Archive for September, 2010
Podcast – Remember when nobody was on Twitter? We all do.
- Image via Wikipedia
I guess I was feeling reflective yesterday, got the bug to create a podcast. Not a big deal, I know, people do it all the time. I think this was the first one I’ve done in about a year, so it felt like a big deal to me. I talk about that a bit in the show, the mental barriers, that we create for ourselves that sometimes prevent us from plowing forward.
But the bulk of the show explores my thoughts about the Twitter experience, and while we ALL have a memory of Twitter ‘back in the day’… even if you just signed up a week ago. I also delve into some musings on what the future of social media may need to evolve to.
It’s been a while, far too long. Curious to know how many people will actually take the time to listen to this. Are podcasts even in your daily routine anymore? Is it still relevant? Share a thought, I’d be curious to know your ideas on the topic.
Enjoy.
YouTube College Application
- Image by erica.hargreave via Flickr
Newsweek recently covered a new phenomenon in the college application world: the YouTube supplemental application. Sound crazy? The writing has been on the wall for years. More and more often, videos created by students are getting seen by hundreds of thousands of people, leading to job offers, internet fame, and other opportunities. It’s why media literacy is such a critical lesson for students to learn. But several universities have taken this idea to a new level.
As a supplement to the regular forms, schools like George Mason University, outside Washington, D.C., Tufts University, outside Boston, and the College of William & Mary, in Virginia, are giving students the option to stray from the traditional essay and advertise their best qualities on YouTube. “Say something about you,” reads the Tufts application. “Anything goes,” prompts William & Mary.
Let’s face it, in the traditional college application (or job application) there isn’t much room to demonstrate exactly who you are as a person. Does a list of your activities really demonstrate who you are? Does it allow them to hear the passion in your voice or see the depths of your commitment to the things you’re interested in? Not really.
Allowing for a video submission creates an open platform for students to really demonstrate what they’re all about. That’s a good thing.
However, it can also have the complete opposite effect. I’ve seen some bad digital stories. Heck, we’ve all seen some notably awful videos on YouTube. What kind of effect will a bad video have on an application? The whole idea raises a slew of questions. Would a video of a shirtless student twirling fire help or hinder someone with borderline SAT scores? Will a short rap be enough to put a student over the top in the eyes of an admissions department? And beyond all that, what about application videos that go viral? Are they to be judged based on views in part? How long do you think it will be before an application video leads straight to job offers, bypassing the college entirely?
We’re entering into a completely new era right now. The tools are becoming so simple and convenient that every process we take for granted is being re-examined. The tricky thing is that we need to be preparing our students for THIS world. Whether you agree with the changes or not, I’m guessing they won’t be going away. Right now it’s colleges. Soon it will be jobs.
How long will it be before you have the option of turning in a YouTube video when you apply for a new teaching position? And are you prepared to do so?
The majority is in the minority
- Image via Wikipedia
Can I admit something shameful? I love showing people Blabberize. I don’t mean that I like Blabbers, or that I think it’s a great tool. But I really love introducing that Web 2.0 site to educators that have never seen it before.
I do quite a few presentations nowadays, at conferences, Days of Discovery, institute days, and a slew of webinars. I’m still surprised at the direction my career has gone, but I really do love working with educators on integrating new technologies and feel blessed that I get the opportunity to do so face to face on a regular basis. That said, there’s nothing that I like better than when I ask a group of educators in a room how many of them have seen Blabberize… and not a hand goes up in the room.
I had a conversation with a colleague the other day who was lamenting the fact that so many teachers are so far behind (aka ignorant). That they aren’t aware of PLN’s, have never participated in a global project, or make use of wiki‘s and sites like Edmodo. S/he seemed almost pissed off that so many educators don’t make the extra effort to learn all the tools they need to make sure students can be set up to succeed in today’s world.
I beg to differ. I don’t see it as teachers spurning technology, or choosing not to take advantage of those new ideas and tools. I think most teachers don’t even realize that there’s a decision to be made. It’s not a matter of choosing the red pill or the blue pill… if you don’t know that there are even two pills available as options.
