Learning about Learning: Research and Edreform News and Views 02/29/2012
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25 alleged Anonymous members arrested internationally; hacker group retaliates
Hackers have knocked down Interpol's site this week in retaliation. Cybersecurity is a huge issue.
"Tuesday afternoon, the international police organization Interpol announced the arrest of 25 alleged members of Anonymous by officials in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Spain. Shortly after the announcement, Interpol's website was hit by a distributed denial-of-service attack. At the time this story was posted, the website remained unavailable."
Interpol announced that the arrests were made as part of "Operation Unmask", an international effort launched in mid-February to grab the perpetrators of attacks on websites in Columbia and Chile, including the Colombian Defense Ministry and presidential websites, a Chilean electricity company, and Chile's national library. Officials also seized 250 pieces of equipment, including computers and mobile phones, during a search of 40 locations in 15 cities. -
Foldit, crowdsourcing, and labor. - Slate Magazine
I know that some are saying that we can't gamify education. But what happens when problems become a game and we compete to find answers? This article talks about foldit and how crowdsourcing has become a possibility for something that can work when it becomes a game. This is a great read for those exploring how we will use games in education. I would suggest that this is an approach that we could use.
". Foldit, a novel experiment created by a group of scientists and game designers at the University of Washington, had asked the gamers—some still in middle school and few boasting a background in the sciences, much less microbiology—to determine the how proteins would fold in the enzyme. Within hours, thousands of people were both competing against (and collaborating with) one another. After three weeks, they had succeeded where the microbiologists and the computers had failed. “This is the first example I know of game players solving a long-standing scientific problem,” David Baker, a Foldit co-creator, wrote at the time."
