17th May 2008

links for 2008-05-17

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17th May 2008

Web-based animation, video and storytelling options grow

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I continue to be a vocal advocate of web-based digital storytelling tools which primarily use still images and audio narration, like VoiceThread, but the growing availability of web-based video editing and animation creation environments may entice me to begin experimenting with web-based digital stories which go beyond narrated slideshows. One difficulty with all these websites is categorizing them to understand what functionalities they provide. Obviously a lot of these sites have been created primarily for entertainment, but there are lots of potential educational possibilities for some of these tools as well. In this post, I’ll attempt to categorize video websites which provide different types of remixing and editing in addition to “plain” hosting.

Before I examine different video editing and remixing website options, I’d like to reflect briefly on the importance of educational leaders modeling the use web video for their communities. YouTube may be blocked in your own local school district, but there are a few signs that user-created, web-based video is becoming more accepted in some educational environments. An example is the video page for the new president of Oklahoma State University, V. Burns Hargis, which he has used this past spring semester to directly communicate with students, parents, faculty, staff, and other college community constituents. This type of leadership and example from a university President is both refreshing and wonderful, since it provides tangible examples of the constructive ways web video can be used for learning, communication, and outreach. There may be a wealth of web video options available online, but if all of them are blocked from teacher and student access in our K-12 schools, their existence means very little during the school day. Hopefully we’ll see even more educational leaders here in Oklahoma and elsewhere follow the lead of President Hargis in demonstrating the positive ways these tools can be used for learning and constructive communication.

YouTube is currently the best-known video hosting website, but is just one of many. YouTube permits users to rate videos and comment on them, and contributors can add videos directly with their webcam or by uploading a previously created and edited video. To my knowledge, YouTube does not (yet anyway) permit online video editing. Users can reply or respond to videos submitted by others or videos they’ve previously submitted themselves, leading to hyperlinked, asynchronous, multi-node video conversations. Those are a lot of adjectives to get your head around when it comes to web videos! It’s amazing to realize these sorts of multimedia interactions have just become mainstream in the past couple of years. The wide adoption of the Flash plugin into web browsers has accelerated the dynamic growth of web video. Competing formats like QuickTime and Windows Media are still strong, but flash-based videos dominate the current marketplace for user-created and shared web videos.

Flickr has started to support video, but limits uploads to just 90 seconds and only Pro (paying) users can contribute videos. I love posting images to Flickr, and use it almost every day, but I have not yet added any videos to my account. VoiceThread has been supporting video comments for awhile now, but I haven’t tried using it yet either. YET. In our joint presentation Thursday in Richardson, Texas, titled “Web 2.0 Tools Which Can Be Used For Assessing Student Learning” (available as an archived video on Ustream) Vicki Allen shared the VoiceThread example “What Will Grow?” At the start of this VoiceThread, the teacher (Wm Chamberlain) created a video comment with his webcam to provide instructions for a student assignment. This is the first example of a webcam being used in this way for a classroom assignment that I’ve seen on VoiceThread.

A more limited number of websites currently permit actual video editing. The three of which I am aware that provide this functionality are JumpCut, EyeSpot, and Motionbox. I should probably volunteer to teach a workshop or offer a presentation on these tools in the fall so I’ll be forced by a deadline to play with and learn about these sites. To date, however, I haven’t attempted to edit video online.

In addition to permitting online video editing, a growing number of video sharing sites permit tagging and bookmarked commenting within videos. Viddler is one example of a site which permits this.

Jason Kincaid shared a post recently about some other web-based video sites which provide still another type of functionality. I’ve seen JibJab previously, which lets users insert a cropped image of their head or someone else to make amusing (potentially amusing, anyway) flash-based animations. (Remember the dancing elf card someone sent you last Christmas? They probably made it with JibJab.) Jason mentioned some other websites in his post, however, which go beyond the simple greeting card or online joke creativity threshold of JibJab. Fuzzwich’s animator looks like an intriguing environment to merge images and videos to create original web-based animations. This preview screeencast gives a good overview:

Shapeshifter by Aniboom permits users to create web-based animations using simple shapes– all in an online web environment. If you’ve ever tried to create even a simple animation with Adobe Flash you’ll likely be amazed (as I am) about how easy websites like Aniboom and Fuzzwich are making this process!

Animoto is another video creation website I’ve used a bit, but so far it seems to be in a class by itself. Animoto allows users to submit images and music to have a short video created automatically with some impressive special effects. I wrote about Animoto in my September post, “No time to make a video? No problem with Animoto!” While the results of a few mouse clicks with Animoto can be entertaining and even amazing, as is the case with all multimedia in schools and learning environments, we should remain wary to not be awed by bells and whistles. “Lots of bells and whistles do not a critical thinker make.”

