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Educational technology advocates applauded President Barack Obama’s focus on college and career readiness and his call for a new federal agency devoted to education technology innovations, which he expanded on in a March 8 speech in Boston.
“I want everyone to pay attention. Even as we find ways to cut spending, we cannot cut back on job-creating investments like education,” he told a crowd at TechBoston Academy in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood on March 8. “There’s nothing responsible about cutting back on our investment in these young people.” President Obama was joined by philanthropist Melinda Gates in the latest stop on his month-long push for an education agenda aimed at garnering bipartisan support for more flexibility and accountability for teachers, an increased emphasis on educational technology, and more innovative standards for students. The school visit also was designed to draw attention to Obama’s call for the creation of a federal agency designed to pursue breakthroughs in educational technology. Obama requested $90 million for the agency’s first year in the budget blueprint he sent to Congress last month.
The proposal would create an Advanced Research Projects Agency Education (ARPA-ED), with the goal of transforming educational technology just as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has transformed military technology. ARPA-ED would further catalyze the ed-tech industry by sponsoring the synthesis and vetting of public and private research and development efforts; identifying breakthrough development opportunities, shaping the next wave of research and development; investing in the development of new educational technology, learning systems, and digital learning materials; and identifying and transitioning the best and most relevant research and development from other federal agencies.
President Obama highlights $90 million education technology agency White House wants agency for education IT (Federal Computer Week)
IDC released market share numbers for the e-reader market in Q4 2010, and they have Amazon at close to half of the market at 48%. Total total shipments of e-readers in Q4 were approximately 6 million, and they had year total at almost 13 million. The overall growth of the market in 2010 which was approximately 325% looks believable, particularly given the explosion in interest in e-reading. The irony of the growth of the e-reader market is that much if it was a result of the release of the iPad,which created huge interest in the overall digital publishing market from consumers and, in part due to a creative software strategy on the part of Amazon with its Kindle app.
Amazon At Nearly 50% of e-Reader Market
For the second time in three weeks, the blogosphere jumped into the national debate over the federal budget, the deficit and jobs. However, while the previous conversation focused mostly on President Obama's budget proposals, last week the attention was mostly on Republican plans to cut the budget.
For the week of February 28-March 4, fully 37% of the news links on blogs were about the budget, easily making it the No. 1 subject, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. In recent weeks, there has been a clear delineation in the old and new media news agendas. The blogosphere has not matched the mainstream media's interest in the Mideast turmoil, which has been the dominant story there. Instead, bloggers have been more focused on hot-button domestic issues such as the budget, the Patriot Act, and the labor standoff in Wisconsin. Last week, the debate over the budget featured a number of liberal voices objecting to the GOP plans for cuts, which contrasted with two weeks prior when conservative commentators led the conversation criticizing Obama's $3.73 trillion budget proposal.
Bloggers Discuss the Role and Size of Government
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama called for a united effort to address bullying at the White House Conference on Bullying Prevention. Approximately 150 students, parents, teachers, non-profit leaders, advocates, and policymakers came together to discuss how they can work together to make our schools and communities safe for all students.
Public-Private Partnerships, Commitments and Activities include:
- Formspring and Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Formspring is a social network with over 22 million members, and is working with The MIT Media Lab, to develop new approaches to detect online bullying, and designing interfaces which help prevent it or mitigate it when it does occur. This approach uses a collection of common sense knowledge and reasoning techniques from artificial intelligence to understand online bullying at a deeper level than just words. MIT Media Lab and Formspring hope to build self-reflective interfaces that encourage social network participants to think sensibly about their behavior and suggest alternatives and coping strategies. Unlike spam filters, which work by collecting statistics on occurrences of particular words, the new MIT Media Lab and Formspring approach seeks to understand the intent behind the words. In addition, Formspring will discuss their corporate commitment to discovering & supporting the most advanced and meaningful technological innovations that can identify and curb online bullying and harassment.
