Gates Foundation Plans to Boost Education with $20 Million Fund

Aiming to improve America's education system, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced on Monday, Oct. 11 an initiative to help college students succeed with technology.

As reported by the New York Times,
the $20 million fund is being targeted to community colleges in order to boost college graduation rates among low-income and minority students.

“We’re living in a tremendous age of innovation. We should harness new technologies and innovation to help all students get the education they need to succeed,” Bill Gates, Co-Chair of the Gates Foundation, said.

The initiative is called the 'Next Generation Learning Challenges' and it will provide financial grants for organizations and entrepreneurs to develop efficient online learning tools.

With a total fund of $20 million, grants will range from $250,000 to $750,000 for those applicants with top-rated proposals. Furthermore, the program will also allow current successful educational programs to expand and affect much larger groups of students.

The 'Next Generation Learning Challenges' program aims to incite the use of interactive applications like virtual simulations, interactive video and social media, thus, reinforcing students’ learning.

This program would also support the availability of OpenCourseWare, free and open digital publications of university-level educational material that can benefit students and professors as well.

Organizations supporting the initiative include: the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, EDUCASE, and other three nonprofit organizations; all with expertise in educational leadership and management.

As current and coming generations of college students experience constant technological changes, I believe initiatives like these are the best approach not only to improve education but also enhance society with more high-skilled individuals.

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Google Cars: Cool and Intriguing

Google announced its enrollment in what could be a benchmark in technology this past week.

Being more specific, according to the New York Times, Google has been working on self-driven vehicles controlled by artificial-intelligence software that allows for a human-like driving experience.

These robot-cars equipped with a GPS receiver, motion sensors, and videocameras, are capable of replicating human decisions based on the proximity of objects around the car.

These modified cars have been set and tested on San Francisco's streets without any human intervention except for a person behind the wheel and a technician to monitor the navigation system in case anything goes wrong. Fortunately, all tests have been successful.

As stated in the official Google Blog, Google's goal in the development of this technology is "to help prevent traffic accidents, free up people’s time and reduce carbon emissions by fundamentally changing car use."

Google's initiative to increase public safety and develop once-dreamed robotics is amazing, unfortunately this technology is far from reaching consumers and it makes me wonder: would this become something like the iPad?

Sure the iPad is revolutionary and allows people to multitask, but not everyone can afford one and some even think it's a waste of money.

If self-driven cars were to become only appealing and affordable to a few people, then Google's new technology wouldn't be as beneficial for society as they wish.

I believe this technology would just be useful to mark another crucial moment in U.S. history concerning technological research and development, thus, I doubt this technology could be profitable and reach a large amount of consumers.

What's your opinion on Google's innovative technology?

Note: Pictures and video of the modified cars can be found in the original NY Times report.

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Paradox Over Internet Privacy

This past week, President Obama introduced a radical proposition that could end with the concept of Internet-communication as we know it.

On September 27, the New York Times reported on new regulations being considered by President Obama's administration that would allow national security officials to wiretap all kinds of online-communication platforms. This bill would require all Internet-based communication companies to redesign their servers and adhere to federal security measures of wiretapping laws.

Although the bill won't be submitted to lawmakers until next year, the bill is already rising doubts and criticism. Among the opposers, one of them is Christopher Calabrese, Legislative Counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.

"Mandating that all communications software be accessible to the government is a huge privacy invasion," Calabrese said.

From e-mail to Facebook and even mobile texting, law enforcement would be able to tap private communication software and track conversations in an effort to identify possible threats to the U.S., including terrorist attacks.

Furthermore, another concern brought by this bill is the possible damage to all online-communication systems in the U.S. Bruce Schneier, a security technologist, expressed his concern of the bill in a special report by CNN.

"Communications systems that have no inherent eavesdropping capabilities are more secure than systems with those capabilities built in," Schneier continued "Any surveillance system invites both criminal appropriation and government abuse."

In other words, not only will it be easier for federal security to spy on people but criminals would be more likely to do it as well, which I think defeats the purpose of increasing security measures.
Obviously, this new bill would have a drastic impact on individuals' privacy.

The free and open sharing of ideas and thoughts and the private communication scheme provided by the Internet years ago, could be seriously damaged if this law were to be approved.

Of course, security is an important issue, but will you be willing to give up your privacy for increased security?

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Journalism Ethics 101

While anyone can be a journalist nowadays, it doesn't mean that everyone has or understands the core principles of journalism.

The Next Ethics? Media Ethics Workshop, hosted by Kent State University on Sept. 16, gathered skilled journalists, college professors and prospect journalism students to discuss the current newswriting and reporting practices in today's media.

Among the distinguished speakers at the conference was Arianna Huffington,Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief of the Huffinton Post. In her speech, Ms. Huffington acknowledged that journalism practices were changing and, due to the introduction of new technology, forthcoming journalists needed to adapt to a new journalism environment.

Ms. Huffington encourages the new era of journalism through the use of blogs or social media. However, she believes that "today's journalists should re-visit and learn from the old-fashion journalism." In other words, journalists today should keep in mind the true essential ethics behind Journalism as presented by the Society of Professional Journalists:

- Journalists should demonstarte honesty, fairness, and audacity when gathering information and reporting news.

- Journalists should be respectful and cautious about different social groups and sources of information.

- There should be no strings attached between journalists and sources in order to avoid conflicts of interest.

- A journalist should be responsible for a proper delivery of news and generate a dialogue among audiences.

Although the medium by which news are delivered might change, the ethics of Journalism should remain intact and put into practice more often.

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Keeping News Coverage Safe

About two months ago when Pastor Terry Jones announced he planned to burn the Quran, the Muslim holy book, on September 11, 2010 the news sparked an international turmoil.

As the 'Burn a Quran Day' came closer in the calendar, tensions grew and caused alarm in the media.

While there was uncertainty about whether the Quran burning was going to occur or not, news agencies and television networks were already thinking about proper ways to report this event. Some news agencies, like the Associated Press, viewed this event as "provocative and offensive," therefore declined to distribute images, audio or detailed descriptions of burning Qurans.

Similarly, CNN reported that a host for a popular Pakistan TV channel "didn't dare to report the news because if he did, not a single American would be safe in Pakistan."

It seemed like the reporting of burning Qurans through mainstream media would not have helped in any way, but it would help further spread hate and discrimination against Muslims.

Pastor Terry Jones, leader of the Dove World Outreach Center in Florida, planned the commemorative event to mark the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. "Despite pressure from The White House, religious leaders, and others to call it off," Pastor Jones was determined to carry-on with his plans.

The Quran burning was eventually called off by Pastor Jones himself.

The fact that some news agencies and television networks agreed not to release any offensive, discriminative, or disgusting content is something to be proud about.

Nowadays, news agencies try to get better rankings and notoriety among others by releasing the most shocking news. In such a sensitive case as the Quran burning, keeping news coverage under certain limitations, I believe, says much about a conscientious news organization and its journalistic values.

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