Posts Tagged ‘data’

Things I Learned This Week – #11

Welcome back!
#uppingyourgame: an educator's guide to productivity is now up to v0.4!
(I'm looking for people to translate it into other languages when finished - if you're interested get in touch!)

As this is published I’ll be in Kizilcahamam, Turkey, with my long-time partner-in-crime Nick Dennis. We here (there?) at the request of EUROCLIO and are doing a presentation followed by a couple of workshops around technology in History education. :-)

http://delicious.com/dajbelshaw/TILTW11
(38 bookmarks)

As a consequence of being in Turkey between Thursday and Sunday, I’ve had to complete this post before I travelled on Thursday . So this is more like Things I Learned Between Monday and Wednesday This Week and is the reason it’s slightly shorter than usual… ;-)

Tech.

  • Just as it took a long time for Bluetooth to catch on, it would seem about the time for QR codes is almost nigh. It’s something I blogged about almost four years ago now, but the support structures and familiarity are there now. James Clay blogged about Microsoft Tags this week, which seem to be more-easily-recognisable by mobile devices.
  • Lifehacker has a guide to creating your own personal QR code (like the one to the right)
  • Papa Sangre is a game for the iPhone coming out at the end of April. As Ewan McIntosh put it, it’s the world’s first video game without any video. It’s completely high-definition audio-only!

Productivity & Inspiration

Education & Academic

Data, Design & Infographics

Misc.

  • The recent earthquake in Chile was so strong it moved the capital city, Santiago, an entire 10 feet to the west!
  • There’s a website for everything on the internet, including those who want to commit adultery. An analysis by one of these websites found that those women most likely to cheat are teachers and those men most likely to cheat are doctors. Estate agents (unsurprisingly, to me) featured in the Top 5 for both men and women.
  • Europa Film Treasures is a free archive of classic European films. Which is nice.

Quotations

Think like a person of action and act like a person of thought. (Anonymous)

Why you gotta act like you know when you don’t know? It’s okay if you don’t know everything. (Ben Folda)

Quality means doing it right when no one is looking. (Henry Ford)


Things I Learned This Week – #10

Image CC BY-NC Darren Hester

The biggest thing I learned this week offline was at a DriveTech Speed Awareness course after I was caught doing 36mph in a 30mph zone. It was mostly how not to use technology when teaching people stuff. There’s definitely a blog post in there somewhere… :-p

http://delicious.com/dajbelshaw/TILTW10

Tech.

  • Rapportive is a plugin for Firefox or Chrome that replaces the adverts in GMail with some contextual social media information about the people who send you email:

  • ManyCam (Win/Mac) allows you to add effects to your webcam videos/chats. Which could be interesting for EdTechRoundUp tonight… :-p

Productivity & Inspiration

Education & Academic

  • The Shadow Children’s Secretary, Michael Gove, of the Conservative party, has made some comments about education this week. Turns out he’s a bit of a reactionary. “Most parents would rather their children had a traditional education, with children sitting in rows, learning the kings and queens of England,” he said. Not this parent. I’ve changed my voting habits.
  • As I blogged about this week, Will Richardson’s started a wiki on 10 big questions for education. I’ve volunteered to moderate the page for What does an educated person look like today? Please contribute! :-)

Data, Design & Infographics

  • The video below gives some stats on The State of the Internet as it currently stands. YouTube serves 1 billion videos per day(!)

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.

  • Tableau Public is a free, online visualization tool that I’m looking forward to playing with. :-D
  • This visualization of the potential tsunami after the Chilean earthquake I found interesting:

Misc.

  • There’s a flower that blooms once every 3,000 years! It’s pretty rare. A Chinese nun found one under her washing machine.
  • UEFA want more officials in some crazy positions at Europa League games. The rest of the world wants goalmouth technology. <Sigh>
  • The UK Digital Economy bill could wipe out free wifi in many places due to draconian record-keeping requirements aimed to crack down on copyright infringements.
  • There’s an official petition to have 10^27 (that’s 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) be prefixes with ‘hella’. That would make for ‘hellatons’ and ‘hellawatts’. Awesome. ;-)
  • “Enthusiasm is compressed expertise” – I like that idea!

