EdTech Magazine: Higher Ed

Seven Concerning Statistics About Texting and Two Ways Professors are Tackling SMS

Jimmy Daly — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:11:31 +0000

Text messaging has been an issue in college classrooms for years. While some professors think SMS communication is hugely distracting, others are finding ways to turn mobile devices into tools of engagement. Now that 87 percent of adults own a cell phone, professors are forced to pay attention, regardless of their position.

At Wilkes University, professors were concerned enough about the trend that they conducted a study in which students were surveyed on the use of cell phones in class. The results were troubling, as even the students admitted that cell phones were a distraction and were sometimes used for cheating. Here’s a look at some of the most interesting results from the survey, which was published in late 2010.

Of the Wilkes University students who completed the survey:

99% believed cell phones should be allowed in the classroom

95% brought their phones to class every day

91% had used their phones to text message during class

62% said texting in class should be allowed if it doesn't disturb others

25% stated that texting creates a distraction to those sitting nearby

10% indicated that they had sent or received text messages during exams

3% admitted to transmitting exam information during a test

Wilkes offered recommendations to the faculty, including marking students absent if they were caught texting in class. In addition:

Have a clear, written policy about cell phone use and enforce it consistently. State that phones must be out of sight and turned off during class. Make penalties clear, such as losing points or dropping a letter grade for unauthorized cell phone use. Penalties can be applied to attendance or participation credit by assuming that if a student is texting in class, they are not “present.”

This strategy might be effective in the short term, but is it the right solution to a mobile trend that is still growing rapidly?

Addressing SMS in the Classroom

Texting is just one element of the overall mobile trend, which has major implications for higher education. BYOD (bring your own device) programs are sprouting up at colleges around the country, though many schools lack the clear policies necessary to be successful at turning mobile devices into learning tools instead of distractions. As with many emerging technologies, SMS and BYOD are more about policy and management than about hardware and software.

While not every professor would agree that texting is detrimental to learning, most would concur that SMS technology is extremely powerful. How can professors harness this ubiquitous technology to engage their students in course materials and classroom activities?

At Tennessee Tech University, instructional technologists recently launched a web-based student response system. For $20 per year, students can opt to use their own mobile devices instead of clickers to respond to professors via SMS.

Andy Selsberg of John Jay College has an innovative approach to using texting for his freshman English students: He encourages them to practice writing concisely by leveraging platforms like SMS and Twitter:

A lot can be said with a little — the mundane and the extraordinary. Philosophers like Confucius (“Learning without thought is labor lost. Thought without learning is perilous.”) and Nietzsche were kings of the aphorism.

And short isn’t necessarily a shortcut. When you have only a sentence or two, there’s nowhere to hide. I’m not suggesting that colleges eliminate long writing projects from English courses, but maybe we should save them for the second semester. Rewarding concision first will encourage students to be economical and innovative with language. Who knows, we might even start to leave behind text messages and comment threads that our civilization can be proud of.

To be sure, mobile technology is still growing and evolving. It’s refreshing to see new approaches applied to these “problems.” Do you have a story about using SMS with your students? Let us know in the Comments section.

5 Commencement Addresses from Technologists

Jimmy Daly — Thu, 23 May 2013 13:57:25 +0000

It’s graduation season, and that means commencement addresses are popping up on YouTube. Sure, it’s a marketing opportunity for universities, but graduates benefit from the thoughtful advice offered by commencement speakers as well.

Many colleges have turned to technologists to address students. The importance of technology in the professional and personal lives of Americans creates an opportunity for technologists to tell their success stories to the next generation of entrepreneurs, programmers and IT professionals.

We have compiled a few of the best 2013 commencement addresses given by technology leaders:

Dick Costolo, Twitter CEO

University of Michigan

“Don’t always worry about what your next line is supposed to be or what you’re supposed to do next. There’s no script.”

Alex Kipman, Incubation – Xbox General Manager

Rochester Institute of Technology

“The world needs you to keep dreaming ever bigger dreams.”

Steve Wozniak, Apple Co-Founder

High Point University

“Trust your youthful thinking, and try to stick to it.”

Melinda Gates, Former Microsoft Employee and Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Duke University

“I believe we are finally creating the scientific and technological tools to turn the world into a neighborhood.”

Yancey Strickler, Kickstarter Co-Founder and Head of Communications

McNally Smith College of Music

Live your life with an open heart and full of curiosity and love and you will know these things. The world will present itself to you.”

