Literacies for the digital age: Visual literacy

I have identified thirteen literacies important for students to master, which you can see below. This is the second in a series of literacies I feel are important for students to master.

The topic for this month is visual literacy.

Visual literacy, as defined by the Association of College and Research Libraries, “is a set of abilities that enables an individual to effectively find, interpret, evaluate, use, and create images and visual media. Visual literacy skills equip a learner to understand and analyze the contextual, cultural, ethical, aesthetic, intellectual, and technical components involved in the production and use of visual materials. A visually literate individual is both a critical consumer of visual media and a competent contributor to a body of shared knowledge and culture.”

I am going to break down this definition into its separate components in order to add information and sources that can help you embed aspects of visual literacy into the curriculum. Visual literacy can be applied to photographs, posters, advertisements, presentations, and infographics, to name a few. I am just going to speak to photographs in this post.

FINDING IMAGES

Sources of images for students to use can be found in many places. Discovery Education Streaming has over 33,000 images to pick from in many categories and at all grade levels. Many of these images are also tied to curriculum standards. These images can be downloaded and edited to be used in projects if you have a subscription to Discovery Education Streaming.

• The Digital Public Library of America includes almost 8 million items from libraries, archives, government depositories, and museums. Many of the images in the collections can be shared, but not downloaded.
• The Library of Congress has over 1 million photos, prints, and drawings in its database. Each of the collections may have a different license for use of the items in the collection, so remind students to read the “fine print”. For teachers, they have pulled together primary source sets on specific curriculum topics such as the Civil War, the Constitution, the Dust Bowl, and even have a link for primary sources by state.
• Google Images, Bing, and Flickr are, of course, where students first go to look for images. With the advent of the Creative Commons licensing project, in which creators can assign explicit permission for using their images, each of these image search tools includes a way for students to search the images they are already allowed to use. (Of course, they can always ask for permission from the image creator to use an image that is not Creative Commons-licensed or to use it in another way.)

With Creative Commons licensing, these are four conditions a content creator can apply to their work: attribution, non-commercial, no derivative works, and share alike.

The attribution option means that the creator lets others copy, distribute, display, and perform their copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it — but only if they give credit the way the creator requires.

The noncommercial option allows the creator to specify that others can use their work, but cannot make money off of it. If they want to use it commercially, they have to ask express permission and may have to pay the creator, too.

If the creator applies the no derivative works option to their work, they are allowing others to copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of their work, not derivative works based upon it. If they allow derivative works, users can edit, change, and republish their image, with attribution.

The share alike option is one that I call “pay it forward”. This option follows the option of letting the user make derivative works.  This option allows the user to transform the content and create a derivative work, but requires them to apply the same Creative Commons license to their work as the one they originally consulted to create their work.

As far as students finding images that have Creative Commons licenses, this has become easy in these three image search engines.

In Google Images, after you conduct a search, click on SEARCH TOOLS, and you get a drop-down for Creative Commons-licensed images. Once you pick the appropriate one, the collection of images in your search will change

In Flickr, once you conduct a search, you see the CREATIVE COMMONS link right on the toolbar to limit your search to just Creative Commons-licensed images.

In Bing, after you limit your search to images, you see the license option on the toolbar. Public domain images are those that are free to use, but the rest of the choices refer to Creative Commons-licensed images.

INTERPRETING IMAGES

Becoming visual literate involves practicing with interpreting images. This is more commonly called “photograph analysis”. Both the Library of Congress and the National Archives have wonderful teacher and student tools for doing this in addition, of course, to many, many images that can be used in support of the content you are teaching.

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress Teacher’s page dealing with primary sources includes information about engaging students with primary sources, promoting student inquiry, and having students apply critical thinking and analysis skills. Here is the list of questions from their page.

1. Engage students with primary sources.
Draw on students’ prior knowledge of the topic.
Ask students to closely observe each primary source.

• Who created this primary source?
• When was it created?
• Where does your eye go first?

Help students see key details.

• What do you see that you didn’t expect?
• What powerful words and ideas are expressed?
• Encourage students to think about their personal response to the source.

What feelings and thoughts does the primary source trigger in you?
What questions does it raise?
2. Promote student inquiry.
Encourage students to speculate about each source, its creator, and its context.

