To my utter amazement Dr. Meehan was not at the World Trade Center or even in New York City on 9/11.  She watched events unfold from South Orange New Jersey, 15 miles away from The World Trade Center while working at Seton Hall University.

Dr. Meehan: An attempt to share your “compelling, first-hand experience” is an embarrassment for you and Alverno College.

Your address could have described how seemingly within seconds of Flight UA #175 impacting the South Tower, a human leg fell onto Liberty street in-front of the Deutsche Bank Building.  But you could not hear the screams from those standing near the severed limb from Seton Hall.  Your address could have described segments of UA#175 that were on the grounds on the WTC Complex.  But you could not see those from Seton Hall.  And you could have shared how the impact of UA #175 shook all that way down to the entrance of the Deutsche Bank Building.  But you could not feel that from Seton Hall.

If only you were standing in-front of the Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty Street adjacent to the South Tower when flight UA#175 struck at 9:03am.

Because in all that horror Dr. Meehan — regrettably — you would have stood next to my wife.

Began an amazing job this week. Looking forward to new challenges and inspirations.

This Friday Wisconsin will introduce their initial CI Day event at UWMilwaukee with remote viewing supported around the State.  It was great to hear WiscNet’s Shaun Abshere at this session today in Q&A regarding Friday’s coming session and supported remote technologies that will be used.

UW CI Day event program at UW-Milwaukee.

Tags: experimental network, Google, Network, internet access, Research, Internet2, Broadbandt, gigabit, high speed, trends,

As budgets have been cut across the country for education, this is a smart move for many financially strapped school districts.  Does it pay for a District to force taxpayers to pay for expensive, legacy email programs like FirstClass and Novell when cloud based solutions with robust feature sets are being embraced by K12 and Colleges around the country.

Source article

Tags: Google, Google Apps for Education, education, Postini, anti-virus, K12, trends

Tags: Apple, Inc., design, Mac, Newton, iPod, iPhone, iPad, trends

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tags: experimental network, Google, Network, internet access, Research, Internet2, Broadbandt, gigabit, high speed, trends,

In this video CERN technologists discuss the network’s requirements which supplies the TeraScale switches that connect 6,000 processors and 2,000 storage devices. TeraScale supports 672 line-rate Gigabit and 56 line-rate 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports per system, allowing CERN to deploy fewer systems and simplify the architecture of its network.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tags: Large Hadron Collider, CERN, Network, Research, Internet2, BoreasNet, WiscNet, reading

Google has been helping K12 Schools and Colleges save money by giving free access to their powerful tools in an enterprise setting.  Google began offering Gmail and have continued to add more tools to their suite specifically tuned for schools.  Known as Google Apps for Education (GAE) this collection provides an excellent solution for schools just as most technology budgets are shrinking…or should I say…being slashed to the bone.

To no surprise Gmail has been a hit with schools.  In 2006 Arizona State University was one of the first colleges to migrate to Gmail.  They moved 65,000 student email accounts saving over $400,000 in ANNUAL related email costs.  Since then more higher education institutions including Northwestern University (case study) and Notre Dame (moved 15,000 students and 150,000 alumni and saved $1.5 Million) have migrated to Gmail.

For Students, Faculty and Administrative staff, GAE has grown to include 7GB of individual email storage, integration with GoogleCalendar, GoogleDocs (word processing, spreadsheets and presentations) and GoogleSites (websites and wikis) for web publishing.  Google has even added 10GB of storage to their Google Video offering.  These tools provide a tremendous savings for schools who can retire in-house or expensive outsourced systems.

From Good To Great:
A necessary email-related tool schools need is anti-spam and anti-virus protection.  And Google has recently responded with an AWESOME offer for K12 Schools that’s too good to pass up:

Until July 2010 K12 Districts can migrate to Google Apps for Education AND receive FREE anti-spam/anti virus-protection via Postini

Postini is a popular (Google owned) industrial strength anti-spam & anti-virus solution.  And Google is even offering deep discounts on email archiving, malware protection and web filtering for K12 Districts as part of Postini.

In today’s economy hundreds of under-funded K12 school districts are moving to Gmail as a permanent replacement for those expensive, legacy solutions from companies like Novell and WorstClass FirstClass.  Google provides free GAE infrastructure tools for School IT Administrators and Google’s Sync is available to K12 IT Administrators to links contacts and calendars for popular mobile devices including Blackberry, iPhone and Android smartphones.

Still not convinced?  Take a moment and learn about ASU’s Gmail conversion:

Click here to view the embedded video.

How much does email cost your school?  Its expensive and ultimately costs are passed to taxpayers or student tuition.  By the way, what sliding scale fee does your school annually pay for a campus-wide Microsoft Office license?  GAE kills two birds with one stone as Google Docs is a free replacement for Office.

Act Now – Deploy later. Google’s offer ends July 2010

Related: Top Ten Reasons Schools should move to Google Apps.

Tags: Google, Google Apps for Education, education, Postini, anti-virus, K12, trends

She is worth every second of my time.

Tags: BMW, Milwaukee, marketing, product launch, gran turismo, innovation, ideas, business, trends

Calatrava designed the Milwaukee Art Museum expansion.  This interactive movie will generate the same wings span.  After loading: Click and drag you mouse left and right to “open and close” the wings.  Have fun!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tags: BMW, Milwaukee, marketing, product launch, gran turismo, innovation, ideas, business, trends

who controls the internet

On the surface you may believe — even in 2009 that you can still say anything, do anything or hack any computer around the globe without impunity because you can hide inside the internet.

