Today’s newsletter was an excuse to link these three books at my spot on the kitchen table — Roland Allen’s The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper, my late summer/fall diary (started on Oahu back in August), and Chris Ware’s Acme Novelty Datebook Volume Three, the final installment in his sketchbook series.
It was also an excuse to post these drawings from my sketchbook:
You can read the whole newsletter here: “On memory and notebooks.”
A tech industry leader shares perspective on charting a course forward.
GUEST COLUMN | by Erik Stromquist
As a Chromebook OEM, CTL sits at the center of the edtech ecosystem. In a single day, I may chat with a district CIO at a business development event, take a support call from a tech director, and interface with the Google ChromeOS team. This gives me a unique perspective on what the industry is talking about—from new technology innovation to IT admin requests.
Lately, I’ve seen a few common threads running through many of our recent conversations: cybersecurity, connectivity, and sustainability. Here is where I see the industry trajectories on all three topics, and how we’re encouraging the industry to work together to solve these common challenges.
School cybersecurity is increasingly under threat. From ransomware attacks to phishing scams, malicious actors increasingly target schools. In fact, according to K12 SIX data, there have been more than 1,600 attacks on schools since 2016, and unfortunately, no one expects it to get any better soon.
Even though we’re not directly involved in this layer of technology, as a Chromebook manufacturer and edtech solution provider, we are increasingly concerned for our customers. We’ve dedicated our company to ChromeOS cloud computing for one simple reason: ChromeOS has never been hacked. It’s the most secure, containerized operating system that provides the most out-of-the-box protection to users.
However, that’s just the protection out of the box. It’s a solid start, but maintaining that high level of security is critical once a device is deployed and used daily. That’s why, although we’re a hardware manufacturer, we’re investigating new partnerships with fellow travelers in this space. We want to help solve our customer’s cybersecurity concerns together. IT admins need to know the best tools and best practices available to help them prevent breaches and protect student and employee data.
It’s Cybersecurity Month, so this concern is top-of-mind for CTL and our customers. In a few weeks we’re bringing together our IT experts, the ChromeOS Team, a grant funding expert, and a phishing training software provider in a webinar to provide a wealth of cybersecurity updates and vital information to the edtech community.
Bridging the digital divide and closing the homework gap are great initiatives that all depend on the availability of connectivity. CTL believes strongly in providing digital access for every student, regardless of home internet status. We were the first to launch an LTE-connected Chromebook in 2018, and in the next several months we’ll be the first to launch 5G connectivity on Chromebooks for LTE-enablement and private wireless network access. This cause is one of our core corporate pillars of innovation.
The recent changes in E-Rate have left a lot of schools wondering how they can provide digital access beyond the school walls to close that homework gap. The FCC recently ruled it would continue to fund connectivity; however, it is exclusively limited to hotspots. Hotspots are certainly one way to deliver connectivity, but what we hear from our customers and large districts like the Los Angeles Unified School District is that they would prefer the FCC remove the hotspot requirement. Hotspots can be problematic for IT directors to roll out and manage – from provisioning the devices to keeping track of them, from frequent battery replacement to preventing unauthorized users. The hotspot is a limiting device, and we’ve written a letter supporting the LAUSD petition to remove the hotspot-only requirement for funding. School IT departments can select the best-connected devices for their populations if the funding transitions to be device-agnostic. For many school districts, deploying LTE-enabled Chromebooks is a single, streamlined solution that significantly reduces the extra device cost and management time.
Looking forward, CTL is most excited about district-wide private wireless networks for schools and the new 5G-enabled Chromebooks we’ll introduce next year. We’re involved in many districts around the country that are seeking to enable digital access for several use cases, including kids in need, rural communities, and even home-insecure students. Providing hardware and digital access for all students is the last mile in finally conquering the digital learning divide and providing true educational equity. We’re excited by the positive impacts on teaching and learning.
With the proliferation of student laptops, the industry has become increasingly concerned about sustainability over the last several years. Questions often arise, and when they do, we work to broaden the conversation beyond the simple recyclability of components. Sure, recycling is important, however, there is so much more we can do. This mission is so core to CTL that we recently became the first Chromebook manufacturer certified as a B Corporation™.