• What was happening during this time period?
• What was the creator’s purpose in making this primary source?
• What does the creator do to get his or her point across?
• What was this primary source’s audience?
• What biases or stereotypes do you see?

Ask if this source agrees with other primary sources, or with what the students already know.

• Ask students to test their assumptions about the past.
• Ask students to find other primary or secondary sources that offer support or contradictions

3. Assess how students apply critical thinking and analysis skills to primary sources.
Have students summarize what they’ve learned.

• Ask for reasons and specific evidence to support their conclusions.
• Help students identify questions for further investigation, and develop strategies for how they might answer them.

In addition, the Library of Congress offers online, self-paced (one hour) professional development modules for teachers which include “Analyzing Primary Sources: Photographs and Prints” and “Copyright and Primary Sources” and also an online LOC: Primary Source Analysis Tool.

National Archives

The National Archives provides a Photo Analysis Worksheet in their collection of document analysis worksheets which also include written documents, artifacts, cartoons, maps, motion pictures, posters, and sound recordings.

USING IMAGES

My favorite list of how to use online tools to improve student visual literacy comes from David Jakes on his Visual Literacy Continuum page. The page has been up for a while, and if some of the links don’t work, you can easily find new tools to use because Jakes explains how to use the tool in his description. For example: “Using a variety of online tools to re-purpose visual information in support of a learning goal…with Filmloop, Bubblr or Captioner.”

Frank Baker has collected a ton of resources for teachers in the area of visual literacy including readings, standards, lesson plans, texts, videos, and journal articles that can help you target the visual literacy skills.

My favorite tool for creating image-based presentations is Haiku Deck. It is available as both an online tool and an iPad app. It has the unique feature of pulling in Creative Commons-licensed images as you type the small amount of text on your slides. Once you pick one of those images, a link to the original source is included with the presentation, as you can see in the upper left-hand corner of the published slide below. I think Haiku Deck’s search only pulls in images that are allowed to be used with attribution, not ones that can be edited. And using Haiku Deck does not teach students about remembering to cite a source, but it does allow students to understand a source citation is needed and this tool makes it easy since the source link is automatically included!

   

CREATING IMAGES

One way to help students understand some of the “tricks” that are used in photographs is to teach them about composing a photograph. The New York Times Learning Network includes a lesson plan (Picture Perfect) which has students learning about the “up, down, and through” shot types. The lesson has them examining samples of each type, reflecting on why the photos were taken in that way, identifying other images with those shot compositions, and creating their own.

With students able to locate Creative Commons-licensed photos that allow modification, they can create their own images by combining (or mashing up) two or more images to create a new image. By asking students to “fool” or persuade the viewer of their new image, the discussion can begin about doctoring of images and what one needs to know to determine if an image is “real”.

There are online image editors like FotoFlexer and Pixlr that can help with this type of project, On the  iOS platform, Adobe Photoshop Mix will let you remove portions of photos and layer one on another. Adobe’s Photoshop Touch app ($9.99) for iOS and Android is a very full-featured image editor for the tablets that can be used in many ways across the curriculum.

How do you incorporate visual literacy into your curriculum? Share your ideas on Twitter! #kathyschrock

Bloomin Windows

I recently received an HP ElitePad 1000 G2 for review, and decided to put it through its paces as I created a new set of Bloom's-related applications -- Bloomin' Windows.

HP ELITEPAD 1000

I had not spent a lot of time with a Windows 8.1 Professional slate tablet. I had fooled around with the Microsoft Surface RT a bit, but I was unhappy with the fact RT did not allow the installation of "regular" programs. In addition, the RT tablets could not authenticate on a school network, and I felt their use in schools would be limited.

The HP ElitePad 1000 is a beautiful tablet! It can run the 64-bit Pro version of Windows 8.1 so it will work well on school networks. Its 10.1" diagonal screen will allow it to be used for the Common Core tests and there is also a bundle available that includes Office Home and Student 2013. (The screen is also more readable outside than any laptop or tablet I have used.) There are a full range of accessories available to meet specific needs. 

I received the HP Expansion Jacket with Battery with the ElitePad 1000. It adds 2 USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI port, its own SD card reader, access to the microphone/headphone jack and a battery that is rated to allow you to use the tablet's and the case's battery for a total 20 hours! It does add .86 pounds (450g) to the tablet, but, if battery life is something you care about, it is a must-have accessory. The tablet and the Expansion Jacket re-charge at the same time.