For better or for worse, the availability of webcams, video editing software and websites, and video sharing sites will continue to invite the creation and sharing of inappropriate as well as appropriate content on the global stage of the Internet. I’ve recently amended my now-standard Internet safety / safe online social networking discussions during presentations to move beyond “pencils and pens” and the choices we can make with them. Instead of just having audience members brainstorm (for about 30 seconds) the good and bad choices we could make with a pencil, I have started recording a short, live video using QuickTime Pro and then challenged folks to think of all the good and bad choices I could choose to make with a webcam. We don’t need to ask for many volunteers to get the idea out in the open that people certainly can (and are) using webcams and web videos for destructive, offensive purposes. Yet those negative examples should not entirely color and define our perceptions of web video.

Websites like Ustream.tv and justin.tv not only permit live and archived sharing of formal presentations at conferences (like mine from ESC10 this past week) but also permit “lifecasting.” The English WikiPedia currently defines “lifecasting” as:

a continual broadcast of events in a person’s life through digital media. Typically, lifecasting is transmitted through the medium of the Internet and can involve wearable technology. Lifecasting reverses the concept of surveillance, giving rise to sousveillance through portability, personal experience capture, daily routines and interactive communication with viewers.

In our media-drenched society, which grows ever more replete with digitally interactive environments and opportunities, it is absolutely essential that we focus our attention on the critical goal of helping students develop their own capacities for ethical decision making. Digital citizenship may not be on your state’s list of formal curriculum standards, but it is none-the-less an essential topic of discussion and debate for learners of all ages in the 21st century.

Alan Levine’s amazing wiki project “50 Web 2.0 Ways To Tell a Story” lists even more sites than those I’ve referenced here for creating online digital stories. He categorizes tools in the following groups:

  1. Slideshow Tools
  2. Timeline Tools
  3. Mixer Tools
  4. Comic Tools
  5. Map Tools
  6. Flickr Tools / Ideas
  7. Audio Tools
  8. Video Tools
  9. Presentation Tools
  10. New Tools

This is an amazing list and a helpful taxonomy to use when considering the different tools available for digital storytelling. If you are organizing a professional development event this summer (in the northern hemisphere) or winter (in the southern hemisphere) consider an activity in which teachers use some of these tools to create and share their own stories.

Experience is generally a much more persuasive and valuable teacher than bulleted lists in a PowerPoint presentation. To help other educators learn the value and practical “step by step” procedures for using tools like those mentioned in this post for digital storytelling, we can’t just talk the talk. We have to walk the walk, and provide opportunities for teachers to USE these tools AS STUDENTS in learning environments which closely mirror the sorts of interactive, project-based environments we HOPEFULLY want teachers to create in our classrooms with students.

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16th May 2008

A challenge to embrace digital texts

posted in edtech, literacy, web 2.0 | 0 Comments

(I have shared the following as a new post on the TechLearning blog, but because of problems with the commenting setup there I am cross-posting here so you can leave comments if desired.)

This past week, thanks to Bob Sprankle’s “geek of the week” on the May 8th edition of the Bit by Bit podcast, I learned about the new website “Read The Words.” After registering for a free account, I was able to upload two articles I have wanted to read for several weeks but haven’t made the time, and had the site convert them into mp3 audio files. One of these articles was originally in PDF format, the other was in Microsoft Word format. One article was fifteen pages long, the other was 31 pages. In both cases, the text to audio conversion process took just a few minutes. After the files were converted, the website allowed me to download an mp3 version of each article.

Read The Words - My Recordings

I opened the converted mp3 audio files in iTunes, created a new playlist for the files, and then synchronized iTunes to my iPhone. As a result of these steps, which took about ten minutes, I was able to listen to both of these articles in the car this week as I drove to and from a regional educational technology conference.

I find this ability and functionality to transform any text document into a computer-read, portable audio file absolutely amazing! While it is true listening to one of these computerized voices is NOT as pleasant or “natural sounding” as listening to a real person read, the audio quality is very understandable. I am not an entirely auditory learner, of course, but I find I am able to learn a great deal listening to podcasts and audio books on my portable mp3 players. I wish this functionality had been available to me when I was still completing coursework in graduate school! I am sure I would have been selective in choosing to LISTEN rather than read assigned articles from my instructors, but I am equally sure I would have chosen to do so in many cases. If you are a student, teacher, instructor or professor reading or sharing articles which are available as digital text (NOT scanned as images) I encourage you to check out Read The Words. I am not affiliated in any way with this website, other than having a free account on it myself, but I am thoroughly enamored with the functionality this free web service provides. There are several client-side software programs which provide similar text to audio file conversion functionality, like 2nd Speech Center. Browser plug-ins like Speak It and CLiCk, Speak are available as well which convert webpage text into audio, but not into downloadable audio files. “Read the Words” is the first free, entirely web-based service I have seen which converts text files in various formats to downloadable mp3 files. Links to additional programs are available on the Maine VRC website.

