Happy New Year and Greetings K-12 Newsletter Subscribers,

Happy Reading for Today.

<Karen>


1)
One Laptop Per Child project will not be using Intel chips.
They will continue to use processors from Intel's rival, AMD.

OLPC `DISAPPOINTED' WITH INTEL'S WITHDRAWAL FROM LAPTOP GROUP
2008-01-04 14:10 (New York)
(The following is a reformatted version of a statement from Nicholas
Negroponte, founder and chairman of One Laptop per Child, received via
electronic mail. The statement was confirmed by the sender.)

"We at OLPC have been disappointed that Intel did not deliver on any of
the promises they made when they joined OLPC; while we were hopeful for
a positive, collaborative relationship, it never materialized.

Intel came in late to the OLPC association: they joined an already
strong and thriving OLPC Board of Directors made up of premier
technology partners; these partners have been crucial in helping us
fulfill our mission of getting laptops into the hands of children in the
developing world. We have always embraced and welcomed other low-cost
laptop providers to join us in this mission. But since joining the OLPC
Board of Directors in July, Intel has violated its written agreement
with OLPC on numerous occasions. Intel continued to disparage the XO
laptop in developing nations that had already decided to partner with
OLPC (Uruguay and Peru), with countries that were in the midst of
choosing a laptop solution (Brazil and Nigeria), and even small and
remote places (Mongolia).

Intel was unwilling to work cooperatively with OLPC on software
development. Over the entire six months it was a member of the
association, Intel contributed nothing of value to OLPC: Intel never
contributed in any way to our engineering efforts and failed to provide
even a single line of code to the XO software efforts - even though
Intel marketed its products as being able to run the XO software. The
best Intel could offer in regards to an "Intel inside" XO laptop was one
that would be more expensive and consume more power - exactly the
opposite direction of OLPC's stated mandate and vision.

Despite OLPC's best efforts to work things out with Intel and several
warnings that their behavior was untenable, it is clear that Intel's
heart has never been in working collaboratively as a part of OLPC.

This is well illustrated by the way in which our separation was
announced single-handedly by Intel; Intel issued a statement to the
press behind our backs while simultaneously asking us to work on a joint
statement with them. Actions do speak louder than words in this case. As
we said in the past, we view the children as a mission; Intel views them
as a market.

The benefit to the departure of Intel from the OLPC board is a renewed
clarity in purpose and the marketplace; we will continue to focus on our
mission of providing every child with an opportunity for learning."

2)
Kudos to the NJEA Review for this fabulous techie article that we can all understand.
The Toolbox Featured in the January, 2008 issue of the NJEA REVIEW
Web widgets increase student engagement by Patricia Bruder, EIRC
writes:
"Educational CyberPlayground is “an interdisciplinary blog about Internet and Technology News,
NetHappenings, K12 Newsletters, and Network Newsletters [which] provides resources for the Arts,
Music, Linguistics, Literacy, National Children’s Folksong Repository, K-12 School Directory for
K-12 teachers, teacher educators, homeschooling parents, policy wonks, journalists, and business.”
You can download a widget from their daily blog."

See the widget below for your own site or blog.

HOW TO DO IT
First: click the teeny weeny tag that says "get this widget"
Second: click on the HTML symbol and then you'll see the code

OR just Copy and place the code below into your site.

<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowNetworking="all" allowScriptAccess="always" allowFullScreen="true" height="336" width="250" id="wiid_23" align="middle" data="http://downloads.thespringbox.com/web/wrapper.php?file=RSS Reader.sbw"><param name="allowNetworking" value="all" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="movie" value="http://downloads.thespringbox.com/web/wrapper.php?file=RSS Reader.sbw" /><param name="flashvars" value="param=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds%2Efeedburner%2Ecom%2FEducationalCyberplayground&param_style_borderColor=000000&param_style_brandUrl=&partner_id=0" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="bgColor" value="0x000000" /></object><div style="font:11px/12px arial;width:250px;"><a href="http://www.springwidgets.com/widgetize/23/?param=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds%2Efeedburner%2Ecom%2FEducationalCyberplayground&param_style_borderColor=000000&param_style_brandUrl=&partner_id=0&width=250&height=336" target="_blank">Get this widget!</a></div>


3)
W00t, There It Is: The Word of the Year according to Webster - but...
Do you know what language this comes from?
Does Webster know? Dictionary people don't know everything - they get that information wrong sometimes.
They say "origin unknown" when it really is known, it's just that the dictionary people don't know the answer!
Here is Origin of W00t and the fasinating story about the Language it comes from.



4.
Carrot is a clustering search engine.
You'll get 5 search engines and the top 20 results.
Are you interested in many more search engines of this type?
SPECIALIZED SEARCH ENGINES
Learn how to find and use the Invisible Web and Meta Search Engines at the Educational CyberPlayGround.

