Have I made it sustainable?

This time of year always makes me wax nostalgic. We still have over a month of school, we go until the end of June, but around now is when the year becomes more about wrapping up than it is about starting new things.

I always look back on what we've done in the lab. This year was particularly busy....

Adobe Voice - a quick #edapp review

Adobe recently released a new app, Adobe Voice.

It's subtitle is "Show your story."

And it's just that simple. Choose your photos. Record your audio story to match. Save. Publish. Share. Very simple, but very elegant and powerful at the same time.

Here is my first attempt at using the app...

Why tweet in kindergaten? Ask @mariacamastro

Why tweet in kindergarten? Ask Mrs. Camastro, she'll tell you.

Why her?  She hates technology.

She loathes the fact I've put 4 computer in her room and an iPad in her hands. She gives me dirty looks every time she sees me because now I'm trying to get her to lead a Twitter professional development session.

And it's awesome.

Why Blogger with my students?

I use Blogger with my students. I have two classes currently running fully independent blogs. One 3rd grade class and one 5th grade class.

I often get asked why I chose Blogger over some of the other blogging platforms, namely Kidblog, EduBlogs, or even WordPress.

My choice was based on the following thoughts:

Email spam - sniffing out the bad, even from trusted sources

This post is a follow-up, of sorts, to the previous "Twitter spam" and "Phishing" posts. In making the slide deck about Twitter & Phishing spam I realized there were a few different variations of spam in general, especially within emails.

This post deals specifically with email, and more to the point emails you receive from trusted sources that contain questionable material and links.

When a user gets hacked or compromised as a result of a phishing scheme, the people involved will use the users contacts list to send out emails in hopes of getting more users to give up their usernames and passwords...

Phishing: not the hook you're looking for

This post is a follow-up of sorts, to the previous "Twitter spam" post. In making the slide deck about Twitter spam I realized there were a few different variations of spam in general, especially within emails.

This post deals specifically with "phishing"

Another post will address email arriving from trusted sources but smelling particularly spammy due to phishing...

If Twitter has it's moments of Costco-sized spam deliveries than email is the place where Costco shops. 

A lot of email spam originates as "phishing" scams. These are emails designed to get the user to voluntarily offer up their username and password. These emails convince the recipient they need to pride details, or log in, to prevent something bad from happening. Once the user replies or logs in the scammers have their passwords and can use their accounts to send out spam to a users address book...

Know your Twitter spam

Twitter has it's moments of Costco-sized spam deliveries.

We've all seen it. Or more to the point you got a Direct Message (DM) saying "wow, have you seen this post about you?" with a on-so-not-suspicious link attached. Or the ego enhancing "I've lost weight with this, and you could too!"

When this spam comes through I immediately delete it and let the sender know they most likely have been compromised. It's not always the users fault, though. Recently Pinterest was compromised and was sending out tweets to those users who had connected their Pinterest and Twitter accounts...

The UFT: Captain Obvious tweets...

I've been staring at this all morning. I'm not sure how I can legitimately do it justice. It's one of those things in life you see, are amazed by (and not that good kind of amazed), feel a ton of questions rise up in your mind, you open your mouth, and then....

Public Education - a tiered subscription model

<snark>

I think I've solved the teacher pay problem. I think I've found the solution to the teacher respect issue. I think I'll receive a medal for this...

I think public schools should operate on a tiered subscription model.

Here's what I'm thinking:

Heartbleed - what I told my colleagues

Aside from being the computer teacher for my school, I'm also the GAFE administrator and all around tech guy designated to solve any and all problems that arise. With the recent news of the Heartbleed vulnerability I sent out the following email...