Allison Kipta › Comments

"With the start of summer upon us, I decided to have a little fun and compile a top ten list of one of my favorite things, movies. There are are many top ten movie lists on a number of different topics but to keep in style with this blog, I decided to focus on teaching. I'd love to read feedback and what movies you think should be on this list -- or in which order. The one film which will surely garner a lot of praise that I omitted on this list is Mr Holland's Opus, and that's because I've never seen it." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"All educators can use this page as their "home base" to navigate The Works web site quickly to find great information about classes, outreach programs, group tours and all the other awesome that are of interest to you and your students! Simply click on the links below to quickly locate the information you need." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"If you would like to avoid sharing your email address with the developer and yet use their Facebook app, just click Change under “Send me email” and Facebook will offer you a new and anonymous email address that you can share with the app developer." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"If only all the speed and strength of youth could be channeled into power. Turns out, it can. Some colleges and universities have started converting energy from exercise equipment into electricity. One of those schools is Drexel University in Philadelphia, where student power runs straight into their buildings' power grids. Dan Simmons, director of recreation at Drexel, says a typical 30-minute workout on a treadmill can generate enough energy to hold a light bulb for 2.5 hours." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"In 2007 Clark Little took up photography to save money on some seashore artwork his wife wanted. That has turned into a career as an award-winning photographer who was recently honored with the Oceans Photography Award from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. While not everyone has daily access to the crystal-clear Hawaiian waters where Mr. Little makes his art, he has tips to help anyone who wants to capture aquatic images—even if only at the local pool." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"As a kind of reaction to Google+, Facebook just rolled out two features today: group text chat and integrated video chat courtesy of Skype. The video chat is interesting, because you don't need to download a Skype client—all you do is log in to your Facebook account and start a video chat with anyone on your friends list. It's unclear whether or not you can call an actual Skype user, even though the underlying technology is Skype." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"Say goodbye to the Picasa and Blogger names: Google intends to retire several non-Google name brands and rename them as Google products, Mashable has learned. The move is part of a larger effort to unify its brand for the public launch of Google+, the search giant’s social initiative. Blogger and Picasa aren’t going away, of course — they’re two of Google’s most popular products. Instead, according to two sources familiar with the matter, Google intends to rename Picasa “Google Photos” and Blogger will become “Google Blogs.” Several other Google brands are likely to be affected, though our sources made it clear that YouTube would not be rebranded. The technology giant shut down Google Video, its failed web video service, in May." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"Google Maps has always been, and continues to be, a fundamentally Internet-connected experience, meaning you always get the freshest map and place data, search and voice search, live traffic conditions, satellite and Street View imagery, and much more. Still, we understand that mobile Internet connections aren’t 100% reliable. So today we’re happy to take the first steps toward greater offline reliability, so you can find your way even if you lose your connection. In the past, you’ve probably had frustrating moments when you get stranded without a map, whether ducking into the subway, sitting at the back of a restaurant or traveling anywhere with a flaky Internet connection. But dynamically drawing maps requires 100 times less data to get maps across all zoom levels, so now we’re able to proactively cache (or store) large areas on your device based on where you use Maps the most. This way, you can rely on having fast, robust maps available to you where you’re most likely to need them." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"Some Google projects really do start from one person hacking around. Last summer, an engineering intern named Pieter Senster joined the mobile advertising team to explore how we could display Flash animations on devices that don’t support Adobe Flash player. Pieter made such great progress that Google hired him full time and formed a team to work on the project. Swiffy was born! Today we’re making the first version of Swiffy available on Google Labs. You can upload a SWF file, and Swiffy will produce an HTML5 version which will run in modern browsers with a high level of SVG support such as Chrome and Safari. It’s still an early version, so it won’t convert all Flash content, but it already works well on ads and animations. We have some examples of converted SWF files if you want to see it in action." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"Macintosh users are finding out the hard way what Microsoft Windows users have known for a long time: Criminals want to sell them fake anti-virus software by scaring them with lies that their computer is infected. Apple admits Mac scareware infections, promises clean-up tool. This week the scareware targeting Mac OS X users is known as "MacDefender," with variants called "MacProtector" and "MacSecurity."" - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"You don’t need to have a separate piece of hardware to read e-books from the major online bookstores like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The e-reader software works on phones and computers. But e-readers like the Kindle and Nook do have an advantage over PCs, tablets and smartphones: a grayish screen that’s easy on the eyes." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"Hackers broke into a Gannett Co database containing personal information about subscribers to publications read by U.S. government officials, military leaders and rank-and-file soldiers, the media company said on Tuesday. ... The attackers accessed subscribers' names, passwords and email addresses, the company said. They also obtained data on the duty status, paygrade and branch of service of some readers who serve in the military. The information included subscribers to Defense News -- one of the world's most widely read publications covering the defense industry -- as well as publications aimed at soldiers serving in the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. Personal data on government officials and members of the military is highly coveted among cyber criminals because it can be used to launch targeted attacks against computer systems that hold classified information. Hackers might seek to gain control of a government computer system through a "spear phishing" attack in... more... - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"MoshiMoshi 01H Retro Handset is compatible with all 3.5mm jack phones and computers, including the iPhone, BlackBerry, MacBook and iPad. When fitted with the proper adaptor (sold separately) it is compatible with all mobile phones and computers for VOIP computer telephone calls, including Skype and Google Talk." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"With an innovative camera due out later this year from a company called Lytro, photographers will have one less excuse for having missed that perfect shot. The company’s technology allows a picture’s focus to be adjusted after it is taken." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"The retail industry is itching to sell products on mobile phones; it’s just waiting for consumers to start buying. Already, 25 of the 30 top online retailers have iPhone apps, even though less than 15 percent of online consumers report having used their mobile phones to buy something." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"People do NOT remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they see, 30% of what they hear, etc. That information, and similar pronouncements are fraudulent. Moreover, general statements on the effectiveness of learning methods are not credible---learning results depend on too many variables to enable such precision. Unfortunately, this bogus information has been floating around our field for decades, crafted by many different authors and presented in many different configurations, including bastardizations of Dale's Cone. The rest of this article offers more detail." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"Education blogger David Kapuler has created a free slideshow of 50 great sites for education, creativity, organization and more. Each slide includes basic information about the site, a link to the site, and a link to Kapuler's review of the site." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"You probably receive spam email messages like these every day and ignore them but have you ever imagined what would happen if you click on these links and actually buy Viagra? Would the Russian pharmacy stores ever ship you the drugs or do they just want your credit card details?" - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