- MTV Networks: “A THIN LINE”: As part of MTV’s multi-year, award-winning A THIN LINE campaign, the network will launch a new anti-digital discrimination coalition, which will work with MTV to fight bullying and intolerance online (in partnership with the National Council of La Raza, Anti-Defamation League, Council on American-Islamic Relations, and GLAAD). MTV will also announce the forthcoming premiere of a poignant new feature film inspired by the true, tragic tale of Abraham Biggs a 19-year-old who battled bipolar disorder and ultimately webcast his suicide after being egged on by a digital mob. The film will illustrate what can happen when we forget there’s a person on the other side of the screen, and serve as a powerful call to action to fight the spread of digital abuse. The network plans six new cyberbullying and digital discrimination public service announcements, encouraging bullying bystanders to support their friends, connect victims of digital abuse to resources, and drive home the serious impact typewritten words can have.
- Facebook: Facebook will unveil two new safety features in the coming weeks: a revamped multimedia Safety Center to incorporate multimedia, external resources from renowned experts, and downloadable information for teens. Additionally, they will create a new “Social Reporting” system to enable people to report content that violates Facebook policies so that it can be removed as soon as possible, while notifying parents or teachers of the content so that the reasons for its posting can be addressed.
- SurveyMonkey: www.surveymonkey.com/bullying SurveyMonkey—a “do-it-yourself” survey tool—allows anyone to survey people quickly and easily. More than 100 million people are interviewed in the education space each. The familiarity with the application, combined with its ease of use, create an opportunity to help students and administrators alike to use SurveyMonkey to collect information about the prevalence of bullying in schools. To facilitate data collection, SurveyMonkey has created a dedicated page for bullying detection which includes a 10 question survey that students can adopt in order to distribute and disseminate via email, on fliers, through Facebook, and elsewhere. The application is free to use.
The Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention include:
- StopBullying.gov: This website will launch at today’s Conference to provide information from various government agencies on how children, teens, young adults, parents, educators and others in the community can prevent or stop bullying. The website will provide information on what bullying is, its risk factors, its warning signs and its effects. It will also provide details on how to get help for those that have been victimized by bullying.
President and First Lady Call For a United Effort to Address Bullying Fighting Bullies With Facebook Friends (National Journal) Remarks (President and Mrs Obama) Background (WH Backgrounder)
Gov Pat Quinn (D-IL) has signed legislation designed to make it easier to collect taxes from sales on the Internet, outraging Chicago's Web retailing community but pleasing conventional brick-and-mortar stores.
Enacted into law was a measure requiring any non-Illinois seller to collect the state's sales tax if that seller acquires their customer via a link on the website of an Illinois firm. The bill was widely dubbed the "Amazon tax," in honor of the big Web retailer that has avoided paying much Illinois sales tax because it lacks a physical presence, or nexus, in the state. Gov Quinn said the bill, sponsored by Senate President John Cullerton, will create "tax fairness."
Gov Quinn signs 'Amazon tax' bill -- to loud boos and cheers
The federal government has withdrawn $20.2 million in funding to deliver high-speed broadband service to two far Southwest Virginia counties because of a contract impasse between an economic-development group and a communications company.
The disagreement will cost hundreds of potential jobs and put a crimp in efforts to revive an economically depressed area of the state, said Sunset Digital Communications Inc., which could not reach agreement on a contract with the Lenowisco Planning District Commission. The deputy director of the planning district questioned the overall impact of the lost funding, and he pointed to a commission resolution citing criticisms of Sunset’s previous work in the region. “It’s horrible that the funds have been rescinded,” Duane A. Miller said. He said the commission was hopeful it could continue the work with “smaller pots of money” and at a slower pace than anticipated. The funding involved a $14 million grant and a $6.2 million loan through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It was administered through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service. The money would have connected 2,500 homes to broadband in Lee and Wise counties.
The work entailed the installation of 179 miles of fiber-optic network, creating 73 direct jobs and what Sunset estimated would be the creation of 375 home-based and small-business jobs. “Lenowisco’s hesitation to sign documents awarded to the partnership in September of last year will mean that this $20 million opportunity will be lost forever,” said Paul Elswick, Sunset’s president.