Goldsmith and Wu challenge Tom Friedman’s (The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century) position that globalization is opening up communication in countries that have long suppressed their citizen’s ability to speak freely.

China for example. Or think about the European Union.  Is the EU able to dictate how Microsoft releases software?  Think again.  When Microsoft published it’s passport technology it was rejected by the EU.  Rather than pay a fine Microsoft added the tougher security standards dictated by the EU for all customers worldwide.  Those standards are even tougher than those used in America.

Can France tell Yahoo or eBay what products to sell?  They can and they already do.  This book is written from a legal standpoint since both teach at the Law Schools of Harvard and Columbia respectively. Is it strange to see government control over the internet?  Would this be different if today was September 10 2001?  Goldsmith and Wu share their insight to the way Law helps and hinders the internet.  From simply selling memorabilia to cybercrime you learn gaping holes exist even today to prosecute offenders and criminals.

The “I Love You” virus that cost US companies millions of dollars originated in The Philippines, but since there is no law against this type of crime in the The Philippines the US was unable to arrest the known hacker.  Similar rules apply in Russia. When the FBI arrested a hacker who extorted millions from US companies, Russia did not acknowledge this type of crime and did not agree to extradite, so the FBI was forced to release the criminal.

Goldsmith and Wu share the legal case between Yahoo and the country of France that forced Yahoo’s online store to pull Nazi related memorabilia even though Yahoo is an American based company.  But Yahoo’s remote offices in France proved to the key error Jerry Yang overlooked.  Yahoo has stumbled a lot lately.

Control over the internet extends to US K12 School Districts who filter web content to protect minors from material that is deemed to be offensive, sexual or drug related.  But many in America may find that the country of Australia has been trying to impose the same type of filtering for the whole country.

As the internet has grown in popularity and extending access to schools, banks, companies and financial firms the need to protect assets against cybercrime has also grown.  To no surprise the US and foreign countries have begun to establish laws to protect citizens and business.

Finally Goldsmith and Wu show how companies eager to enter China’s vast market have been answering to the communist party vs. individual freedoms.  Yahoo provided the strongest example when they give Chinese authorities the identity of a blogger who wrote “controversial” posts about the Chinese government and leadership.

Who Controls the Internet is a valuable read to understand that governments can control access and at the same time acknowledge some laws are not enough when hunting cyber crime.

who controls the internet

I have been impressed with the book, including a new preface to the paperback release.  But guys, seriously….why did you ditch the original hardcover visual? The typography on the updated paperback is terrible in comparison. Looks like someone forgot to ftp the master cover art to the book publisher.

Goldsmith and Wu also trace the history of DNS and ICANN regarding the recent discussions about moving control of the internet to the UN or to other countries, both friend and foe.  There is a lot to be considered if giving up control of a democratic tool to the Chinese or any non-democratic country including Russia.

There are plenty of examples of how the net began as a US defense department project and has revolutionized the world.  But they also do not acknowledge any issue with ICANN and the role of spam.  Since many spam servers sit outside the US there is little the government can do to stop this threat.  Ditto for identity theft.

Tags: internet, Legal, China, Cisco, Tom Friedman, filtering, European Union, Microsoft, trends,

Today begins Internet2′s Spring Member meeting.  The hot topic of conversation? Broadband stimulus funding.

Tags: smartphone, IPv6, network, advanced technologies, trends

The most surprising session was “HD video over IP for Distance Learning” because the original presenter did not show up….so I decided to try an Unconference session that ran two hours long.  Lots of great learning about how K12 Districts around the Midwest want to bring distance learning and HD video into the classroom.

From a technical point-of-view CIPA solutions range in flexibility like Tylenol:  Extra Strength Tylenol, Regular Strength Tylenol, Tylenol 8 hour and Tylenol PM.
For a real-world overview of YouTube, K12 web filtering & CIPA: Click Here

Many CIPA related questions from teachers and administrators can be addressed by a single resource:  District Technology Policy.  If you do not have one — get one — following these easy steps:

1. Google “K12 district technology policy”
2. Read policies posted online by Districts around the country
2a. Find one that looks appealing for the needs of your District
2b. Don’t forget to acknowledge their efforts…send an email acknowledging their work
3. Copy/paste
4. Modify as needed WITH District-wide consensus
5. Publish your Policy under Creative Commons

In many respects the CIPA vendor you choose may limit your flexibility in unblocking webpages.  Most robust CIPA products DO permit teachers/district coordinators to permit custom URLs to be available on the fly.

Vendors permit “timed access” to specific pages allowing, for example a class meeting Monday afternoons from 1:00 to 2:00pm will have a block of pre-approved website URLs available for 60 minutes.

Vendors also provide the flexibility to permit access to certain categories like eBay, Amazon or CraigsList with options:

1.    Warn:  This CIPA option will display a dialog box reminding users that the destination URL has been identified as a non-academic site but still allows access to the page.
2.    Tracking:  Pages can be tracked by administrators if your Technology Policy is so inclined.
3.    Time Quota:   This CIPA option will track a set time per day (beginning at midnight) for users to access defined, specific or pages.  categories.  If your district policy calls for 2 hours/day users are simply blocked after the district-wide site times out.