This experience reminds me of a central theme in Nicholas Negroponte’s 1995 book “Being Digital.” When we convert ideas into digital forms (ones and zeros) we open the door to an almost unlimited menu of communication possibilities with that content. In chapter one of the book, Negroponte wrote:

The information superhighway is about the global movement of weightless bits at the speed of light. As one industry after another looks at itself in the mirror and asks about its future in a digital world, that future is driven almost 100 percent by the ability of that company’s product or services to be rendered in digital form. If you make cashmere sweaters or Chinese food, it will be a long time before we can convert them to bits. “Beam me up, Scotty” is a wonderful dream, but not likely to come true for several centuries. Until then you will have to rely on FedEx, bicycles, and sneakers to get your atoms from one place to another. This is not to say that digital technologies will be of no help in design, manufacturing, marketing, and management of atom-based businesses. I am only saying that the core business won’t change and your product won’t have bits standing in for atoms.

In the information and entertainment industries, bits and atoms often are confused. Is the publisher of a book in the information delivery business (bits) or in the manufacturing business (atoms)? The historical answer is both, but that will change rapidly as information appliances become more ubiquitous and user-friendly. Right now it is hard, but not impossible, to compete with the qualities of a printed book.

Since Negroponte penned (or most likely keyboarded) those words published in 1995, a great deal has changed in our information landscape. I find his ideas prophetic, however, as I continue to experience and benefit from my growing digital access to information and ideas.

Here is a classroom analysis challenge for you: How much of the information and ideas you exchange with students is available only in an “atomic” form, and how much is available optionally or exclusively in a “digital” form? I think a hallmark of 21st century education is the provision of course and curriculum content in digital forms. When the information is digital, our opportunities to consume, interact with, share, and further process that information grow by leaps and bounds.

Most likely, the majority of people reading this blog post in 2008 were predominantly schooled in the “atomic” age of the 20th century. We are living and quickly moving forward into the “digital” age of the 21st century. I love paper-based, atomic books as well as “atomic” artifacts from the past, but I also love the flexibility and possibilities for differentiated learning which digital texts offer.

What have your experiences been with digital texts? Are you consuming more digital rather than printed texts these days, via your computer and/or smartphone? How about your students? As Alan Kay has observed, the predominant technology in the classroom defines the predominant learning tasks of students and teachers. As more schools embrace 1:1 learning initiatives and mobile devices capable of accessing the Internet become more ubiquitous, our opportunities to consume as well as create digital texts will continue to increase. To be relevant educators in the 21st century, we need to continue exploring, understanding, and utilizing tools which permit us to blend learning interactions with information and ideas in both “atomic” and “digital” forms.

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16th May 2008

Podcast251: Geocaching in the Classroom by Barbara Wilson

posted in edtech, geography, podcasts, travel | 0 Comments

This podcast is a presentation by Barbara Wilson of Allen ISD at the ESC10 Technology Conference in Richardson, Texas, on May 15, 2008. Barbara provides an overview of the history of geocaching, explains to to get started geocaching with basic equipment and the website geocaching.com, and explores different classroom lesson possiblities for geocaching.

 
icon for podpress  Podcast251: Geocaching in the Classroom by Barbara Wilson [36:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (23)

Show Notes:

  1. My text notes from Barbara’s presentation
  2. Geocaching.com

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16th May 2008

links for 2008-05-16

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15th May 2008

Presentations from Richardson, Texas this morning

posted in assessment, web 2.0 | 1 Comment

Both my keynote address and the session I co-presented with Vicki Allen were broadcast live over the web this morning from Richardson, Texas, and are available as archived videos. If you watched either or both of these videos “live” or view the archived versions, please leave comments and feedback here! Unfortunately the chat feature of Ustream wouldn’t work on the ESC10 network, but I am grateful the bandwidth was great and the firewall was friendly to these broadcasts!

Keynote: The Assessment Menu in our Web 2.0 World
- Slides (PDF) (3.9 MB)
- Wiki links
- Video

Breakout session: “Web 2.0 Tools Which Can Be Used For Assessing Student Learning”
- Wiki links
- Video

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15th May 2008

Geocaching in the Classroom

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Presentation by Barbara Wilson of Allen ISD at the ESC10 technology conference in Richardson, Texas, today. Her session description was: “Geocaching is a fun activity for students that involves searching for hidden treasures, deciphering clues, and learning to use the Global Positioning System (GPS). Incorporating geocaching in your lessons will create a fun activity which will appeal to your students.” I am recording this session with audio and will subsequently post this to the web. These are my notes, my thoughts and reflections are in ALL CAPS.

What is Geocaching?

When you bring kids out hiking looking for a treasure, then there is a whole different level to the purpose and motivation
- Geocaching lets you see many trails, parks, and other things that you might not have seen or visited without a geocaching challenge

May 21, 2000, US gov’t announced they would end the intentional degradation of the worldwide GPS system
- the accuracy of GPS technology for civilians then improved tenfold!

Dave Ulmer made the first cache, hiding something in the woods
- he called in the great American GPS cache hunt, near Beaver Creek, Oregon
- he shared the waypoint of his stash on a GPS user’s forum
- rules for his game:
1- locate the cache with only the receiver
2- once found, he had prizes in the bucket, they were to take an item and leave an item, sign the logbook, and report back

Mike Teague was the first person reported to have found it

Then web developer Jeremy Irish created geocaching.com
- were 75 caches worldwide then
- now there are caches in all 50 states and in over 200 countries

Look on Google Earth for locations of geocaches in your neighborhood
Closed cache to us now is called “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?”
Search on geocaching.com for the address of ESC10

Example for Richardson, TX from geocaching.com

Getting started
- create an ID
- load coordinates
- get some treasures that you can swap
- go hiking!

