture but in her school and group of friends, they will and probably either make fun of her.

Billings has an evolving digital presence designed to provide information to prospective families, students, parents and other schools. This week, the sixth graders looked at and discussed 3 different Websites designed for the Billings community:

1. Billingsmiddleschool.org -The school’s public homepage
2. Billingsmiddleschool.org/start - Student start page with quick links
3. Billingsmiddleschool.net - TechLab sharing site

We also talked about Microsoft (located in Redmond, Washington), its founder (Bill Gates) and the company’s effect on our city, the Northwest and the entire world.

We reinforced last week’s learning by logging in to their personal computer accounts accessing their network storage folder and then learned to access our school email account from anywhere using Internet access. Students were also introduced to the various send options (To, Carbon Copy, and Blind Carbon Copy).

Using their email accounts, students delivered their first assignment to Jac via email.

Students read and discussed one of four articles:

• Will free office suites supplant Microsoft
• ABC and AOL team up for free prime-time shows
• Finally: the lightsabre comes to the Wii
• How much time do we spend on MySpace at work?

Another single tech class week - this time because of the Camp Sealth trip. On Thursday we read about a famous musician who’s life was upset for over a year because of a weak password choice for his email account. As a group, the 6th grade decided that a good password:

• isn’t a word found in the dictionary
• is 8 characters or more
• contains numbers, upper and lowercase letters and special characters
• is memorable

Students also came up with some tips for creating a good password:

• Substitute zero instead of the letter “o” - e.g., f00lishz0rr0
• Substitute one instead of the letter “i” - e.g., S1llyF1sh
• Use letter-word substitutions - e.g., URfunniest, tech4ever
• Use a sentence - e.g., Iwbi1996 (I was born in 1996)

Original article: Wired.com* Article contains direct quotations with a few instances of adult language.

Today we talked about :

Some of our assignments in tech and our responsibilities as a student using the internet at school. We will have to write the weekly tech notes, and respond online to one of the Digital Identity Articles that Jac posted on the Billings Beta page.

We also explored the new webpage, and talked about the different parts: Accessing last years sixth grade social studies country projects, the creative ideas on “Projects by Jac” and visiting youTube. We talked about last year’s purchase of youTube by Google, and Google’s nature as a marketing advertiser. We also discussed how many times we are recorded on some kind of security camera- the supermarket, bookstores, and airports especially.

Billings Homepage: www.billingsmiddleschool.org
Also, for some easy connections to search engines and the school email, try:
www.billingsmiddleschool.org/start

by Maya and Becky

Today in tech class, we started talking about our school’s websites, billingsmiddleschool.org and billingsmiddleschool.net.

On the .net site we still have the same links for Tech in the News - on one of the links there is a link to a website about the updated versions of the cameras we used at camp Stealth. We also have a new “Possible Projects” tab were there is many fun and interesting projects to do, such as how to make your own loofa, how to beat carnival games, and tons of other cool things. We also might do them in class or for extra credit. This site will continue to grow with things that we add, and we might put on some video projects as we get farther into the year.

Also, our school email accounts that we got last year have been updated to a more advanced version. We are now having a small quiz on an email to the Tech teacher Jac, which we will be graded according to if it arrives, if the subject is typed in correctly, and if you answer the questions, and if you number them.

By Emiko and Julia

Throughout the course of the day on Thursday, the entire 6th and 7th grade had the opportunity to spend a period in Tech. We discussed the nuts & bolts of the lab - fire and earthquake procedures, food and drink policy, ground rules for computer and Internet usage at school and cellphone/music player guidelines.

We also talked about one of the big news stories this week, Apple’s iPod line updates. Students learned about:

• the Apple, Inc. (formerly Apple Computer, Inc.) Headquarters location in Cupertino, CA
• stock price over the last 2 years (from $36 to $140 in 2 years, due to expansion of market share as a result of the iPod and iPhone)
• how Apple products differ from other music players and cell phones (mostly marketing, “coolness”)
• the convergence of multiple functions into one unit (phone, computer, music player)
• the shrinking size of devices vs. bigger screens and the issue of tiny keyboards
• price cuts of the iPhone and the resulting uproar from early adopters
• the differences between the new iPod Classic, Nano, iPod touch, Shuffle and iPhone)

Facebook, the social networking service originally started by a Harvard student, has announced that it will let search engines like Google and Yahoo index their user accounts.

Another popular social networking service, MySpace, already allows access and page caching (storing copies of a webpage) by search engines.

If you have a Facebook or MySpace page, that information could be saved and displayed by a search engine. For example, if a friend leaves a comment on your MySpace page that says “Tech class is too confusing and Jac is boring!” and you also belong to the Billings Middle School group, then someone Googling “Billings Tech” might stumble upon your page and read all about you - your musical tastes, your friends, maybe even where you’ll be hanging out next weekend.

Can you think of a time when it might be a bad idea to be found this way? When might be a time that it would be good for a stranger to accidentally find your page? How do you decide who to link your social network pages to?

Facebook does offer a way to change your settings so that search engines won’t find you, but it is always safest to make sure your account is set to private.

Original article: Of Zen and Computing