There is also a Productivity Jacket available which might be more suited for schools. It includes a keyboard, 2 USB 3.0 ports, and an SD card slot. It, too, charges as the device charges. The battery life of the tablet is rated for up to 10 hours, so the HP ElitePad 1000 should get through the school day on its own battery.

There are adapters available for hooking up to projectors if you do not have a WiFi projector in your classroom-- both an HDMI and a dual HDMI/VGA adapter. There is also an Ethernet adapter,, a serial adapter, a Smart AC power adapter, and an external USB port adapter. (As with most other tablets, the adapters take up the charging port on the tablet, so you cannot charge the device and use an adapter at the same time.)

HP ElitePad 1000, Expansion Jacket with battery, and USB adapter

 The specs of the Elite Pad 1000 G2 include:

• Intel Atom Processor (quad-core Intel Bay Trail Atom)
• 4 GB RAM
• 64 or 128 GB solid state drive
• Bright and beautiful 10.1" (1900x1200) Gorilla Glass display
• Dual cameras: 2.1MP HD (front) and 8 MP with flash (rear)
• HD audio with 2 stereo speakers
• SDXC card reader
• USB port (with optional adapter)
• Microphone/headphone jack 
• Up to 10 hours of battery life
• WiFi (a/b/g/n) and Bluetooth (4G is an option)
• Weight: 1.5 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.01 x 10.28 x 0.36 in. (178 x 261 x 9.2 mm)

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BLOOMIN' WINDOWS

After getting comfortable with using Windows on a slate tablet, I began to think about the creation of another entry for my Bloomin' Apps page. A few weeks ago, I received a note from David Lopez, a Microsoft Innovative Educator Fellow. He had created his own version of a Bloomin' Windows graphic. He prompted me to think about the need for one in the many schools that are using Microsoft Windows. I decided to start my own from scratch so I could spend some time investigating the applications in the Windows store.

My goal was to use applications that come with every Windows machine (or are freely downloadable as extras), including the use of the Office Suite applications, and then adding applications from the Windows Store. 

I spent a lot of time combing the Windows store for apps that were available through that venue. I could not find apps to meet all the spots on the grid, so did resort to a couple of Web 2.0 online tools. I understand I could have populated the entire grid with online tools, like the ones I have on this page, since the ElitePad 1000 can use all of those tools. But that would not have helped me learn about the many applications and apps that are available from both Microsoft and other publishers that are downloadable from the Windows Store and usable on the ElitePad 1000 even when it is not online.

I also decided to become more proficient with ThingLink while I was creating this Bloomin' Windows grid. I identified the apps and applications for each level of Bloom's, created the background image for my ThingLink creation, and then used "hot spots" to link out to the applications, apps, and tools. I embedded the Bloomin' Windows graphic on the Bloomin' Apps page, but you can also view and use it below.

Let me know your thoughts via email. Are you already using the HP ElitePad 1000 in your school? What are some cool ways you use it to support teaching and learning? Do you have other favorite Windows apps that are popular with your students or teachers?

 

 

H&R Block Budget Challenge: Financial literacy and personal finance

http://www.hrbds.org

As I recently wrote about in a Discovery Educator Network blog post, financial literacy is one of the important literacies for our students to acquire. Financial literacy, sometimes referred to as economic literacy, according to Atomic Learning, “targets the importance of making appropriate economic choices on a personal level, and understanding the connection personal, business, and governmental decisions have on individuals, society, and the economy”.

Students are often taught, in a social studies class or a economics class, about the impact the decisions made by businesses and government have (and have had) on society and the economic climate. Students study capitalism, the Great Depression, government bail-outs of corporations, manufacturing, and so on.

However, the area that is often overlooked is the personal finance component of financial literacy. Sometimes how to develop a budget is taught in a math class when learning about spreadsheets. And I remember working in pairs in my high school health class while we developed a budget for a wedding. (Really!)

There are many online materials and sets of state standards to help teachers develop lessons and units dealing with personal finance into and across the curriculum. I have included resources in the DEN blog post, but I especially like the Council for Economic Education's set of standards for financial literacy that start in grade three, and include:

• Earning income
• Buying goods and services
• Using credit
• Saving
• Financial investing
• Protecting and insuring

To provide a more engaging and "real-world" practice with these personal finance skills, H&R Block is sponsoring an online contest, The H&R Block Budget Challenge, that provides students with a chance to compete for prizes while learning how to manage their money through a simulation environment. (Students in grades 9-12 and at least age 14 are eligible.) 

