EdTechSR Ep 270 Ransomware at School

Welcome to episode 270 (“Ransomware at School”) of the EdTech Situation Room from September 14, 2022, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) and Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) discussed a recent ransomware incident in Los Angeles schools, iPhone 14 updates announced at Apple’s recent event, at TikTok news including the thread their platform poses to Google and the spread of misinformation via TikTok. Stable Diffusion’s AI generated images were also explored, including reports that China is blocking AI-created political content. Geeks of the Week included “Seat Guru” from Jason and an online safety tip from Wes. 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!

Shownotes

  1. Subscribe to our EdTechSR Substack Newsletter!
  2. EdTech Situation Room Listener Survey: wfryer.me/edtechsr
  3. Follow @edtechSR on Twitter!
  4. Audio podcast feed (Subscribe with iTunes or Stitcher)
  5. Video version on YouTube
  6. Check out our video podcast feed and subscribe to our YouTube Channel (episodes also in this YouTube playlist)
  7. Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) – blog: blog.ncce.org
  8. Wes Fryer (@wfryer) – wesfryer.com/after
  9. iOS 16 Available Today! (Apple; 12 September 2022)
  10. Tim Cook revealed the real reason Apple won’t fix green bubbles (The Verge; 8 September 2022)
  11. iPhone 14 is eSIM-only in the US: Here’s what you need to know (9 to 5 Mac; 10 September 2022)
  12. LA school district was warned of ransomware threat before recent shutdown (The Verge; 9 September 2022)
  13. Google CEO Sundar Pichai swears his company has real competition (Vox; 6 September 2022)
  14. TikTok Users Are Likely to See Misleading Information on Elections, Vaccines, and More (Time; 14 September 2022)
  15. Stable Diffusion (English WikiPedia)
  16. China’s most advanced AI image generator already blocks political content (ArsTechnica, 14 Sept 2022)
  17. Locally sourced: you can now run Stable Diffusion AI art generation on your M1 Mac (CDM, 13 Sept 2022) – https://diffusionbee.com/ 
  18. Stable Diffusion Walkthrough (Marcus Wetherell)
  19. EduMeat Teachers Who Smoke and Grill
  20. Wes’ Geek of the Week: Online Safety Tip
  21. Jason’s Geek of the Week: Seat Guru

EdTech Situation Room Episode 137

Welcome to episode 137 of the EdTech Situation Room from June 6, 2019, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) was out on assignment, so Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) welcomed special guest Dave Quinn (@EduQuinn) to break down some of the technology headlines from recent weeks. Topics addressed included YouTube’s important policy change regarding censorship of hate speech, the “SIFT Approach” (Stop, Investigate, Find, Trace) for media literacy by Mike Caufield, and Mike’s recent post on the “Curation/Search Radicalization Spiral.” The 30 year anniversary of Tiananmen Square, Tiananmen’s “Tank Man” image (perhaps the most heavily censored photo on our planet today), and a few updates from Apple’s WWDC 2019 conference this week were also highlighted. Geeks of the Week included Doug Belshaw’s (@dajbelshaw) “Thought Shrapnel” website, a good spirited video by Boeing about AirBus, a new Google report on emerging education trends, and the free K-2 reading / eBook site Rivet. 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.

Shownotes:

