One of my favorite weekend television programs is CBS Sunday Morning. Yesterday, they ran a David Pogue segment about data rot. Data rot is what happens when your data is stored in a software format that cannot be displayed any longer because the hardware has been replaced. Every year I see an example or two of this with some of the veteran teachers in my school who have documents on floppy disks or in an old Mac format. In fact, the teacher who shares the workspace next to me has a stack of old IBM floppy disks (the kind with hole in the middle) that he refuses to get rid of.

Dealing With Data Rot is embedded below.

Applications for Education
There is a lesson in this video for all of us and it’s, back up your data in a modern format. Whether it’s personal photos or a simply fantastic lesson plan that you don’t want to lose, moving your data to a modern format before it’s too late is a good idea. The video also provides a good, short lesson on the development of computer technology over the last 40 years.

A good video to complement the one above is The History of the Internet.