The contest involves students, over a period of two months, immersing themselves "into the financial life of a recent college graduate who has been working for about six months. Each student gets a regular paycheck, a checking account, a 401(k) savings account and bills to pay throughout the simulation. By maximizing 401(k) savings, paying bills on time and responding correctly to quiz questions while avoiding fees like late fees, overdraft fees and finance charges, students increase their individual score."

There are six different start dates to pick from. (The first one is October 3, and registration for your class is due at least a week before the start dates.)  At the mid-point and conclusion of each period, the highest scoring classroom will win a Classroom Grant with up to $5000. And, at the end of each two-month period, twenty-two students will be awarded a $20,000 scholarship each! The grand prize of a $100,000 scholarship will go to the student who had the highest score of any student during the contest period.

What better way to give students real-world practice as they learn how to manage their money and finances? The added bonus of classroom grants and college scholarships will keep students engaged in the process. And, if they win, they will be well-versed in how to manage their winnings!

So get your students involved today! The H&R Block Budget Challenge site has much more information and details!

Literacies for the digital age: Financial literacy

I have identified thirteen literacies important for students to master..  Lisa Nielsen, in her blog post “Should the new math be financial literacy?” states “we have lost focus on preparing young people for what will matter in their real lives. If the education system were to provide some financial literacy classes for kids, it could make a tremendous difference in the economic success of society”. Let’s examine some ways you can easily embed their literacies across the curriculum.

Economic literacy, often called financial literacy, according to Atomic Learning, “targets the importance of making appropriate economic choices on a personal level, and understanding the connection personal, business, and governmental decisions have on individuals, society, and the economy”. The report of the NASBE Commission on Financial and Investor Literacy also offers a useful definition: “Financial literacy is defined as the ability to read, analyze, manage and communicate about the personal financial conditions that affect material well-being. It includes the ability to discern financial choices, discuss money and financial issues without (or despite) discomfort, plan for the future and respond competently to life events that affect everyday financial decisions, including events in the general economy”.

STANDARDS

Some states, such as Ohio, have an economic and financial literacy requirement in their Ohio Core state standards to be taught within social studies or another class. In their state, teachers certified in social studies, business education, marketing education, and family and consumer science are all licensed to teach financial literacy. These teachers can help develop a curriculum starting in the earliest grades to make sure these literacies are woven seamlessly throughout the curriculum at all grade levels.

The Council for Economic Education has developed a set of standards for financial literacy that start in grade three.

The strands include:

• Earning income
• Buying goods and services
• Using credit
• Saving
• Financial investing
• Protecting and insuring

Of course, financial literacy strands are also found in the National Business Association’s standards, the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences standards,  and state standards, such as the ones in Ohio, Oklahoma (7-12), Nebraska (K-12) and New Jersey (4-12). There are even sets of standards, such as the Jump$tart Coalition’s National Standards in K-12 Personal Finance Educationthat can serve to help you embed economic and financial literacy across the curriculum.

ONLINE RESOURCES

In addition to economic and financial literacy associations, there are investment firms, banks, and government agencies who provide both online and offline material to help you weave financial literacy across the curriculum.

• Council for Economic Education: EconEdLink Personal Finance
  • Includes lesson plans, up-to-date information, economic data and Web links for educators
  • Interactive tools and lessons for students

• Your life. your money: What is financial literacy (PBS)
  • ” …dynamic, culturally aware (and true) stories of young adults in financial trouble. As their stories unfold, viewers learn how and why they ended up in trouble and how they got out.”

