Jon Stewart explains why.

In a breakfast with reporters, Stewart directed most of his ire at the 24-hour cable news networks, which he called “gerbil wheels,” and said the media at-large had “abdicated” to what he called the “slow-witted beast.”

He said the never-ending television news cycle creates a “false sense of urgency” and forces reporters to “follow the veins that have been mined,” instead of pursuing serious and in-depth reporting.

And, of course, I’ll be watching the Daily Show to get the most intelligent analysis of those marathon infomercials to be found anywhere.

Like this:

In preparation for the Republicans, a billboard near the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport.

For anyone connected to a digital network of any kind that’s either a fact of modern life or a hazard waiting in the wings.

However, a writer in the Op-Ed section of this morning’s Post believes that the “information avalanche” enabled by all our communications tools is also a potential danger to our democracy.

All of it “is burying us in extraneous data that prevent important facts and knowledge from reaching a broad audience”.

Or maybe his concern is that fewer people are reading big media publications like the Post.

Which highlights the larger problem: The overload siphons audiences and revenue from newspapers such as The Post and other outlets that can spread important information, forcing these media to shrink and to rely increasingly on advertising to stay afloat. These trends predate the Internet era, but they’ve gotten worse.

And, of course, it’s the technology that’s to blame.

Rather than call for government regulation of technology itself, perhaps the best way to limit the avalanche is to make the technologies that overproduce information more expensive and less widespread. It could be done via a progressive energy tax designed to keep energy prices at a consistently high level (while providing assistance to lower- and middle-income Americans).

In a companion to this stupid rant, Ben Stein, writing in the New York Times, also believes all our devices have become “modern-day balls and chains with which we shackle ourselves”.

What would we do if cellphones and P.D.A.’s disappeared? We would be forced to think again. We would have to confront reality. My own life is spent mostly with men and women of business. I have been at this for a long time now, and what I have seen of the loss of solitude and dignity is terrifying among those who travel and work, or even who stay still and work. They are slaves to connectedness. Their work has become their indentured servitude. Their children and families are bound to the same devices, too.

So, just get rid of the technology - or make it so expensive that traditional media is more financially attractive - and all will be right with our lives again.

However, the underlying message from both writers (and their editors) is that we would be far better off with a limited flow of information.

And that a few traditional filters of that information (like the Post, the Times, and Ben Stein) should be the ones telling us what’s important.

No thanks. I’d rather learn to sift through the flow of data myself.

I’m not enough of a film buff to argue intelligently about her choices, although technically speaking Mr. Rooney from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was the principal, not a teacher.

Maybe we could substitute Ben Stein’s incredibly boring social studies teacher from the same movie instead.

His recent advocacy for teaching “intelligent” design in science classes certainly qualifies him for the worst teacher list in real life.

But it’s nice she offered a mention to my favorite bad teacher: Ditto from the 1984 mess simply titled Teachers.

On the other end of things, the same writer also put together her 15 most inspirational teachers in films.

Again, not enough background for any serious criticism… but Yoda and Arnold Schwarzenneger??

[Thanks to Carol at Bellringers for the link.]

Well, maybe not.

A voting system used in 34 states contains a critical programming error that can cause votes to be dropped while being electronically transferred from memory cards to a central tallying point, the manufacturer acknowledges.

The problem was identified after complaints from Ohio elections officials following the March primary there, but the logic error that is the root of the problem has been part of the software for 10 years, said Chris Riggall, a spokesman for Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold.

A logic bug that’s been around for ten years?  Even the Big Monopoly of Redmond pushes out fixes for their crappy software faster than that.

But it gets worse.  When the problem was discovered, the company blamed it on third party anti-virus software.

Which brings up the question of why it’s necessary to protect against viruses on a system that by all rights should be closed to any outside network?

Supposedly there are “crosscheck procedures” election officials can use when they certify the results.

However, and correct me if I’m wrong, wasn’t electronic voting supposed to make counting the ballots more accurate and fair after the 2000 disaster in Florida?

Or am I just being paranoid and/or naive?

Ok. On that basis I’m launching a class action suit against the entire consumer tech industry.

For that matter, let’s include all the edtech vendors as well.

With few exceptions, you’d be hard pressed to find any of their products that live up to the ads.

Does that work?

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, that’s hard to say.

In the latest study of student-incentive programs, researchers examining a 12-year-old program in Texas found that rewarding pupils for achieving high scores on tough tests can work. A handful of earlier studies of programs in Ohio, Israel and Canada have had mixed conclusions; results of a New York City initiative are expected in October. Comparing results is further complicated by the fact that districts across the country have implemented the programs differently.

Now DC Public Schools, which is pretty much down to trying anything to improve their test scores, is considering offering kids cash incentives for simply behaving and showing up for class.

