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Jesse Brown: why smart phones in the classroom equals smarter kids

Fears of cyber-cheating and sexting in school are so last year
By Jesse Brown | Illustration by Till Hafenbrak

When Dalton McGuinty suggested in September 2010 that cellphones and tablets might have useful educational applications, he was savaged by both the press and his political opponents. The Toronto Sun called the idea a “terrible” surrender to already tech-addled kids who want to use gadgets only for Facebook. The National Post likened it to welcoming cigarettes and sharp objects into class. Even Wired magazine panned the idea of gadgets in school as “premature,” citing the potential for distraction, cyber-cheating and a digital divide between kids with the latest gear and kids without. The Ontario Tories picked up all the outrage and ran with it, slamming the notion as “absurd,” a prime example of just how out of touch McGuinty was, and asking, “Shouldn’t our kids be learning math and science instead?” They went on to suggest that if McGuinty gets his way, we will soon have “sexting” in our classrooms.

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The Informer

From the Print Edition

December 16, 2011 | 8:00 am

17 Comments

How bullying became the crisis of a generation

Kids are committing suicide, parents are in a panic, and schools that neglect to protect students are lawsuit targets
By Denise Balkissoon

Mitchell Wilson had a short life. He was born in March 2000 at Markham-Stouffville Hospital to Craig and Shelley Wilson. From the age of three, he had trouble running and jumping. He climbed stairs slowly, putting both feet on each step before moving up. He fell often, and sometimes he couldn’t get up on his own. His doctors thought he had hypermobility syndrome—joints that extend and bend more than normal.

When Mitchell was seven, his mother was diagnosed with an aggressive melanoma. Her treatments left her distant, sometimes testy and mean, and in so much pain that she rarely left her bedroom. “I sort of kept Mitchell away,” Craig Wilson told me.

“He basically didn’t talk to his mother during the last four months of her life.” Wilson often left his son to his own devices while he took care of his dying wife and ran his family’s industrial knife business. Mitchell spent most of his time in his bedroom, playing video games. He comforted himself with food, and by the time he was four feet tall he weighed 167 pounds. Once, in a Walmart, he fell to the ground and his grandmother had to ask store employees to help her lift him.

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The Informer

Ford Focus

December 13, 2011 | 5:45 pm

1 Comment

Rob Ford could lose another crucial council battle over, um, plastic bags

Apparently bored with actual news, the Toronto Sun conducted a poll of city councillors to see if Rob Ford has the votes necessary to kill the five-cent plastic bag “tax.” Unfortunately for Ford, 23 alleged pinko latte sippers councillors support keeping the fee (only the mayor and 13 allies—including Frances Nunziata, who called it “a crazy tax”—would kill it). In an editorial on the same issue, the Star countered that, “like much of Ford’s agenda, his opposition to the mandatory fee seems based more on small-government sentiment and raw populist emotion than any sound policy analysis.” Given the real (and obvious) benefits of the bag fee, we’re inclined to agree. Read the entire story [Toronto Sun] »

The Dish

Bottoms Up

December 8, 2011 | 9:20 am

40 Comments

Booze Economics 101: Why the LCBO happily charges more and earns less than it might

(Image: Mike Gifford)

Better grab a bottle of Wild Turkey and sit down before trying to understand this one. In an annual report released on Monday, provincial Auditor General Jim McCarter sank his teeth into a policy that makes the Liquor Control Board of Ontario pay more than it has to for wholesale booze—sometimes even demanding the privilege. You’d imagine the LCBO, as one of the largest purchasers of alcohol in the world, could, if it wanted to, use its clout to get lower wholesale prices, thereby reaping greater profits for provincial coffers or passing those savings on to consumers. Instead, it ascribes to a mystifying stratagem that brought on the Toronto Sun headline “Welcome to Suckerville, Ontario.”

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The Informer

From the Print Edition

November 18, 2011 | 7:25 am

14 Comments

Jesse Brown: how big wireless companies, the banks, and even the actors’ union are keeping our mobile bills the highest in the world

By Jesse Brown | Illustration by Jack Dylan

Give Us Your Money Getting gouged by cellphone providers is such a routine part of life in Canada that it barely seems worth complaining about. Yet we complain all the time. We trade tales of shocking bills and awful customer service at every opportunity. We complain to friends and we complain to strangers. I complain professionally. To be a technology journalist in Canada is to constantly feed the nation’s seething consumer outrage.

Yes, Canadians pay higher monthly wireless bills than citizens of any other country, according to a report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Yes, our data roaming fees are higher than those in any other country, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Yes, a cartel of three carriers—Bell, Rogers and Telus—still controls 95 per cent of our market, despite the emergence of budget providers Wind, Public and Mobilicity. And yes, text message fees in Canada are ridiculously marked up, by as much as 4,900 per cent, according to academic estimates. Each story solidifies our right to kvetch. We truly are the most screwed-over cellphone users in the world.