That’s why I love showing people Blabberize. It’s a litmus test. A teacher that has never heard of Blabberize or Glogster or Prezi, has never been introduced to the new world of online applications that are available to them. They likely don’t follow blogs or listen to podcasts. They have probably never been to an EdTech conference or seen a TED talk. In short, they’re just ordinary, average educators who aren’t aware that there’s a whole other world that they have easy access to… if they just ‘take the blue pill’.
Blabberize is a gateway. It’s so simple that they don’t feel there’s any magic trick to it. They know it’s something they could realistically pick up and use on their own. They can immediately see how they might be able to use it, whether it’s for sub plans or to have students share their knowledge. They don’t feel stressed about teaching their students how to use it because there’s nothing to it. But best of all, it gets them thinking… They start asking themselves what a technology like this allows them to do differently. They begin to realize that they can engage their students using technology, without turning every lesson into a ‘technology project’. Best of all, they start wondering what else there is out there that they might not have known about… and how they can find out.
I’m all for conversations about ‘big’ change. And yes, I agree, it’s not the technology, it’s the pedagogy. However, I also think that you need at least a minimal base to build from before you can have those conversations. And the vast majority of the educators in this country do NOT have that base yet.
Every day that I present for educators, I have a greater appreciate for how distorted the view is as seen through the eyes of a typical EduBlogger. In fact, the majority of the voices in the EdTech Community are so far ahead of the curve that it doesn’t even seem like their on the same road anymore. Most educators have never listened to a podcast, much less created one. They’ve never edited a wiki, much less started one of their own. So how on earth could they be expected to have a rational conversation about the impact new technologies are having on the skill sets our students need? Simply put, they can’t. The majority of the voices many of us listen to on a regular basis… actually represent just a tiny fraction of the educators out there. We’re the minority, the outsiders, the ones who talk using strange terms involving words with far too many missing vowels.
That’s why I love introducing educators to Blabberize. It’s a fun site and all. But more importantly, I know that I’m getting the opportunity to introduce them to an entirely new world that they may never have known existed. I get to set them on a journey that will broaden their horizons, and hopefully lead them to challenge their own philosophies of education. That’s what really gets me giddy. It’s not that they’ll know how to make their pictures talk… as Ben Kenobi once told Luke, “You have taken your first step into a larger world.” That’s exciting stuff to me.
And if we’re lucky, maybe they’ll create legendary works like the Plagiarism Yoda 
Is battery life really the top reason to use iPads in schools?
- Image via Wikipedia
If you have any interest in exploring the potential for iPads in schools, you need to be following the journey of Fraser Speirs. He’s the author of a few OSX and iOS apps, but also teaches computing at the Cedar School of Excellence. Like many others, he’s in the midst of implementing an iPad initiative. Unlike many others, he’s documenting the heck out of it.
His most recent post on the topic keys in on battery life. I had to read the post through twice, because it explains in practice what I’ve been ranting about in theory for the past few months; that the killer feature for the iPad in schools may actually be its battery life.
I know, that sounds strange doesn’t it? But tell me if this sounds familiar to you…
When I was a tech coordinator, I had one laptop cart under my jurisdiction. However, that cart was a major time suck to say the least. It navigated like a Sherman tank in the halls, and often required furniture to be re-arranged so it could rest safely along the wall in a classroom, and still reach an outlet. In the best of scenarios, a teacher would have to carve out at least ten minutes to get the cart set up, the laptops distributed and the computers booted up. At least five minutes before the end of class were required to get everything put away. That’s 15 minutes of learning time that nobody will be getting back. And that’s the best case scenario. A the worst case, some of the computers would have been put away without being plugged in, or the plus might have fallen out. Students would spend 5 minutes watching a computer boot, only to have it shut down due to no battery life. Or some might not power up at all. And then the teacher needs to figure out what to do when 17 of 20 students have laptops and two are without.