Going forward, CTL postulates that complete circularity in the Chromebook space is not only possible but a mandate. On the manufacturing side, we examine everything from the amount of post-consumer recycled plastic in our products to the to the Forest Stewardship Council (FSc) certification of our boxes as forest-based materials that meet the highest production standards from a sustainably managed forest. We encourage trade-ins once a district is ready to replace some of its fleet. This enables us to provide a rebate on the old devices towards new purchases, but more than that, it enables us to refurbish devices for a second life rather than simply recycling. This keeps components out of landfills longer and provides additional digital teaching and learning access for new use cases, such as loaners, spares, summer school students, and substitute teachers – the list is expansive.
The industry needs partners to help manage the entire lifecycle of Chromebooks and other electronic devices. Working together, we’re excited to see progress in creating innovative sustainability solutions that are great for learning and the planet.
CTL is growing by investing in these three key trends for student and teacher computing: cybersecurity, connectivity, and sustainability. I myself am moving on to a new role here at CTL, where I’ll be putting together the strategies, programs, and partnerships to ensure we solve these challenges and provide greater teaching and learning opportunities for educators and students throughout the next decade. If you have ideas or questions, please feel free to reach out to me directly. I’ll be listening.
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Erik Stromquist is Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board at CTL, a mission-driven company empowering success at school and work with innovative cloud-computing products and industry-leading services. Connect with Erik via LinkedIn.
The post The Future of School Computing: Three Top Trends appeared first on EdTech Digest.
Spotify brengt een nieuwe functie naar Nederland: Audiobooks. De nieuwe functie houdt in dat je toegang krijgt tot 15.000 Nederlandstalige audioboeken. Premium-abonnees krijgen twaalf uur luistertijd per maand. Wie meer wil, moet meer betalen.
Spotify test in Groot-Brittannië met toevoegen van online cursussenBekijk ook
“Het is voor het eerst dat deze feature beschikbaar wordt in niet-Engelstalige markten, en dat moment wordt gecombineerd met een flinke uitbreiding van de groeiende boeken-catalogus, met Franse en Nederlandse auteurs. Daarvoor werken we nauw samen met lokale uitgevers zodat we de luisterervaring doorlopend kunnen uitbreiden aan onze abonnees in West-Europa”, zegt David Kaefer, de baas van Audiobooks bij Spotify.
Hoewel Spotify zelf nog spreekt van een bèta-introductie, wordt de functie wel voor alle gebruikers in Nederland en België beschikbaar. Gratis gebruikers van de dienst kunnen boeken los kopen. Premium-abonnees krijgen maandelijks twaalf uur aan luistertijd gratis. Zijn je twaalf uur luistertijd op, dan kun je voor 9,99 euro tien uur extra luistertijd kopen. Zijn die op, dan kun je voor hetzelfde bedrag opnieuw meer luistertijd aanschaffen – en zo door. Koop je te veel luistertijd, dan blijft de overgebleven tijd tot twaalf maanden na aanschaf geldig.
De nieuwe functie is inmiddels naar alle Nederlandse gebruikers uitgerold. Je kunt de Audiobooks vinden als een nieuwe sectie, naast muziek en podcasts, bovenaan het home-scherm van de app.
Lees Spotify brengt Audiobooks naar Nederland met 15.000 Nederlandstalige audioboeken verder op Numrush
Today’s newsletter was about my shelves of diaries in the studio and my practice of keeping a stack of “on this day” diaries I can re-read when I have a spare minute: “Same but different.”
I saw a trackback to my blog with this quote:
“The notebook is the place where you figure out what’s going on inside you or what’s rattling around. And then, the keyboard is the place that you go to tell people about it.”
Who said that? I thought. That’s pretty good.
It was me. Many years ago!
Still pretty true, although, I also figure out a lot of stuff at the keyboard, too.
(I’m a little less binary than I used to be, which I count as progress.)
Bouncy’s Ready to Learn Resilience Program is anchored by Breathing Bouncy(TM), a bilingual animatronic service dog. The program uses a multi-sensory approach to help children in grades preK-1, develop positive, secure relationships and build essential social emotional competencies needed for school success.