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The Informer

From the Print Edition

November 7, 2011 | 2:05 pm

31 Comments

Destination Munkistan: A look at Peter Munk’s new Adriatic playground for the super-rich

The latest project of the gold magnate Peter Munk is a seaside resort and tax haven for fellow billionaires in the post-Soviet backwater of Tivat, Montenegro. A delirious tour of a world of champagne-drenched parties, supersize yachts and the recession-proof Ultra-High Net Worth Individual
By Leah McLaren

Captain Fantastic: Peter Munk on his 40-metre yacht, the Golden Eagle, which has a full-time staff of five. (Image: Jim Ross)

There are birthday parties, and then there was Nathaniel Rothschild’s party this past July. The financier, scion of the prominent banking family and future baron was turning 40 and spent £1 million on the weekend-long extravaganza. The venue: Porto Montenegro, a newly developed luxury resort and marina in the Montenegrin coastal town of Tivat, on the southeast side of the Adriatic Sea. It was the sort of gathering that marks the end of an era or the birth of an empire—and in a way, for Europe’s youngest and smallest democracy, it was both.

Four hundred guests arrived at the village airport on private jets or stepped off the fleet of super-yachts that washed ashore from the world’s most glamorous tax havens—the Grenadines, Gibraltar, Grand Cayman. The attendees were described in the Guardian society pages as “200 ugly rich people and their poorer but more attractive partners,” or, as one guest more generously put it, “plutocrats and the women who love them.” A number of the partiers were so fantastically rich they could bankroll whole armies (which the birthday boy’s family, in its heyday, once did): Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska (who arrived on his £70-million yacht, the Queen K); the wealthy Egyptian Sawiris family (who have embarked on their own Montenegrin development nearby); King Leruo Molotlegi, ruler of a tiny, platinum-rich part of South Africa, who hit the dance floor in a fabulous dashiki; British politician Lord Peter Mandelson; Jimmy Choo honcho Tamara Mellon; the historian Niall Ferguson and his Dutch-Somali partner, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a feminist critic of Islam. There was a healthy smattering of European royalty, as well as members of the Guinness and Goldsmith clans.

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The Informer

Dalton McGuinty tries a new election tactic: run against Ottawa, remind everyone of the federal Liberal shellacking

We’re not quite sure yet if this is destined for the Election Strategy Hall of Fame (headquarters to be decided): Dalton McGuinty, who’d like to retain his current job for the next four years, has tried a number of campaign strategies to convince Ontarians not to vote for the Tim Hudak Conservatives. But after crying “abortion” fell a little flat, McGuinty opened another front: this time, campaigning against Ottawa.

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The Informer

To Market, To Market

July 22, 2011 | 9:05 am

Comments

Globe’s Economy Lab forecasts an imminent rise in interest rates; Toronto housing market waits with bated breath

One thing that could spark a big sell-off in Toronto’s real estate market is a sharp rise in interest rates, as homeowners that were previously on the fence about selling try to cash in before the market softens. So, naturally, anyone looking to sell (or, for that matter, buy cheap) would like to get as much advance notice as possible that an interest-rate hike is coming. Well, economist Stephen Gordon issued such a warning yesterday, suggesting that the interest rate is set to increase much sooner than most observers thought.

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The Informer

Political Whoas

July 7, 2011 | 12:30 pm

1 Comment

Mission: Possible? Mammoliti’s crusade to cut funding for any Toronto group with a political message

Dare we say—Giorgio Mammoliti-inspired political art? (Image: Shaun Merritt)

While Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti’s guerilla tactics at Saturday’s Dyke March left us both scratching and shaking our head in disbelief, we’re even more incredulous over what has happened since. Mammoliti initially took issue with the inclusion of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid in this year’s Pride Festival in Toronto, but now, alongside Councillor James Pasternak, he appears to be campaigning to restrict public funding for events or entities that have any political bent whatsoever. Earlier this week, the politician who once advocated for legal brothels on Toronto Island decreed that the city, essentially, shouldn’t be funding any kind of political messaging at all, playing the good ol’ taxpayer card.

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The Dish

Pantry Raid

June 20, 2011 | 5:35 pm

Comments

Queen’s Park takes a cue from Ottawa, demurs on fast-food calorie labels

We’ve mentioned from time to time the Canadian government’s curious efforts to keep us all eating plenty of salt. A weekend story from the Toronto Star details how it’s the kind of game that the provinces can get in on too. Specifically Ontario, which is trying to figure out how to deal with the oldest and most obese population it has ever seen. The province has pretty clearly ruled out even the blandest of regulations to help Ontarians control their weight.

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