Almost all computer systems in the 21st century require a user account. These accounts are used to control which computer resources will be available to the user. This is done to protect the system and the information stored on it. Accounts are typically assigned one of these levels of control: > Administrator accounts have permission Read More
Category: Technology
Ethical, Legal, and Responsible Computing
The emergence of digital computers and digital networks is changing what is means to be an ethical, legal and responsible user of computers. Most schools do include policy statements that teachers and administrators will use information technology in ethical, legal, and responsible manners. Remember also that in those cases where educators violate professional standards or Read More
Which #edtech Tools Get Used?
Because new information technologies (including hardware, software, and new uses of both) emerge very quickly compared to the periodicity of schools (new technologies appear several times during a typical school year), teachers must adopt and adapt to them constantly. When deciding which technologies to use, teachers are more likely to use technologies that: Are easier Read More
Colour Contrast Analyzer: A Tool for ADA Compliance
This video introduces a tool that can be used to check that your files have sufficient color contrast that those with certain visual impairments can view the text and images.
Colour Contrast Analyzer
Educators have a responsibility to make their files accessible to users. If students–all students–cannot see or hear the materials teachers create, then the are “inaccessible.” One of the steps educators should take to make their files and pages accessible to those who have vision disabilities is to make sure files have sufficient color contrast. The best Read More
Identity in the Digital World
Interestingly, in the digital world, it has become possible to maintain many different identities as well; these identities can be imaginative and even contrary to any physical identity. There are thousands of online communities that focus on just about any topic imaginable. Joining those communities (usually) requires only an email address which can be obtained Read More
Brains and Information Technology
Among the studies summarized by Gary Small, a cognitive scientist who works at the University of California Los Angeles, and his coauthor Gigi Vorgan in the 2008 book iBrain: Surviving the Technological Modification of the Modern Mind, were several documenting the effects of technologies on human brains. They described research in which scientists measured a Read More
Wireless Mobile Devices
Larry Rosen (2010), a psychologist from California State University, Dominguez Hills, applied the acronym WMD to describe wireless mobile devices which he observed have become the ICT device of choice for the first digital generation, and that choice was driven by the social interactions available via the devices. With these devices individuals are always connected Read More
The New Digital Divide
For some decades, I advocated for “technology-rich” schools. My work was supporting IT infrastructure and teaching teachers to use technology. At the time, we were all concerned with the “digital divide,” the fact that schools in affluent communities had plenty of devices and connections compared to the scant digital resources in schools located in poor Read More
“Is necessity the mother of invention?”
David Nye (2006) a historian of technology from Denmark observed that “the central purpose of technologies has not been to provide necessities, such as food and shelter, for humans had achieved these goals very early in their existence” (2). Nye and others find that the adage “necessity is the mother of invention” is just the Read More