Welcome to episode 210 (“Facebook Re-friends Australia”) of the EdTech Situation Room from February 24, 2021, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) and Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) discussed the closure of Fry’s Electronics Stores nationwide in the United States, and more details about updates and changes to “Google Workplace for Education” (the rebranded product suite formerly known as “Google Suite for Education” or GSFE.) Apple M1 processor SSD write woes, mysterious MacOS malware, “technology correction” updates from Australia involving major news publishers, Facebook and Google, and some other miscellaneous tech news stories. These included a more sophisticated procedure for using the gene editing tool CRISPR, contention between Canada and China over a vote on the “Uighur Genocide,” and another chapter in the tragic story of Google firing AI ethicist and researcher Timnit Gebru. Geeks of the Week included the New York Public Library Digital Collections, and season 3 of the Vox podcast series, “Land of the Giants” focusing on “The Google Empire,” its history and origin stories as well as its current trajectory. Our show was live streamed and archived simultaneously on YouTube Live as well as our Facebook Live page via StreamYard.com, and compressed to a smaller video version (about 100MB) on AmazonS3 using Handbrake software. Please follow us on Twitter @edtechSR for updates, and join us LIVE on Wednesday nights (normally) if you can 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) – wesfryer.com/after
- Fry’s Electronics is shutting its doors for good (The Verge; 24 February 2021)
- Elon Musk says Starlink internet speeds will double to 300Mbps this year (The Verge; 22 February 2021)
- I signed up for T-Mobile’s $50 unlimited home internet service. Here’s what happened (cNet; 24 February 2021)
- 50+ New Google for Education Features (Eric Curts, 22 Feb 2021)
- Learning with Google 2021 Discussion of Rostering & LMS Gradebook Sync (46 min, 8 sec)
- 10 years of Chromebooks and people still don’t know what they’re capable of (About Chromebooks; 19 February 2021)
- Chrome OS screen recording tool coming in March, 40 education Chromebooks set for this year (9 to 5 Google; 17 February 2021)
- Supervised YouTube for older kids and teens coming soon (9 to 5 Google; 24 February 2021)
- M1 Mac owners are experiencing extremely high SSD writes over short periods of time, likely thanks to aggressive swap (Linus Tech Tips Forums; 17 February 2021)
- New malware found on 30,000 Macs has security pros stumped (Ars Technica; 22 February 2021)
- UPDATE: Facebook reverses ban on news pages in Australia (BBC News; 23 February 2021)
- Changes to Sharing and Viewing News on Facebook in Australia (Facebook Blog, 22 Feb 2021)
- The worldwide web as we know it may be ending (CNN Business; 24 February 2021)
- Researchers invent new gene-editing tool (Phys.org, 23 Feb 2021)
- Chinese ambassador denounces pending vote by Canadian MPs on Uighur genocide (Winnipeg Free Press, 20 Feb 2021)
- @mmitchell_ai’s essay on the Google AI Firing of @timnitGebru
- Jason’s Geek of the Week: New York Public Library Digital Collections
- Wes’ Geek of the Week: Podcast “Land of the Giants: the Google Empire”