  1. EdTech Situation Room Listener Survey: wfryer.me/edtechsr
  2. Follow @edtechSR on Twitter!
  3. Audio podcast feed (Subscribe with iTunes or Stitcher)
  4. Video version on YouTube
  5. Check out our video podcast feed and subscribe to our YouTube Channel (episodes also in this YouTube playlist)
  6. Dave Quinn (@EduQuinn) – The Inspired Learning Project
  7. Wes Fryer (@wfryer) – blog: speedofcreativity.org
  8. YouTube bans neo-Nazi and Holocaust-denial videos in push against hate speech (ArsTechnica, 5 June 2019)
  9. Caulfield SIFT Approach
  10. Caulfield Curation / Search Radicalization Spiral
  11. Tiananmen Square: The moment a student leader returns for the first time (BBC, 4 June 2019)
  12. Tiananmen’s tank man: The image that China forgot (BBC, 3 June 2019)
  13. Apple’s new iPadOS includes mouse support for iPads (Verge, 3 June 2019)
  14. With antitrust investigations looming, Apple reverses course on bans of parental control apps (TechCrunch, 4 June 2019)
  15. Microsoft demos Minecraft Earth at Apple’s WWDC event (Verge, 3 June 2019)
  16. Dave’s Geek of the Week: Doug Belshaw’s Thought Shrapnel
  17. Wes’ Geeks of the Week: VIDEO by Boeing: Airbus, We’re Glad You’re Here (via @smartereveryday), 8 emerging trends for K-12 Education from Google and Rivet (@rivet_app over 2000 leveled free books for K-2 students)

EdTech Situation Room Episode 105

Welcome to episode 105 of the EdTech Situation Room from August 29, 2018, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) and Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) discussed the challenges of filtering / censoring Internet content at school and now (in the U.K.) at a national level through ISPs. The privacy perils and potential subpoena conflicts relating to cell phone location tracking, the ethical challenges of “native advertising” in podcasts, rumors of Apple removing 3D touch in forthcoming iPhones, and the security danger of sideloading Fortnight software on Android devices were also discussed. Final topics included the monstrous challenges facing Facebook in moderating user generated content on its platform worldwide for 2 billion people and the way Facebook is adopting a trustworthy scale for users in its fight against fake news. Geeks of the week included the Stikbot Studio app for iOS, Google Assistant’s “Tell me something good” new feature, YouTube’s new built-in screen monitoring / management tools, and the keyboard shortcut Control/Command K in Google Docs to add links. Check out edtechSR.com/links for all shownotes, including those listed below. Please follow us on Twitter @edtechSR for updates, and join us LIVE on Wednesday nights if you can at 10 pm Eastern / 9 pm Central / 8 pm Mountain / 7 pm Pacific or 3 am UTC.

Shownotes:

  1. EdTech Situation Room Listener Survey: wfryer.me/edtechsr
  2. Follow @edtechSR on Twitter!
  3. Audio podcast feed (Subscribe with iTunes or Stitcher)
  4. Video version on YouTube
  5. Check out our video podcast feed and subscribe to our YouTube Channel (episodes also in this YouTube playlist)
  6. Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) – blog: blog.ncce.org
  7. Wes Fryer (@wfryer) – blog: speedofcreativity.org
  8. The U.K. Is About To Regulate Online Porn, and Free Speech Advocates Are Terrified (Time; 20 August 2018)
  9. Gaggle Safety Management
  10. Digital Citizenship Resources for Parents (including filtering tools / strategies) on DigCit.us
  11. To Catch A Robber, The FBI Attempted An Unprecedented Grab For Google Location Data (Forbes, 15 Aug 2018)
  12. How to start a community network – NYC Mesh
  13. End of a Legacy: Chromebook Pixel Updates Ceased (ChromeUnboxed; 28 August 2018)
  14. Ads for Podcasts Test the Line Between Story and Sponsor (NYTimes, 26 July 2018)
  15. “Today, Explained” – An Edgy New Vox Podcast to Compete with “The Daily” (New Yorker, 15 March 2018)
  16. Apple could remove 3D Touch from new iPhones, analyst says (The Verge, 27 August 2018)
  17. Apple to launch three new iPhones, Watch with larger screen, updated iPad Pros, says Bloomberg (The Verge, 27 August 2018)
  18. Android vulnerability leads to Google/Epic Games spat (ArsTechnica, 27 August 2018)
  19. The Impossible Job: Inside Facebook’s Struggle to Moderate Two Billion People (Motherboard; 23 August 2018)
  20. Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to 1 (Washington Post, 21 Aug 2018)
  21. Wes’ Geeks of the Week: StikBot Studio app for iOS and New Google Assistant feature: Hey Google, tell me something good and New YouTube Screentime Management Tools
  22. Jason’s Geek of the Week: Control/Command K for Hyperlinks in Google Docs

