Taste of Tech

All right, so maybe the National Academies Press isn’t your thing. Admittedly, it’s a bit on the tech/science/research/serious side, and that’s not always what we want to read before turning off the night light. Maybe The Open Library is more your style.

The Open Library website provides free access to book collections from around the world. Rather than simply providing the text of the books, the pages are scanned and displayed in an intuitive interface for reading online. Books in the public domain can be downloaded, shared, and printed for free. Alternatively, you can have them printed and bound by a third party for a nominal fee.

The Open Library is a product of the Internet Archive. It’s meant to show how books can be shared online without losing the character of the physical volume. While the selection is limited in the Open Library, they’re adding to it all the time with selections from the Internet Archive’s 250,000 books, which are also available online for free.

I’ve been using Skype for about a year, and this is the first time I’ve see this. A text chat window pops up from “Security Scan ALERT” with the text:

WINDOWS REQUIRES IMMEDIATE ATTENTION
—————————————————-
ATTENTION ! Security Center has detected
spyware on your computer !

Affected Software:

Microsoft Windows NT Workstation
Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0
Microsoft Windows 2000
Microsoft Windows XP
Microsoft Windows Win98
Microsoft Windows Server 2003

Detecting spyware is only the first step in
securing your PC. You need to remove spyware
programs before they damage your computer.

Scan & Repair Utilities uses the most advanced
spyware removal engine in the industry to delete
the toughest spyware programs in just one sweep.

* Removal — effective disabling of the most
sophisticated spyware programs
* Reliability — backed by FREE expert customer
support

To keep Skype communications safe and reliable
please download Scan & Repair Utilities 2007
from the link below:

Then there’s a link to a web site with a script that will download and install the software. I didn’t click on the link (and I didn’t paste it above). When I remove the script from the URL, and just go to what should be the home page for the site, I get a blank screen. Definitely a bad sign.

So, I did a little digging. The domain name is owned by “John Malkovich” in Las Vegas, NV. His phone number is listed as “+00.1702811906″ — definitely a part of the North American telecommunications grid that I’m not familiar with. His email address is on a domain that doesn’t exist (holivud-prodaksn.com). His DNS servers appear to be in Europe. A quick reverse lookup tells us that his IP address is also used by “msoftware.info”. That name is owned by “Sergei Machorin” in Moscow, Russia.

So what happens when you click on the link? The site redirects the user from “updatemonitor.org” to “scanandrepair.com”. Ultimately, it tries to download and install “Scan and Repair Utilities 2007″.

What does this do? It doesn’t look like it contains a virus, and I couldn’t find any definitive proof that it’s spyware, either. Neither McAfee nor Symantec considers it a serious threat, but they also indicate that the program doesn’t have much benefit, either.

We have to be suspicious. Skype doesn’t monitor my security settings, so I knew it was bogus when I first saw it. But I wonder if everyone who sees that popup will react with the same skepticism. What’s that 21st century skill about informatin literacy?

If children’s books aren’t your thing, the National Academies Press may be a better fit. NAP was created to publish the reports of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council. They publish more than 200 books each year on a wide variety of topics in science, engineering, and medicine.

Through their Joseph Henry Press imprint, they also publish authoritative books on science, technology, and health for the science-interested general public. The topics addressed by their publications are varied, including everything from modern physics and frontiers of medicine to scientific biography and early childhood development.

While print versions of all of their publications are available online, they also offer PDF downloads of more than 3,000 books. After signing up for a free account, simply add the titles to your shopping cart, and it’ll give you options for different types of media. While the books on the site aren’t all available for free download, many of them are.

I’ve already downloaded two titles on educational technology, and I’m looking forward to finding more resources on this site.

Megan was looking for a new book to read. “Do you want a book that’s true or one that’s make-believe?”

“Make-believe.”

“Do you want a book where the characters are kids, real animals, or imaginary creatures?”

“Imaginary creatures like fairies and unicorns?” I nodded. She nodded.

“I’m assuming you want a picture book instead of a chapter book.” She’s going in to first grade, and sometimes doesn’t have the longest attention span in the world. I also selected “Short Book” without asking.

“What language do you want?” She was confused at first. “Look, they have books in English, Spanish, Vietnamese…”

“Dad. I only know English!” We selected English and had 19 books to chose from. She selected one about a star that wanted to be a wishing star. The pages were displayed on the screen, and we read the book together.

The International Children’s Digital Library works to inspire the world’s children to become members of the global community. They promote the value of tolerance and respect for diverse cultures, languages and ideas by making the best in children’s literature available online.

Megan just likes reading books for free on the computer.

When I taught middle school, I would explain to my students that the Internet has three uses. It can be used as a resource, for retrieving information. It can be used as a dissemination tool, to publish information for a global audience. And, it can be used to interact with others. My classes were spending about 75% of their Internet time retrieving information, 24% of their time publishing information (I taught the kids to create web pages with a text editor), and 1% of the time interacting online. I thought this was pretty forward-thinking because everyone else seemed to be using the “giant digital library” and “information superhighway” metaphors. At least we were publishing content, too.

As I look back at the resources and activities I’ve covered over the last ten weeks, it’s striking how much has changed since then. Sure, the bulk of Internet activity is still focused on retrieving information. But the new tools help us filter that information, finding what’s relevant and valuable. David Weinberger put it pretty well, and Wil Richardson picked up on his comment:

Open up The Britannica at random and you’re far more likely to find reliable knowledge than if you were to open up the Web at random. That’s why we don’t open up the Web at random.

Information literacy is one of the key 21st century skills. Not only are we getting better at finding reliable, relevant information, we’re also getting better tools to help us.

Interactivity is where the big change is. Nearly half of the things I’ve written about this summer allow users to interact with one another in some way. Whether you’re commenting on someone’s blog (or allowing them to comment on yours), interacting with a community like EdTechTalk or Tapped In, conducting discussions with Skype, or sharing links in Delicious, it’s much easier to connect with people online than it has ever been before. I’m still amazed that I can talk to, text chat with, and share ideas and resources with teachers from all over the world. I do it all the time, and it’s not a big deal. What time is it where you are? The sunrise is beautiful today. Wait until you see it. So when we’re connecting with people in Canada, Brazil, Germany, Australia, Korea, and the United States, we’re learning more about this global age we’re in. We’re gaining a better understanding of global cultures, and we’re connecting with real people in these places. That’s another 21st century skill.

What happens when you build one of these communities? When you get a bunch of people in the same (virtual) place with common interests and common challenges, what do they do? They start to work together to meet those challenges. They raise questions and provide insights and find better ways to do things. They’re collaborating and applying problem solving and innovative thinking skills. Yep, more 21st century skills.

Over the last couple years, these tools have played a big role in how I learn. I have built my own professional learning community. I rely on that community when I need to learn something, and I try to provide help when someone else needs it. It’s a very individualized, personal way to approach staff development. Everyone is a student, and everyone is a teacher, and everyone has an individualized education plan. Everyone grows professionally, and everyone benefits from the experience.

Hopefully, you have too.