While in Washington State last week I didn’t have good Internet access.  Laura’s mom still uses AOL dial-up.  Neighbor Duff offered access to his WiFi, but we were just out of range.  So this was the perfect chance to try tethering my laptop to my HTC Android phone.  It worked brilliantly!

I had explored several options for phone tethering.   The current crop of broadband modems just seemed like an additional expense for something with limited capabilities.  I had almost bought the Palm Pre, which can set itself as a WiFi hub, before settling on my HTC Incredible.

I knew I didn’t want to do anything crazy that involved root access to the phone.  I needed something fairly simple, so I first tried PDANet.  I’d had some success using the free version  connecting to my netbook.  However, it was very buggy and kept wanting to crash when I tried connecting it to my larger laptop.

I finally settled on EasyTether, and it worked like a charm.  The phone connected to the laptop with no problem, and I was even able to access the drive space on the phone over the USB cable – something that I couldn’t do with PDANet.  I wound up purchasing the full version of the program for under $10, which gave me access to https and secure sites.  With that I was able to check GMail and remotely log into my district’s network to do some simple maintenance.

I’ve read that 3G speeds are nowhere near as fast as cable or DSL speeds.  However, the speeds I got over my phone were pretty darn fast.  I didn’t try watching lots of video, but I did see a couple of clips, and they played just fine.  I also uploaded lots of high resolution images to Flickr, and those went without a hitch fairly quickly.  As far as I could see, there was nothing I couldn’t access that I would normally access from my home Internet connection. (more…)

I had an eye-opening discovery this week.  One of our principals contacted me about an e-mail she was expecting that hadn’t arrived.  I went into our district spam filter to see if it had been caught there.  While looking for the e-mail, I noticed a lot of traffic from Facebook that had gotten caught in the filter.

At first I thought the Facebook traffic was just generic spam, but decided to click on one to make sure.  Imagine my surprise as I found myself looking at a personal message between two of our teachers about a date they had gone on.  There was absolutely nothing wrong with the message itself, but I’m sure these folks would be appalled to know that I had been privy to such personal correspondence.

The problem was that one of the teachers had used her district e-mail account to sign up for Facebook.  The default setting for Facebook is to send e-mail notification for any wall posts, comments, or private messages.  All of this traffic was coming into our system and subsequently being caught in our spam filter.   I’m sure this teacher didn’t think anything like this would happen, and if she were not getting the e-mails, she would have been unaware of the problem.

Even though the message supposedly was sent within the confines of Facebook, it still wound up on our system.  At that point it becomes property of the district, and could be discoverable by subpoena or FOIA request.  We currently don’t use an e-mail archiving system, but that’s probably going to happen before too long.  When that happens we (my IT staff and administrators) will have even more access to personal messages, whether we want it or not.

I’ve heard some instructional technology gurus call for greater interaction between students, teachers, and parents on social networking sites such as Facebook.  I don’t think that’s such a great idea.  I think there needs to some clear boundaries between the personal and the professional, and that’s just not easy to do on Facebook.  I guess one could create a “teacher” account separate from their personal account, but that can get to be a bother.  My friend John Woodring suggests using a Fan Page.  I still think it’s best just to keep the two separate.

Facebook isn’t the only problem, though.  A teacher that signs up for any other service with a district account will have e-mails coming back from that service.  This could include banking, or any other service that might include personal information.

Starting this fall we’re going to begin insisting that teachers use a personal account for all social networking systems and non-school related services, and to reserve their district account for professional use only.  We have tried to make this standard practice, anyway, and have used the phrase “incidental personal use” for what is allowable.  We’re doing this to protect the teacher, as much as anything.  That way my tech staff doesn’t have to read any personal Facebook soap operas as they find their way into our e-mail system.

Related Posts:

• Facebook and Online Responsibility
• Teachers and Facebook

One of the reasons I upgraded to an Android phone was my interest in Augmented Reality.  I knew I would be doing some traveling this summer and wanted a way to check out items around me quickly, without having to bring my work Blackberry along.  I got a chance to put the new smartphone through its paces last weekend in Washington DC, and here are some of my initial feelings about AR…

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The problems surrounding teachers using Facebook seem to be getting more and more complex. I’ve written before about how teacher’s private use of Facebook can impact their jobs, whether justly or unjustly.  The issue that was brought up recently involves teachers’ use of Facebook on private mobile devices during school hours.

This is a tricky issue.  We want teachers to be doing what they are paid to do – teach their classes and monitor their students.  But how do you keep this in check?

We have Facebook blocked in our district because of some of the discipline issues is creates with students.  It was suggested that we consider adding restrictions on Facebook usage on private mobile devices to our Acceptable Use Policy.  I flatly disagreed with that.  Our AUP regulates acceptable use of district-owned equipment and services, not private equipment.  I don’t think should or legally could use a policy written for district equipment to be applied to private equipment. (more…)

I’ve been accused of having too many gadgets. I confess, I have quite a few. However, I’m not one to rush out and buy the latest just because it’s new. I need to have a purpose for the gadgets that I get – not just so I can have something shiny.

Yesterday, however, I met my match. I was in Arby’s for lunch, and I noticed a woman whom I assumed to be in her 60′s (a dangerous assumption, I know.) She was sitting in the booth reading her Kindle, and had it propped up on an interesting stand. The stand appeared to be part of the Kindle cover and looked neat, so I asked her about it.

It turns out the the stand was a simple plate stand she had picked up from a hobby store. It folded nice and flat, and was a simple solution to a problem. She then proceeded to pull a high-tech stand out of her briefcase that she had ordered online. She said that the expensive one required her to take the Kindle out of its case, and it didn’t fit her iPad like the plate stand did.

…Wait, iPad?

She explained that she had bought an iPod Touch for its color display and the Kindle app. But, she wanted more “screen real estate” so she bought an iPad. She explained that she had multiple magazine subscriptions and the Kindle just wasn’t up to that. Her Kindle was currently loaded with 132 books.

I was curious what other tech goodies she would pull out of the bag, but I didn’t want to disturb her lunch. I was curious as to whether or not she was just a tech aficionado, or whether she had some occupation that required a steady stream of information. I also was curious as to what was on her reading list. However, i saved those questions. I sat with my sandwich and my Kindle, actually happy that I had found someone who could out-tech me with such style.