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Posts tagged as “technology”

Your Tax Dollars at Work: TVs for Community Center

The Madison City Commission voted Monday night to put $40,000 toward upgrades to the Community Center. That money will come not just from members but from all taxpayers. Included in the planned upgrades for our town's best exercise facility: possibly…

Save School Budgets with OpenOffice… or Chromebook?

Last week, in response to a post on saving money by shutting off computers, an eager reader asked how much schools might save by switching from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice. The nice folks at OpenOffice maintain a list of schools…

School Districts Can Save Money by Shutting off Computers

The Boulder Valley School District in Colorado has a plan that will save $300,000 at the flip of a switch. They're shutting off their computers—no, not all day, just overnight. The district is installing power management software on its 10,000…

South Dakota Puzzlingly Low on Cell Phone Adoption

Blog neighbor Bob Schwartz brings to my attention South Dakota's remarkable lag in cell phone adoption. Now one might think slow uptake of cell phones here on the prairie would be no surprise. We're a sparsely populated state, and it's…

Intern Noem’s Online Course: Just an Expensive Piece of Paper?

...can't be: there is no paper! Kristi Noem's internship for credit in Washington is raising some eyebrows. Perhaps we might also inquire about the value of the online political science course she is taking. Education expert Diane Ravitch mentions online…

Technical Difficulties… and New Poll! Pick Your School Board!

Dear friends and neighbors, I apologize for my multimedia failure. I have just over a gigabyte of video from Tuesday's candidates' forum here in Madison that I desperately want to post for your civic education and entertainment. Last week I…

Watertown Newspaper Advocates Stone Tablets

Local newspapers dread the prospect of allowing school boards, county commissions, and other public entities to post their official notices and meeting minutes online. The Madison Daily Leader makes a few dollars every time it posts the occasional election announcement…

Economic Development Strategy: Support Telework

Mike Knutson at Reimagine Rural gets me thinking again (that's his job!). Knutson suggests that rural communities should take deliberate steps to support telework. He points to an MPR report that describes how rural Minnesotans are using the Internet to…