Technology

It’s not often that members of Oklahoma’s ultra-conservative Congressional delegation, including U.S. Sens. Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn, and I agree on an issue, but the growing opposition to the SOPA and PIPA bills has created an interesting coalition of disparate proportions.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), pending in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), pending in the U.S. Senate, are terrible bills that obviously threaten free speech in this country. Oklahoma’s Congressional delegation is waking up to that point, and we should support them on this extremely important issue.

The stated aim of the bills, which are supported by the movie industry, is to crackdown on Internet sites that inappropriately use or make available copyrighted material that illegally makes its way to other countries. The problem is the bills, in their current form, give the federal government sweeping powers to shut down web sites without due process. This is a direct violation of First-Amendment rights.

Most of those people opposed to the two measures also support a crackdown on the piracy and resale of copyrighted material, which means a tremendous loss of revenue to companies and even artists. But the bills are extreme measures that need rethinking and rewriting.

This is what Coburn, a Republican, had to say about PIPA as quoted in a NewsOK.com story:

You've got to stop online piracy, but you've got to do it in a way that doesn't affect First Amendment rights.

This is what Inhofe, also a Republican, had to say in a press release on the issue:

While I believe that the intellectual property rights of American companies deserve substantial protection under the law, S. 968, the PROTECT-IP Act, is not the answer to the problem of online counterfeiting and piracy. I share the concerns of America’s technology companies, industry leaders, and the many citizens who have voiced their concerns to my office. It is clear to me that this bill will inflict too heavy a burden on third-party non-infringing entities and could do serious harm to one of the last vestiges that is relatively free from government regulation, the Internet. When addressing intellectual property rights, Congress must be careful to also protect the freedom of speech and flow of information that the Internet provides. Additionally, I have concerns with creating yet another private right of action, which will be used by plaintiffs to stifle Internet innovation, and with requirements in the bill that could negatively impact the Internet’s reliability and performance.

U.S. Reps. Tom Cole, Frank Lucas and John Sullivan, all Republicans, have also expressed their concerns about the bills.

A blackout protest last week among web sites—Okie Funk included—forced many Washington politicians to rethink their support for the bill and some observers say the measures are probably dead or dormant for now. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has delayed the vote on PIPA, for example.

Here in Oklahoma, right now, Congressional Republicans are leading the opposition to the bills, making the same arguments of leading, national liberal groups, such as MoveOn.org, and the issue threatens to impact the national elections. As of now, Republicans seem to be gaining political traction from opposing the bills, but President Barack Obama has also expressed concerns over some components of the bills, which some argue could actually hurt his support in Hollywood.

In any event, Democrats need to express more vocal opposition to the bills, centering their concerns on protecting freedom of speech. If they fail to do so, it could damage the party’s election viability this year. If the Internet turns against Obama and other leading Democrats, it could—and I know this might seem overstated—help elect Republicans who oppose the measures. I do think this issue has that much potential on the national level.

As many people have written, this is a battle between New Media and Old Media, which really have much in common, but the bottom line is this: We’re not ever going to go back to an Internet-less world, with all its high-tech progress, futuristic potential and, yes, attendant problems and issues, such as piracy, spam and cyber security.

Old Media risks overplaying its hand and ending up without any new protections at all if it won’t compromise.

I’ve finished up the 27th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning in Madison WI, and I’m headed back to Oklahoma.

The DT&L Conference, as I’ve written this last week, brings together a wide variety of people, from professors to information specialists to administrators to tech company representatives, to discuss the latest in online and other distance teaching methods at the college level.

My presentation, “Electronic Me: Digital identity in the online classroom,” focused on the importance of creating and managing web identity, which is an important aspect of the culture right now and will become even more so in years to come. What strategies should we employ to make sure we’re fairly represented on the Internet? How can professors help guide students in creating positive web identities?

The presentation, along with two others in my session, was streamed live on the Internet, and viewers were given the opportunity to ask questions on the web.

One of the presentations in my session, titled “Building oral communication skills across the curriculum,” given by Stefanie Forster of York Community College, dealt with how students can use podcasts to improve their speaking skills. Forster, in just one of her points, talked about how learners can use their smart phones to record various projects, convert them into files that can be shared and turn them in as assignments. It drew a lot of interest from the audience.

The other presentation in my session, “Advantages of inviting embedded librarians into distance education classes,” given by Jim Frutchey of Marywood University, also drew a lot of interest from the audience. The presentation discussed how librarians can become “embedded” in particular online courses to help students find research material for their papers and projects. Among other topics, Frutchey talked about how instructors can add a librarian to an online class, and the librarian can then create a discussion thread or use email to engage students.

I was able to enjoy a free outdoor concert Thursday evening at the University of Wisconsin because the temperature was probably in the low 80s. The venue was next to a nice lake, and a bluegrass band played before a crowd of about at least 2,000, maybe more. It was a great evening. Madison is a wonderful place with a lot of bicyclists and a very cool vibe on State Street near the Wisconsin Capitol, the site of recent political turmoil with national ramifications.

I’ll be back to the political writing Tuesday. I hear we’re going to get a small break from the heat this week. That would be nice.

This week I’m attending the 27th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning, a gathering that brings together college faculty members, administrators, information technology specialists and technology companies.

The conference, held in Madison WI allows educators and others to discuss the latest in technology innovations and the best practices to implement those innovations at the university level and in other workplaces.

I’ve already discussed my presentation and listed some others in a previous post, which you can find here.

Oklahoma is doing some good things when it comes to technology at the university level and elsewhere, but the pressing question remains: Will our state be able to keep up with the latest technology in the future given its overall low Internet speed rate?

According to a report in the Huffington Post, Oklahoma has the sixth lowest Internet speed rate in the nation. This information on HuffPo comes from Pando Networks, which recently conducted a study on Internet speed rates.

Oklahoma has an Internet speed rate of 376 KBps, according to the study. By comparison, Rhode Island, which has the fastest speed, has a rate of 894 KBps. This is a sizeable difference, and it shows that Oklahoma has a real problem that needs to be addressed.

Part of the problem is surely Internet access in Oklahoma’s rural areas. What this means, on an educational level, is that some rural Oklahomans could end up in college or in life without a thorough sense of the many technology applications that are Internet based and available to them. It could also mean poor access to educational information in general. This goes beyond Facebook or Twitter. What about access to education material available for free from throughout the world? If your home computer can’t access it or the download is atrociously slow, then there’s a problem.

This is a critical issue that should be addressed more diligently by state leaders. It’s a nonpartisan issue, and improving our Internet speed rate will help the state economically. Here’s some information about Oklahoma from the Internet Innovation Alliance, which promotes broadband Internet access.

Meanwhile, the full DT&L conference gets fully underway today with sessions throughout the day, Here’s an interesting fact presented in the conference program: 4.6 million people in higher learning now take an online course each semester.