In addition to being used as part of whole class instruction, Bouncy the Service Dog provides a just-in-time, evidence-based response to support students when they are dysregulated. Unique, proprietary technology differentiates Breathing Bouncy from other edtech solutions in that he breathes at a slowed pediatric rate, allowing children to soothe and self-regulate when they hold him belly-to-belly and feel his chest move in sync with his breathing. While the physical Breathing Bouncy anchors the research-based learning system, the program features both physical and digital elements.
Used across settings, the program includes character-driven apps, music videos, games, interactive books and more to reinforce the relationship and provide differentiated, play-based skill practice and reinforcement.
Many of the elements are available in Spanish and English. In several pilots studies conducted with children identified as chronically disruptive, the program resulted in an increased ability [of children] to slow breathing on demand. Furthermore, those same children were able, in real-time, to transfer self-regulation skills during meltdown situations, which led to a reduction in problem behaviors, freeing up substantially more instruction time for the teacher.
For these reasons and more, Bouncy’s Ready to Learn Resilience Program from Ripple Effects was named “Best Early Childhood Learning Solution” as part of The EdTech Awards from EdTech Digest. Learn more.
The post Bouncy’s Ready to Learn Resilience Program from Ripple Effects appeared first on EdTech Digest.
We’re going to start a book club back up in the newsletter and I’m taking suggestions for what we should read.
Now, of course, is an excellent time to join the club and become a paid subscriber.
English Title – Ganbare Goemon Karakuri Douchuu Toukaidou Gojuusan
Published by – Futabasha
Year – 1987
PDF Scan of Book (Hosted on Internet Archive)
Here is the reading shelf in our bathroom. For the past month or two, I’ve been reading a few pages of G.C. Lichtenberg’s The Waste Books in there every day.
Here’s how Lichtenberg himself described a “waste book”:
Merchants and traders have a waste book… in which they enter daily everything they purchase and sell, messily, without order. From this, it is transferred to their journal, where everything appears more systematic, and finally to a ledger, in double entry after the Italian manner of bookkeeping, where one settles accounts with each man, once as debtor and then as creditor. This deserves to be imitated by scholars. First it should be entered in a book in which I record everything as I see it or as it is given to me in my thoughts; then it may be entered in another book in which the material is more separated and ordered, and the ledger might then contain, in an ordered expression, the connections and explanations of the material that flow from it.
Read more in today’s newsletter about always having a book with you.
Here’s a photo of me at Bookpeople yesterday. A quick reminder that you can get all of my books signed and personalized and shipped anywhere from here in Austin, Texas. You can also order them and have them waiting for you if you plan on visiting soon. I usually go in on the first Friday of the month to do a big batch. Order here.
BuddyBooks, funded through a National Science Foundation grant, helps struggling readers, such as students with dyslexia, ADHD or other reading disabilities, improve their reading skills. It works by students and a computer take turns reading passages from a book together. Since the student is reading every other sentence, it’s a lower cognitive load. That means students can read at their interest level, not their reading skill level, that they might think are “kiddie” books.
For students with dyslexia or other reading disabilities, BuddyBooks comes with over 1 million fiction and non-fiction books.
Using Natural Language Processing, the computer verifies the student has read each sentence correctly. BuddyBooks uses this assessment information to provide feedback to the student and to provide to teachers an oral reading assessment, so the teacher can quickly target their reading instruction based on the student’s individual needs. Teachers are seeing a 24% improvement in fluency when students use BuddyBooks.
For these reasons and more, BuddyBooks from ObjectiveEd is a Cool Tool Awards Winner for “Best Special Needs / Assistive Technology Solution” as part of The EdTech Awards 2024 from EdTech Digest. Learn more.
The post BuddyBooks from ObjectiveEd appeared first on EdTech Digest.
Today’s newsletter begins:
Like many book nerds, I got sucked into the NYTimes list of 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. I am with Paul Ford that “Why Wasn’t I Consulted?” is the fundamental question of the internet, and so a list like this one is bound to get big clicks…
One thing that struck me is that only two (great) comics made the list — Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home (2006) and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis(2004).
I thought it might be fun for me to list a few more books from this century that have pictures and words that have made a big impact on me in the past 24 years…
No paywall today so you can read the whole thing here.
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