For years, school officials have used detention, remedial classes, summer school and suspensions to turn around poorly behaved, underachieving middle school students, with little results. Now they are introducing a program that will pay students up to $100 per month for displaying good behavior.

Beginning in October, 3,000 students at 14 middle schools will be eligible to earn up to 50 points per month and be paid $2 per point for attending class regularly and on time, turning in homework, displaying manners and earning high marks.

While bribery incentive programs may work on some students, are they really a long term solution for improving American education?

Wouldn’t that money be better spend on a complete overhaul of the whole system?

Congressional staff members got a glimpse of some of the details in closed briefings this month, and four Democratic senators told Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey in a letter on Wednesday that they were troubled by what they heard.

The senators said the new guidelines would allow the F.B.I. to open an investigation of an American, conduct surveillance, pry into private records and take other investigative steps “without any basis for suspicion.” The plan “might permit an innocent American to be subjected to such intrusive surveillance based in part on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or on protected First Amendment activities,” the letter said.

I wonder if the FBI might open an investigation on someone who blogs about policies that permit the government to slice and dice the constitution at will.

Nah! That kind of stuff only happens in countries we don’t like.

Since I’m the “computer person” for some family and friends, I guess I need to know the secrets I’m supposed to keep.

So, what’s number 1? “Turn it off, turn it back on.”

Wait a minute!  Isn’t that the first thing anyone in the IT crowd suggests?

Other items on the list also sound like pretty common advice: keep your antivirus/spyware software up to date, protect your passwords.

And there’s a few revelations that people asking for help surely must already know: Sometimes we talk about you-in code.

Then we get to recommendation number 10: …get a Mac.

Now THAT’S no secret.  It’s something I tell just about everyone. :-)

This is a one-day event for users and developers of WordPress, the blogging platform that powers this waste of bandwidth, to meet and learn from each other.

It’s also the first of a increasing number of similar meetings in cities around the world for those of us using WP (when is one going to be organized in DC?)

And, evidently, the numbers of us using WP are big and growing.

And for WordPress.org (the self-hosted, open-source version), Mullenweg announced today that there are 2.6 million active user-installed WordPress blogs in the wild. This figure is based on real data (not sampling), similar to Mozilla accumulating browser stats. Downloads from WordPress.org went over 11 million since last summer (up from 2.8 million the year before), thanks to over 11 new WP releases.

Those stats don’t include many blogs hosted at WordPress.com and EduBlogs, both of which use WordPress Multiuser.

I switched to WP about four years ago and have also installed systems for many friends.

I also recently upgraded the three parts of this site to WP 2.6, the most recent version, and with each new release, I’ve been very impressed by the ever increasing quality and abilities of the software.

WordPress has evolved beyond being just a blogging package. It’s becoming a flexible, all-purpose personal publishing system.

According to the BBC (and why do I have to go to England to learn this?), a recently-passed bill will create The National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies to “explore ways advanced computer and communications technologies can improve learning”.

Of course the motivation comes from all those mean countries who are taking our jobs.

“American businesses know that they need a well-educated workforce to face growing competition from China, India and Europe.”

The Federation of American Scientists said, “The creativity that developed extraordinary new information technologies has not focused on finding ways to make learning more compelling, more personal and more productive in our nation’s schools.

“People assumed that the explosion of innovation in information tools in business and service industries would automatically move into classrooms.”

That, the Federation said, has simply not happened.

It hasn’t? We’re shocked! Shocked!

The centre will support a ‘first of its kind’ comprehensive research and development programme aimed at improving all levels of learning from kindergarten to university and from government training to college.

One of the goals of the center involves “taking technology that works well in an industry setting to the classroom and measuring its effectiveness”.

Very nice.

However, I wonder if the Center’s plans will involve actually changing curriculum, classroom practice, and school culture to take advantage of the power of the information and communications tools.

Or will this be another case of trying to graft technology onto the antiquated 20th century agrarian structure of teaching and learning that has been at the heart of American education for half a century or more?

My optimistic side hopes for the former. Experience (and not a small amount of cynicism) expects it will be the later.

It involves 15 TiVos, a couple dozen newspapers, and lots of very talented writers, producers and performers.

However, this is a good summary of what goes into creating one of the few examples of required television.

“We often discuss satire — the sort of thing he does and to a certain extent I do — as distillery,” [Stephen] Colbert continued. “You have an enormous amount of material, and you have to distill it to a syrup by the end of the day. So much of it is a hewing process, chipping away at things that aren’t the point or aren’t the story or aren’t the intention. Really it’s that last couple of drops you’re distilling that makes all the difference. It isn’t that hard to get a ton of corn into a gallon of sour mash, but to get that gallon of sour mash down to that one shot of pure whiskey takes patience” as well as “discipline and focus.”