THIS IS SO FUN! I CAN’T BELIEVE I’VE NEVER TRIED GEOCACHING BEFORE. I AM GOING TO HAVE TO GET A GPS BEFORE OUR SUMMER VACATION IN NEW MEXICO AND GIVE THIS A TRY WITH MY KIDS!

Example containers
- old ammo box
- Gatorade container covered with camouflaged duct tape
- Altoids can
- small waterproof matchbox

I have found a cache that was just the size of a nickel, that had the coordinates on the back of it

most important thing for public geocaching: be waterproof, be something that animals can’t get into easily

Cool example my family found, was inside a hollowed-out tree trunk
- another example: PVC fence pole with holes in it, and the cache was at the bottom
- had to go home and get a bucket of water, poured water in the tube and the cache floated up to the top

HOW FUN IS THAT! A REAL CHALLENGE THAT REQUIRES PROBLEM SOLVING AND CRITICAL THINKING!

There IS always a logbook
- every cache has a logbook and pen for people to sign, write the date
- sometimes the log books are very small
- you can write
- put the cache back in the same way you found it or in better shape

Example of a Shreck doll that was registered on Travel Bug
- he has a tag, and a story that goes with him

If you take the travel bug, you are supposed to report it on Geocaching.com

You also find coins that you can buy online from coinsandpins.com and geoswag.com.

Benefits of bringing geocaching into your classroom
- facilitates inquiry-based learning
- adaptable for any subject area and any grade
- improves technology skills
- innovative instruction method
- it’s fun so it increases student motivation

GPS units run from $100 to $1000 each
- this is not a 1:1 ratio situation, each student does not need a GPS
- you can have 4-6 students per GPS unit
- for a typical classroom, 10 GPS units

I have a logitech GPS unit

Garmin Gecko 101 was suggested for students by a participant because it doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles

Also correlates to the Texas Technology TEKS

Young elementary student language arts example
- each student box has the same five events in it on cards, which have coordinates
- students are in groups of 4 or 5
- students finds the cache, chooses teh first event in the story
- students successively program in coordinates
- student groups are staggered
- students need to remember the events and put them in the right order

Older elementary students: lab safety
- create six different caches
- each one has a lab safety question in it, with true and false questions
- students proceed on to the next question using the coordinates
- can make that a little more complicated

I CAN SEE PROJECTS LIKE THIS BEING EASIER TO CREATE ONCE CELL PHONES HAVE INTEGRATED GPS FUNCTIONALITY, SO THAT WHEN YOU GET INTO A CERTAIN AREA ANOTHER “CLUE” CAN BE SHOWN. CHRIS DEDE HAS DISCUSSED THESE TYPES OF PROJECTS THAT STUDENTS AT HARVARD HAVE WORKED ON.

Cellular Organelles Geocaching example
- which organelles are associated with a balloon, a paper bag, and a plastic container?
- students go and find the cache, write down what they find, and then brainstorm the connections

There are lots of other GPS uses
- calculate speed
- see how fast you are going, can measure both distance and speed
- can measure the distance of your school
- calculate how much rain would fall on your school if it rained an inch

Another way to map out caches is to use Google Earth
- if you have the way points marked on Google Earth, the print that out and go find the geocaches

Geocaching Resources
- Geocaching
www.ncwiseowl.org/impact/ncgeocache/LessonPlans.com

Book: Google Earth and GPS Classroom Activities by Jim Holland and Susan Anderson (teachers from Arlington)

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15th May 2008

links for 2008-05-15

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14th May 2008

Talkin’ bout the revolution…

posted in schoolreform, web 2.0 | 6 Comments

I’m sharing the keynote address tomorrow morning here in Richardson, Texas, for Education Service Center Region 10’s 14th Annual Technology Planning Conference. The theme this year is “Assessment for a Web 2.0 World.” I shared a keynote here two years ago titled “The Vocabulary of 21st Century Learning.” It would be interesting to compare my message and ideas two years later and see what has changed, and what has not!