EdTech Situation Room Episode 103

Welcome to episode 103 of the EdTech Situation Room from August 15, 2018, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) and Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) discussed universities deploying smart assistants in student dorms to answer questions, the privacy concerns of smart assistants in educational contexts, and the shortcomings of the latest MacBook Pro laptops relative to Windows-based competitors. Rumors of dual-booting Chromebooks (also booting to Windows), whether or not social media platforms are “publishers,” and strategies to stop or avoid “stalking ads” on social media were also addressed. Social media / fake news controversies over the temporary (7 day) banning of Alex Jones / InfoWars on Twitter, hacker threats to home routers (VPNfilter) and IoT devices, the advent of Fortnite on ALL Android devices (but not via the Google Play Store), and Google’s location tracking of users who turn off location services rounded out the news articles addressed in this show. Geeks of the Week included the Timer Tab app (ad-free), an incredible photo of our sun during a “Coronal Mass Ejection” with the earth shown to scale, and the recent PBS documentary, “Documenting Hate: Charlottesville.” Please follow us on Twitter @edtechSR for updates, and join us LIVE on Wednesday nights if you can at 10 pm Eastern / 9 pm Central / 8 pm Mountain / 7 pm Pacific or 3 am UTC.

Shownotes:

  1. EdTech Situation Room Listener Survey: wfryer.me/edtechsr
  2. Follow @edtechSR on Twitter!
  3. Audio podcast feed (Subscribe with iTunes or Stitcher)
  4. Video version on YouTube
  5. Check out our video podcast feed and subscribe to our YouTube Channel (episodes also in this YouTube playlist)
  6. Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) – blog: blog.ncce.org
  7. Wes Fryer (@wfryer) – blog: speedofcreativity.org
  8. A University Is Putting 2,300 Echo Dots in Student Living Spaces and What Could Go Wrong? (Gizmodo, 15 Aug 2018)
  9. Resources on Privacy Issues for Smart Assistants in the Classroom: Common Sense Media Privacy (@cs_privacy) Bill Fitzgerald (@funnymonkey) and Susan Bearden (@s_bearden)
  10. 2018 MacBook Pro Owners Experiencing Crackling Audio (PC Magazine; 10 August 2018)
  11. HP, Dell, Microsoft Stay A Step Ahead Of The MacBook Pro: Three Metrics (Forbes, 12 Aug 2018)
  12. Chromebooks May Include Dual Boot Feature to Load Windows 10 (PC Magazine; 13 August 2018)
  13. Platforms Are Not Publishers (Jeff Jarvis, The Atlantic; 10 August 2018)
  14. Twitter suspends Alex Jones for urging people to keep “battle rifles” ready (ARStechnica, 15 Aug 2018)
  15. Are Targeted Ads Stalking You? Here’s How to Make Them Stop. (NYTimes, 15 Aug 2018)
  16. Free FoxIt Reader software (for PDFs)
  17. Inside Twitter’s Struggle Over What Gets Banned (New York Times; 10 August 2018)
  18. Hackers could hijack devices using a laptop’s USB-C charger (TechRadar; 9 August 2018)
  19. Russian Military Spy Software is on Hundreds of Thousands of Home Routers (DefenseOne, 13 Aug 2018)
  20. Hackers account for 90% of login attempts at online retailers (Quartz, 18 July 2018)
  21. Your smart air conditioner could help bring down the power grid (CNET, 14 Aug 2018)
  22. How to Install Fortnite on Android (PC Magazine; 14 August 2018)
  23. Google tracks your movements, like it or not (AP, 13 Aug 2018)
  24. Jason’s Geek of the Week: Timer Tab
  25. Wes’ Geeks of the Week: Documenting Hate: Charlottesville (PBS) and This Photo Of A Solar Coronal Mass Ejection Is Beyond Comprehension (Digg, 13 Aug 2018)