Is there a noteworthy commencement address we missed? Let us know in the Comments section.

Visualizing Next-Generation Virtual Reality in Chicago

Wed, 22 May 2013 16:36:02 +0000

EVL invented and patented the original CAVE, which was projection-based, in 1992.
In the late 2000s, a team of UIC students, faculty and EVL staff began developing CAVE2, a Hybrid Reality Environment that allows large teams to work with 2D and 3D content at an extremely high resolution.
EVL worked with Planar Systems to custom develop the 3D LCD screens that comprise CAVE2, which was completed in October 2012. Several departments on campus, as well as outside researchers, are using or have expressed interest in using CAVE2 in their instruction.

Participants: Jason Leigh, Ph.D., Andy Johnson, Ph.D. and Arthur Nishimoto of the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Computer Science Department and Electronic Visualization Laboratory, and David Hofman, Ph.D., of UIC’s Physics Department

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A Reality Check for MOOCs: Amherst Says No

Jimmy Daly — Mon, 20 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Here’s how the Washington Post leads off a recent article about MOOCs (massive open online courses): “A new academic credential of unknown worth is circulating around the world.”

That’s a bold statement, considering the incredible popularity of free online-learning tools and the major investments that prominent colleges are making in MOOCs. The Post article rattles off a number of colleges, including Berkeley, MIT and Harvard, that have joined edX, a MOOC platform. Offering MOOCs is more than an investment in education — it’s an acknowledgement of the globalization of teaching and learning. Why, then, are some colleges resisting change? Nick Anderson explains:

The Amherst College faculty in April rejected a proposal to join the online education venture called edX, a setback for one of the leaders in a fast-growing movement that seeks to open up elite schools to the masses and improve their teaching. The episode offered a rare window into the intense debate in academia over whether the proliferation of free online courses will undermine or strengthen top-tier schools.

But as the novelty of MOOCs wears off, educators are asking hard questions about how the sites will make money and what colleges stand to gain. Academic powerhouses sense a pivotal moment of risk and opportunity. Some are plunging forward. Others are holding back.

MOOCs are “greatly hyped,” Amherst biologist Stephen A. George said. “What is it without any human interaction with a professor? To say that is education is very hard to swallow.”

Amherst is the first elite college to publicly reject MOOCs. While the school’s faculty made it clear they do not reject online learning, they are wary of outsourcing any part of their learning process. Interestingly, Amherst’s mission statement says the school intends to bring students together “in order to promote diversity of experience and ideas within a purposefully small residential community.” An investment in MOOCs would be in direct opposition to the nearly 200-year-old mission.

Should colleges like Amherst evolve with their contemporaries, or should they continue to deliver education the way they always have?

Why the Past Cannot Predict the Future of MOOCs and Online Learning [#Infographic]

Jimmy Daly — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:17:19 +0000

Despite its relatively recent arrival on the higher education scene, online learning is now more than 10 years old. While we aren’t ready to write a history of MOOCs (massive open online courses) just yet, it’s worth looking at how online learning has evolved, with the hope of deciphering what the future holds.

The infographic below presents a few telling figures about online learning in higher education. For example, in 2002, just 48 percent of colleges believed that online education was critical to their long-term success. Ten years later, that number has grown to nearly 70 percent. In the early 2000s, the Web was too new to truly understand how schools could leverage its enormous power. We have much to learn, but it has become obvious that the Internet will be at the core of learning in the future.

In March, academic leaders — including provosts from a number of prominent universities, Khan Academy founder Sal Khan and executives from edX and Coursera— met at the MIT Media Lab to discuss the path of online education. They discussed why higher education, which has for centuries remained largely the same, is poised for real change. While some may disagree, Harvard professor Clayton Christensen made a strong case for the disruption of education:

Christensen is known for his theory of “disruptive innovation” in business, which holds that upstart challengers usually displace market incumbents by first establishing a toehold with low-cost products in markets that the incumbents are willing to cede. Over time, the challengers manage to increase quality while still keeping costs low, taking over successively higher-margin markets until they finally dominate the market as a whole.

As Christensen argued in his talk, that pattern has played out in the steel industry, in the automotive industry, in the computer industry — and is now playing out in the cellphone industry. But, Christensen explained, it has never occurred in the hotel industry, because challengers cannot compete for high-margin business without adopting the cost model of the incumbents: If Holiday Inn wants to compete against Ritz-Carlton, it has no choice but to hire concierges and put in marble floors. What challengers in the hotel industry lack, he said, is an “extendable core” — a new technological approach that can be steadily improved at low cost.

