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In Innovation

/ Published on 29 September 2012

Education technology expert Leo Gaggl has warned IT consumers against the dangers of accepting technology monocultures over competitive diversity.

In a blog posted on Saturday, Mr. Gaggl advises that sourcing products from a single company to reduce complexity from technology, it is a lure.

Mr. Gaggl’s blog, called We Need to Talk about Standards, warns that creating an artificial IT monoculture is a very dangerous one.

“My (now distant) agricultural background alone tells me that no monoculture is sustainable in the long run,” Mr. Gaggl writes. “They do initially reduce complexity, allowing “economies of scale” to develop and reduce some expenditures in the short term.

“However, it’s not a reflection of reality. Life is complex and creating artificial limitations in educational contexts can often produce outcomes that students are struggling in real-life environments where the one tool they are comfortable with is not available.”

Austrian-born Mr. Gaggl is the founder of Brightcookie.com, an Adelaide-based company that supports the delivery of e-learning, such as Moodle and Mahara, and m-learning (mobile learning) by facilitating the use of innovative technologies

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In Innovation

/ Published on 27 September 2012

Q:  What if… at this weekend’s AFL & NRL Grand Finals the fields were covered with one year’s worth of cigarette butt litter?

A:  The Swans & Hawks would be battling through butts up to their knees!

A:  The Storm & Bulldogs would be battling through butts up to their armpits!

An estimated Seven Billion Butts are littered around Australia annually.

Cigarette butts are Australia’s most littered item, consistently recorded by ‘Keep Australia Beautiful’ research* as being around 50% of the total number of items littered nationally every year.

To put that number into perspective Dr Barry Cox, Senior Lecturer in Applied Mathematics at the School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Adelaide came up with these butt ugly facts.

• If 7 billion cigarette butts were packed ‘on end’ and squeezed up with no gaps they could cover the entire playing surface of the MCG at least 20 times over - to a depth of 0.6 metres; and at the ANZ Stadium they would cover the surface 52 times to a depth of 1.56 metres. 

• If 7 billion cigarette butts were laid sideways ‘end to end’ then they would go around the MCG boundary line 442,000 times, and 625,000 times around ANZ Stadium boundary line.

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In Innovation

/ Published on 20 September 2012

Adelaide-based MODERNMAN Systems Consulting warns that many schools and education agencies risk exposing private data through complacency about computer network security.

Increased media scrutiny of confidential data breaches, both at the organisational level and through social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook, is increasing the pressure on publicly-funded organisations such as schools to protect their networks.

MODERNMAN Senior Business Consultant Andrew Morris said that inadvertent private data breaches were reported almost daily. “Personal data is leaking to the outside world through social media, or general exposures of client or student information due to network vulnerabilities,” he said.

“The threats are both clear and easily provable, but few people are actively seeking ways to address these threats. Even worse, some are complacent about their current systems. As we’ve seen first hand, it’s only when a major disaster occurs that the vulnerability is realised.”

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