Quotations

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance. (Samuel Johnson)

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone. (Bill Cosby)

Courage is being scared to death… and saddling up anyway. (John Wayne)

The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about. (Dr. Wayne Dyer)

Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. (John Wooden)

Things I learned this week – #9

CC BY-NC-SA danmachold

I realised this week that, whilst I can always re-find what I share in my Things I Learned This Week posts, I wasn’t adding them to my Delicious bookmarks.

That’s why things are going to change (slightly).

From now on, you can find everything I’ve bookmarked of note each week with the abbreviation TILTW followed by the relevant number at my Delicious account. This week’s bookmarks, therefore, can be found at:

http://delicious.com/dajbelshaw/TILTW9
(104 bookmarks)

The top 5 in each section will go below, doing away with the generic ‘Top 3′ section. I think it’s an improvement. :-)

I’ve also, after some great advice via Lifehacker, created an FAQ using Posterous (dougsfaq.posterous.com). A fair few people email me directly, or contact me via my Google Profile for advice. Whilst I’m in my email I can fire off a sanitised version to post@posterous.com, thereby creating an FAQ. Genius! :-D

Tech.

  • Crocodoc is a way to collaborate upon and annotate Word, PDF and PowerPoint files (instead of having to upload and convert to Google Docs format, etc.)
  • Mashable has a great list of Google Chrome extensions for web developers. The Eye Dropper tool looks especially handy!
  • I was tempted to dismiss Google’s claim that the prosecution of some of its employees in Italy is a ‘serious threat to the web‘ – but actually, it may be. After all, if companies can be prosecuted for what users upload even if they remove it ASAP, then we’ve got a problem.
  • Microsoft’s Project Natal has been in the news again, this time with a working demo. I’m just not so sure how willing fat kids will be to exercise whilst playing video games.
  • Need a proper alphanumeric password on your iPhone lock screen? Here’s how to do it. :-)

Productivity & Inspiration

Education & Academic

  • OK, so his approach starts to grate after a few minutes, but this guy (who recently dropped out of university) has some important points to make about education in the 21st century:

Data, Design & Infographics

  • You’d probably be hung, drawn and quartered for this in England, but these are some fun examplesof American defacing banknotes in the name of art/graffiti/self-expression.
  • I have never played World of Warcraft. I’m always shocked at how massive it is when I read statistics about it. For example, it pulls in more cash than some countries, celebrities like Elijah Wood and Jessica Simpson play it, and it requires 20,000 servers to keep it running! :-p
  • Some great advice on the Rapid eLearning blog about the importance of contrast in design. Apparently, CRAP (Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity) are the four main elements of design.
  • You’ve got to watch this. It seems that some universities are allowing video submissions in support of applications for undergraduate study (great idea!) Here’s one girl who likes Maths and dancing. Well, you can guess the result…

Misc.

  • I’m in my twenties. That’s why when I read posts like Ten Trends of 20-Somethings I tend to be a bit sceptical. This one, however, has it spot on – especially with things like ‘radical transparency’ and ’seeing luxuries as standard’! ;-)
  • I go to church. Sometimes I have my suspicions (unproven) about people’s motivations – especially if they’ve got kids. Here’s one family in the US who admit that they ‘fake’ Christianity for socio-economic reasons (and ‘play dates’ for their kids…)
  • Scorpion venom could be a morphine substitute.
  • Jon Becker tweeted that his son’s preschool document his learning through the use of (presumably privately-shared) Picasa Web Albums. What a great idea!
  • You  know that an idea’s a good one when it generates its own parody. Check out #keepmehere – the anti-#movemeon!

