News Update February 15 2005
CT News Update: An Online Newsletter from Campus Technology
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News for Tuesday,
February 15, 2005
* Bush 2006 Budget Axes Perkins Tech-Education Funding
* NYU Launches First Online Bachelor's for Adults
* Latino Higher Ed
Group Backs Proposed SBC-AT&T Merger
* XML Textbook Standard Aids
Visually Impaired Students
* Ph'enix School Sponsors Student WiFi
“Wardriving”
* Videogame Firm Endows USC Interactive Media Chair
*
Deals: MIT, Dartmouth Purchase Networking Equipment
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Bush 2006 Budget Axes
Perkins Tech Education Funding
The American Association of Community
Colleges called President
Bush’s proposed fiscal year 2006 budget a
“positive and negative
for community college students and their
communities.”
While the budget proposed a $100 million increase in the Pell
grant maximum, to $4,150, it targeted the Carl D. Perkins
Vocational and
Technical Education Act for termination.
AACC president George Boggs said
the Perkins program is
a key source of support for postsecondary career and
technical
education programs. “The proposed elimination of the Carl Perkins
Act is a shock,” said Boggs. “Community colleges dispute the
administration’s assessment that this program is ‘ineffective.’”
The
Perkins Act, first authorized in 1984, provides career and
technical
resources that prepared students for postsecondary
education and career
choice. Perkins funds are provided to states
that, in turn, allocate funds
by formula to secondary and
post-secondary schools.
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NYU Launches First
Online Bachelor's for Adults
New York University's School of Continuing
and Professional Studies
(NYU SCPS) is launching the university's first
fully online undergraduate
degree program for adult students. The new
program -- called NYU Online --
will begin accepting applications in the
Spring, with classes to start in
September 2005. Students will be permitted
to enroll in one of three
degree programs: B.S. in Leadership and Management
Studies; B.S.
in Information Systems Management; and a B.A. in Social
Sciences.
The programs are online versions of curriculum offered by NYU SCPS
on its New York City campuses. NYU SCPS Dean David Finney
said the
program would offer “a full blend of educational techniques
that create the
best possible learning environment for adult students,
whether in class or
online. Based on 70 years of teaching adults and
more than 10 years in
online education, we know having such things
as highly interactive class
sessions and supplemental team projects,
research papers and peer-to-peer
learning are key to an excellent
online education.'
Latino Higher Ed
Group Backs Proposed SBC-AT&T Merger
A group of
Latino higher education professionals last week
endorsed the proposed SBC-
AT&T merger, saying that by
spurring the use of new technologies such as
Voice Over
Internet Protocol (VOIP), it would “strengthen ties that
connect our communities to their native countries.” “We can
now expect
greater access to educational resources for
people living in distant
communities, where once we could
only imagine it,” according to a statement
by the National
Association for Latino Leadership and Achievement.
“For
example: Students living in Central America enrolling
and attending American
institutions of higher learning through
telephony and virtual classrooms; or
American students
attending a seminar by a renowned p'et in
Argentina.
Therefore, we hold the position that the opportunity for
technological standardization that the merger promises to
bring forth
and the stability it presents for the technology
industry are only the tip
of the iceberg. Most significantly,
the greatest benefit stands to be felt
by those currently
existing within the 'technology-gap' that separates the
First and Third worlds.'
XML Textbook Standard Aids Visually
Impaired Students
Reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities
Educational
Act (IDEA), signed December 3 by President Bush, now gives
students with print disabilities equal access to educational
materials
as their sighted peers Key to the act is requiring a
standard file format
for each textbook. This makes conversion into
accessible formats such as
braille, large print or digital text much faster.
Based on an ANSI NISO
standard, the text portions are called
Digital Talking Book (DTBook), an XML
standard coordinated
by the DAISY Consortium and the Library of Congress.
'Publishers can help libraries serving persons with disabilities by
providing XML files in DTBook or other XML vocabularies that
can be
transformed to this standard,' says George Kerscher,
secretary general for
the DAISY Consortium.
Ph'enix School Sponsors Student WiFi
“Wardriving”
The University of Advancing Technology (UAT), a
Ph'enix-area
for-profit school, has sponsored a “war-driving” exercise,
which
involves students driving around the area with a laptop and WiFi
card looking for live access points. Raymond Blackwood, IT
manager of
development, said the purpose of the exercise is
“to determine which
demographics are most likely to have
wireless networks in their homes and
businesses and how many
are aware of wireless security. This data will be
used as a platform
for creating wireless security awareness in the [Ph'enix
area].'
Although war-driving has earned a poor reputation because of
its
association with hackers, Blackwood called it a tool for
doing good. “We are
not gaining illegal access. We are collecting
data,' he said. 'All we are
doing is scanning the airwaves for the
802.11 a/b/g signals. It is important
for us to become leaders in
the [Ph'enix area] in preventing war-driving
from getting a bad
name and being used for the wrong reasons.'
Videogame Firm Endows USC Interactive Media Chair
The University
of Southern California’s School of Cinema-Television
named Bing Gordon, a
founder of videogame developer Electronic
Arts, as the first holder of the
Electronic Arts Endowed Faculty
Chair in the school’s Division of
Interactive Media. The chair will
be a rotating position that will be held
for one to two years by
leading figures in interactive entertainment that
will join the School's
faculty as visiting professors. 'In the next decade,
digital technologies
will bring almost unimaginable changes to the
entertainment industry,'
said Gordon. 'Videogame quality will improve 150
times, cell phones
will become pocket high-definition TVs, all media will be
re-mixable
and instant message-able, and game techniques will be used to
provide
human-centered education. Today's students, who are already the
world's leading experts in new technology, are the best bet to have the
vision and energy to invent such sweeping change. And USC, with its
project-based film-making, computer science and communications
schools,
its location in the entertainment capital of the world, and its
organizational commitment to excellence, can be 'ground zero' in this
revolution in entertainment.'
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Deals: MIT,
Dartmouth Purchase Networking Equipment
The Massachusetts Institute of
Technology purchased modular switch
technology from Raptor Networks. Raptor
provides standards based
modular switching technologies that benefit
networks that provide
newer services such as video, VOIP, high speed storage
and latency
sensitive network applications. Raptor said its patent-pending
'Distributed Network Switching Technology' blurs the distinction
between
core switching and edge switching, enabling network build-outs
and
performance upgrades of traditional chassis-based installations in a
highly
cost-effective manner. Also, Dartmouth College purchased
campus network
security technology from Secure Elements Inc.,
which describes itself as a
leader in “enterprise vulnerability management
and remediation.” Dartmouth
purchased the firm’s Class 5 Automated
Vulnerability Remediation (AVR)
solution to protect its network
infrastructure and deploy an enterprise
vulnerability management strategy.
'Our focus at Dartmouth is to give
students, faculty and staff the freedom
to maintain consistent access to the
campus network or the Internet without
being tethered by wires,' said Brad
Noblet, director of technical computing
at Dartmouth. 'As we continue to
build out our infrastructure and applications
for mobility, security becomes
increasingly important to keep service levels
high and student information
safe.' ====================================================================
