Welcome to episode 243 (“Bad Idea Alexa”) of the EdTech Situation Room from December 29, 2021, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) and Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) discussed Alexa sharing a dangerous TikTok challenge, LastPass credential stuffing, and cybersecurity discoveries in 2021. Russia’s Google fine, Texas’ misguided social media law, and a New York Times editorial challenging us to figure out what to do with our amazingly powerful technology tools were also highlighted articles. Predictions for how Apple may transform the Macbook Air in 2022, a lawsuit from earlier in 2021 challenging Apple’s use of the word “buy” instead of “rent” in the iTunes store, and ways our cloud-based infrastructure model is broken were also discussed. A shout out to the Smarter Every Day video, “Is Your Privacy An Illusion? (Taking on Big Tech)” and a brief mention of a complex San Francisco Chronicle article about a secret recording of a teacher presentation were topics rounding out the show. (We’ll talk more about the last article next time.) Geeks of the Week included Coffitivity, Xway web design software, and Wes’ latest blog post on social media stories, Instagram Reels and Mojo Videos. 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. Stay savvy and safe!
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- Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) – blog: blog.ncce.org
- Wes Fryer (@wfryer) – wesfryer.com/after
- Alexa told a child to do potentially lethal ‘challenge’ (The Verge; 28 December 2021)
- LastPass confirms credential stuffing attack against some of its users (THe Record; 28 December 2021)
- 6 things in cybersecurity we didn’t know last year (Tech Crunch; 29 December 2021)
- Russia fines Google $100 million for not removing banned content (Axios, 24 Dec 2021)
- Judge tears apart Texas social media law for violating First Amendment (ArsTechnica, 2 Dec 2021)
- Tech Won. Now What? (New York Times; 23 December 2021)
- 5 ways Apple will radically transform the MacBook Air next year (MacWorld; 19 December 2021)
- Apple sued for terminating account with $25,000 worth of apps and videos (ArsTechnica, 23 April 2021)
- ‘The cloud’ may be great but it’s also horribly broken (Android Central; 18 December 2021)
- Video: Is Your Privacy An Illusion? (Taking on Big Tech) – Smarter Every Day 263
- Two California teachers were secretly recorded speaking about LGBTQ student outreach. Now they’re fighting for their jobs (San Francisco Chronicle, 28 Dec 2021)
- Jason’s Geek of the Week: Coffitivity
- Wes’ Geeks of the Week: Xway web design software (Wes’ archived sites) – Social Media Stories, Instagram Reels & Mojo Videos