Patience, discipline and focus should also also be attributes of creating great journalism.

Something that is even harder to find these days than great satire.

He advocates for the expansion of that role because of how “new Web education networks can open the door to broader changes” and “the emphasis can shift to project-based learning”.

The educational bottom line, it seems, is that while computer technology has matured and become more affordable, the most significant development has been a deeper understanding of how to use the technology.

Very nice! If only it was happening.

However, if he really believes that all of this is going on in most US schools - not to mention stating as fact that “the ratio of computers to pupils is one to one” - then he really is an optimist.

Certainly there are some classrooms where students are using computers and networks to create and communicate, guided by teachers who understand how to foster real learning through those “web education networks”.

And then there are the vast majority where the standard model remains in which the teacher and the textbook remain the dispensers of knowledge and student access to most networks is highly censored or blocked.

That includes thousands of classrooms in our overly large school district, where the major emphasis on the use of technology this fall will be yet another expensive instructional management tool whose primary purpose is boosting test scores and keeping schools off the NCLB hit list.

Although I do draw some optimism whenever I read examples, such as those in this essay, of how teachers are changing the basic structure of their classrooms through the use of technology, most of those are still very much aberrations.

For example, the author includes the story of how officials in Indiana were excited by a program called the New Technology Foundation and sent some educators to observe in some California schools where it was being used.

Last year, one teacher in the state “signed up for the new project-based teaching program at her school”.

In Indiana, the number of schools using the foundation model will increase to six this year, and an additional dozen communities have signed up for the next year, said David Shane, a member of the state board of education. “It’s caught fire in Indiana, and we’ve got to have this kind of education to prepare our young people for the future in a global economy that is immersed in technology.”

I guess considering the glacial pace of American education reform, that could be considered “catching fire”.

It’s hardly a blip, however, when compared to the accelerating rate of change in the way technology is used for communication, collaboration, learning out there in the real world.

Making it very hard to remain optimistic.

And he offers the presidential candidates some wisdom on the relationship between the internet and the federal government that should exist.

– the Internet gives everyone a potentially equal voice, as long as no special privileges are extended to anyone

– listening to the voice of Americans via the Internet is the best way for a President to stay in touch with America

– the Internet is the best way to show Americans what’s happening in Washington by publishing how government works, good and bad, like the influence of big money. That is, government operations should normally be “transparent”

– the Internet should be a level playing field for everyone; no more special privileges for the already privileged. Telecom companies make huge profits using public resources, and we should expect that they treat everyone equally. No real regulation is needed to keep the Net neutral, just a few guidelines to preserve the level playing field.

So, according to Newmark, how do the major candidates compare in terms of their web policies?

Both campaigns have now staked out positions on the democratizing value of the Internet and on American values. Obama embraces the Internet as a means of cleaning Washington up, but McCain/Bush sees it as a threat which might make them accountable.

What do you prefer?

Using the web to make our government more transparent will make it easier for everyone to understand what’s going on behind those closed doors.

Which is exactly why making it happen will be a difficult process no matter who is elected.

In essence, a Federal Appeals court has ruled that they are valid and enforceable.

In non-technical terms, the Court has held that free licenses such as the CC licenses set conditions (rather than covenants) on the use of copyrighted work. When you violate the condition, the license disappears, meaning you’re simply a copyright infringer. This is the theory of the GPL and all CC licenses. Put precisely, whether or not they are also contracts, they are copyright licenses which expire if you fail to abide by the terms of the license.

I don’t understand all the legalese behind what the court decided, which is why I read Lessig in the first place.

He’s the expert and if he’s “very very happy”, that must be good for all of us who use CC, both as creators and consumers.

You can have a big salary increase, to more than $100,000 a year for a teacher with only five years of experience.

In exchange you’ll be giving up tenure and tying your future pay raises and employment to the test scores of your students.

The new pay-for-play system is one part of the education reform plan devised by the Chancellor of Schools in the District of Columbia now awaiting a vote by the union.

Many teachers, especially older ones, are suspicious and see the bargain as somewhat Faustian.

“It’s degrading and insulting,” said Brocks [a special ed teacher], to ask that teachers give up tenure and go on probation for a year if they choose the more lucrative of the two salary tiers under the plan, which is at the center of contract negotiations between the city and the Washington Teachers’ Union.

He said that Rhee [Chancellor of Schools] wants only to purge older teachers and that for instructors to sell out hard-won protections against arbitrary or unfair dismissal is unthinkable.

“For Michelle Rhee or anyone to ask that is like Judas and 30 pieces of silver,” Brocks, 59, said.

Of course, it all comes down to the central goal of raising student scores on standardized tests, and I have no doubt that this kind of bribery scheme will do just that.

However, will it do anything to improve student learning (not the same as passing the test)? I have plenty of doubts about that.