Higher education has been in the same boat, Christensen said — until now. The suite of technologies that edX and others have introduced — video lectures, online discussion boards, automated grading algorithms, communal text-annotation programs, virtual labs and the like — constitute education’s extendable core. These technologies are now in their infancy, but like the steel produced in “mini mills” that displaced integrated steel mills, they will only improve in quality.

It’s clear that change is occurring, but will the Web really unsettle education as much as Christensen suggests? Check out the infographic below to learn more about the evolution of online learning over the past 10 years, and decide for yourself where it’s headed.

This infographic was originally featured on OnlineCollege.org.

Review: Belkin Advanced Secure KVM Switch Holds Down the Fort

Jason Holbert — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Of all the possible security threats facing businesses, relatively few systems administrators give much thought to those that can occur on unsecured KVM technology.

Too often, KVM switches are seen as turnkey solutions, bought and implemented to give users access to several systems and devices, but without so much as a second thought to the security implications. The ugly truth: KVM technology can introduce a litany of vulnerabilities, creating the risk of data theft, malware attacks and even console redirection. Fortunately, IT departments can prevent most of these security breaches simply by using secure KVM switches for controlling systems that house sensitive data.

Belkin’s newest line of Advanced Secure KVM switches is designed with this need in mind, boasting an array of security enhancements that will benefit companies of any size without busting the IT budget.

Advantages

The Belkin Advanced Secure KVM complies with the National Security Agency’s Information Assurance Directorate standards, offering physical security features beyond those of traditional KVM switches, including optical data diodes that allow only unidirectional data flow between peripherals and target systems.

Additionally, segregation of data for each connected system is facilitated by separate processors for each channel. Most KVM switches use the same processor for multiple systems. Video displays are segregated using protected video display emulators to prevent Extended Display Identification Data from being compromised, effectively preventing the video signal from being redirected to unsecured systems.

Though equipped with USB ports for keyboard and mouse control, the switch has built-in safeguards to prevent data drive access to the ports. If the device detects anything that isn’t a mouse or keyboard in a drive, it will instantly lock the port down.

Why It Works for IT

Common Access Card switching lets clients toggle between networks without losing their existing sessions (on CAC-enabled networks). This can save time and curb frustration for users who often need to switch between connected machines.

The Belkin switch arrives in tamper-resistant packaging, with tamper-evident holographic tape also holding the casing together at the front seam. Once out of the box, the unit itself is rigged with sensor switches along its chassis that will render the unit inoperable upon detection of physical intrusion. This ensures integrity from point of sale to implementation.

Belkin engineers obviously put careful thought into making the user experience as intuitive as possible, leaving less room for end-user error. Instead of using one button to toggle between multiple clients, the switch has a dedicated button for each channel, making identification simple. Additionally, the buttons feature pop-out color inserts that can be used to change the look of each button bezel. Quick mental associations such as these are often all that is needed to curtail end-user error, especially when switching between secure and unsecure networks.

Disadvantages

The Belkin Advanced Secure KVM switch is more expensive than other secure switches on the market. Belkin, however, is an established switch manufacturer, and its devices include a three-year warranty, better than those offered on many competing products. Although features and usability are important in choosing a secure KVM solution, purchasers would be well advised to factor Belkin’s reputation and support into their final decision.

Education Revolution: 7 TED-Ed Videos About Technology

Jimmy Daly — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:16:00 +0000

The mission of TED, short for Technology, Entertainment, Design, is to share “Ideas Worth Spreading.” The inspirational talks cover a broad range of topics, from leadership and productivity to nuclear fission and domestic violence. The organization has existed since 1984 and found huge success in the era of YouTube and social media. More recently, TED launched TED-Ed, a platform inspired by online-learning services, such as the Khan Academy. The videos, according to the Chronicle for Higher Education, are accompanied by lesson plans to help teachers integrate them into their courses:

The TED-Ed site is both a portal for finding education videos and a tool for flipping them. On one page, videos are organized by themes, such as the pursuit of happiness and inventions that shaped history. Instructors who want to use videos that are directly related to the subjects they teach can visit another page, where videos are organized in more traditional categories such as the arts and health.

TED’s videos are displayed on lesson pages that include multiple-choice quizzes, open-ended questions, and links to more information about the material. Professors who don’t want to rely on the premade content can press a button to flip the videos and customize some of the questions. With each flipped video, professors receive a unique Web link that they can use to distribute the lesson to students and track their answers.

MOOCs (massive open online courses) and other free online-learning platforms are becoming hugely popular. These seven videos will help you understand why.

Your Brain on Video Games

Illuminating Photography: From Camera Obscura to Camera Phone

Lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/illuminating-photography-eva-timothy

Make Robots Smarter

Lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/make-robots-smarter-ayanna-howard

How to Secure Optimized Networks

Joel Snyder — Thu, 16 May 2013 04:00:00 +0000

A long-simmering feud between network and security managers is heating up over visibility and performance.

Network managers strive to deploy fast and resilient WANs for distributed organizations. The problem is that some of the best tools available to optimize networks, such as compression, protocol optimization, load balancing and dynamic routing, can wreak havoc with proxies, data loss prevention (DLP), intrusion prevention systems (IPS) and firewalls.

To keep networks and data as secure as possible, consider these four tips:

1. Order functions correctly.

In most networks, firewalling and VPN should be at the outer edge, while IPS and DLP should occur as close to users and servers as possible. WAN optimization goes between the two. Thus, user traffic should hit the IPS or DLP system first, then pass through optimization, before finally traversing the firewall and moving out onto the WAN or Internet.

The same is true of a server: Traffic should go from the server to any security devices, then optimization, load balancing and acceleration, and finally hit the firewalls.

Mixing up that order will cause gaps. For example, unified threat management (UTM) firewalls have IPS built in, but an IPS cannot properly function on traffic that has been compressed. This means that optimized networks will not get the best results from IPS functions in a UTM firewall; they need dedicated IPS devices that can see traffic before it’s encrypted and optimized.

IPS manufacturers prefer this location anyway because the IPS can give best results when it sees network traffic as if it were end system (such as a PC, notebook or server), reducing effects of load balancing, network fragmentation and reordering.

2. Try not to do things twice — or three times.

Optimization devices must decrypt traffic in order to compress and cache it, which calls for man-in-the-middle decryption of all SSL/TLS traffic on the WAN. The same is true of next-generation firewalls, which need to decrypt traffic to identify application layer information and apply controls. And IPS solutions have the same problem — without decrypted traffic, they cannot be fully effective. Decrypting and re-encrypting twice or even three times will slow traffic down and cause problems.

Network and security managers who plan to use devices that require man-in-the-middle decryption should deploy products that can work together. This can limit product selection options, but it’s better to work out interoperability early rather than having to start over.

3. Identify key monitoring and control points.

For highly optimized networks, it’s better to have multiple smaller IPS devices instead of one enormous centralized device that is partially blinded by encryption. When traffic flows through multiple IPS devices, security managers should be sure to write rules so that traffic is only scanned once at the most appropriate place. This improves performance and efficacy while reducing false positives.

For example, many application managers have used sophisticated application delivery controllers to load balance, increase reliability and scalability, and optimize application delivery. In most cases, these devices can also perform SSL/TLS offloads, handle encryption on the outside and pass unencrypted traffic to the application, speeding server performance as well. The short path between the application delivery controller and the servers is the perfect place to put IPS and DLP functionality.

4. Closely watch dynamic routing.

When building optimized networks, look out for the effects of dynamic routing. Network managers build networks to keep packets flowing, but this can cause both short-term and long-term asymmetric traffic flows. From a networking point of view, that’s fine, but from a security point of view, it can be a problem. Any good firewall will block asymmetric traffic by default, making the firewall responsible for network outages.

Security managers can work around this issue in several ways. Most firewalls will allow asymmetric traffic if they’re specifically configured to do so. They should not do this out of the box — that’s a sign of a broken firewall — but manufacturers have recognized this problem and usually have an option to allow asymmetric flows. A better option is to be aware of the potential for asymmetric flows.

Network and security staff should work together during design and upgrade planning to watch out for these potential problems. That should make it easier to place firewalls and firewall clusters so that any asymmetry is invisible to the firewalls. The same advice applies to optimization devices, which cannot do their job properly if traffic flows aren’t symmetric.

