21st Century Skills: Does the app require users to engage “21st Century” skills, which includes the ability to collaborate, make data-driven decisions, and solve complex problems?
Connections to Future Learning: Does the app’s content build users’ literacy or numeracy skills so they are more prepared to engage future content area learning and are on track to become “college and career” ready?
In a nutshell, COPPA requires operators of commercial websites, online services, and mobile apps to notify parents and obtain their consent before collecting any personal information on children under the age of 13. The aim is to give parents more control over what information is collected from their children online.
This law directly regulates companies, not schools. But as the digital revolution has moved into the classroom, schools have increasingly been put in the middle of the relationship between vendors and parents.
In some cases, companies may try to shift some of the burden of COPPA compliance away from themselves and onto schools
“That is not without risk, and COPPA has a whole lot of gray area that gives school attorneys pause.”
Less clear, though, is whether COPPA covers information such as IP (internet protocol) address, device identification number, the type of browser being used, or other so-called metadata that can often be used to identify users.
some school lawyers have taken the FTC’s previous guidance to mean that their districts must get consent from every single parent, for every single product that collects information online from young children.
First, according to the FTC, schools can grant consent on behalf of parents only when the operator of the website, online service, or app in question is providing a service that is “solely for the benefit of students and the school system” and is specific to “the educational context.”
How are schools supposed to determine if a website or app is strictly educational?
will any information collected from children under 13 be used or shared for commercial purposes unrelated to education? Are schools allowed to review the information collected on students? Can schools request that student info be deleted?
If the answers to that second group of questions are, respectively, yes, no, or no, schools are not allowed to grant consent on behalf of parents, according to the FTC.
Many vendors also allow third-party trackers (usually related to analytics or advertising) to be embedded into their sites and services.
How do schools notify parents and get their consent under COPPA?
Often through an Acceptable Use Policy or similar document that is sent home to parents at the beginning of the school year, said Fitzgerald of Common Sense Media.
Even better, Fitzgerald said, is when schools provide a detailed list of exactly what websites/online services/apps students will be using, and what the information practices of each are.
some privacy experts say that a one-time, blanket sign-off at the beginning of the school year may not be considered valid notification and consent under COPPA, especially if it doesn’t list the specific online services that children will be using.
responsibility for deciding “whether a particular site’s or service’s information practices are appropriate” not be delegated to teachers.
Many districts do in fact have that kind of review-and-approval process.
One is “click-wrap agreements.” Often, these are the kinds of agreements that almost all of us are guilty of just clicking through without actually reading
Herold, Benjamin. (2017, July 28). The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Education Week. Retrieved Month Day, Year from http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/childrens-online-privacy-protection-act-coppa/
a shift from its founding philosophy of “organizing the world’s information,” to one that is far more active in deciding how that information should appear.
Google keeps blacklists to remove certain sites or prevent others from surfacing in certain types of results. These moves are separate from those that block sites as required by U.S. or foreign law,
Far from being autonomous computer programs oblivious to outside pressure, Google’s algorithms are subject to regular tinkering from executives and engineers who are trying to deliver relevant search results, while also pleasing a wide variety of powerful interests and driving its parent company’s more than $30 billion in annual profit.
Alternatives - Microsoft's BING - DuckDuckGo and Yahoo. check them out when you get time
Google said 15% of queries today are for words, or combinations of words, that the company has never seen before, putting more demands on engineers to make sure the algorithms deliver useful results.
How do you connect your post/content to future searches? Tagging only gets you so far. Thus, Google "tinkers" with the algorithm to product "the best" results. Interesting & concerning!
ALGORITHMS ARE effectively recipes in code form, providing step-by-step instructions for how computers should solve certain problems. They drive not just the internet, but the apps that populate phones and tablets.
Yet, we never (almost never) eat the same thing (recipe) twice in a day. We indulge ourselves with comfort food, yes. And we seek out new taste sensations.
speech-language pathologists hope to accomplish with augmentative
and alternative communication (AAC)
In her inclusive kindergarten classroom, she tried an AAC app with a basic
grid display on a mobile tablet and made measurable progress with it. However, Lily’s
team felt the AAC app lacked depth, so they switched her to a more advanced version
this research-supported approach
provides the foundation for several training programs
"Functioning with the quadruped MekaMon robot, Reach EDU will utlise MekaMon's sophisticated locomotion and personality to entertain, inspire and educate students from across the academic spectrum by bringing creative learning and advanced robotics together.
Operating alongside the existing MekaMon gaming app, Reach EDU will launch with six guided missions to support the KS2 Computer Science curriculum with plans to formally expand into KS3 and 4 in the next academic year."
"you can easily remove old Twitter posts, limit what others can see of your life on Facebook, delete your Google search history, and purge all of Amazon's recordings of your conversations with Alexa. (Data privacy controls for your Instagram and Tinder accounts are "coming soon.")"
The price valued the digital pin board company, which lets people save images and links from around the web, at $12.7 billion. That is a little above its last private fund-raising round, which had pegged the company at $12 billion.By selling at $19 a share, Pinterest raised $1.6 billion from big investors
In its I.P.O. prospectus, Pinterest emphasized its differences from some of those services. Pinterest is not a social media app for hanging out with celebrities or broadcasting one’s life, the company said. It is meant to be personal. The company’s 250 million monthly active users, called “pinners,” come to the site to plan their lives, including home projects, weddings and meals.
"Creating music tracks used to be time consuming and expensive. But with sites like this, anyone can make their own synthesised tracks using virtual mixing desk. Click on launch to start the app. Choose your equipment or use the default desk to get you going. You can listen and even remix tracks from other members on the site."
"An interesting iOS and Android app where users can create virtual messages in a particular geo-location for others to find, and then share with others. Perfect for virtual treasure hunts and much more."