I’ve reworked my slides from last week’s CILC webinar on “Quick Victories for Blended Learning” to focus specifically on the ways web 2.0 tools can be used for assessment. I always like to utilize some video in my keynote presentations, and when looking for a new video to share I came across “A Vision of K-12 Students Today” which is similarly styled to Michael Wesch’s “A Vision of Students Today” but created with students from K-12 classrooms instead of a university. Thanks to David Warlick, however, I discovered the video “Learning to change” created by by Pearson for CoSN to use in public advocacy, and posted to YouTube by Greg Whitby as well as COSN. The final version of this video is titled “Learning to Change — Changing to Learn” and is the video I’m going to use to help frame my presentation tomorrow:

I’m titling my keynote “The Assessment Menu in our Web 2.0 World.” I’ve posted my presentation slides as a PDF file, and will attempt to broadcast and archive my presentation tomorrow on Ustream.tv since my wife generously loaned me her laptop for this trip. The presentation is scheduled to begin at 9:00 am US Central time. Please join us if you can! :-)
Moving at the Speed of Creativity Live from Ustream

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14th May 2008

Article consumption on the go

posted in web 2.0 | 2 Comments

Many thanks to Bob Sprankle for mentioning the outstanding website readthewords.com on the most recent episode (May 4) of Bit by Bit. I’m going to be driving in a car at least fourteen hours in the next three days, and I’ve used readthewords.com to convert three articles about coursecasting into mp3 audio files I can listen to via my iPhone in the car.

Read The Words - My Recordings

I am VERY enthused to be able to listen to these articles in the car when I am on the go! While readthewords.com does provide a MP3 download link and a podcast RSS link, it does NOT appear (yet) to provide a single web feed / RSS feed for all the articles a user has converted. This is unfortunate, because if an aggregated web feed was provided that would permit me to simply add that feed to my PodNova subscriptions and then be able to directly download my new converted articles as mp3 files whenever I sync my iPhone and iPod. Perhaps they will add this feature later. It would also be great to let users create different channels of content, so converted audio files could be organized essentially into different “folders.” It would be handy if the same file could be linked within multiple categories as well.

readthewords.com lets you select from a pretty long list of different computerized voices when you register for a free account and choose to convert a text file:

Read The Words - Voice Options

So far I’ve just gone with Michael (US) and Elizabeth (UK.)

It would (will?) be great to see tools like this continue to develop which allow teachers and instructors to not only create customized playlists of articles converted to audio mp3 files, but also include spoken podcasts and vodcasts. I can foresee customized “channels” of content like this being welcome rich-media additions to courses at both the university and K-12 levels. This text to speech technology is VERY important from an accessibility standpoint, but not just for learners formally identified as needing accomodations. See my post “Converting text to and from speech for accessibility and convenience” from March 2008 for some additional text to speech tools and links. I’ll check in following this week’s experiences driving and listening to articles from readthewords.com later next week! :-)

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14th May 2008

links for 2008-05-14

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13th May 2008

Inside the K-12 Online Conference: Episode 1

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Following our conveners meeting for the 2008 K-12 Online Conference this evening over skype, we recorded a short (approx. 10 minute) discussion of the length changes for presentations in this year’s conference. Please give a listen and share your comments and feedback on the podcast blog post. :-)

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12th May 2008

Internet Safety Issues: What can librarians do?

posted in isafety, socialnetworking, web 2.0 | 2 Comments

The following ideas were brainstormed results from our Oklahoma Library Association sponsored workshop on Internet Safety issues today in Midwest City. I primarily referenced my wiki curriculum “Internet Safety and Social Networking for Parents”, but also referenced resources from “Safe Digital Social Networking (DSN) -or- Proactive Approaches to Address Cyberbullying and Digital Social Networking.” My text notes from Larry Boggess of OSBI’s presentation “Internet Crimes” are available and I will subsequently post the audio recording from his preso here as a podcast. I was thrilled to meet Joel Gabel of Google from their new Pryor/Tulsa office today, and my text notes from his presentation “Internet Safety Issues” are also available.

Top Issues, Concerns and Questions:
1.In a public school teachers have a captive space, in a library kids are not captive - you have to get creative to get kids to participate!
2.How do you keep up?
3.I want kids to be safe online as a parent and librarian, but I am not sure I know how to do that, or my role?
4.balancing safety and access
5.our constituents are our staff, the public, patrons, legislators: educating all about the role of a public library
6.how do we get seasoned professionals to see the value? (we referenced the diffusion of innovations graph)
7.Internet is ever changing / dynamic, how can we monitor the changes without becoming obsolete?
8.how do we fit this in with how we spend our time at work? (what is appropriate and not appropriate )
9.Classrooms are different: captive audience, year long relationship – librarians are in a different situation, how do we make an impact in our role?
10.Chat rooms and filtering are big issues: want to close down chats in some cases
11.People watching out for the children: it is not part of library policy but is a moral or social issue
12.No cheese with the whine
13.electronic gaming: hard to keep up, kids taking over the computer room
14.people have moved their role (CIPA) from protecting from objectionable content to keeping kids productive / on task
15.importance of boundaries and communication, texting, gaming
16.considering having teens make a social networking account (We discussed how a moderated and managed/controlled social networking environment like ning.com could be preferable to just having kids setup a MySpace page. We also discussed the importance of parent permission and getting signed forms for participation from them as well as kids.)
17.we may have to break bad habits
18.boundaries are so important: cell phone example, parents wanting that contact

Internet Safety Education & Outreach Options (menu choices):
1.make it a cause
2.virtual worlds in our summer teens program, could sneak it in!
3.more specific teen programming, giving teens a reason to come (getting teens to teach)
4.setting up a ning or other social network for librarians (celebrateoklahoma.ning.com)
5.workshop for parents on iSafety (maybe PSAs created by the kids and published on YouTube)
6.to help participants in workshops process information and ideas: updates that are needed to their computer system (reaching out to seniors)
7.workshop idea: aimed at parents, get knowledgeable speakers, have people give the dark side and scare people, but also look at the good and the positive (don’t just hear 1 side)
8.low tech: provide bookmarks and flyers
9.netiquette class about digital citizenship
10.oral history project idea
11.demand for adult computer classes
12.voicethread.com
13.Celebrate Oklahoma Voices project
14.Genealogy project workshops in the library!