C O N T R O L:
Teachers have commented they need “special permission” to get access to a page or entire website for class.  Management of IT organizations has taught me many schools (and organizations) have adverse relationships with their IT staffs.  I’m sorry this exists.

It is often difficult to break the assumption, or the “built-in notion” that IT holds C O N T R O L simply because they install and configure the hardware/software but ultimately do not use the product in the classroom.  Do you work in a District where IT is the tail that wags the dog?

Q and A:
Does IT tell you what textbooks to order?

Today more and more textbook publishers are embedding webpage URL resources inside textbooks or have established textbook companion webpages.  Think you still have the right CIPA solution running in your District?

The idea that textbook approval is equal to website approval is not real.  Textbooks are a single source of knowledge unchanged until the next physical edition is printed/shipped … in some cases years later.   The equivalent would be a series of fixed bookmarked websites pointing to  content. However in some cases pages move to different webservers, blogs or wikis by the time a textbook is shipped. The advantage to online resources includes the ability to see feedback from students outside his/her classroom on a potential global scale regarding subject matter.

BTW:  In some cases a remote firewall can block access to the destination website.  Sometimes the webserver crashes.
The internet … like life … is not perfect.
Q:  Should the teachers be in this same umbrella of protection?
A:  The CIPA law is for the protection of minors.

Q:  Should the teachers then be allowed to access the internet without restrictions?  If so, where does the boundary lies – shopping sites, personal email sites, etc.
A: Well … do you ALWAYS log off your classroom computer correctly?
I have personally watched teachers leave their restricted login account running after they have exited the classroom leaving the computer available to anyone with access to grading and assessment.  There are boundaries/rules/guidelines and dare I say … Policy for a reason — to protect students AND faculty.

Is a computer available in the teacher’s lounge?  That computer could be configured to bypass CIPA filtering based upon LDAP or Microsoft’s Active Directory.  Some have voiced an opinion that teachers and administrators are employees of the District and must obey rules when using equipment at school.  While teachers at home or on the road – different story/different post.

A Technology Policy crafted for your District based upon the realworld needs of your teachers can determine the best product and will serve your District well.

Tags: content filter, CIPA, K12, education, technology, web filter, 8e6, bandwidth, broadband, internet, teacher, school, youtube, K12 Technology Policy, District Technology, Technology Policy, web filter, trends

Friedman provides detailed examples of how the world has been wasting energy resources since the industrial revolution. Sadly I am convinced we are (environmentally speaking) screwed.  Friedman provides well written pages that will awaken those still asleep on the environment’s impact on the human race.  If you think “green” is a movement to replace your light bulbs with Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs your WAY off base.  Its about re-educating how we waste energy and in today’s global economy risk losing more industries to countries around the globe.

The major challenge?  This issue is no long America’s alone to fix. Thanks to globalization its now a problem for the entire world.  Mother Earth needs assistance from China and India. Both must engage in green technologies to ensure planet earth’s health for the long term.

For China and India that includes all 3.5 Billion of their citizens who are just coming out of poverty.  Their governments cannot permit new coal plants to dominate their air pollution.  China alone brings coal-fired (dirty) power plants online every two weeks and will continue to do so for the short term future.

The Beijing Olympics was a perfect example of population and industrial pollution impacting the Chinese environment … and their economy.

Why China and India are causing the price of gasoline to rise.
When I was born in 1966 the earth’s population stood at 3.4 billion.  When my son was born in 2007 the population doubled to 6.7 billion.  What does our future hold when the earth’s population reaches 9 billion in 2050?  Forget fuel costs for a moment.  How much will it cost to feed your family?

Thanks to globalization (outsourcing & offshoring) a lot more Chinese (more than 1.3 Billion as of 2007) are for the first time purchasing cars to drive their countryside as America embraced the 1950s.

The city of Beijing ‘officially’ registers more than 1,500 cars/day.
How many does your city register?

Consider China’s gasoline demands: its not a surprise gasoline rose above $4.00/gallon in the Midwest during the summer of 2008.  China is now the largest importer of gasoline.  Enter almost another billion citizens from India and the former Soviet Union and you see why the need for green transportation is key to a green revolution.  Without China, India and Russia embracing green hybrid technologies mother earth will continue suffocating on huge carbon footprints.

Fail in China and India and there is nothing America can do but stand on the sidelines and absorb the impact.  This clearly a message Friedman continues to convey from his World is Flat series. The global economy has changed business (and finance) much more quickly than many Americans are aware of especailly in regards to local impact by global forces.

In a closing chapter Friedman shares the story of a green solar technology developed back in my hometown Toledo Ohio. Yet finding no takers in Ohio or America and rebuffed by Ohio’s senator George Voinovich who voted against extending solar tax credits, First Solar was forced to shift production to Germany. Sales then jumped $20 million and more importantly 540 good paying jobs left Ohio for the German cities of Mainz, Frankfurt and Berlin.  This was part of his NYTimes article Dumb as we want to be.

Consider how many vending machines you see in your child’s school and  think about how many there are around the entire school district.  Remember they run all day and night and until 2000 were about as energy efficient as a WWII-era refrigerator.  Do you know how many organizations actually lost money on their deals with Coke and Pepsi?  They never negotiated the energy cost of those vending machines.

