Archive for the 'Work' Category

Dunn speaks at Motorola

Published
by
Mark
on Wednesday 18th July 2007
in News and Work
. 3 Comments

David Dunn is the Chief of Staff to US Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. This pair is partially responsible for the No Child Left Behind Act, legislation that is interesting at the very least. Dunn was at Motorola’s Schaumburg headquarters last Friday to talk to teachers from across the country about NCLB. I’m not sure that anyone from a local school district was invited, and you’ll see why.

The Daily Herald published a Q&A with Dunn and Staff Writer Erin Holmes. I am finding it difficult to get past this question and Dunn’s answer to it:

Q: In Schaumburg, where we’re sitting, the two nearest high school districts and several elementary districts have opted out of taking Title I funds, which bind them to the federal [NCLB] ramifications, simply because they can afford to. Frankly, they don’t get a lot of Title I money. Do you believe that kind of thing curbs the effect of NCLB, in districts that can afford to not take the money?

A: We certainly find that disappointing. [But] we’re not seeing it. It happens that we’re in Schaumburg, and there are a couple high schools that have done it here. It’s not prevalent across the country. In New England, there are a few schools that have elected to do the same.

Frankly, we think it’s disappointing. Not just because of the money. But the key thing is, in doing so, these schools are - I don’t know if it’s rejection - but they’re not accepting the goal that the president and the Congress have laid out. And that’s what’s truly disappointing.

They’re not accepting the goal of 100 proficiency. They’re in effect saying, "We’re willing to leave children behind." That’s what disappointing.

Holmes follows up Dunn’s answer with this:

Q: I’m sure they would argue that they’re not, and their biggest defense is that they’re still held to the state’s own set of [NCLB] ramifications.

A: Fine, don’t take the money. But accept the challenge. Accept the expectation. It seems to me they’re saying they’re not willing to do that by not taking the money.

I’m not familiar with the specifics; I don’t want to comment specifically on what’s happening in the high schools here, but in general, it’s disappointing.

I am not writing this on behalf of the school district, nor am I writing this as an official representative of the school district. I am writing this as a graduate of one of the high schools in District 211, and as a citizen and taxpayer of Schaumburg. I find Dunn’s answers to be insulting. I am especially peeved by his view that districts like District 211 are failing their students simply by not accepting the federal funds, a sweeping generalization he makes while simultaneously admitting to not knowing the specifics of our situation.

How does one even jump to that conclusion? Dunn does not base his view on fact, just rhetoric. Our school district is working very hard to ensure that every student leaves with a solid foundation upon which to build their knowledge and skills. We promote life-long learning at all levels of education, not simply at the college-bound level. We have implemented programs to assist students who are failing to meet educational standards. There are a number of other ways in which we support our students, and I believe not accepting Title I funds is one of those ways.

While I agree with Dunn that NCLB is not a perfect law, and that there has yet to be a perfect one on the books, I wish Dunn and those like him could see that there is a reason that there hasn’t been a perfect law: the education of our youth is a complex matter that cannot be solved by underfunded legislation. How would you improve education in the US?

Schools, technology and liability

Published
by
Mark
on Friday 4th May 2007
in Technology and Work
. 0 Comments

A post a slashdot about students in Texas receiving suspensions for bypassing online filters has sparked quite a discussion (not surprisingly) about schools, technology and liability. Cliff at slashdot concluded the post by asking this:

While security breaches by students are something to take seriously, should school administrations continue with their knee-jerk mentality to something like this, especially at the times when its obvious that no malicious intent was involved?

I agree that the terms of the punishments, reported to be suspensions of up to three months, may be excessive, but without any details on the school policy or what actually transpired, I can only guess that the administrators felt that the length of the suspensions were appropriate for what was done. However, I disagree with the contributor’s comment that "the school district be liable for their own insecurity." The contributor goes on to ask, "Why are they punishing so many students for something that should be handled from the district’s end?"

It does not matter that the district was unable to prevent students from bypassing the filters. The fact is that the students likely violated an acceptable use policy, and therefore needed to be punished. As a public institution with limited resources, the school district has to prioritize how it manages its technology infrastructure. It is important to patch up any security holes, but it is impractical to spend half your day, every day, trying to block every known proxy server.

The discussion is lively, and like many discussions of socio-political nature, there are some very vocal sides in the discussion. Check it out.

New office

Published
by
Mark
on Saturday 3rd March 2007
in General and Work
. 0 Comments

dining_room_12I found my new office space. The new dining room table, along with two laptops running different operating systems makes for a perfect office space. I just need to add a 42-inch HDTV to sit at the other end of the table, and I think I would be set.

Perhaps replacing the two desks in my office with the old dining room table and some file cabinets is a way to go? I’ll have to measure things out and see.

