Asides

Educational CyberPlayGround; K12 Newsletters Grants and Scholarships

#K12 Grants and Scholarships #Educational CyberPlayGround #K12 Newsletters

GRANTS AND FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
NSTA: Shell Science Teaching Award The Shell Science Teaching Award recognizes one outstanding classroom science teacher (K–12) who has had a positive impact on his or her students, school, and community through exemplary classroom science teaching. Maximum award: $10,000.
Eligibility: K–12 classroom science teachers.
Deadline: November 12, 2012. http://www.nsta.org/about/awards.aspx?lid=tnavhp#shell
IRA/Weekly Reader: Eleanor M. Johnson Award
The International Reading Association/Weekly Reader Eleanor M. Johnson Award recognizes an outstanding elementary classroom teacher of reading/language arts. The award honors Eleanor M. Johnson, founder and editor-in-chief of Weekly Reader, who died in 1987.
Maximum award: $1,000.
Eligibility: classroom or reading teachers working directly with students on a consistent basis in an elementary classroom setting who have taught for five full years and are nominated by at least four persons; applicants/nominees must be Association members. Deadline: November 15, 2012.
http://www.reading.org/Resources/AwardsandGrants/teachers_johnson.aspx
IRA: Regie Routman Teacher Recognition Award
The International Reading Association Regie Routman Teacher Recognition Award honors an outstanding elementary teacher of reading and language arts dedicated to improving teaching and learning through reflective writing about his or her teaching and learning process.
Maximum award: $1,000.
Eligibility: regular classroom elementary teachers of reading and language arts grades K-6; must be IRA members.
Deadline: November 15, 2012.
http://www.reading.org/Resources/AwardsandGrants/teachers_routman.aspx
NSTA: Wendell G. Mohling Outstanding Aerospace Educator Award
The National Science Teachers Association Wendell G. Mohling Outstanding Aerospace Educator Award recognizes excellence in the field of aerospace education.
Maximum award: $3,000, as well as $2,000 in expenses to attend NSTA’s national conference. The recipient of the award will be honored during the Awards Banquet and the Aerospace Educators Luncheon at the NSTA Conference.
Eligibility: educators in informal education settings (e.g., museums, government, science centers).
Deadline: November 30, 2012.
http://www.nsta.org/about/awards.aspx?lid=tnavhp#aerospace
AAPT: Barbara Lotze Scholarships for Future Teachers
The American Association of Physics Teachers Barbara Lotze Scholarships offer funds for future high school physics teachers.
Maximum award: $2,000.
Eligibility: U.S. citizens attending U.S. schools as undergraduates enrolled, or planning to enroll, in physics teacher preparation curricula, and U.S. high school seniors entering such programs.
Deadline: January 1, 2013.
http://www.aapt.org/Programs/grants/lotze.cfm

Rent-to-own PCs surreptitiously captured users' most intimate moments

Pennsylvania-based DesignerWare spys on you.
http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/09/rent-to-own-pcs-surreptitiously-captured-users-most-intimate-moments/
By Dan Goodin
Ars Technica
Sept 25, 2012
Seven rent-to-own companies and a software developer have settled
federal charges that they used spyware to monitor the locations,
passwords, and other intimate details of more than 420,000 customers who
leased computers.
The software, known as PC Rental Agent, was developed by
Pennsylvania-based DesignerWare. It was licensed by more than 1,617
rent-to-own stores in the US, Canada, and Australia to report the
physical location of rented PCs. A feature known as Detective Mode also
allowed licensees to surreptitiously monitor the activities of computer
users. Managers of rent-to-own stores could use the feature to turn on
webcams so anyone in front of the machine would secretly be recorded.
Managers could also use the software to log keystrokes and take screen
captures.
“In numerous instances, data gathered by Detective Mode has revealed
private, confidential, and personal details about the computer user,”
officials with the Federal Trade Commission wrote in a civil complaint
filed earlier this year. “For example, keystroke logs have displayed
usernames and passwords for access to e-mail accounts, social media
websites, and financial institutions.”
In some cases, webcam activations captured images of children,
individuals not fully clothed, and people engaged in sexual activities,
the complaint alleged. Rental agreements never disclosed the information
that was collected, FTC lawyers said.
[…]

Researcher says 100,000 passwords exposed on IEEE site

DON’T WE EXPECT BETTER FROM IEEE?? WHAT A SHAMEFUL DAY
 
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57520112-83/researcher-says-100000-passwords-exposed-on-ieee-site/
By Elinor Mills
Security & Privacy
CNET News
September 25, 2012
A computer scientist says he discovered that a server of the IEEE
(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) had about 100,000
usernames and passwords stored in plaintext and publicly accessible.
Radu Dragusin, a computer scientist who works at FindZebra and is a
teaching assistant at the University of Copenhagen, writes in a blog
post that he discovered the problem last week and notified the IEEE
about his findings, enabling them to “at least partially” fix the
problem.
The data was publicly available on the IEEE FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
server for at least a month, potentially exposing usernames and
passwords of people who work at Apple, Google, IBM, Oracle, Samsung,
NASA, Stanford, and other organizations and firms, he said. The glitch
exposed all the actions the users performed on the ieee.org site, as
well as spectrum.ieee.org, he added.
[…]