Cyber School Day

Queen Anne's School, a prep school in Maryland has a system in place so that if school is cancelled because of inclement weather, every student and teacher logs on to the internet and they have Cyber School. The headmaster talked about IM, and they seem to have a really serious and involved Virtual School system. And they've been doing this for 7 years.

There has been some talk of late amongst state level administrators about trying to plan for the possibilities of epidemics - bird flu being the inspiration behind these conversations - and trying to deal with what can be done if school needs to shut down for months at a time. This *could* be done, but there are about a gazillion steps between us and Queen Anne's School's readiness.

Heard on NPR (only 3 minutes)

my favorite quote - "As headmaster, I can tell you that I know more about what goes on and can really validate the worthwhile nature of it on a cyber school day than I can when they're on campus."

registry of online identities

I've got huge problems with the idea that once we've released people from prison we still treat them like criminals when what we really need to do is completely fix the multitude of problems associated with sex offenders (which makes me like the McCain plan better). But this is a fascinating idea and one that takes a semi-legit view of the problem, for once, from my perspective. Instead of simply saying no, it's too dangerous, we must simply scare everyone away from anything collaborative, let's look at the details of the (overblown and inflated) issue of safety on the internet for our kids. This on the heels of last weeks announcement from MySpace saying they will be checking their records against registries of convicted sex felons, which came with an acknowledgment that it wouldn't work if people didn't use their real names (from the NYT):

December 12, 2006

Virginia: Registry of Sex Offenders’ Online Identities

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Attorney General Bob McDonnell said he would seek legislation to require convicted sex offenders there to register their online identities with the state to help MySpace and other Web sites frequented by teenagers more easily block access. Senators Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona., announced plans for similar federal legislation last week, but theirs would apply only to those on probation or parole. Mr. McDonnell’s plan for Virginia would apply to all convicted sex offenders. Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace’s chief security officer, applauded the Virginia announcement. “This legislation is an important recognition that the Internet has become a community as real as any other neighborhood and is in need of similar safeguards,” Mr. Nigam said.