In 2013, 17 percent of consumers in both China and the U.S. had access to a fiber internet connection. Fast forward to 2019, China’s penetration has jumped to 86 percent while the U.S. is only at 25 percent.
Despite the constant posturing and discussion about the importance of fiber, the U.S. has not been effective at deploying a nationwide fiber optical network. Why is this?
LACK OF PRIVATE COMPETITION
INADEQUATE BROADBAND MAPPING
INEFFICIENT NATIONAL FUNDING PROGRAMS
ABSENCE OF COMMON SENSE STATE-LEVEL INFRASTRUCTURE POLICIES
Unlike America, virtually all of the access points that make up the internet “backbone” in China are state-owned, with private providers only able to lease out bandwidth from the government. The communist government’s plans extend beyond its own borders as well; the Belt and Road Initiative includes plans for direct investment in infrastructure spanning nearly 70 different countries, potentially giving China a vice grip on internet innovation if left unchecked by the West.
Corporations have built a hall of one-way mirrors: from the inside, you can see only apps, web pages, ads, and yourself reflected by social media. But in the shadows behind the glass, trackers quietly take notes on nearly everything you do. These trackers are not omniscient, but they are widespread and indiscriminate. The data they collect and derive is not perfect, but it is nevertheless extremely sensitive.
A data-snorting company can just make low bids to ensure it never wins while pocketing your data for nothing. This is a flaw in the implied deal where you trade data for benefits.
You can limit what you give away by blocking tracking cookies. Unfortunately, you can still be tracked by other techniques. These include web beacons, browser fingerprinting and behavioural data such as mouse movements, pauses and clicks, or sweeps and taps.
Tor, the original anti-surveillance browser, is based on an old, heavily modified version of Firefox.
Most other browsers are now, like Chrome, based on Google’s open source Chromium. Once enough web developers started coding for Chrome instead of for open standards, it became arduous and expensive to sustain alternative browser engines. Chromium-based browsers now include Opera, Vivaldi, Brave, the Epic Privacy Browser and next year’s new Microsoft Edge.
“It’s no secret that students today face the ultimate paradox—the same tools they need to use to complete their work can also provide their biggest distractions from completing work.” How can we help them manage this struggle? https://t.co/xmaOzXpvfU
According to the Pew Research Center, 72 percent of teenagers check their phones as soon as they get up (and so do 58 percent of their parents), and 45 percent of teenagers feel as though they are online on a nearly constant basis. Interestingly, and importantly, over half of U.S. teenagers feel as though they spend too much time on their cell phones.
Research on intrinsic motivation focuses on the importance of autonomy, competency and relatedness in classroom and school culture.
According to one Common Sense Media report, called Social Media, Social Life, 57 percent of students believe social media use often distracts them when they should be doing homework. In some ways, the first wave of digital citizenship education faltered by blocking distractions from school networks and telling students what to do, rather than effectively encouraging them to develop their own intrinsic motivation around making better choices online and in real life.
Research also suggests that setting high expectations and standards for students can act as a catalyst for improving student motivation, and that a sense of belonging and connectedness in school leads to improved academic self-efficacy and more positive learning experiences.
Educators and teachers who step back and come from a place of curiosity, compassion and empathy (rather than fear, anger and frustration) are better poised to deal with issues related to technology and wellness.
An analysis shows that information flow between individuals in a social network can be ‘gerrymandered’ to skew perceptions of how others in the community will vote — which can alter the outcomes of elections.
The Internet has erased geographical barriers and allowed people across the globe to interact in real time around their common interests. But social media is starting to compete with, or even replace, nationally visible conversations in print and on broadcast media with ad libitum, personalized discourse on virtual social networks3. Instead of broadening their spheres of association, people gravitate towards interactions with ideologically aligned content and similarly minded individuals.
n information gerrymandering, the way in which voters are concentrated into districts is not what matters; rather, it is the way in which the connections between them are arranged (Fig. 1). Nevertheless, like geographical gerrymandering, information gerrymandering threatens ideas about proportional representation in a democracy.