Additional items:
- The online timer we used
- VoiceThread

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12th May 2008

Internet Crimes with Larry Boggess of OSBI

posted in ethics, isafety, socialnetworking | 1 Comment

These are my notes from a presentation at the Oklahoma Library Association’s workshop on 12 May 2008 in Midwest City on “Safety on the Internet Highway.” This presentation was shared by Larry Boggess of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) and was titled “Internet Crimes.” Thanks to Larry for giving permission to share an audio recording of this session later as a noncommercial podcast. MY THOUGHTS AND RESPONSES ARE IN ALL CAPS.

Unless it deals with children being exploited via the use of technology, our unit does not handle it
- grant money funds us along with other sources
- Oklahoma in the last year and a half have gotten more into investigation, not just forensics (pulling info off computers)

My first assignment for OSBI was in Bartlesville
- culture shock for 6 months
- opening in Internet Crimes unit came, was in OKC

When from 2 cases in six months to 100 cases in two months
- case load is huge relative to the number of agents now
- this is an up and coming

war on drugs? this is the new war
- we have so many undercover profiles out there online
- we use undercover profiles all the time
- you never know what you are going to get when you get online
- that is our advantage, when these predators get online and they think they are dealing with a 12 year old and they are dealing with us

saying “Keep the light in their eyes”
- we have 33 agencies throughout the state who are affiliates of ours

I am able to file charges in both state and federal courts
- simple possession for 1 image, I can get a person federal prison time for 10 years, 18.5 years in state prison
- we can put these guys in prison for a long time
- 90 days processing in federal prison for case, state charges may take 2 years to process
- this really helps to get these guys in prison
- many guys who have not been charged in the federal system get out on the street and continue to threaten children
- these guys are not going to change their behavior

Map showing locations of Oklahoma Statewide ICAC Task Force Affiliate Locations

I average about 3000 miles per month driving on my car
We are adding to our affiliates constantly

Internet crimes unit is a national program, Oklahoma program, and all about internet safety
- this presentation today is a small part of what I do
- I have been to the McAlister library, the turnout wasn’t too great though

We are promoting Intenret safety for children
- we are all susceptible to Internet crimes

We use MySpace a lot, social networking
- came across a young lady from Mustang, Oklahoma
- from her photographs found her vehicle with her tag number, her place of employment, her house number, her company name from a nametag she was wearing and posted on her party pics

THIS MAKES ME REALIZE HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO HAVE AN UNLISTED ADDRESS

It is not hard to go find a child who has put personal information on a MySpace account

Talking to kids and telling them: If I know your first name, where you are from, and what you look like: I could have you kidnapped this afternoon

If you have those accounts, there is just 1 reason to be on there: to social networking with your friends
- MySpace is not a dating website like eHarmony

XBox: how many people know you can chat online with an Xbox
- your child can chat with anyone
- he may think he is chatting with a 12 year old but really he is chatting with a nasty 44 year old

As parents we have to step in and cut off a lot of things you have to do
- I am going to buy the program to monitor every keystroke our kids are going to make
- monitor everything our kids do
- society’s attitude now is to give kids a little more freedom
- what does that lead to? kids getting kidnapped

story of girl who had chatted online and kidnapped her
- took a girl and put her in a dungeon with a dog collar

our agency has original jurisdiction with certain crimes, including crimes against children
- you think your children are being exploited or threatened online, you contact me and I or my partner will

more than 30 million children in the US use the Internet
- how many of you know what these kids are doing online?

stats from ICAC standards 2007
- 1 in 4 had an unwanted exposure to sexually explicitly pictures
- approx 1 in 5 received a sexual solicitation or approach
- 1 in 13 was threatened or harassed
- 1 in 24 received an aggressive sexual solicitation (from someone who asked to meet them somewhere, called them on the telephone, sent them regular mail, money, or gifts)

MySpace is one of my biggest headaches now

we gear up for takedowns on these guys just like drug raids
- these guys are bad news and dangerous

I say to young kids, “You shouldn’t have friends throughout the country, you can’t even drive”

young adolescent girls are socializing right here, on the computer

it starts small, and then a strange car is rolling down the street

you can’t blame the child
as adults, we have to monitor it

cell phones for kids
my deal is: if kids can’t drive, they shouldn’t have a cell phone
text messaging cases are tough
- cell phone companies are not that way with keeping text message chats
- Google keeps things forever
- some phone companies purge their records every 24 hours
- many parents get really mad because of this

