Bloggers' Fear?

Good grief. Now someone has been jailed in Egypt for expressing his views on a blog. A BBC News item today reports that Abdel Kareem Soliman, a former student at Al-Azhar University has been tried and convicted of insulting religion (for which he received a three year sentence) and insulting Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak (for which he received a one year sentence). Well, I have a two word sentence for the people who try to stop us voicing our opinions on the web ...... but I won't be able to say it here, in case, um... someone is watching.

Makes you sick, all this surveillance, doesn't it? Only last week I read an article in the Independent newspaper about Catherine Sanderson, a British woman who had been sacked from her job with Anglo-French accountancy firm Dixon Wilson because her employers thought she was being disloyal to them in her blog La Petite Anglaise. When the news broke, her blog traffic went up exponentially overnight. She has now reportedly signed a £100,000 deal with a major publisher to write about her experience. Mais quelle domage! (That's French, you know) See - you can't keep a good man, or woman down. And sensoring the blogosphere is just plain nonsense. What would happen if we censored our students' essays? Or if our universities or colleges tried to censor our thoughts? I would like to hear your views... you have freedom of speech, you know.

Wikis are fragile, handle with prayer

At the risk of being tagged a religious nutter, I'm a great believer in prayer... it changes things - see my personal web page. And students sometimes get themselves into a lather when someone changes something they have posted to a wiki page. But honestly, they don't have a prayer, because once the 'send' button has been pressed, the idea is no longer just 'theirs'. Now it belongs to the community members (see something wiki this way comes) who can have their wickied way with it.

There are several interesting comments from my own lot on our epedagogy wiki space attesting to their consternation. One threatened to commit homicide and another swore she would burst into tears if anyone had the guts to change their page entries. I'm sure they didn't mean it.... but I am two students down on my class register this week...

Anyway, whilst reading Will Richardson's book 'Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts' I came across the Wiki Prayer (p 74) today and thought I would share it with you...

Please grant me the serenity
To accept the pages I cannot edit,
The courage to edit the pages I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference...

Amen

Pointing the finger

So now Toshiba has come up with not one, but two finger print activated mobile phones! The Toshiba Portege G900 and G500 (how do they come up with such sexy names, hmmm?) have built in scanners which double up as touch sensitive scroll bar tools. The finger print identity feature is supposed to improve security, particularly for all those mobile phone users who have their PINs conveniently written down on a slip of paper in their back pockets, or for those who talk in their sleep...

Some smart wag on Slashdot (an anonymous reader of course) has suggested that thieves are now more likely to chop off your hand if they desperately want your data. Been watching too many Sci Fi films, I reckon.

Anyway, for this latest innovation, I think Toshiba should be congratulated. Let's all give them a big hand.

Valentine's Day Massicker

First thing you get when you rise on Valentine's Day (if you're lucky) is a card, a bunch of flowers, or a box of chocolates. Nice. I awoke this morning to find that my dearest had placed a massive tube of Toblerone on my pillow. Later, I will be washing the melted chocolate out of my hair. Next, you log on, open up your e-mail box and find a lovely message from someone waiting to be read (probably your lover, or her best friend). You open it to read the sweet nothings, and arrrghhhh! It's not what you think! It's an attack of the worms. Not very romantic on this romanticest of days. (Is that a word? It is now...) Here is a warning from our cyber guardians Sophos about this latest malware attack.

Subject lines used in the attack, say Sophos, are many and varied, but all pose as a romantic message. Some of them include "A Valentine Love Song", "Be My Valentine", "Fly Away Valentine", "For My Valentine", "Happy Valentine's Day", "My Lucky Valentine", "My Valentine", "My Valentine Heart", "My Valentine Sunshine", "Send Love On Valentines", "The Valentine Love Bug", "The Valentines Angel", "Valentine's Love", "Valentine's Night", "Valentine Letter", "Valentine Love Song", "Valentine Sweetie", "Valentines Day Dance", "Valentines Day is here again", and "Your Love on Valentine's". It all means the same thing, unfortunately. It's that rotten W32/Dref-AB worm again.

An arrow through the heart? I'd say so. When those cyber criminals are finally caught, I hope they get a damn good slapping. I wouldn't be in their shoes for love nor money.

Net curtains

Today is World Net Safety day! Hooray! - all around the globe, in 31 countries, events are being held to raise awareness of the dangers of Internet use, particularly for the vulnerable, such as young children. Blogathons are being held in places such as Canada and Australia (where people run for 26 miles with a personal computer strapped to their backs) and there is a training scheme being launched in the UK to raise awareness of the issues amongst those working with young children.

According to recent surveys, many teenagers stumble across nasty sites on the web by accident. Presumably there are now moves afoot to remove said offending images, so it's curtains for the 10 Downing Street website, I guess....

Slap happy

It seems that the calls to ban mobile phones from British classrooms are getting louder. There has been quite a debate about it recently. Many schools in the UK have already banned mobile phones due to fears of class disruption, child safety, cheating and most currently, to try to deter a number of happy slapping incidents. And its not just the teachers who are banned. They have also banned pupils from using them too.

Today a BBC News article outlined a new reason for a total ban. One teaching union has called for all schools to be 'mobile free zones' after a child in a Scottish school was filmed allegedly assaulting a teacher. Allegedly?? Well, either it was an attack or it wasn't, surely? And the evidence of the mobile phone footage should settle the question one way or the other shouldn't it? Shouldn't the real question be whether the presence of the mobile phone prompted the attack, or whether the presence of cameras could actually deter such violence - or am I missing something here?

Actually, I'm all for the use of mobile phones in certain education settings. Just before Christmas I attended a Futurelab conference in London, and one of the presenters refreshingly requested that all delegates should keep their mobile phones on. He asked us to turn off our ringtones, and then use a special number to text questions to him during his presentation. Our questions were projected on a screen behind him and he answered them on the fly. Neat idea I think - prompted better interaction. Perhaps mobile phones have a place in the classroom after all.... What do you think?