EdTech Situation Room Episode 102

Welcome to episode 102 of the EdTech Situation Room from August 8, 2018, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) and Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) discussed an update to this summer's MacBook Pro Throttling Controversy, the upcoming death of Flash functionality in 2020, and the importance of being wary when you see pop-up ads to "update flash" and other software on your computer. The recent decisions by Apple, YouTube/Google and Facebook to ban / take down websites and media channels of Alex Jones / InfoWars was also addressed, along with Facebook's takedown of suspected Russian network pages. Jason shared a shout-out to the helpful updating software "Ninite" for Windows, and Wes shared a shout out to his school's "Digital Citizenship Conversations" website as well. The perils of digital voting was discussed, along with the ongoing controversy over 3D printable guns. Amy Webb's recent prediction that "smartphones will be gone in 10 years" and other trends identified through her "Future Today Institute." The recent news that voice-based phone calls are finally in decline in Britain, Logitech's purchase of Blue Microphones, a cautionary tale for users of free VPN services whose data is sold to advertisers, and an eye opening Guardian article about Russian hacking forums were also highlighted in the show. Google's required use of physical identity keys for two step verification and the perils of using SMS as well as app-based verification methods for two step authentication was explored as well. Geeks of the week included Promevo (by Jason) and Explorables (by Wes). Please follow us on Twitter @edtechSR to stay up to date about upcoming shows, and share feedback with us about the show on Twitter or via a comment on our website.