Welcome to episode 50 of the EdTech Situation Room from May 3, 2017, where technology news meets educational analysis. Visit https://edtechsr.com/links to access all referenced links from our show. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach), Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) and Ben Wilkoff (@bhwilkoff) discussed today’s widespread Google Docs phishing attack, Microsoft’s newly announced Windows-S operating system, new Microsoft laptop announcements targeting the Chromebook market and MacBook users, and recent controversy regarding the website Unroll.me selling anonymized user data to advertisers. They also discussed Mark Zuckerberg’s recent forecast for the future of social media and screens (mixed-reality), a new Kickstarter campaign (Jelly, The Smallest 4G Smartphone), and cybersecurity. Geeks of the week included Google Trips (Jason), the Clips app for iPhone (Wes), and the Pocket Video from iOS (Ben). Be sure to follow us on Twitter @edtechSR for updates and show date/time changes. Normally we’re LIVE on Wednesday nights at 10 pm Eastern / 9 pm Central / 8 pm Mountain / 7 pm Pacific. Please join us live if your schedule permits for our upcoming shows!
Welcome to episode 48 of the EdTech Situation Room from April 19, 2017, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) and Wes Fryer (@wfryer) discussed the implications of Apple’s announcement to make all iLife apps free for both MacOS and iOS, Microsoft’s new licensing strategy for Windows 10 and the “Creator’s Update,” and the potential for Google’s AutoDraw website to be used for sketchnoting inside and outside the classroom. Additional topics included a recent study suggesting kids who use touchscreen devices sleep less at night, a New York Times article on a paper suggesting social media is NOT contributing significantly to political polarization, and the X-Prize victory by an underdog family team who created a “tri-corder” to accurately diagnose thirteen different medical conditions. Jason and Wes also discussed two cell phone company related articles, including Verizon’s announcement to purchase tons of new fiber and bring 1 Gbps connectivity to homes via 5G wireless technology, and T-Mobile’s recent spectrum purchases boosting their LTE network coverage. Geeks of the week included a new Chromebook for Jason (HP Chromebook 13 G1) and upcoming creativity strand presentations for the K-12 Online Conference by Wes. Despite some Fryer home connectivity challenges tonight we made it through the show! Thanks to Peggy, Ben and Simon who joined us live from Arizona, Colorado and Australia! Next week Wes will be “out on assignment” but Jason will carry on with some special guests. Please follow @edtechSR on Twitter to stay up to date about our upcoming show schedule. Thanks for listening (and possibly watching) the EdTech Situation Room!
Welcome to episode 38 of the EdTech Situation Room from January 25, 2017, where technology news meets educational analysis. Visit https://edtechsr.com/links to access all referenced links from our show. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach), Ben Wilkoff (@bhwilkoff) and Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) discussed in-depth the new Chromebook announcements by the Google Chrome team, Samsung and Asus, and Microsoft’s announcement of “Intune for Education,” a cloud-based tool offering functionality to manage Windows10 devices similar to the Administration console in Google Apps for Education (gSuite). They discussed the alarming aggregation of data on millions of U.S. citizens by private companies using innocuous sounding web interactives like “Facebook quizzes.” Topics also included a recent major ransomware security event in U.S. libraries, China’s new crackdown on VPN connections, Walt Mossburg’s reflection on FireFox (the first serious alternative to the dominant Internet Explorer browser from Microsoft), and Trump’s new appointee to lead the FCC who may be hostile to network neutrality. Geeks of the week included resources and tutorial videos to help with USB-C dongle confusion (Jason), a very cool family Raspberry Pi project with local weather (Ben), and TinkerCAD’s 3D design export functionality to Minecraft (Wes). Please refer to our podcast shownotes for links to all referenced articles, videos, and resources from the show, and take a few minutes to complete our listener survey on http://wfryer.me/edtechsr.
Our first official show! Hosts Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) and Wes Fryer (@wfryer) met in “The EdTech Situation Room” on January 27, 2016, and discussed current news and trends in educational technology. Building on the fun of “The EdTech Year in Review” podcasts from 2014 and 2015, The EdTech Situation Room is a regular web show and podcast Jason and Wes are starting in 2016. Your feedback and input is welcomed! In future episodes we will be inviting guests to join us. In this show we discussed Microsoft’s acquisition of MinecraftEDU, Apple’s declining iPad sales, the future of Google Hangouts and Google Plus, and shared a handy iPad tripod mount as well as fantastic other podcast recommendation to check out as our “geek of the week” links.
