Welcome to episode 120 of the EdTech Situation Room from January 3, 2019, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) and Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) discussed 2018 “Tech Report Cards” from the Verge on Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft. The proliferation of bots and fake content online, and the challenges this presents for online media metrics as well as media literacy, was highlighted. The release of thousands of works into the public domain in the United States, thanks to the non-renewal of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, and an instance of ground-breaking brain surgery rounded out topics for the show. Geeks of the week included an article sharing tips for getting the most out of your Amazon Kindle eReader, and the open source software Burn for MacOS. Please follow us on Twitter @edtechSR for updates, and join us LIVE on Wednesday nights if you can (normally) at 10 pm Eastern / 9 pm Central / 8 pm Mountain / 7 pm Pacific or 3 am UTC. All shownotes are available on http://edtechSR.com/links.
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- Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) – blog: blog.ncce.org
- Wes Fryer (@wfryer) – blog: speedofcreativity.org
- The Verge 2018 Tech Report Cards: Apple – Google – Facebook – Amazon – Microsoft
- iPhone XR Sales Crash Increases Apple’s Neverending Nightmare (Forbes, 17 Dec 2018)
- Apple says cheap battery replacements hurt iPhone sales (The Verge, 2 January 2019)
- Five Ways to Look at Apple’s Surprise Bad News (The Atlantic, 2 Jan 2019)
- iOS 2022 (Robert Scoble, 10 Nov 2018)
- Why parents and students are protesting an online learning program backed by Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook (Washington Post, 20 Dec 2018)
- The year in tech: Facebook, Facebook, Facebook (Columbia Journalism Review, 27 Dec 2018)
- Amazon Is Paying People $20 an Hour to Deliver Packages Using Their Own Cars — and the Competition Is Cutthroat (Time, 17 Dec 2018)
- How Much of the Internet Is Fake? Turns Out, a Lot of It, Actually. (NY Magazine, 26 Dec 2018)
- Mickey Mouse and Batman will soon be public domain—here’s what that means (ArsTechnica, 1 Jan 2019)
- Public Domain Day advent calendar #14: Tarzan and the Golden Lion by Edgar Rice Burroughs (John Mark Ockerbloom, 14 Dec 2018)
- How to Download the Books That Just Entered the Public Domain (Motherboard, 2 Jan 2018)
- Guitarist Has Brain Surgery, and Strums All the Way Through (NYTimes, 21 Dec 2018)
- Jason’s Geek of the Week: New Kindle? Use it to the max!
- Wes’ Geek of the Week: Burn (open source DVD burning software for MacOS)