For me to just do 1 supeneea , is a 2.5 hour process

Many wireless networks at libraries are unsecured
- I figured this out from my 18 year old son outside the library online
- I am not telling your job and how to do your job, but if I get a case and it comes back to a public library, I close the case
- I had one case of 704 images of child porn being downloaded, it came back to an unsecured library location

I have to know a little bit about the bad guy, get his mac address, etc to go farther

question from a library participant: what about community wifi proposals?

citywide wifi is a nightmare for us
- in Library they have a state-run library system
- to get online in their library, you have to use your library card and to get that you use your driver’s license
- they don’t have unsecured wireless
- that makes for easy cases to prosecute

Most predators and perverts know if your library has unsecured wireless

Filters are great if they are set right

Story of Sarah, an outsider who turned to drugs (Primetime TV Special, “The Secret Life of Teens”)
- lots of kids on MySpace talking about alchohol abuse, drugs
- teen culture looks for models 4 years older

guys, that is pretty self explanatory
- that can happen to any of you
- I am not saying MySpace is a bad thing, as long as you are monitoring what kids are doing

I know some libraries have shut down MySpace altogether, and that is great

Key points of this video
- MySpace is just 1 Internet site
- Amy thoughtshe had no one to talk with about her life: teenage feelings
- met someone online
she can tell strangers things
- he/she will take care of her
- ran away, no regretful

question from librarian about responsibility of libraries who setup MySpace accounts
- response: I go undercover all the time to send out friend requests to look for predators
- hire security for your parking lot when you have kids showing up at your library
- predators surf the library all the time, they are in and out

registered sex offenders in the state of oklahoma can’t be around schools, parks or libraries where children are around at all
- to know if a person is a registered sex offender, you have to do some research

librarian told story of changing the rules about the “adult” computers in the library

People need to quit putting up with this
- if you see it, report it
- there is nothing wrong with calling 911 to report a problem

every police officer is a public servant for each and every one of you
- if you have a problem, you call the police chief or the OSBI

Question about “how do you catch an Internet predator”
- couldn’t tell their methods
- search warrants and interviews lead to a lot of evidence

99% of sex offenders in Oklahoma are not allowed to be on a computer
- if the police department in your town is not dealing with that, then I have a problem with that police department

question: should a library with a myspace account hide their friend list:
- yes
- and the library should have a private myspace account

recommendation is to have adults and kids on different sides of the library on the computer

What can you do?
- www.netsmartz.org free program and website

Problems or concerns with Internet crimes and children in Oklahoma, need a talk about Internet safety at your library or school? Call Larry Boggess, Special Agent
Oklahoma ICAC Task Force
Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation
6600 North Harvey
Oklahoma City, OK 73116
Office: 405-848-6724
Cell: 918-619-7866
email: larryb [at] osbi [dot] state [dot] ok [dot] us

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12th May 2008

Internet Safety Issues with Joel Gabel of Google

posted in isafety | 5 Comments

BEFORE THE SESSION JOEL TOLD ME THAT GOOGLE MAINTAINS MULTIPLE COPIES
OF THE INTERNET AT ANY ONE TIME, WHICH ARE SAVED IN DIFFERENT
LOCATIONS… WOW. THERE WERE MANY QUESTIONS I HAD FOR JOEL THAT HE
COULDN’T ANSWER… GOOGLE CERTAINLY SOUNDS LIKE A FUN AND DYNAMIC PLACE
TO WORK! THERE ARE LOTS OF THINGS GOOGLE EMPLOYEES CAN’T TALK ABOUT
THOUGH!

SafeSearch settings that can be adjusted on the Google toolbar directly
- by default, all users have moderate safesearch turned on
- phishing and malware are biggest threats we see on the internet
right now, so we have worked on developing tools to fight them
- we dont release what OS’s we run to reduce the possible impact of
threats, it harder to find something when you dont know where to look
- we try to develop applications which can assist users

Bank of America fake website example
- Google prompts with message: “Suspected Web Forgery”
- Google toolbar or the FireFox browser will bring up these features
- website antiphishing.org covers much of this
- within Firefox you can report a web forgery
- we do get numerous requests for legit websites, so we require the
user to validate the submital

How to avoid phishing
- don’t reply to or click on emails that ask for personal, financial,
or account information
- instead of clicking the links in emails, go to websites directly by
typing the web address into your browser, cut and paste or use
bookmarks
- if on a secure page, look for https at the start of the URL, and the
padlock icon in the browser
- keep your computer’s antivirus, spyware, browser, and security
patches up to date and regularly run system scans (Have a schedule to
do this)
- review your accounts regularly and check for unauthorized activity
- use a browser with a phishing filter (Firefox, IE or Opera)

always think in a public environment about people who come after you,
who try to access the websites you’ve accessed

Malware used to be called spyware
- many people would consider these viruses
- all have intent to steal information or damage your equipment
- good website for more ifo at stopbadware.org
- we want our users to feel safe when they search the web
- we have some warnings integrated into our search tool, “This site
may harm your computer”