Southwest Virginia Losing US Funds for Broadband
The Parents Television Council is now going after Disney-owned ABC for titling an upcoming comedy pilot Good Christian Bitches.
“ABC’s decision is not only an affront to women, it blatantly attacks the world’s largest faith," PTC President Tim Winter said. "The ‘b-word’ is toxic and is used to degrade, abuse, harass, bully and humiliate women. And the ‘Christian’ element only adds insult to injury. Regardless of whether the title ultimately makes it to broadcast, ABC has publicly proclaimed its values and it has tarnished the Disney brand." Winter has called for members and concerned citizens to sign a petition to protest. “Would ABC even consider another faith to denigrate? Would they even consider a program title or a plot line based on ‘Bitches’ who were Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist?" asked Winter. "I suspect not, and I certainly hope not So why the double standard?" The PIC has taken aim at ABC before for another pilot titled Don't Trust the Bitch in Apartment 23.
PTC targets ABC's 'Good Christian Bitches' PTC: ABC show title demeans women, Christians (The Hill)
The Federal Communications Commission proposed rules to implement the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009 signed into law on December 22, 2010.
Caller ID services identify the telephone numbers and sometimes the names associated with incoming calls. Many telephone users-including subscribers to traditional wireline, interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and mobile wireless services-routinely rely on Caller ID to determine who is calling and whether to answer the call. Increasingly, bad actors are manipulating or "spoofing" caller ID information to facilitate schemes that harm consumers or threaten public safety. Some caller ID spoofers, for example, transmit caller ID information that makes it appear that they are calling from consumers' banks or credit card companies in an attempt to trick call recipients into providing their account numbers or other sensitive information. In other instances, caller ID spoofers have engaged in a practice referred to as "swatting," which involves placing false emergency calls to law enforcement agencies to elicit a response from Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams. The Truth in Caller ID Act is aimed at preventing these harmful and dangerous practices. The Act prohibits intentionally harmful or fraudulent spoofing of caller ID information and gives the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) the authority to seek substantial penalties from those who violate the Act.
The Truth in Caller ID Act prohibits anyone in the United States from causing any caller identification service to knowingly transmit misleading or inaccurate caller ID information with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value. The Truth in Caller ID Act requires the Commission to issue implementing regulations within six months of the law's enactment. It also requires the Commission, by the same date, to submit a report to Congress on "whether additional legislation is necessary to prohibit the provision of inaccurate caller identification information in technologies that are successor or replacement technologies to telecommunications services or IP-enabled voice services."
Comment Date: April 18, 2011 Reply Comment Date: May 3, 2011 (WC Docket No. 11-39)
FCC Proposes Caller ID Rules
Subcommittee on Technology
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Friday, March 11, 2011
10am
2154 Rayburn
Witnesses
Panel I
Dr. Danny Harris
Chief Information Officer
Department of Education
Chris Smith
Chief Information Officer
Department of Agriculture
Ellen Miller
Co-Founder and Executive Director
Sunlight Foundation
Jerry Brito
Senior Research Fellow
Mercatus Center at George Mason University
Panel II
The Honorable Danny Werfel
Controller, Office of Federal Financial Management
Office of Management and Budget
Senate Commerce Committee
Mar 16 2011
10:00 AM
Russell Senate Office Building - 253
The hearing will kick off the 112th Congress’ deliberations on consumer privacy, an issue that is front and center on the Commerce Committee’s agenda, and a top priority for Chairman Rockefeller.
“Modern technology has connected people with the world and led to new innovations, new products and new experiences,” Chairman Rockefeller said. “But with these new opportunities come new risks. I want to know if the privacy protections we have in place are enough, or whether Congress needs to step in and do more. As Chairman, I’m committed to doing everything I can to protect consumers’ privacy.”
The hearing will examine commercial practices that involve collecting, maintaining, using, and disseminating large amounts of consumer information, some of it potentially very sensitive and private in nature. It comes on the heels of two new reports by the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Commerce calling for greater privacy protections for Americans online.
Chairman Rockefeller has spearheaded Senate efforts to protect consumers’ privacy in our increasingly online world. This is the 2nd in a continued series of hearings examining