Quotations

If you would take, you must first give, this is the beginning of intelligence. (Lao Tzu)

It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it. (Albert Einstein)

Do not speak of your happiness to one less fortunate than yourself. (Plutarch)

The sole advantage of power is that it can do more good. (Baltasar Gracián)

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist. (Oscar Wilde)

Want more great quotations? Find them via a Twitter search for #quote

Posted: February 28th, 2010
Categories: Things I Learned This Week
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
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Exam performance of looked-after children in England [infographic]

This story pretty much tells itself. We. Need. To. Do. Better.*

Performance of children in England in KS1 SATs

Performance of children in England in KS2 SATs

Performance of children in England in KS3 SATs

Performance of children in England at GCSE level

* For the benefit of those not in England:

To get any kind of decent job, young people would normally require 5 ‘good’ GCSEs (i.e. A*-C)

Definition of ‘looked-after’ (City of Westminster):

The term ‘looked after’ was introduced by the Children Act 1989 and refers to children who are subject to care orders and those who are voluntarily accommodated. Wherever possible, the local authority will work in partnership with parents. Many children and young people who become looked after retain strong links with their families and many eventually return home.

Things I learned this week – #8

If you create a service that people actually find useful then I suppose you’ve got a right to charge for it. Still, it annoyed me that FeedMyInbox has gone paid-for. $5/month is $5 more than I expect to pay simply for the privilege of getting email updates from blogs that haven’t provided the feature themselves. For those in a similar situation, I’m trying out Blog Alert and Reblinks at the moment… :-D

Top 3

  1. A stereotype was a printing plate case from movable type. A cliché was a phrase that, because it was used often, was cast as a single slug of metal. Thanks for that nugget, Seth!
  2. Toward a grand theory of n00bs. Seriously, you couldn’t make up some of this stuff!
  3. Why ’serious games’ work (via OLDaily):

Lifehacker

I felt compelled to devote a section to Lifehacker this week, just because so many of their articles/posts were top-notch:

Tech.

  • I auto-tweet from this blog when a new post is auto-published. It makes me smile that I could be asleep yet people think I’m active online. The Make Me Social WordPress plugin takes this one step further, auto-posting to services such as Delicious (via @durff)
  • Google Docs now has a web clipboard that remains over sessions and between computers!
  • RealPlayer SP allows you to trim videos ready for posting to YouTube, etc. I haven’t tried it (yet) but it looks like it could be a basic alternative to Windows Movie Maker. And it’s cross-platform!
  • Published blog posts now appear instantly in Google Reader. Which is nice. :-)
  • How many oranges does it take to charge an Apple iPhone? About 2,380 slices apparently (via TechXAV)

Productivity & Inspiration

Education & Academic

Data, Design & Infographics

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

Misc.

Quotations

A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes (H. Downs)

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them. (Henry David Thoreau)

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle, or the mirror that reflects it. (Edith Wharton)

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. (Anon.)

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence. Helen Keller

(image at top CC BY-NC Brandon Christopher Warren)

Things I learned this week – #6

Image CC BY-NC-SA miss_blackbutterfly

On a personal note, I learned this week never to give people more information than they strictly need, and that spending time making an eBay listing look good does actually pay dividends. Oh, and that Creative-Commons licensing my photo of some famous local graffiti was very helpful… :-D

Top 3

Tech.

  • Google Chrome is a great browser, but have too many tabs open and it gets a bit cramped. That’s where VerticalTabs becomes handy!
  • HTML 5 isn’t going to save the internet. Apparently.
  • You know the ‘lorem ipsum’ dummy text that people use for layouts? You can now do something similar with images. :-
  • A ‘census’ of files available on Bittorrent has been carried out. Guess what? Only 1% were non-copyright-infringing… (via BoingBoing)
  • Remember the humorous ‘iPhone vs. Stone’ comparison graphic from a couple of years back? Try this one comparing it to the Apple iPad… (viaTechXAV)

Productivity & Inspiration

Education & Academic

  • Now that Prezi’s got education licensing, you may want to check out this guide to the advanced use of Prezi. It’s going to become the new Powerpoint, isn’t it? :-o
  • Seth Godin pigeon-holes us (and more importantly, our students) into Hunters and Farmers. But in a good, insightful way.
  • I don’t think there’s no such thing as a ‘digital native’. But if there were, this is what they’d be like. Apparently. (via @wfryer)
  • Spelling is important. Very important. See below… (via @mguhlin, form a presentation by @cburrell)

Data, Design & Infographics

  • Seemingly aiming to surpass himself, Dan Meyer has posted his 2009 annual report (and, usefully, how he did it). Not only did he have the discipline to gather all this data, but just look at the quality of the finished article!