• Federal Financial Literacy and Education Commission (US):  MyMoney.gov
  • Information, games and fun facts about money, saving and planning for the future
  • Curricula, lesson plans, tip sheets, guidance and helpful tools for teaching financial capability
  • Clearinghouse of federally-funded research reports, articles and data sets on financial capability and related topics

• United States Mint: Financial Literacy
  • Activities and lesson plans about coin to promote basic economic understanding for students

• Fox Business: The Centsables
  • A cable program support page with comic books dealing with financial literacy topics

• Federal Reserve Bank (US): Lesson Plans
  • Lesson plans for K-12 dealing with financial literacy; includes a literature tie-in
  • Games and simulations for K-12 students

•  Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company: The Mint
  • Interactive scenarios for kids and teens dealing with saving, spending, protecting, and entrepreneurship

• H&R Block: Dollars and Sense
  • Provides and gathers ideas, news, tips, and tricks for teachers and students in the area of investing and savings

• University of Nebraska- Omaha Center for Education: Economic Education Web
  • K-12 concepts and lessons plans for economic and financial literacy as well as links to data sets
  • Special THEN (Teach History and Economics in Education), a 4th grade curricular tie-in

• Money as you learn
  • Common-core aligned math lessons for teaching financial literacy

• National Endowment for Financial Education: Tools for financial educators
  • Workshop kits and money management sites for college students

• Canadian Centre for Financial Literacy: Activity worksheets
  • A curriculum for financial literacy with a handbook and worksheets for adults or high schoolers

• Pinterest search on “financial literacy“
• Financial literacy iOS apps blog post
• “Financial literacy” search on Google Play store
• Financial literacy iTunes U course

Have you used any of these financial literacy sites with your students? Share your ideas on Twitter! #kathyschrock

Activators and Summarizers with Mobile Devices

This post first appeared in my "Kathy's Katch" blog for the Discovery Education Network and is re-posted here with permission.

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Activators and summarizers have been used in classrooms for a long time. We all have our favorites and students know what to expect when we begin to use them. Since many classrooms now have at least part time access to 1:1 mobile devices, whether on a cart, a BYOD environment, or a true 1:1 program, I thought I would showcase how some of these can easily be used with mobile devices. This article will introduce you to activators and summarizers, convince you to use them, provide some help with how to introduce them, and find out how students can use them.

What are activators and summarizers?

There are many definitions of activators and summarizers. I like this overview of them from the US Digital Literacy site. 

My two favorite activity books are oldies but goodies by Research for Better Teaching. Written in 1993, the structures are sound and can easily be adapted for use with mobile devices. (Activators book / Summarizers book) 

And, here is a newer one that just includes activators and is full of both process and content strategies for middle and high school students.

Coral Martin has a great Powerpoint presentation that includes many useful things about activators and summarizers in the classroom. She talks about a side effect of the use of activators and summarizers which is that they can be instruments to minimize the tension of the students.  Here is what that minimized tension can lead to in the learning process.

Why should you use activators and summarizers in the classroom?

Martin and Frazier/Mehle provides the following thoughts as to why it is educationally-sound  to use these structures.

• Use deepens student understanding
• Use enables students to begin to construct their knowledge and the personal meaning the material has for them
• These structures support retention of knowledge as students begin to develop an organized pattern of thought and move from knowledge to experience.
• They help the students place new information in a larger framework
• Students feel more confident after using activators because they feel they already know something about the new material
• Teachers can use them to find out about students’ confusions or misconceptions
• Teachers can use them to gather formative assessment data
• Teachers can adapt the lesson plan to match what the students know/don’t know

How can you introduce these structures  to students?

The Frazier and Mehle activators book provides some sound advice for teachers when they are planning to use activators or summarizers. These activities may require students to move around and/or meet in small groups. Is your room set-up for this? Is your furniture conducive to this? Do you want to have students moving furniture around each time you do one of these activities, or can you plan a more permanent set-up for your room that will work?

Students are very social, but that does not necessarily make them expert collaborators or a good small group member. It is helpful to use a teamwork rubric about these assets or develop one with students.

There are also process (rather than content) activators that can help students feel more comfortable with practicing these skills. In the business world, activators are usually called “ice breakers” and you can find many different types online to use with your students. After the activity, make sure to have students reflect on the process and suggest things that might make the activities run more smoothly.

How can students use mobile devices for these activities?

The object here is for you to move from traditional activators and summarizers to those that can be implemented via mobile devices. Here is sample to get you started thinking about how you might achieve that goal.

In the Saphier and Haley activator book, they introduce an brainstorming activator entitled “Brainstorm and Categorize” which is used before you present new information to students. The teacher introduces the topic and has students brainstorm everything they think about the topic and then sort the list into categories. This is done either individually or in small groups and label the categories.

