Happy Holidays!

It's the time of year where we take stock and reflect on what's changed over the past 12 months. For Thumbprint, the short answer is "everything". A year ago it was four people meeting in Toronto coffee shops going over screen mockups and paper cutouts. Now it's over a dozen people in many locations, building, maintaining, selling and supporting two released apps. We've been through several rounds of fundraising, crushing deadlines, dashed hopes, setbacks and triumphs. Over the last year, if you asked those around us if we'd make it to Christmas, most would have said "probably not." There are times when I would have been one of them. But we're still here. And while I've always been very proud of what we're trying to do, I have never been as confident that we will succeed as I am today. I have no idea where we'll be a year from now, but I've got a front-row seat, and wouldn't trade that for anything.

Over the next two weeks I'll be taking some long-overdue vacation time, and that includes my contributions to this space. I'll be back for one more 2014 predictions editorial close to the new year, but until then the weekly editorial and goals posts will be on hiatus. Our link roundup and featured articles will continue as normal. I wish everyone a lovely and snowy holiday season.

Review

Web App development continues, as does work on Thumbprint 1.0.3. We found a couple of issues in the multiple choice creation screen that are affecting some users. Testing is underway, and I'm hopeful that we can submit our fixes to Apple before the end of the year.

Multiple Choice for the web app has been submitted for testing, and early results look promising. Search is being held up by an interdependence issue that raised it's head this week, but that should be resolved by tomorrow.

Meanwhile, we've had what feels like 4 feet of snow this week, and more coming on the weekend. Haven't seen a December like this in 20 years. It's beautiful, right up until you try to go outside and do something. Hope you're keeping warm where you are.

Nation's biggest free Wi-Fi network

When we talk about technology in schools, the elephant in the room isn't devices, or software, or training, or security. It's bandwidth. Running, you know, GOOD connectivity to hundreds of simultaneous users is expensive, and it's a mix of fixed asset cost, repair cost and running cost that can be a bad fit with most school budgets. Forget the price - adding thousands a month in utility costs and maybe tens of thousands in setup is hard for an institution that's accustomed to payroll being the biggest and most consistent line item.

Internet connectivity is, at this point, a utility. A person could argue that they don't want or need electricity from the grid, or water, or phone service, but we generally don't take those people seriously. In fact, we insist that people have access to, and pay for, such service whether they want it or not. Electricity used to be a luxury. Then it was optional, then it was suggested, and now it's mandatory. Internet connectivity is, as we speak, moving into the last category.

Imagine a school in a community like Harlem, where you have internet access just by being there. Imagine teachers knowing that there's a reliable service for all their students, and that if it breaks, it's not their problem. Imagine not having to fight internally about allocating scarce bandwidth, and just using the service whenever it's useful to the class. Imagine using it from any room instead of the computer lab. Now imagine that in your school.

http://mashable.com/2013/12/10/new-york-city-harlem-wi-fi-network/