Misc.

Quotations

Any circumstance that has the power to hold you back also has the energy to push you forward. (Anon.)

Limited expectations yield only limited results. (Susan Laurson Willig)

At a distance from home a man is judged by what he means. (Anon.)

You’re stapling wings to a pig and hoping it will fly. It’s hard to see how you get from there to an F-16. (Art Stine)

Virtue is not left to stand alone. Those who practice it will have neighbours. (Confucius)

Posted: February 7th, 2010
Categories: Things I Learned This Week
Tags: , , , , ,
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Things I learned this week – #4

CC BY cooldudeandy01

On a personal level, I learned that when taking a toddler on a trip to somewhere (reasonably) far away like the National Railway Museum it’s always a good idea to ensure they have a very good sleep the night before, and to take a buggy. Even if you think they’re too big for it… :-o

Top 3

Tech.

  • Some (big-name) people have had problems with their Twitter page outranking their personal blog or website. Lifehacker, as you would expect, has aquick-and-easy fix (which I’ve already carried out here!)
  • I got my hands on a Pro code for BumpTop, the 3D desktop app, this week. I concluded it’s ‘interesting’ rather than useful.
  • My mother’s in the market for a point-and-shoot digital camera, so this warning by Lifehacker to stay under 7 megapixels to avoid photo noise and diffraction in such devices is timely!
  • I love this video of mini-ninjas unboxing the Google Nexus One. Best. Unboxing. Video. Ever. :-D

  • YouTube has a multi-video uploader (I found out thanks to this post). Unfortunately, it would seem that Google Gears – which powers it – isn’t yet compatible with Mac OSX Snow Leopard?!
  • Charles Leadbeater has an article in The Guardian in which he expresses concern (quite rightly) about corporate control of cloud computing. You get what you pay for, I suppose…
  • RockYou, who provide apps and services for Facebook users, had a security breach recently and user account details were stolen. An analysis reveals, worryingly that some of the top passwords included ‘12345′, ‘123456′, 123456789′ and ‘password’. Unbelievable! :-o
  • Ethan from Flowtown.com got in touch to make me aware of what they do. Put in an email address, get details from various social networking (and other sites) about the person that owns it. Here’s what it has to say about me (not all correct!):

My (slightly incorrect) profile on Flowtown.com

(I don’t live in Doncaster any more and I’m not on Facebook…)

Cloud computing will grow faster than almost all other tech sectors, but it is not taking over the world because of concerns over reliability and security.

  • Stephen Downes has produced an interesting visual overview of how ideas diffuse in the blogosphere in 2010 compared to 2005 (see above). I’d contend that it’s a bit more complicated than that – as a commenter points out, there’s no mention of Facebook. And what about half-way houses like Posterous? And Delicious/Diigo networks?
  • If, as I kept getting this week, you get the WordPress ‘Fatal Error: Allowed Memory Size’ error, here’s what to do!

Productivity & Inspiration

Education & Academic

  • According to another study, kids spend 53 hours a week on media, apparently (via TechXAV):
  • D’Arcy Norman defined educational technology as “whatever stuff you need to use to support the practice of effective teaching and learning”. That’ll do for me! (via OLDaily)
  • Ludoliteracy is a book about games in education. It’s a free PDF download. (via OLDaily)
  • Will Richardson makes a good point: this is the first generation of students not to have a choice about using technology in their learning.
  • In the UK, languages are becoming ‘twilight subjects’ in state schools.
  • There is no adequate evidence for ‘learning styles’ (via @hjarche). Stephen Downes would argue (I think) that no evidence doesn’t mean they don’t exist, but I’d defend myself with Occam’s Razor… ;-)