And until recently Coke and Pepsi really didn’t care how much it cost … they weren’t paying the electricity bills.  Friedman will force you to look at the world differently.  If not for you — then for our children.

Tags: Tom Friedman, Hot, Flat and Crowded, environment, globalization, Green revolution, First Solar, Toledo, education, Germany, population, offshoring, Outsourcing, India, coal, manufacturing, technology, reading, trends

Apologies up front for this long post.  Sincerely hope by sharing my experiences more teachers, administrators, curriculum developers, technology coordinators and even parents will have a better understanding how filtering ultimately affects students.

Disclaimer
1. This post will not address content found on YouTube.  This post will speak to the technologies behind filtering and how solutions from 3rd party vendors permit access to rich media content websites including YouTube. School Districts, based upon an established technology policy have options when choosing their web filtering solution.
2. Michael Wesch was a keynote speaker at WiscNet’s 2007 Future Technologies Conference …and just off the enormous success of his own video on YouTube.  His presentation “Human Futures for Technology and Education” resulted in many attendees sharing his video at their schools helping fellow teachers and administrators better understand how students use the internet.
3. This post does not endorse any specific vendor.
4. This post draws upon my work with K12 technology coordinators, teachers and administrators along with vendor technical support and the excellent network support group at WiscNet.
5. This post addresses in a roundabout way the need for every district to have an established technology policy regarding filtering. Finally this post will address the critical issue of bandwidth necessary to deliver rich media content into the school.

Wish this was an easy, short post.  The filtering process can become complex and frustrating. I have learned this isolates teachers who want to share compelling content with their students.  This started as an answer to questions regarding filtering in K12 outside the 140 limit of Twitter and then kinda steamrolled…

Overview
K12 school districts are required by law to implement filtering to block adult, illegal or offensive content from minors.  The law is known as the Children’s Internet Protection Act:

The 2001 Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) is a federal law enacted by Congress to address concerns about access to offensive content over the internet on school and library computers. CIPA imposes certain types of requirements on any school or library that receives funding for Internet access or internal connections from the E-rate program – a program that makes certain communications technology more affordable for eligible schools and libraries.

Computing vendors sell dedicated hardware, software and appliances (devices that combine filtering along with firewall, anti-spam and even anti-virus protection) that address CIPA requirements for a K12 school district or Library. Their solutions integrate CIPA guidelines into filtering categories for technology coordinators:

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Solutions will vary from district to district due to any vendor’s installed filtering solution.  However a technology coordinator can edit filtering settings.  Combined with Mudcrawlers (see below) the district or library can stay up-to-date with the newest sites and pages that conflict with CIPA guidelines.

Powerful video that moves/educates students
There are very compelling education-related videos on YouTube including Michael Wesch’s Web 2.0: The Machine is Us/ing us.  Michael has also shared some rather powerful statistics regarding YouTube here. The page was last updated in March of this year so consider those numbers higher today.  And if you think those are powerful, consider the staggering numbers for FaceBook here.  Again parents, teachers and administrators need to understand how students already use the internet.

Just like other Web2.0 media sites that popped up on the internet, YouTube gained traction and became a powerful location to upload videos for free. No thought was put into establishing an educational access point when YouTube was launched…the founders were burning through credit cards just to keep the site live.  So from the beginning YouTube was not built to become a video warehouse for education. However with their overwhelming exposure and free access for everyone it has become a popular resource nevertheless.

Test Michael’s video and test your school’s filter at the same time:

1. The URL for his video is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g
2. Copy/Paste this link into your browser.
3. Does your school district block access to this video?
4. Does the video play immediately?  Does it take a long time to play?

Filtering options
School districts have implemented filtering solutions from 8e6, Barracuda, Fortinet and others.  WiscNet, the educational and research StateNet in Wisconsin partnered with 8e6 Technologies to provide Wisconsin school districts and libraries with two options addressing filtering:

1. Offsite filtering: Central
Central hosting permits schools and libraries to connect via proxy servers to WiscNet’s centralized filtering server.  Each district’s technology coordinator(s) work with WiscNet to configure DNS and also configure all web browsers used by students, teachers and staff to redirect every requested URL to the central filter for analysis.  The district’s technology coordinator is authorized to log into their district profile and add or block additional pages on demand.

2. Onsite filtering: Local
The second option places a filtering server onsite inside a district’s server room.  There are advantages to installing a local content filtering box.  In addition to the features in the central server, a local filter has the ability (if it matches the district’s technology policy) to block IM traffic and even streaming media.  Local filtering can also leverage a district’s LDAP server and link filtering rules to the district’s network directories (students, faculty, staff and administrators) thereby syncing the filtering solutions to user groups at elementary, middle and high school facilities including any administrative buildings connected to the districts’ network.  This has also been extended to laptops used at schools and libraries.

Reporting Tools
8e6′s servers have reporting tools that permit logging URLs requested by a single laptop or an entire classroom of computers. If a teacher feels a student may be veering away from online class assignments, a realtime probe tool can be configured to log all requested URLs from a student’s computer for specific periods of time.  The results can be analyzed to determine the stated course of action outlined in the district’s technology policy:

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4. Warning and Timed Quotas
8e6 provides options to place a customized URL warnings regarding access by groups: students, teachers, staff/admin and guests.  For example a district may recommend teachers, staff and administrators not visit eBay during the school day.  The software permits a technology coordinator to attach a custom message to any web browser used by teachers, staff and administrators that requests any eBay URL. The message will remind the user that eBay is not approved under district policy, but does permit the browser to access eBay.
–Consider this a gentle hint hint – wink wink – nudge nudge reminder.

