The lesson of the Ngong Hills

One of my tasks at the Learning2.014 conference was to present a Learn2Talk. Rather than offer up the traditional keynotes, each Learning2 Leader was asked to prepare about five minute TEDTalk-style presentation and during the conference and then three or four of these talks were given during general sessions. The were uniformly individual, passionate, entertaining, and meaningul. Wow!

I was lucky and got to give my Learn2 Talk the first day of the event. But rather than give a speech, I told this story (a bit embellished, to be sure):

A tour guide in Nairobi told me this tale about how the Ngong (Knuckle) Hills came into being.

A giant once ravished the land. The animals of the savanna were determined to get rid of it. The big animals went in first: the elephants, the rhinos, the lions. Each in turn were soundly trounced.

That night all the ants gathered and decided each would carry a few clumps of dirt and place them on the giant while he was asleep. By the next morning the giant was buried so deeply that he never rose again. All that can be seen today are the protruding knuckles of one hand – the Ngong Hills.

Who can make the most improvements in education: The Department of Education or all teachers making small changes? (Machines are the Easy Part; People are the Hard Part.)

I've used this story as a closer for many keynotes I'd given, and it felt right using it here in east Africa, not all that far from where I first heard it. Several people from Kenya approached me afterwards, thanking me for sharing the tale.

And despite some research a few years ago, I had never discovered a written version of the tale, so I was beginning to imagine I had somehow dreamed it up. But two people at the conference - a native Kenyan and a longtime expat resident said they had heard a similar version of the story.

Whew.

 

Rorschach test of educational priorities: your school library

I visit quite a few schools and one of the first places I visit is the library/media center/learning commons. For me, it's a quick Rorschach test of a school's values and climate.

The picture above is the elementary library at the International Community School (ICS) in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia. Even at a quick glance, I can tell by looking at this facility that this is a school I'd be happy to have my grandchildren attend. The library:

• has kids in it. Productive, engaged, kids using the library's print and technology resources.
• looks to have a well-stocked collection of carefull chosen books.
• has a warm and inviting atmosphere, with colorful and fun furniture and wall decorations.
• has a staff that was available, friendly, and helpful to me as a visitor and to the students themselves.

This tells me that the school values children's personal interests. That it balances technology with print literacies. That it recognizes that not all learning has to be at a desk in a group with 24 other children, all facing the same way. That it knows there are other ways to improve reading scores and test results than drill, test prep, and programmed instruction. 

And that a love of learning is as important as skills and knowledge.

Maybe I am reading too much into a ten minute visit, but I'm pretty good a first impressions. And ICS made a good one.

Where is your data really most secure?

It’s just easier for hackers to profit by stealing information linked to credit cards swiped in physical stores, he said. Such data can be used to make counterfeit cards and presents fewer obstacles for thieves than information stolen from online shoppers. Shopping Online May Actually Be Safer than Shopping In Person, Huffington Post, September 15, 2014.

I've often wondered why people who are pefectly comfortable giving their plastic to an ATM, a waitress at a restaurant, or the cashier at the grocery store are hesitant to give the same information to Amazon or other online providers. As it turns out, their fears should have been just the opposite - shopping in person at Target or HomeDepot turns out to be riskier than buying stuff over the Internet.

In a post, Under the matress or in the bank (November 30, 2009), I wrote:

I don't know about you, but I like to keep a few hundred thousand dollars worth of cash around just in case of natural disaster or if Sarah Palin or Donald Trump ever gain national office*.

The question is - where to keep it?

I have a number of options

I can keep it nice and close where I can keep my eye on it - under my bed.

I can buy a home safe and keep it locked.

I can keep it in a bank.

The first two of these options certainly offer some psychological comfort. Knowing that those Franklins are close - where I can touch them, see them and protect them - on the surface might might seems like the safest course of action. After all, I have the biggest stake in keeping my stash secure.

But on reflection, most of us quickly realize that one's valuables are safest in the bank. The bank employs professional security staff. Its safe is a lot bigger and stronger than what I can afford. And banks offer some degree of insurance against loss.

Yes, banks are sometimes robbed and one could get mugged carrying one's loot to or from the bank, but the odds of those things happening are minscule compared to have one's home burgled. Electronic fund transfers, using a bill pay service and doing automatic deducations are all safer and more reliable than writing a paper check.

So if it make sense to keep one's physical valuables in a bank, why does it not also make sense to keep one's data (like e-mail) on an ASP - an application service provider? These off-site, professional services like Gmail hire professional staff, give strong security to users, and maintain 99.9% uptime rates. It's like keeping your data in a bank instead of under your mattress (or on your harddrive or on a local school server).

Jeffrey Kaplan in CIO writes: "Although service disruptions experienced by Google ... get plenty of attention, those types of incidents don't happen very often, and they don't last as long as many enterprise outages. And there hasn't been a major compromise of a SaaS operation reported yet, even as we continue to read regular accounts of security breaches in traditional IT environments."

* I am just kidding. Please don't burgle my house. 

Let's apply this same concept to data privacy. If you keep your money at home under the matress, only you know how much you have. If you put it in the bank, the bank then also knows how much money you have (or my case, how little you have). Same goes for any financial tool you use. And if the IRS needs that information to audit your tax returns, the bank will give it to them. And if your bank is like mine, it will use the information it has about you to target market you for financial services.

So what?

Unless your activities are illegal or immoral, knowing your provider may be able to view or mine your data should not be terribly distressful and an acceptable sacrifice of personal privacy. And remember to separate Google's Terms of Service for personal accounts and their GoogleApps for Education accounts. FERPA is not an issue when using GAFE.

For my money (and data), the cloud offers as safe a place to keep those things I value (I archive my personal photos online) as anyplace you can find in this insecure world.