Category: Innovation

YouTube in America and China

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date March 7, 2009
2 Comments on YouTube in America and China

This week my colleague ijohnpederson blogged about YouTube‘s January analytical results. For the first time over 100 million internet users in the U.S. watched 6.3 Billion videos. In the globalized world today that number is not very big. Consider how the world is connecting to the internet in larger and larger numbers:

Population
China: 1,330,044,544 (July 08) Source
US: 303,824,640 (July 08) Source

Internet Population
China: 298,000,000 (Jan 09) 22.4% of the population Source
US: 220,141,969 (June 08) 72.5% of the population Source

China has almost as many people connected to the internet as America has people. Think about that for a moment. At Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society this week former Berkman fellow Rebecca MacKinnon addressed “The Tao of the Web: China and the future of the Internet” in a webcast about the role of censorship in China.

Tags berkman, censorship, china, great firewall of china, internet users, population, youtube

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K12 Technology Plan: CIPA

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date February 13, 2009

K12 Teachers and Administrators have questions about some of the finer points regarding CIPA and their school district. It appears there is a misunderstanding: not all CIPA products are created equal and more importantly your District may actually have the wrong CIPA product installed.

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.

Tags access, bandwidth, cipa, content filter, creative commons, district technology policy, Education, it, k12, school district, school technology, teachers, technology plan, technology specialist, web filter, webfilter, website

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Latest read: Hot, Flat and Crowded

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date January 18, 2009
1 Comment on Latest read: Hot, Flat and Crowded

Over the long holiday I finally finished Tom Friedman’s book Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How It Can Renew America. The book is a mixed blessing. Friedman has written one of the best books to understand the emergency need for a global environmental revolution.

hot, flat and crowded

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?

Tags china, coal, environment, first solar, gasoline, germany, Globalization, Green, green energy, india, pollution, population, poverty, revolution, solar, toledo, tom friedman, vending machine

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Jumping into the cloud

internet cloud The huge success of web apps have made me think about jumping into the cloud with Microsoft’s Office suite.

Back in the day, Office was really the only game in town. Today Google’s App services had taken the lead in the Web2.0 surge.

Apps provide great functionality and workgroup solutions for free. Many users will never push Excel to its limits. Google Apps which includes a powerful spreadsheet app is definitely good enough for many of us on a day to day basis.

Robert Scoble announced:

I’ve been watching my usage. In two months I’ve only used Outlook out of the entire Office Suite. Everything else? Moved onto online services.”
– 09:06 AM April 30, 2008 from web

Tags cloud computing, computing solutions, Google, microsoft, robert scoble, web 2.0, web apps, workgroup solutions

Education Globalization Innovation Reading Technology

Latest read: Made to Stick

What book would be a perfect follow up to The Tipping Point and Blink by Malcolm Gladwell? To prove timing is everything I read Dan and Chip Heath’s new release: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. The book’s authors acknowledge that their book complements Gladwell’s The Tipping Point by identifying “traits” necessary to make your ideas ‘sticky’ with your intended audience.
Written by brothers Chip and Dan Heath they share experiences and research in finding ideas that stick. Chip is professor of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Dan is a consultant to Duke University’s Corporate Education program.

Made to Stick provides wonderful insight to learn how powerful ideas succeed in the face of big obstacles (and people) especially in a stale environment. Take Subway’s series of commercials featuring Jared for example.

Originally passed by PR firms, Jared’s story was brought to life by the Subway store manager where Jared ate while attending Indiana University. The ad campaign was eventually created pro-bono by a firm thinking they would fail. Even Subway’s PR firm did not support this idea. Chip and Dan prove not only how wrong they were, but how powerful the idea has turned out to be for Subway.

Tags blink, chip heath, Dan Heath, Education, knowledge, made to stick, Reading, research, stanford, sticky, TED, tipping point, trends