Removing malware from your computer, we recommend these tools
- Spyware Doctor (starter edition is included for free with the Google Pack)
- Sunbelt Software Counter Spy
-
- more…

Skype
- it is free Internet phone
- Well used product
- doesn’t cost anything, but it can tie up public computers and use up
a lot of your bandwidth

Tools to combat abuse
- community flagging tools, like those on YouTube
- community flagging lets you select reasons to flag: sexually
explicit, mature (over 18), other terms of use violation, graphic
violence, and hate speech)
- now we have a computerized system for flagging videos, but we still
have the human system

Orkut is our equivalent of Facebook, has other report abuse buttons
integrated into it

Product safety features
- key pieces of info about you: your name, your city,
- If you went to a banking site
- aliases were created on the internet to give a level of anonymity
- it is VERY important that you can trust the people you talk to on the Internet
- real world incidents are happening as a result

GMail features
- spam filtering
- search mail
- organize
- chat built in
- label, filter, star
- mobile access
- storage
- good ads
- save time
- all for free

At google we use all our own products (including Gmail)
- always log out

Safety features built into GMail
- report spam
- also has a built-in spam filter
- there was a bad virus a few years ago that said “I love you” so
sometimes messages with that text gets dropped into spam as a result
of previous threats

Algorithm changes and grows for spam identification based on user spam reports
- we are not about saying we know everything, we don’t
- we need your (the users) help to identify new trends as well

Google is always trying to get input from users to improve products
- have new warnings now: “This message may not be from whom it claims
to be. Beware of following any links in it or of providing the sender
with any personal information. Learn More.”

Google Checkout
- Google’s equivalent of PayPal
- we do our best to protect your sensitive data
- we want to make sure once you submit it to us we do what is right to
protect your information

Child Safety on the internet
- we have really gotten involved
- google.org is really interested in helping anyone, our philanthropic arm
- Google responds to legal requests with a dedicated staff

Family safety guide

Educating users through our products
- we provide users with tips and articles for staying safe and
protecting their privacy while using our products

We grant up to 10K to non prophet companies in the Google AdWords program
- free advertising for NFP this includes some of the Internet safety
education sites

Organizations that parner: NCMEC, CEOP, Connectsafety.org, Common
Sense Media, the fAmily Online Safety Institute, i-Safe, iKeepSafe,
Net Family News, more…

Getting the message out on YouTube
- we are working with CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection and others

a LOT of people watching YouTube every day, we should ask our
employees what they are doing
- YouTube is free
- we can help push lots of information out on our channels
- this is about a global impact

Recognition software on YouTube is brand new
- millions of videos are viewed
- we do our best to make all information available on the internet
- we do our best to not post things that are evil

Google wants to have 100 employees by the end of construction in Oklahoma
- in Jan 2009 will open for limited testing, and production later in 2009
- There are 4 Google employees now in Oklahoma

Q&A

Using Google analytics is giving good information to librarians
- web browsers DO log the referring URL for all websites

We should be talking about IT etiquette
- email can be taken the wrong way, I re-write many emails at least
twice, I want to get my message across correctly
- show your family/students what is right

If my laptop gets stolen, I am worried about what someone may do with
my laptop, I do everything I can to protect my data

Great case of a young girl talking to someone online
- she gave her name and the city where she lived
- he asked what her school mascot is
- now that person had enough information to find that little girl
- we need to educate our children about those kinds of situations, how
that type of info can be exploited by someone with malicious intent

The internet is so global, and there are people with bad intent, all
those people existed before the Internet– but the Internet has changed
how they communicate

Question from a librarian from city of Stillwater
- thinks their email filtering is great
- knows someone working for a state agency who has terrible email filtering
- they should direct their issues to their IT department
- Antispyware and antispam can be very expensive, its often hard to
move after investing in a product for a businesses

Google is an analytics company, we analyze data

I will not say what I use to log what my son does online, but I use a
commercial product.

Question from a librarian about cartoon pornography
- people are likely not finding that by accident
- need to make sure safe search is turned on
- content filters don’t always work with other forms of media requests
- please help us by reporting those images and video’s

Re-image is the best way to return a PC to a working state if you get malware
- this is done all all the time
- often easier to keep a single image for quicker recovery

Keep yourself safe

you do not want to leave your bluetooth on unless your using it.
- people can detect bluetooth devices at 10 to 15ft

if you are not using wifi on your laptop, turn it off
- in a public place, that can be very dangerous

don’t click “keep my password” on anything
- that can save you from many headaches
- even on your home computer - problem is, many people leave their
computers on when they leave the house

I recommend you change your passwords often and randomly, not every 90 days
- some people change every 17 days, because that is impossible to
track on a calendar
- don’t use anything as a password that someone can find in your house
(not pet name, relative’s name, etc)

Remember what you put on the internet IS public

You too have to be a geek now, because there just aren’t enough geeks
to go around! Knowledge is the key to Internet Safety.

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