A recent feature added by 8e6 is “Timed Quotas” which permits a district to implement time limits for a website.  District policy (again eBay for example) can dictate access to eBay not to exceed three hours a day.

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After eBay’s time quota has been reached the site becomes blocked for the rest of the day, with the site’s quota reset at midnight.

Tech Support’s cool factor:
Filter vendors and StateNet support teams who work in partnership with districts can log directly into a district’s filter (central or local) to address questions.  The software even permits tech support teams to configure their own browser (via proxy) to point to the school’s IP filtering address, permitting them to “drop” their browser inside a district LAN. This allows tech support to access any URL in question (deny or pass) just as any computer connected to the district’s network.  Reporting tools can generate Excel spreadsheets or email providing excellent data to troubleshoot URLs not playing well with filtering.

A word about big video websites
Heavily trafficked websites including YouTube have multiple servers to handle large numbers of visitors.  When you need to block a popular site today you must use a filter’s ability to search for all addresses that answer to “www.youtube.com” because Google has established additional servers to handle heavy requests.  If those are not included the videos will continue to be accessible:

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Mudcrawler
How does a school district keep up-to-date with all the new content uploaded to the internet outlined by CIPA?  Vendors work with Mudcrawlers. What a job title eh? Mudcrawlers identify, locate and verify new content and proxy hacks in conflict with CIPA guidelines and upload those new URLs daily to vendors who then push updates to their installed machines at schools and libraries.  This takes place on a daily basis.

Achilles Heel:  Bandwidth
There are very important bandwidth considerations for accessing rich media content resources on the internet including YouTube from a classroom, teacher’s laptop or even “high tech” teaching labs.  This all revolves around bandwidth.

The video’s file size does not matter since a teacher’s goal is to play the video online not download it. The video’s data rate (data transferred over the internet/per second) is very important for consistent playback. Depending upon the amount of bandwidth the school district has available smooth playback may occur due to bandwidth constraints.

Please remember a district’s total bandwidth is divided between the elementary, middle school, high school and district administrative offices.  If a district has a 5 megabit bandwidth connection between the buildings listed above that means each building basically receives a single (1) megabit connection if configured by the technology coordinator or network consultant.  Here is the data rate of Michael’s video: 466.9 Kbits/second – just under 470K of bandwidth per second.

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If a school district has a total bandwidth of just 3 Megabits/second it means SIX students (on six different computers at the same time) begin watching Micheal’s video — the entire bandwidth for the school reaches saturation.  In other words the network crawls.

Test Michael’s video and test your technology coordinator’s nerves:
1. Learn how much bandwidth your school has established across the entire district: how much for each building linked to the school’s LAN.
2. The URL for his video is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g
3. Copy/Paste this link into your browser.
4. If the video plays, does the rest of the district’s network slow to a crawl?
5. What happens in a classroom with 20 computers?  10MB/second requirement.

Ironic that my roadrunner cable modem at home provides a 6.5megabit download speed to a single computer. $44/month minus taxes.

Attention Technology Coordinators: Get your geek on
Wesch’s video is not a RTSP stream but rather a static clip that gets pushed over TCP/IP. In a low bandwidth situation TCP will automatically rebroadcast dropped packets. YouTube is going to be flooding your pipe rebroadcasting those dropped packets and causing your network to slow down.

Low Bandwidth = High Shapers
Clearly school districts have insufficient bandwidth to view YouTube like content.  Bandwidth can be saturated quickly by the demands of rich media.  Example: Grab NASA’s video stream of a live shuttle launch.  The raw feed could require 8Mb/second connection, which would kill a district’s entire bandwidth to the internet.

Short term solution
Install a packetshaper.  Packetshapers permit a district technology coordinator to limit the amount of bandwidth specific protocols can access.  A science teacher wants to permit students to watch the shuttle launch and listen to commentary by NASA.  A Tech Coodinator can limit RTSP (the protocol passing the live video) to just 100K/second for every computer on the network – district wide.  However this packetshaping configuration will kill the video in two ways: first the limit on bandwidth would result in a stop-start-stop-wait-start-stop effect, second it would take a very long time to download the video to a students computer to watch the launch.

Long term solution
Get more bandwidth.  If you live in Wisconsin you need to get in touch with WiscNet, Wisconsin’s StateNetwork.  Check out this article: WiscNet helped a K12 District increase their bandwidth from 3MB/sec to 100MB/sec for just $75.00 more a year via GrowSmart.

Educators please recognize HD video lectures from Museums and Colleges have been available to K12s on the Research Channel and Internet2 via your StateNet.
Love the fact Missouri K12s have been video conferencing with Museums in London for four years!
Powerful content awaits both teachers and students.

Real World challenges: We don’t plan to fail, we fail to plan
Regardless of filtering solution, frequent “fire drills” revolve around allowing blocked sites to be unblocked for a teacher’s request, class assignment or guest speaker.  Yet due to the workloads of almost every high school technology coordinator, requests arrive less than 10 minutes before the class or speaker is scheduled.  Fire drills that often frustrates everyone in the process.

Q & A:
Q: I’m frustrated when YouTube’s webpage is still not showing the video.
You and me both.  Multiple answers here:

Answer #1: Google pushes many URL resources into a single YouTube page.
Those embedded URLs may be blocked by CIPA categories. If just one of those pushed URLs from Google is blocked, the entire page AND the video will not play:

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The interesting and troublesome issue is that most YouTube pages do not carry the same embedded links and URLs, so trying to write a generic allow (or bypass) rule will be very difficult.

Answer #2: Copyright infringement.
The video is pulled by YouTube due to legal action. No technology workaround is going to show it.  Google statement regarding copyright killing video here

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Answer #3: Bandwidth
Spinning cursor loading selected video never stops.  See Achilles Heel (above)

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Answer #4: The user deleted the file.
There is no magic like having someone delete a video from their account after its been talked about.  Bummer.

Q: Is YouTube automatically blocked by CIPA ?
A: Yes and No.  YouTube has videos that definitely fall outside CIPA guidelines forcing filters to block access to YouTube.  Districts can permit access to areas of YouTube by adjusting the settings in their filters or allowing custom bypass rules:

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Q: What does a blocked page look like ?
A: For a filter than BLOCKS videos from YouTube based upon a CIPA category of R Rated, the filter pulls this report which spells out the category and URL upfront:

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Q: Can YouTube flag videos for K12?
A: Today citizens around the world upload over 150,000 videos every day to YouTube.  Trying to hire someone to flag videos for K12 would be an overwhelming task.  Consider this: ABC Television has been broadcasting for 60 years. The first television broadcast was in April 1948 and if you added all the video ever broadcast since 1948 it would total over 500,000 hours.
YouTube has produced more hours of content in just the past 5 months.

Q: Does all YouTube video playback at the same rate ?
A: No.  Depends upon how much the person who uploaded the video knows about video codecs (compression/decompression) the data rate can be small or really big.

Ideas:
1. Google: set up K12.youtube.com so filters can automatically pass educational videos to schools and libraries. This would take some work on the backend, but boy it sure would help out K12s around the globe.

2. Apple: strengthen iTunesU‘s existing K12 category by opening compelling video content clips for K12s.
See K12s own category within iTunesU here

Although I have read a number of tweets regarding educational YouTube-like websites all of them fail to scale to the demands of having industrial strength servers and network bandwidth capacity compared to YouTube or iTunesU.

Read More About It
Library.org: content filtering review here
PC Magzaine: content filtering review here
TopTen: home filtering review here
CIPA information via the FCC here

So why did it take so long to register that a blog post could benefit others by stepping outside the 140 character limit of Twitter?  If you think this is a good knowledge sharing post, then please follow me here on Twitter.

Will be more than happy to answer additional questions.  Let me know your thoughts.

Tags: content filter, CIPA, K12, education, technology, web filter, 8e6, bandwidth, broadband, internet, teacher, school, youtube, Michael Wesch, Twitter, WiscNet, web filter,trends

This Regional Optical Network (RON) will be advancing the research opportunities in the upper midwest by enhancing the established optical network with new links installed by member institutions and the WiscNet NOC.

Tags: ANML, optical network, Midwest, Boreas, globalization, network, Milwaukee, economic development, trends

Session Overview:
October 15, 2008, 8:45 AM – 10:00 AM | UTC/GMT -5 hours (CDT)
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) represents a major milestone along the path towards a new understanding of the fundamental nature of the physical universe. This is a major milestone for physics, and also an important milestone for the Internet2 advanced networking community in supporting research in the U.S.

The LHC will generate many petabytes during each year of operation, and will accumulate an exabyte of real and simulated data within the first decade of its estimated 20 years of operation. Internet2 and its regional partner networks, ESnet and USLHCNet will provide the critical national and transatlantic infrastructure linking U.S. LHC scientists to the data, and to their partners in Europe and Asia.

To celebrate and highlight our community’s work, Internet2 will present a live peek behind the scenes at the LHC using advanced iHDTV technology developed by the ResearchChannel and University of Washington to provide our community a first hand view of the biggest science device on the planet and discuss the importance the community’s investment in cyberinfrastructure to this work and in future research and discovery.

This session The Importance of Cyberinfrastructure for Higher Education was truly a peek at new demands for massive data transfers over the internet.  LHC project research will be expected to generate over 5 petabytes of data.  Over today’s advanced 100Gbit networks this data will take one week to transfer from LHC to the large science research centers in America.

One week over the most advanced networks available today?  Time for an upgrade.

Tags: Internet2, bandwidth, network, fiber, globalization, petabyte, large hadron collider, LHC, CERN, gigabit, trends

Tectonic Economics is about the impact of the two fastest growing economies who have embraced capitalism AND globalization at the same time.  And by the way, America and Europe have been left out of this economic growth spurt since 9/11.

Actually at the rate China and India are rising you just need to look at both countries since 9/11 to see their immediate impact.  And Meredith has done a great job of helping understand these two transformations.  There is no more waiting for a new generation they have arrived and instituted global change in less than a decade.  For most Americans they still do not see changes occurring at this speed affecting the global economy.