Bloomingdale restaurant alert

Published
by
Mark
on Thursday 22nd February 2007
in News and Work
. 0 Comments

A co-worker recently discovered fraudulent charges on his credit card statement. One of the charges was made at PoxNora.com, a gaming web site. After getting in contact with someone at Octopi, the developer behind PoxNora, they revealed something interesting. They are currently having issues with fraudulent credit card charges made by someone who has been stealing credit card numbers from restaurants in the Bloomingdale area. The list of restaurants TGIFridays and Chili’s, among others. So, if you have been to a Bloomingdale area restaurant and paid with a credit or debit card in the past six months, check your statements for charges from Octupi or PoxNora. If you find fraudulent charges, call your credit card company or bank to report them. Also, be sure to visit AnnualCreditReport.com to find out how you can monitor your credit report for free annually.

Where do you draw the line?

Published
by
Mark
on Wednesday 1st November 2006
in Technology and Work
. 1 Comment

My former boss has a post on his blog about an ultimatum given to students regarding non-educational files stored in their network folders. Students have to remove said non-educational files from the network before a November 15th deadline or risk disciplinary actions. Any attempts to cover up the storage of non-educational files will result in tougher penalties.

Here I go playing devil’s advocate: how were the students notified of the deadline? I see that the school’s home page has a notice on the side of the page, but is that enough?

Again, I am not saying I disagree with the move. I am just wondering what happens when there is a large group of students who claim ignorance. You obviously cannot suspend a few hundred students from using the computers, but how many is too many?

The issue of regulation enforcement is one I have always found particularly interesting, and not just in education. Having not had formal training on administrative matters, I do not actually know where to draw the lines. Is consistency and drawing a straight line more important than having leniency and understanding? I guess I’ll have to wait and see how things play out over there.

Long time, no see

Published
by
Mark
on Tuesday 17th October 2006
in General, Software, TV and Work
. 0 Comments

It’s been a little while. Don’t expect this post to be of much substance, despite the length of time since my last meaningful post. I’ve been really busy lately, so I’ll try to make this like one of those annoying "streaming consciousness" posts Hersch puts up, but a little less smushed and a little more listy:

  • Doug Baker, 1980-2006 :-(
  • Steve and Beth Tymonko, October 14, 2006.
  • Hersch is making the most out of CA.
  • Meetings prevent me from working on things.
  • Bears win! 6-0!
  • Heroes and Studio 60 are both quite good ways to spend Monday evenings.
  • 1 vs. 100 is much better than that piece of junk Deal or No Deal.
  • I still like Project Runway. Thanks, Lynn!
  • Campaign ads are getting really obnoxious as of late. And quit calling me to tell me to vote early; I’ll vote whenever the hell I feel like it.
  • The house is a mess.
  • A little more about Google Reader.

Online journalism

Published
by
Mark
on Sunday 10th September 2006
in Software and Work
. 0 Comments

The other day, as I was brought around my new workplace, I was reminded of an idea I had in college, and my inability to bring it to fruition. The idea I had was to publish an online magazine called O. The first thing that prevented my idea from coming together was the relatively new idea of online journalism at the time. I was trying to do this at a time when only the geekiest of geeks were publishing online independently.

Most of my friends were in college, and had the internet in some form available to them. It wasn’t until our second or third years in college, however, that broadband and high-speed internet were must-have items for higher education, as well as in the home. Eight years after I first had the idea to create an online magazine, I now host my own blog, along with the blogs of six of my friends. Two of those friends are not in Chicagoland right now, yet are able to publish their blogs from where they are (one in Japan, the other in Virginia).

It amazes me how far we have come in the short time the internet has been widely available to the public, and how much the internet has helped push technology. I am currently reading The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, by Thomas Friedman. His book explains how technology is changing our world view in such a way as to make it truly global. So far it is an interesting read, and I would recommend it to ask-mark.com readers.

But that’s besides the point. The point is that online journalism is now to a point where it rivals, and sometimes scoops, print journalism. It is no longer something that can be ignored by big media as a passing fad, because it is here to stay. The other day I ran across a post at another random blog about how newspaper sites have to change. In that post, Adrian Holovaty states that newspaper sites need to add metadata to their news stories to make it easier to retrieve the important information from the stories:

So much of what local journalists collect day-to-day is structured information: the type of information that can be sliced-and-diced, in an automated fashion, by computers. Yet the information gets distilled into a big blob of text — a newspaper story — that has no chance of being repurposed.

I agree that structured information is the next step in online journalism, and it can help other fields, too. For example, at work, we have an abundance of documents, but we have a difficult time finding what we need when we need it. If we had structured data to accompany those documents, we would be able to perform simple searches and retrieve the right documents right away. It’s one of those things we want to improve, but it will be a time-consuming task. I hope that the changes in online journalism will help to create a CMS that will help us better organize our business information.

I suppose I’ve rambled on for long enough. I think the food coma is starting to wear off, too. I’ll go join the others upstairs.