'From the first online classes (which were conducted by the University of Phoenix in 1989) to the present day, when online education is a $34 billion industry, more and more students are finding new life and career education opportunities online." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"College Park, Md.—When Twitter traffic is laid out on a graph, revealing patterns emerge. Data from the night President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden was dead show a sharp drop in posts at the moment the news was revealed, as if the country took a collective gasp." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"Online learning has become the third rail in American higher-education politics: Step on it and you're toast. That's especially true at community colleges, where many leaders have embraced online courses with an almost religious fervor. And we all know why. It's not because anyone is seriously arguing that online classes are consistently better than the face-to-face versions. And it's not even necessarily because students are clamoring for them (although they're clearly popular in certain segments of the population, such as stay-at-home parents, people with full-time jobs, and deployed members of the armed forces). It's because colleges can produce online courses much more cheaply while charging roughly the same tuition. In other words, at many community colleges, online classes constitute the proverbial cash cow. And if you say anything about them—other than that we should offer more and more, forever and ever, virtual worlds without end, amen—then you will be branded as a heretic, ridiculed as a neo-Luddite, and shunned." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"A schoolgirl has won the right to use an iPod while sitting her exams - after claiming she can only concentrate while listening to her favourite music. The girl won the unprecedented concession after threatening legal action against her school and examination authorities" ... OK, where's that article that says listening to music is distracting? I think the Scottish Quals Authority needs to get its spine back and just say no. If the child is so easily distracted, does she listen to her iPod in class, too? - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

Ah, snowflakes... - teleken from BuddyFeed

"Articles in this series examine the most recent shifts in women's power, prominence and impact on societies around the world, and try to measure the influence of women on early 21st century development." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"Founded in 1948 by the National Heart Institute, the study has followed more than 15,000 Framingham residents and their descendants, bringing them in to a doctor’s office every four years, on average, for a comprehensive physical. Each time the Bellolis are examined, every aspect of their health is quantified and collected: heart rate, weight, blood levels and more. Over the decades, the Framingham study has yielded a gold mine of information about risk factors for heart disease; it was instrumental, for instance, in identifying the positive role of “good” cholesterol." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"As the eternal temptation of students to cheat has gone high-tech — not just on exams, but also by cutting and pasting from the Internet and sharing of homework online like music files — educators have responded with their own efforts to crack down." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

Add a comment - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"“We measured everything, thinking we were going to find some magic metabolic factor that would explain why some people didn’t gain weight,” explains Dr. Michael Jensen, a Mayo Clinic researcher who collaborated with Dr. Levine on the studies. But that wasn’t the case. Then six years later, with the help of the motion-tracking underwear, they discovered the answer. “The people who didn’t gain weight were unconsciously moving around more,” Dr. Jensen says. They hadn’t started exercising more — that was prohibited by the study. Their bodies simply responded naturally by making more little movements than they had before the overfeeding began, like taking the stairs, trotting down the hall to the office water cooler, bustling about with chores at home or simply fidgeting. On average, the subjects who gained weight sat two hours more per day than those who hadn’t." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

Not worried. They have no indication of having been hacked. If they were hacked (IF IF IF IF IF!), stronger passwords will take a hacker longer to crack. If you haven't been asked to change your password, you should be fine. Read the LastPass blog, and don't worry about the media trolls. I have confidence in a service that takes an "anomaly" so seriously. What they learn from this event will make them even better, security-wise and in how they handle it. - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"LastPass, an online password management provider, is forcing its users to change their master passwords after detecting what it described as a "traffic anomaly" on one of its database servers." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"Q. Just to be clear, are schools or teachers circumventing rules if they show YouTube videos or other blocked sites to students? A. Absolutely it’s not circumventing the rules. The rule is to block inappropriate sites. If the technology fails us and filters something appropriate and useful, and if teachers in their professional judgment think it’s appropriate, they should be able to show it. Teachers need to impose their professional judgment on materials that are available to their students. All sorts of YouTube videos are helpful in explaining complex concepts or telling a story, or for hearing an expert or an authentic voice — they present learning opportunities that are really helpful. If a filtering system is not intelligent enough to sort sites out, then the teacher is the next best one to do so. If a site is blocked for a teacher, then the I.T. person can unblock it if that’s the way the network is set up." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet