Then you haven't seen the "WHOA ctrl+shift+t opens closed windows in firefox again"-article some weeks ago.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/08/26/0010239/the-greatest-keyboard-shortcut-ever
I wont bet on the "They can't arrest them all." part. Sadly everything seems possible. Now the harassed student is even bullied by the state instead of the bullies being taken care of. If you ask me this seems a) totally insane and b) like a perfect way to force someone even more into a corner, leading to potentially even bigger problems.
tl;dr;
I am disgusted by this society punishing the victim.
Well, if I would interpolate from the code I saw in open source projects to closed source projects, being closed source because of bad code... oh boy.
I am always fascinated of our software driven society still working, despite our often really bad, ugly, bug ridden, ill-documented codes.
As if laser communication would be something new...
Even though neither I have a hat or am a security professional, let's just view it from an overly paranoid view.
There is one fundamental problem with your first idea. You assume your operating system behaves secure / sane. How could you prove it? Even though you compiled all your code by hand and read all the source code (good luck at that), how can you guarantee your compiler compiles only the code and doesn't introduce back doors? I think of two possible ways: First, it could just have a bug in the compiler, making even perfect code vulnerable. Second, it could intentionally introduce unwanted and unknown behavior. See the Ken Thompson hack for a reference. [0] In the end your only way would be doing it _all_ from scratch, software _and_ hardware.
So, I would guess you are way better off transferring the data by typing it by hand, as you suggested with the second idea. This seems reasonable secure, but quite error prone and time consuming.
It happens that I just read an article in the CACM (DOI:10.1145/2492007.2492018) stating why exactly an air gap will not work, most of all because in most cases there isn't one (practical).
Let's say you have all the required software on this laptop. How do you import new keys? Typing them in by hand? Since you want to send and receive encrypted messages: How do you transfer the encrypted and plain-text messages between your PC and laptop?
The concept of an air gap sounds very easy on the first look, but in reality it requires heavy overhead and if not applied correctly it gives a false sense of security which will ultimately do more harm than good.
But it actually is. Even though you solve _all_ other bits, you will only get rid of as many combinations as this first bit did. I would suggest that this is a huge progress.
Well actually: If you guessed one bit correctly and you knew this, you would have made the problem half as easy. But maybe I just understood you wrong, so feel free to correct me.
Yes, for example caches.
Of course I'm serious.
Sorry was a bit snappy there.
An 8 year old doesn't need to start worrying about focal length and ISO - they need to be inspired and excited to learn and create. And in any case, you are talking about DLSRs at that point, which is obviously not an option to provide to every student (and is a complete "single tasking" device). If they want to get more serious about photography they can take a class in high school, the same as has already been the case.
You are right that a DSLR is nothing I would give a 8 year old into it's hand and say "go wild", but you said learning photography, so I thought of older kids.
This all goes double for movies - there are perfectly capable (especially for 8-13 year olds!) video editing apps for the iPad that used to cost 100x more money to be able to use on a PC (and require a MUCH higher learning curve) 5-10 years ago.
You don't have any kids, do you? I want to assume you have tried a tablet (not smartphone) before, at least, but I have a hard time believing you have spent any significant amount of time trying to teach young children anything. It's amazing what amount of creativity a tablet like an iPad with some cheap $5-$10 software can inspire in even elementary school-age kids. The first time you see an 8-9 year old write, film, edit, and dub a short movie all by herself entirely with an iPad you quickly understand how powerful of a creative learning device it can be.
So the problems seems more like "What easy and capable (enough) software I can get for a specific platform?" I suspect tablets to be better on this part. It rises the question why the PC doesn't have this kind of software (yet).
Also, try giving a 5 year old a set of paint and brushes and leaving him to his own devices for 30 minutes. I can almost guarantee disaster there.
Now try doing it with 10 or more 5 year olds - I think they'd call that "Kindergeddon".
The key is to not let alone kids of that age armed with those devices.
Do the same thing with a simple child-focued paint app and you may still have your sanity after it's over. Does that mean children should never learn to use real paint, crayons, colored pencils, etc? Of course not. Digital art is just another technique, and can be a valuable tool to teach the basics (which are similar no matter the medium).
To be honest, I would expect the child to accidentally break the tablet. A five year old isn't that coordinated yet.
This kind of device is nothing I would ever consider for creating content, not even for using just a sequencer or to take pictures.
And you probably don't use wax crayons to create content any more, either. How is that relevant to a child?
It may be relevant or not I don't use it, cause it feels somewhat clumsy. Now this is just my view, but I have had many easier ways to create content than touching on a small screen.
Your personal preference isn't very applicable here - even for adults, many many MANY millions in fact DO use them to take pictures and video. In fact, the percentage of photos taken with smartphones was estimated at over 30% last year, and expected to hit 50% in the next few years.
Because it is convenient when we talk about mass to move. You happen to have your smartphone with you more often than a dedicated camera. But it doesn't say those pictures or videos look in any way decent. It is just a matter of "what do I prefer: quality or convenience?". And just for me it is worth to carry an extra pound or even quite some more for a stunning picture, but I won't say everybody should have the same view. (Even though it would improve many pictures.
What should "real time dynamic geography with GPS" be? Please give me a specific example. Don't you think it would be preferable to teach those kids reading analog maps? That way they learn to perceive their surroundings and improve their visual thinking, too.
Why should I bother, you can go look it up yourself if you really care - there are dozens of examples on iTunes.
I actually searched for it in google but couldn't find anything so far.
My 9 year old niece could probably beat 90% of adults with her knowledge of basic geography by now - and importantly the app was *fun* so she actually wanted to learn the subject. I wish more adults (especially in the US, where world geography knowledge is pretty poor) would try some of these apps.
Used some potentially alike program on a PC when I was a child. Yes it's a great way to learn this stuff. But not bound to touch interfaces
And the GPS part - while it *is* very useful and teaches some things an "analog" map won't - again it's largely about interactivity and inspiration.
What will you learn from using GPS you would not learn from an analog map? (honest question)
As I have said/alluded to already several times, motivation, not information, is the most important factor when teaching young children. There is plenty of information out there; if you motivate kids you can get them to learn on their own, which almost anyone would agree is more effective (as different kids learn better in different ways).
Not to you or others who happen learn best that way, maybe, but to the majority of children, yes it is. And many education researchers would tell you your example of the old, traditional workbook technique for learning math is a very poor method in general.
I am totally with you on this part, that it's all about motivation. More so in the younger years. Motivation plays a huge part in everybodies development and is a necessity for real learning. But I would say that you don't need tablets for this. On the other hand I haven't made any trail, so I won't say, they would not benefit. But I expect only a minor difference. In my view it would be more important to get competent, enthusiastic teachers who get the kids interest in a subject and motivates why they are learning for example algebra. To further that knowledge a family PC or a terminal in the school library would maybe work out. I really don't know, though. But yes, make them curious and let them siphon information on their own is really a great way of fostering their learning, but expect to help them every now and then.
Does any of this mean the previous analog/physical/whatever learning techniques still can't be used where appropriate? Of course not, no one ever said that and I'm not sure why you'd assume it. Computers/tablets are a tool like any other. Why do you even have a smartphone when you can still use a POTS or write a letter? Because it's an additional tool available to make certain tasks simpler and more efficient.
All that being said, I'm still skeptical about this specific program in LA... but not for the utility of the tablets themselves. I think if it fails it will be logistical (how to keep all of these pricey tablets working and in the children's hands) and political (now we get to apply all of the lobbying, dealmaking, and other sleaze of government contracts to children's learning software, yay!) Modernizing education - LIKE MOST FIELDS - has the potential for great gains in efficiency and productivity - but only if done right, which is going to be the (very difficult) key to it working.
And again I am on your side. Education is one of the most important things we have to keep (get?) working. There are many interesting projects for adults like coursera, udacity, edX. I don't really know though if there are comparably well websites for the younger folks. It is really interesting to watch what is going on.
Well it's important to learn how to use real objects in my opinion. Yes we worked with scissors and glue, we learned gardening, painting (as far a child of that age can do), playing real music instruments, learned how to work with wood. Show me how you'd do this with a tablet. And I was in no way bored.
Learning photography with a smartphone or a tablet... Are you serious? Movie making, with a tablet? Seriously? Don't you think a real camera would be a better fit? Real lenses and everything can be set manually: focal length, focus, sensitivity (ISO), exposure time, aperture, white balance. More over you will get WAY better pictures. Of course you would not give every kid one, but you couldn't either, because you have to help them all the time. Everything else is just showing them how to turn the device towards the object to be filmed and pushing a button. That's just trivial.
I highly doubt multi-touch devices are a substitution for real painting (be it with fingers or brushes or whatever).
And yes I own and use a smartphone and guess what? This kind of device is nothing I would ever consider for creating content, not even for using just a sequencer or to take pictures.
What should "real time dynamic geography with GPS" be? Please give me a specific example. Don't you think it would be preferable to teach those kids reading analog maps? That way they learn to perceive their surroundings and improve their visual thinking, too.
I have never seen any interesting physics simulation that could be enhance by an accelerometer, please give an example. More over we did most experiments in real live and if something was too advanced a short film presented by the teacher was quite sufficient. Why should we need 30 screens in class essentially showing the same?
Exercises: We used to have the questions written on the table or in a (work)book. Answered them, then the teacher read aloud the solutions and we checked with ours. If we didn't understand why our answers were wrong, we could simply raise our hands and ask for assistance. There is nothing tedious in there.
I am not lazy, I just can't make up any advantage that would outweight the disadvantages.
If I would want to replace a book, I would use an ebook reader. Does what it's supposed to do (and almost nothing else), can be read in bright sunlight, last quite long on one charge and is way less expensive than a table or notebook.
That is most likely correct, but he wrote about using Photoshop for business, so most likely not Photoshop Elements.
Please be more specific: What is greatly expanded and how?
Even my 7 year old computer is way more powerful.
A committee is a group that keeps the minutes and loses hours. -- Milton Berle
