Palin's Rocky Record on Educational Technology

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

PC Magazine last week took a look at the records of the two Vice Presidential candidates, Sen. Joseph Biden and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, on technology. How much expertise do they have and what do they support?

Biden, says the PC Magazine article, “has positioned himself as an advocate for children’s Internet safety and combating Web predators, while also drawing fire for some controversial stances on piracy and copyright issues.” Palin, says the story, “has been at the helm of a state not exactly ripe with technology issues.  As governor, and not a member of the legislature, her experience appears to be limited to evaluating tech-related projects included in the state budget, and vetoing or approving tech-related bills. She has signed a few tech measures into law, but her most notable contribution might be the numerous vetoes this year for school technology projects.”

Projects rejected by Palin included:

– $300,000 for the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program, a program designed to increase the number of indigenous Americans who pursue careers in science, technology, engeineering and math.

– a $25,000 food bank computer upgrade and refridgeration improvement and $30,000 for EMS technology equipment in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.

– of the 360 state budget items Palin vetoed, at least 43 were e-learning initiatives. She opted to cut about $2.2 million in funding at schools for things like LCD projectors, security system upgrades, educational software, software licenses, laptops for teachers, equipment upgrades, computer labs, and smart boards.

– the governor also rejected wireless access projects in five school districts, ranging in price from $10,000 to $32,000.

– Palin cut funding from $5 million to $2.5 million for the Alaska Consortium for Digital Learning, which had planned to use the money for phase two of a student laptop program.

Are my preferences showing?

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A Quick Word About Wordle…

All right,so the Web is full of useless little online gadgets we dismiss outright. At first glance, I thought Wordle might be one of these gadgets when it was first pointed out to me by my colleague at the Lower Hudson Regional Information Center, John Resanovich. But no — once again, John had a clue about what might catch on, webwise.

Now I see everyone using Wordle, an online application created by IBM‘s senior software engineer Jonathan Feinberg. Using text entered by its users, Wordle creates “beautiful word clouds” that show you the frequency at which words occur within someone’s text. The more often a word occurs, the bigger it appears in the cloud.

So you can enter the text from one of your blog posts, and see what happens. Or, as I did, you can simply create a cute little Wordle using words with a theme. What you see here is my Wordle, created when I added words to describe how I feel about being an empty-nester these days.

At Wired.com recently, the editors had a great idea and entered the words from the keynote speeches delivered at both the Democratic and Republican national conventions, and the results were interesting. Readers noticed, among other things, the tiny word “men” in Michelle Obama‘s Wordle and the large word “man” (reflecting its frequent use) in Sarah Palin‘s Wordle. Take a look at both Wordles here:

The only problem with Wordle at the moment is that it’s not that dynamic. You can save your Wordle by doing a screenshot of it or by printing it. But because IBM owns the rights to Wordle, you can’t make a JPEG or use it in a more dynamic way. Check out the website, especially its gallery of Wordles created by hundreds of users. Very cool.

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Techno-Impersonal

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

During the past week, I have suffered in a minor way from laptop withdrawal. My mother was visiting me from Florida (which explains my absence from this blog), and I was thoroughly part of the real world — Broadway shows, bus tours, dining out, shopping, conversing, catching up. Every now and then, it would occur to me that my laptop might miss me, but I was bonding with my 75-year-old Mom. And yet, when I sat down to check daily emails and write one freelance piece, she said stuff like: “Wow, does anyone talk anymore?” Or: “Are you always online?”

This week, National Public Radio’s Scott Cameron, Editor of “Talk of the Nation,” noted in the program’s blog that someone in his building “has been known to sit in one of the stalls in the men’s room and click-click-click on his Blackberry while – er – doing his business.”

Why did Cameron bring this up? Because according to a new Sheraton hotels survey of 6,500 traveling executives, 35 percent of them say they would choose their Blackberry (or similar PDA) over their spouses. Another 87 percent said they bring their devices into the bedroom, 84 percent check their emails before going to sleep and 80 percent check their emails as soon as they get up, “before their first cup of coffee.”

Weirder still — 85% peek at their e-mail in the middle of the night. I thought I was bad.

On the flip side, say the Sheraton folks, 84 percent of these professionals said the technology allows them to spend more time out of the office and enjoy more quality time and flexibility with their family and friends.

Mom — I don’t even own a Blackberry. Not yet.

But, as NPR’s Cameron points out, “this is so much bigger than the Blackberry…laptops, PSPs, cell phone, portable DVD players, iPods, all tend to make their way into the covers” (or under the sheets).

Just check out this New York Times story, “Laptop Slides Into Bed in Love Triangle,” as proof. And note that it was published in August 2006.

Send me your comments — do you spend more time with your technology than with your loved ones? Would love to hear your stories.

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