Meredith makes the hard salary figures easy to understand why companies around the globe have jumped to China and India.  But this will not be easy for IT professionals in America.  India’s InfoSys hires computer science graduates (some also have an MBA) to be a VoIP specialist in Bangalore with an annual salary of $5,000.  Yes, five grand a year for a VoIP specialist.  This similar type job in California via InfoSys pays $120,000.  This should be really easy to understand why hundreds of tech companies including Cisco, Apple, IBM and HP have moved operations (some larger than others) to Bangalore.  Remember you have to please your stockholders.  The changes already underway (and under the radar) will continue to add stress to America’s middle class.

And its not just in technology related jobs that you see such a dramatic difference in India.  Full time restaurant cooks earn $55.00/month. You can also work as a personal auto driver for $125.00/month.  Regardless of the current Wall Street crisis now entering week three, if you have a mortgage with GreenPoint Mortgage, Inc. in Novato California….your mortgage contacts are actually Indian contractors working in Bangalore who earn $3,600/year.  In China the blue collar jobs pay even less.  Surprised? The Elephant and the Dragon puts the numbers right upfront to help understand why dramatic global change is underway:

China opened its communist economy to the west in 1978.
Since that time over 600 Billion has been invested mainly in factories.
America has lost millions of blue collar jobs as a result.

India opened its democratic economy to the west in 1991.
Since this time over 7.5 Billion has been invested mainly in people.
America is quietly losing millions of white collar jobs as a result.

So while China’s economy has been soaring like a rocket, India has been slow and steady.  For many American companies today the only way to please stockholders is to move production to China and operations to India.  Walmart is the biggest example of engaging China for blue collar production of cheap products, while India is the source of the new wave of offshoring: white collar workers. Americans will be losing middle management jobs to India’s well educated workers who are willing to accepting to considerably lower wages to secure employment.  China and India produce more white collar graduates (MBAs) than America + Europe combined.  There is a new era upon already in affect today. Understand its impact or simply get run over by it:

19th Century:  Farmers lost jobs to the Industrial Revolution
20th Century:  Sweatshops lost jobs to assembly line workers
21st Century:  US Factories lost jobs to Mexico and China
Post 9/11:       US white collar workers are losing jobs to India and China

As Meredith suggests this element is the darkside of globalization for the American middle class.  This is how our world is being shaped.  We need to understand how we must adjust to survive.  Meredith provides this understanding and much more.

In Chapter 1: Where Mao Meets the Middle Class, Meredith shares one of the most common success stories of China: Toys.  Have you been to toy store since 9/11?  Seems like almost every toy in the store is made in China.  In Quandong China alone there are over 5,000 toy factories. China is now the home to the world’s $85 Billion toy industry.  Other examples of the post 9/11 global economy moving to China:

Shoes: 75% of all shoes are made in China.
Bicycles: 90% of all bicycles are made in China.
DVD Players: 90% of all DVD players are made in China
Autoparts: 30% are made in China.
Electronics: 180 Billion annual revenue (before 9/11 it was $20 Billion)

Multinationals (companies) are making huge profits off the backs of Chinese workers.  In 1978 an average person in China lived on $3.00/year.  So naturally companies moved entire factories to China.  Why not if you can hire someone (insert imperialism here) and pay them $.50/month. Its still an enormous amount to their families.

Chapter 3:Made by America in China, focuses on multinationals including Philips. Before 9/11 Phillips’ annual revenue in China were $200 Million – today its $4.5 Billion annually.  Philips manufactures all light bulbs in China and ships to Los Angeles in only 11 days.  Even in China’s delegated “Economic Zones” Philips has been able to move 8,000 jobs to China while building 32 factories.  As a result Philips closed their plants in Spain and Canada laying off thousands.

Before 9/11 there was a slow stroll to invest in China.  Since 9/11 US companies are sprinting to China, and just keeping pace with the rest of the world.  Its no longer a surprise to see your new Nike shoes and your Apple iPod both shipping from China.
–Actually Apple’s product even is known in the city of Longhua China as “iPod City.”

Chapter 6: India’s Cultural Revolution, is a wonderful review of the vast changes occurring today inside India as a result of opening their economy and their people to the world.  Change in their culture is one area India may not have forecasted at the same pace that globalization has helped their three leading IT outsourcing companies, Tata, InfoSys and Wipro.

For India’s top IT tech firms, big American companies have already moved portions of their business operations to Bangalore.  Their list of clients shouldn’t surprise you: Pepsi, Gap, Apple, Cisco, Amazon, Reebok, Milwaukee’s own Johnson Controls, Nordstrom, IBM, Mercedes Benz, Bank of America, DHL, AirBus, Toshiba, Kraft Foods, Nortel and even the country of Kazakhstan.

India seems to be the best knowledge-based nation today hands down.  As a result of their success InfoSys received over 1.5 million applicants in 2006.  They are the top desired employer for students as Google is today in America.

Simply put, if your job is connected to the wire (the internet) there is a good chance it will be moving to India or China sooner than you think, want and pray.  Why?  Because India has revolutionized their educational systems.  India places emphasis on education that most Americans do not understand.  In the US we have come to the conclusion that after you achieve your education at the high school or college level you’ll be set for life.  Your interests and focus move to buying a house, an SUV that is terrible on gas mileage, a flat screen television and even the gaming consoles.  Indians continue to pursue additional education to help them secure in their lifetime solid employment.

According to the University of Chicago: America is too busy trying to satisfy too many agendas that are slowing much needed school reform.  Meredith’s book is just another wakeup call for America’s business and educational leaders.

Are you listening?