5.
Solar Cycle 24 Begins
http://spaceweather.com
Solar physicists have been waiting for the appearance of a reversed-polarity sunspot to signal the start of the next solar cycle.
The wait is over. A magnetically reversed, high-latitude sunspot emerged today. This marks the beginning of Solar Cycle 24 and the
first step toward a new solar maximum. Intense solar activity won't begin right away. Solar cycles usually take a few years to build
from solar minimum (where we are now) to Solar Max (expected in 2011 or 2012). It's a slow journey, but we're on our way!

6.
Sears exposes customer information via its web site
Summary: if you know someone's name, address and phone number, you can
retrieve their purchase history from Sears' web site.
http://www.benedelman.org/news/010408-1.html
This is an interesting follow-on to the recent discovery that Sears is pushing spyware:
http://www.benedelman.org/news/010108-1.html

7.
The National Archives of Ireland has released the 1911 census for Dublin, at http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/
You can search by first/last name, approximate age (within 5 years), gender, and DED (District Electoral Division).

8.
Generation gap on copyright, P2P
When New York Times tech writer David Pogue gives talks on copyright law and ethics he has a little interactive segment where he describes lots of situations involving copying songs, CDs, DVDs, broadcast movies, etc., and asks for a show of hands from people who think this or that situation is ok, Pogue writes. He's illustrating all the shades of gray - or at least people's perceptions of the shades of gray - of copyright rights and wrongs. "Recently, however, I spoke at a college. It was the first time I'd ever addressed an audience of 100 percent young people. And the demonstration bombed.... I just could not find a spot on the spectrum that would trigger these kids' morality alarm. They listened to each example [of what he usually finds some people saying is wrong], looking at me like I was nuts." That there might be something wrong with file-sharing, etc., simply does not compute. But there
isn't just a generation gap here, of course. There's also a reality gap: the media industry's reality vs. that of its increasingly digitally literate customers. Speaking of that, in a new move to combat piracy the IFPI (the global equivalent of the US's RIAA), is "asking European lawmakers to require Internet service providers to use filters to block" file-sharing, the New York Times reports.

Why File Sharing is not theft


9.
The Midnight Ride of the Philadelphia Trolley Lovers:
TRANSPORTATION TROLLEY TRAIN SUBWAY LIGHT RAIL BUS CITY : PHOTOGRAPHY AND
PICTURES: PCCII Fan Trip New Years Eve 2007
Fan Trip Photos for PCCII Trip New Years Eve 2007 from Ed Casey


10)
TURN OFF THE TV.

Buckingham's "mantra" for our children's generation,is
"I want what I want. I want it when I want it. And I want it how I want it," or
"IWWIW," the acronym at the top of Buckingham's PowerPoint presentation.
Kind of depressing, when you consider that's what marketers are paying big bucks to
hear so they can go out and create advertising messages for our children that
"say" our product/service will satisfy those very "legitimate" consumption needs.

11)
Stories about kids' virtual worlds are becoming perennial because children 6-10 appear to be a growth market.
Twenty million children are expected to be virtual-world members by 2011, up from 8.2 million right now,
according to eMarketer figures cited by the New York Times. This latest article paints a pretty good landscape.
There's Disney's new “Pirates of the Caribbean” world for kids under 11, with "worlds on the way for Cars and Tinker Bell, among others.
Nickelodeon, already home to Neopets, is spending $100 million to develop a string of worlds. Coming soon from Warner Brothers Entertainment,
part of Time Warner: a cluster of worlds based on its Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera and D. C. comics properties."
I was glad to get an update from this piece on Neopets' protections for kids under 13 (in compliance with the US's Children's Online Privacy
Protection Act, or COPPA): "Neopets restricts children under 13 from certain areas unless their parents give permission in a fax.
Several Neopets employees patrol the site around the clock, and messaging features are limited to approved words and phrases."

12)
Hilton Pond 12-22-07 (Christmas Bird Count)
Each December we lead a York/Rock Hill SC Christmas Bird Count under
the auspices of the National Audubon Society. The latest census is
the topic for our 22-28 December 2007 installment of "This Week at
Hilton Pond."
To view the complete count results--including diagnostic photos of
vultures, Ring-billed Gull, Sharp-shinned Hawk, and an uncountable
Northern Goshawk--please visit
http://www.hiltonpond.org/ThisWeek071222.html
As always we include a tally of all birds banded and recaptured
during the period, plus an interesting weather note.

13)
Interesting Article by Vint Cerf (One of the Early Founders of the Internet)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6960896.stm

14) RIP
Samuel Snyder, 96; Broke Codes And Designed Early Computers
December 31, 2007
Samuel S. Snyder, 96, who was honored this year for his contributions to
code breaking during the 1940s and the conceptualization and design of
computers in the 1950s at the National Security Agency and its
predecessors, died Dec. 28 at Sunrise assistant living in Frederick
after a heart attack.