We bowed and payed homage to the gods of battery life in so many ways. We sacrificed periods after the cart went out so that the laptops would have time to recharge. We bought charger after charger, so we could have one set on the cart, another in bags for checkout and others as spares if the students needed to power them up during a class period. It’s just an inherent weakness with the platform.
And now comes a device that gets 10 hours of non-stop use. That’s non-stop video playing, which is hardly a ‘real’ example. In real world practice, I found that I could use it for that much time and still have about 50% batter life yet.
But is that really a significant enough reason to say that it’s a worthy contender in schools?
Look at it this way… There’s no boot time at all, and programs open instantly, so there’s no class time lost there. It takes up virtually no space and is incredibly lightweight. And best of all, students could be using it EVERY period of the day and still not need to do a midday charge. Is that compelling? You bet it is.
As Fraser says, “Simply put: if your device doesn’t last for 10 real-world hours of use, your device is no longer competitive in education. I can’t imagine ever going back to using 4-hour devices like laptops on a regular basis.”
What do you think? Are you willing to sacrifice Flash for battery life?
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- iPad: It’s All About The Battery Life (cultofmac.com)
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Turn your iPhone into a Digital Microscope
- Image by BWJones via Flickr
The camera on the iPhone 4 is pretty good, but this mod really puts it over the top. Over at the Crabfu Artworks blog, the author discovered that if you take a 13 dollar microscope and glue it to a cheap iPhone case, you can turn your iPhone into a surprisingly effective digital microscope. Pretty impressive results for a total of less than 30 bucks. Anybody going to try this out?
The Musical iPad
- Image by Yohei Yamashita via Flickr
Remember when it was first released, how people said that the iPad is a device that can only be used to consume information?
More and more, we’re finding it being embraced by artists, and in particular… musicians. From DJ’s to students, to professional members of symphony orchestras, the iPad is being used in some pretty ingenious ways. Is it the novelty of it? Or are we on the cusp of yet another new branch of the media revolution? I’m leaning towards the latter. After all, one of my favorite ways to pass the time on flights nowadays is to create new mixes with Looptastic, something I was never all that interested in on any other medium so far. You can see Rana Sobhany using it in one of the videos below.
In particular, this first one almost gave me chills. No, it’s not the same as playing instruments. But as these apps develop, are the differences that significant? Let me know what you think. Fad or phenomenon?
Unboxing the Lenovo ThinkCentre M90z
- Image by teach42 via Flickr
The other day I was contacted by a group representing Lenovo who told me that they were interested in having me review a computer of theirs. I’ve done this sort of thing before and was already excited, but the email just got better and better. In a nutshell, they think they have a great computer for the education space and wanted to have some educators put it through it’s paces. They sent me a Lenovo ThinkCentre M90z without an expiration date, with the expectation that I’ll share out how I use it. No problems there, right up my alley. But the best part is… they’re giving me the chance to give a second identical unit to give to a Teach42 reader!
Yeah, you read that right. Details are forthcoming, but rest assured, a computer exactly like the one in this post will be given away to one of you. How? That’s all shaping up (pun intended) and I’m not quite ready to give out details yet, but you’ll find out soon.
In the meantime, I tried to figure out how I could best make use of this machine in my own life AND figure out the best ways it would fit into the educational space. The obvious answer just happened to be on my lap as I was reading the initial email… my own little digital native, Aiden. We decided to let him have a nicer computer than my wife and I have and see how it works for him.
I’ll be honest, having spent quite a bit of time in the realm of early childhood, computers are a tricky subject for me. I think there’s tremendous value in using them with kids, but the input devices are not well suited to them. Mice are a challenge to kids who are still developing fine motor skills and the keyboard is just a place to smash fists into. And that’s why the feature I was most excited about with this machine is the 23″ multitouch display! I couldn’t wait for Aiden to get his hands on it (pun intended), especially since he’s had extensive experience with the iPhone and iPad.