Tags: China, India, The Elephant and the Dragon, globalization, Robin Meredith, infosys, Tata, education, Wipro, offshoring, white collar, Multinationals, manufacturing, technology, reading, trends

In today’s world it seems everything is about China. There are so many emerging topics of interest Americans need to understand about this giant economy and manufacturing base.

Ted Fishman’s China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World is a much needed read in the new era of globalization. So powerful in fact that it’s now on my recommended list for business and education. Actually I’ll move it next to Tom Friedman’s bestseller The World Is Flat and John Kao’s Innovation Nation as noteworthy companions.

So what? The next time your holding an empty coffee cup or your child’s toys, flip them over and discover the country of origin. Yes, China is changing the rules of business and society.

If you do not believe this impacts America’s school children — well … your in trouble. Consider China graduates more honors students than the total number of students in American schools. Think about that statistic and what it means for your children or your grand-children’s future job market in the coming decades. I’m even concerned about my own son’s future career choices, yet confident it will require him to speak a non-roman language.

Rapid changes in the business landscape via globalization means the global market will continue to get more competitive.  Americans will continue to be challenged to find secure, solid employment.  It will be just as challenging to find a company who does not outsource elements to China’s fast growing economic empire in order to stay competitive. Fishman delivers this message loud and clear.

Take into consideration the production of cement. Do you see construction sites on your daily commute? Well think about the construction in China based upon this cement chart listed in Gigatons. Look how little America consumes next to China. What does that say about their growth?

Fishman also shares how the Chinese copy products (and processes) of successful companies around the world. In many cases buying a product and taking it back to China where its taken apart, examined, copied and produced at a fraction of the original vendor’s costs…regardless of copyright.

The Wisconsin connection:
Some of the more compelling chapters in Fishman’s books even cover the impact of Chinese manufacturing impacting local SE Wisconsin businesses.  Regardless of your geographic location in America, the story is the same. Fishman introduces Chapter 6: Through the Looking Glass with a quick study of Pekin Illinois, a rural farming community outside Chicago (blessed with that great Midwest topsoil) not found in China. The impact of food ie. wheat and grain production to feed over a billion people is quite challenging.

But his discussions in Chapter 7 The China Price brings into focus two companies in greater the Milwaukee area that serves as yet another wake-up call to America. One steel foundry company Signicast in Hartford Wisconsin (between Madison and Milwaukee) has been able to remain competitive by staying lean and relying upon engineering solutions to keep manufacturing in Wisconsin. Harley Davidson is a big customer for Signicast, but their competition is coming from China. In contrast Milwaukee Valve closed its Wisconsin manufacturing base and moved into China establishing five manufacturing plants. Global competition in my own backyard is also in your backyard.

These two examples regarding Wisconsin serves as a real-world lesson for our educational institutions. You’ll be well advised to read China, Inc. and learn how deep their impact is in America. Kao’s Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back acknowledges this same topic but outlines how American can respond.

X + Y = Z ?
The core of China, Inc. is a wake up call regarding educational globalization. Fishman points to China’s quickly emerging education system, the rising number of engineering students and the dwindling number of Americans pursuing engineering degrees. In a global marketplace driven by advanced technology more than ever before, business and technology jobs will be the cornerstone for companies to remain competitive. Remember GM is shutting down plants around the country including Janesville Wisconsin yet at the same time launching new plants in Central America and Asia.

2008 Summer Olympic Games – 40 days and counting
Take a look at math and science scores as a Olympic competition: US students do not even make the final round in math and science competitions. Visualize ten lanes for the 100 meter dash gold medal race with no American students even qualified for the finals. Our country’s children are being knocked out in the first round of competition. Actually the winning prize is not a medal but rather career employment opportunities.

Don’t miss Fishman’s lessons of China bringing top American educators to establish new schools with cutting edge technologies and curriculum.  Its happening and Innovation Nation documents this process and exodus of top American researchers too.  Personally I do not like where this is going.

GM, Toyota and the RIAA?
Fishman’s Chapter 9: Pirate Nation is an eye opening look at how China’s enormous economic power permits them to simply ignore piracy and trademark laws. Remember the good old days of industrial espionage?

In 2002 GM was shocked to find at the largest auto show in China their brand new SUV for the Chinese market had not only an exact duplicate in the same isle at the auto show … but was manufactured with the exact same parts GM used with an outsourced Chinese part manufacture. Why was this not headline news in America?  May GM live in interesting times indeed! Reminds me when the Soviets stole (and built) a copy of the Concord back in the 1960s before the French could even fly Concord.

Fishman’s Pirate Nation rehashed China’s well known pirating of movies, music and software from American companies as the next step in digital espionage. The Chinese acknowledge the problem yet say they don’t have the manpower to enforce copyright laws. And the RIAA is busy suing college students? So while the Chinese further pirating digital products … well maybe from their perspective the internet is a perfect tools to destroy more markets and companies.

Even Toyota ran into a similar situation but decided to purse legal action against the Chinese … only to learn China “did not recognize” Toyota as a brand. GM and Toyota, two of the biggest auto companies in the world simply buckled under the Chinese threat and not risk access to their market.

Clearly Fishman’s work results in one of the best books on China’s globalization impact on America, our manufacturing and educational systems.

Highly recommending reading.  Book Website here

Tags: China, Fishman, Globalization, technology, reading, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, manufacturing, outsourcing, trends