Figure 1 | Social-network structure affects voters’ perceptions. In these social networks, ten individuals favour orange and eight favour blue. Each individual has four reciprocal social connections. a, In this random network, eight individuals correctly infer from their contacts’ preferences that orange is more popular, eight infer a draw and only two incorrectly infer that blue is more popular. b, When individuals largely interact with like-minded individuals, filter bubbles arise in which all individuals believe that their party is the most popular. Voting gridlock is more likely in such situations, because no one recognizes a need to compromise. c, Stewart et al.1 describe ‘information gerrymandering’, in which the network structure skews voters’ perceptions about others’ preferences. Here, two-thirds of voters mistakenly infer that blue is more popular. This is because blue proponents strategically influence a small number of orange-preferring individuals, whereas orange proponents squander their influence on like-minded individuals who have exclusively orane-preferring contacts, or on blue-preferring individuals who have enough blue-preferring contacts to remain unswayed.
#K12 schools need to start teaching students at a young age how to use the internet responsibly. Luckily, there are resources available to help them. #NCSAMhttps://t.co/iM2wPBTuR1
Young people may be expert social-media and smartphone users, but many lack the digital skills they need for today’s jobs. How can we set them up for success?
One day he may lead Club members in a lesson on building digital resumes that can be customized quickly and make job-seeking easier when applying online. Another day they may create a blog. On this particular day, they drew up a budget for an upcoming event using a spreadsheet. For kids who are often glued to their smartphones, these types of digital tasks, surprisingly, can be new experiences.
The vast majority of young Americans have access to a smartphone, and nearly half say they are online “almost constantly.”
But although smartphones can be powerful learning tools when applied productively, these reports of hyperconnectivity and technological proficiency mask a deeper paucity of digital skills. This often-overlooked phenomenon is limiting some young people’s ability—particularly those in rural and low-income communities—to succeed in school and the workplace, where digital skills are increasingly required to collaborate effectively and complete everyday tasks.
According to a survey by Pew Research Center, only 17 percent of Americans are “digitally ready”—that is, confident using digital tools for learning. Meanwhile, in a separate study, American millennials ranked last among a group of their international peers when it came to “problem-solving in technology-rich environments,” such as sending and saving digital information
teach his sophomore pupils the technology skills they need in the workplace, as well as soft skills like teamwork.
Fifty-nine percent of American teens have been bullied or harassed online, according to a 2018 survey by the Pew Research Center. Instagram is one of the most popular social media networks among teenagers and a likely place for teens to be bullied.
In a recent study, conducted by the investment bank Piper Jaffray, Instagram is the second most popular social media platform among teenagers. Thirty-five percent of teens surveyed said that Instagram is their favorite social media platform, compared with 41% who preferred Snapchat.
one cost of rampant fake reviews, fake accounts, fake views, & fake clicks –> the internet is increasingly becoming a low-trust environment, where an assumption of pervasive fraud is built into the way many things functionhttps://t.co/keOZUYiARL@zeyneppic.twitter.com/rOCPqnQU5y
The technologies section covers: learning environments, learning objects, activities, gaming, and building community. The tools were selected to potentially enhance synchronous teaching, asynchronous teaching or blended classrooms. The focus is on open or freely available tools but whenever a cost is involved it is indicated.
the 20/60/20 model of change. The idea is that the top 20% of any group will be game for anything, they are your early adopters, always willing to try the next best thing. The bottom 20% of a group will hate everything and spend most of their time either subtly slowly things down or in open rebellion. The middle 60% are the people who have the potential to be won or lost depending on how good your plan is
The top stream is about all the sunshine and light about working with others on the internet. It’s advantages and pitfalls, ways in which to promote prosocial discourse. The middle stream is about pragmatics. The how’s of doing things, it starts out with simple guidelines and moves forward the technical realities of licensing, content production and tech using. The bottom stream is about the self. How to keep yourself safe, how to have a healthy relationship with the internet from a personal perspective.