How to Tell: Five Questions to Ask About the Network

Dan Tynan — Tue, 14 May 2013 19:45:51 +0000

Is it time to refresh the network? Here are the questions that Cuyahoga Community College reviewed before making the leap.

How old is the gear?

Some of Tri-C's servers were 8 years old, which means they were not only more likely to fail, but also near the end of their support life cycle.

How large is the network?

Odds are, there are a lot more devices accessing the network than there were just two or three years ago. The explosion of mobile devices on campus can strain network bandwidth and require an increase in the number of Wi-Fi access points.

What other systems are connected?

IP-based phones, security cameras and other critical systems add to the network load as well as the need for redundancy in case of failure. Moving from local software to cloud-based services can boost bandwidth requirements, as can an increase in the use of streaming video inside classrooms.

How cohesive is the network?

If the network has been built over time, IT is likely managing a hodgepodge of devices from different vendors. Standardizing on a single supplier for core network gear can simplify management and ease support.

Is the network future-proofed?

Adding new users or employees compounds all of the issues listed above. But even if human capital remains stable, the amount of data they use will continue to grow. Mobile data alone is growing by more than 50 percent per year, according to ABI Research. So if there's excess capacity now, in two or three years it may be gone.

Next-Generation Firewalls Simplify Security for Colleges

Steve Zurier — Tue, 14 May 2013 04:00:00 +0000

San Jose State University aims to transfer higher education from a lecture-based model to a collaborative approach where technology plays a central role. Students will work in groups using their own devices over an infrastructure that offers unified communications and anytime, anywhere access. For the plan to work, the IT staff must keep the environment secure.

That’s where next-generation firewalls come in, says Terry Vahey, associate vice president for IT and deputy CIO. San Jose State recently replaced 25 firewalls with two Cisco Systems ASA 5585-X Adaptive Security Appliance models. The redundant devices provide multiple capabilities: firewall, web filter, virtual private network, policy enforcement, network access control, identity-based reporting and intrusion protection.

Vahey says the overall cost savings and additional security features are well worth the purchase price. The university no longer has to replace firewalls every three to five years and enjoys reduced maintenance costs. The institution can also provide enhanced access to applications and secure them with granular rules for users or groups of users.

77%The percentage of security professionals who believe that staff access to social networking sites increases the likelihood of an advanced persistent threat or other sophisticated malware attack on the organization

SOURCE: “A Prudent Approach to Next-Generation Firewalls” (Enterprise Strategy Group, January 2013)

San Jose State University’s local departments can manage their applications and set rules, but the central IT staff handles the back-end security management. If a department needs an extra firewall, the IT group can use the 5585x appliance to provision a virtual one. “Many of the IT people in the departments are looking forward to the new functionality, and they are excited to learn new job skills,” Vahey says.

John Grady, a research manager for IDC’s security products group, says IT managers such as Vahey opt for multifunction devices because they support the kind of infrastructures universities need to meet their educational goals today.

“I see this as the gradual evolution of the UTM,” Grady says. “The latest devices offer better integration between technologies, as well as application control and the ability for systems administrators to set very granular policies for the organization’s users.”

Longtime Users

The College of Arts and Sciences at the Ohio State University has been using next-generation firewalls for several years.

Tim Smith, director of infrastructure, operations and application development, says the Sophos UTM serves as a firewall, web URL filter, intrusion protection system and antivirus engine. The last UTM the college deployed includes dual-scanning engines for added protection against viruses.

“On a typical day, the firewall stops 60 viruses from ever getting through the network,” Smith says, adding that it also stops at least 3,500 attempted malware infections. On a daily basis, the firewall handles about 1.1 terabytes of traffic, 22 million connections and 3.9 million web requests.

3 Elements of a Next-Gen Security Architecture

Jon Oltsik, a senior principal analyst for the Enterprise Strategy Group, advises organizations to adopt a broad, next-generation security architecture of tightly integrated network services that can be applied throughout the network.

Next-generation network security includes these elements:

Central management. A major aspect of next-generation security is the ability to centrally manage security policies, service orchestration/provisioning, monitoring and reporting.
Distributed policy enforcement. This capability expedites network security service provisioning throughout the network. For example, a systems administrator can deploy a firewall service at the network perimeter, in the data center, at remote offices or within a physical server hosting multiple virtual servers.
Any network security service in any form factor. Next-generation network security can be applied in any type of device or set of services, including fixed-function, multifunction or virtual appliances, or cloud-based managed services.