To move this structure to the mobile device, first introduce the topic.

1. Have each group of students create a single Padlet for their group using the freeform layout.
2. The members of the group will brainstorm their ideas about a topic and put them on a note titled with their name and adding the broad topic.
3. Students then go out and gather Discovery Education Streaming and Creative Commons licensed images on those topics and either save them to their Photos or Gallery app on their device (and put the URL to the image in their notepad) or simply add the URL of the image to the Padlet note. If they have saved the image to their device, they will need to add the URL to the note after the topic title. If they are just adding a link to the URL, clicking on the image will bring viewers right to the source of the image. (To edit a note for adding an image, the student simply taps twice on the already-created note.)
4. Students will then make a Padlet note for the category headings they decide on, and move their notes under the appropriate heading.
5. Once their Padlet is done, the group will post the link to their Padlet to a class Padlet, so items can be shared and you can assess their work and determine what they do/don’t know.

This activity can also be done on a whole class Padlet, and can be projected as you and the students decide on the categories and where each note should be put. Doing the activity whole-class will take longer, since there will be a lot of whole-class discussion on why items were added and which category they should be put beneath. However, working as a whole class will help you clear up misconceptions.

Below is a screenshot of  Padlet using Discovery Education Streaming and one CC-licensed image about the jungle. The direct link may be found here.

There are many other tools that can be used to adapt activators and summarizers to use on mobile devices. Drawing tools and screencasting tools, audio recording tools, concept-mapping tools, collaboration tools, and writing tools can help you move these activities to the digital realm. What is most beneficial about the digital results of these structures is that students can easily share work, you can assess everyone in the class since you have a copy of their work and sometimes an audio recording of their thinking processes, and you can see what information you may need to adapt or enhance the content of the unit of study.

Links to activators and summarizers you can adapt may be found on my Activators and Summarizer page on the Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything site. Please email me and share any ways you use mobile devices for icebreakers, activators, or summarizers in your classroom!

Road Warrior Router

This Asus WL-330NUL Multi-Mode Pocket Router is cool and is a great addition to your traveling toolkit. For $34.55, it can serve a number of purposes and help you out in a pinch!

First, if you need a USB Ethernet dongle for a Windows, Mac, or Linux laptop/ultrabook that does not have an Ethernet port, it can be used to become "wired". Since I already carry an Apple USB Ethernet dongle, this now replaces it in my travel bag.

This tiny device (2.5" L x .75" W x .5" H) is well-made and the USB portion folds into the back for protection while not in use.

The device needs power, which can be gotten from a USB port on a computer, from a wall socket via a 5 V, 1A power adapter, and even by plugging it in to a portable power bank!





What it can do...

If you plug an Ethernet cable into the Asus WL-330NUL Multi-Mode Pocket Router and plug it into a power source, it acts as a wireless access point and you can simply pick the device's SSID and type in the provided password to connect with your computer or mobile device.

If you plug the device into a computer's USB port and plug an Ethernet cable into the end, it can act as a wired network connector for your computer. If you use Windows, there is a utility included to configure the router. The Mac seamlessly allows the use of the Asus WL-330NUL Multi-Mode Pocket Router as an Ethernet dongle.

To connect the Asus WL-330NUL Multi-Mode Pocket Router to an existing wireless network and use it as a wireless router, simply plug it into a power source or computer USB port and then use the utility app (Windows) or visit a special ASUS Web page, enter the admin password which is etched into the side of the Asus WL-330NUL Multi-Mode Pocket Router and enter the SSID and PW of the existing wireless network to connect the router to that wireless network (Mac, tablets, and smartphones).

When using the utility or the special Asus Web page to configure the Asus WL-330NUL Multi-Mode Pocket Router, you can even set up an open or passworded guest network that others can access with their computers or mobile devices.

The Asus WL-330NUL Multi-Mode Pocket Router works with Windows XP through Windows 8, Mac OS X 10.5-10.8, and Linux. It supports 802.11b/g/b networking protocols and 64/128-bit WEP, WPA TKIP/AES, WPA2 TKIP/AES encryptions.

You can even assign the Asus WL-330NUL Multi-Mode Pocket Router a static IP address via the configuration utility or special Asus online config page if needed for security purposes.

So, this router can be used for many purposes and has found a permanent place in my travel bag!