A week or so ago, the computer arrived and I figured since it was going to be ‘his’ computer, I’d let Aiden help unbox it. I can’t speak for you, but I guess I had no idea just how big a 23″ screen is. I’ve gotten used to laptops, where a 17″ screen is considered to be huge. This thing was massive. Interestingly though, the box wasn’t.
I’ve unboxed a slew of computers. I was fully expecting to pull off the ‘upside down box pull’ maneuver to get the machine out. So I was rather surprised to see a couple of straps and find that the entire computer would be pulled from the box in an oversized bag, the likes of which we might take to the farmers market. Definitely unique way to do it and made it really easy to get the computer set up.
The other thing I’m used to is a massive pile of cables and pieces. Power cable for computer, power cable for monitor, monitor vga cable, two or three speaker cables, mouse cable, keyboard cable, ethernet cable, and who knows what else. This computer had four things. Power cable, Keyboard, Mouse… and the computer. That’s it. It seemed almost too simplistic. But no need for everything else. It’s an all in one, so no separate monitor. Built in WiFi so no ethernet. Plug it into the wall and away we go!
It seems like the first time you boot up a computer, it always takes forever. In this respect, it was no different. Everything needs to get its initial settings and you need to go through Windows setup. But once that was done, we were all set.
As I mentioned before, one of the biggest issues of using computers with young children is the peripherals. The mouse just isn’t well suited to those little hands, and the concepts of left click and double click are just a challenge to get across. And that’s why after a couple of minutes, we hid the mouse. Yeah that’s right, I just put it behind the screen entirely and we started putting the touch screen through it’s paces. It’s incredibly responsive and made navigating around the OS easy….. for me. For him, the menus, folders and double clicking of icons was still strange.
That’s where SimpleTap comes in. It’s a dashboard for touchscreen interfaces that overlays itself over the desktop and gives you one click access to a variety of functions. It’s incredibly easy to add new icons to it though, so I immediately added a bunch of Microsoft multitouch apps and games that came with the computer. Those worked well and provided us entertainment for the first hour or so. One of his favorites was the photo collage tool, but that’s mostly because he could flick the photos around the screen and use two fingers to zoom in and out. It was pretty similar to the iPad, but just different enough to throw him off a bit. Small learning curve, but didn’t take too long to adjust. Will be nice when all those gestures are standardized across all touch screen devices.
After that Aiden wanted to watch some videos. He’s incredibly fond of watching Lego Star Wars stop motion videos on YouTube. So I set up a shortcut in SimpleTap that takes him to a search for the keywords Lego Star Wars. One click to pull up SimpleTap. One more click to launch that search within YouTube. And then he can watch videos and do single clicks on the related videos to watch others.
That’s when I realized that while many installable programs aren’t well suited to the touchscreen (being designed to be driven by a mouse), WEBSITES on the other hand are incredibly well suited for it. All single clicks, and rarely do you need to worry about a right click. So I think the bulk of the games that I’ll be setting up for him in SimpleTap are going to be web based. Last night I set up Kerpoof and Starfall for him to explore and will keep adding as time goes on.
As you can see, he loves the machine. And with good reason, it’s beautiful, quick and incredibly easy to use. Of course, when he isn’t in his room, I’ve been using it quite a bit too. I’m trying to find some of the more ‘esoteric’ ways that the multitouch can be used. But I’ll more about that later. For now, I’ll just wrap this up by saying that when they first offered to send me the machine, I had some serious doubts about whether I could honestly say one PC had any more potential for classroom usage than any other. I typically don’t think about brands very often, and consider most computers to be carbon copy clones of each other. But this machine has got the wheels going in my mind. The multitouch really does make a huge difference, and the fact that there’s so few cables/pieces actually makes me reminiscent of when I used to have to set up dozens of iMacs and eMacs at my old school. And associating a PC with the elegance and simplicity of Macs is a rare experience for me.
So far so good. You’ll be hearing more in the future. And don’t forget, keep your eyes open, as one of you reading this will be getting an identical machine for yourself soon!
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