Data, Design & Infographics

  • This video games by the numbers infographic is interesting. The average age of gamers is 32 and the average amount of time playing per week 18 hours, so I’m still justified in ramping it up! ;-)
  • I like this hand-drawn overview of the electromagnetic spectrum (via Cool Infographics):

  • Digital access varies hugely worldwide, according to this graphic.
  • I’ve never heard of the term ‘information architecture’ before, but these are some useful resources! :-D
  • Google Earth can be used for stunning data visualizations (via datavisualization.ch):

Misc.

Quotations

He who knows enough is enough, will always have enough. Lao Tzu

It is never to late to be what you might have been. George Elliot

The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it. Woodrow Wilson

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. Louis Hector Berlioz

Knowledge will give you power, but character, respect. Bruce Lee

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning. Louis L’Amour

Disconnecting from change does not recapture the past. It loses the future. Kathleen Norris

And finally, as Nick Bilton from the New York Times states, and (appropriately) Scott McLeod links to, we’re all human aggregators now:

If someone approached me even five years ago and explained that one day in the near future I would be filtering, collecting and sharing content for thousands of perfect strangers to read – and doing it for free – I would have responded with a pretty perplexed look. Yet today I can’t imagine living in a world where I don’t filter, collect and share.

More important, I couldn’t conceive of a world of news and information without the aid of others helping me find the relevant links.

Posted: January 24th, 2010
Categories: Things I Learned This Week
Tags: , , , , ,
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Things I learned this week – #2

The most significant things I’ve learned this week have been snow-related. Have a quick look at the above YouTube video of me building an igloo. That took me 7 hours! Instead of getting all philosophical and talking about how good it felt to create something out of nothing and how I started to feel ‘at one’ with the snow, I’ll reflect on some practical considerations:

  1. I should estimate how long things are likely to take before they start
  2. The size of an igloo depends on the angle of the walls – easy to forget!
  3. There are lots of different types of snow.
  4. Igloos are actually quite warm!

I considered sleeping in it, but having worked on it for 7 hours straight every single muscle in my body hurt. I went in the bath, read my book and went to bed… :-p

Here’s a brief overview of other stuff I’ve learned this week, broken down by category.

Tech

Productivity & Inspiration

Academic

Data, Design & Infographics

Misc.

This made me laugh! (via Mashable)

This resonated with me – via Jennifer Hagy @ indexed

  • The ever-relevant and insightful Harold Jarche looks back at Seth Godin’s predictions for 2009 from 5 years ago (startlingly accurate) and his own from 2007, as well as looking forward to new and emerging business models.
  • I love mashups and Best of Bootie 2009 absolutely rocks. Especially DJ Earworm’s United State of Pop 2009 (top 25 Billboard songs, mashed up!).
  • Mashable reflects on ways social media has changed us. This post makes a lot of sense and I’m going to start to use the term ‘ambient intimacy’ to explain a lot of what goes on, online. It makes sense. :-)

Frozen Britain seen from above

BBC News posted a great satellite photo of what Britain looked like without the Gulf Stream last week.

  • There are some places in the world you’re just not allowed to go. This post on listverse (via @dougpete) highlights the ‘Top 10′ of these.
  • Vicki Davis (aka Cool Cat Teacher) in a reflective and revealing post entitled Sojourner Truth outlines her recent struggles with blogging and celebrity.

Quotations

You’re only given a little spark of madness. You musn’t lose it. (Robin Williams)

A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it. (Bob Hope)

(both via @gbmiii)

Google: excellence and diversity?

Quentin Hardy, Forbes:

Your day begins with a wake-up call from your Google Android phone. As you run to the shower, you hit Google News and check headlines, then Gmail. Your first appointment of the day has been moved to a new location; Google Maps will direct you there. Quickly update your expense report–including the printout of that sales presentation using, say, Google Template–and shoot them to the back office in India (in Hindi, if you prefer, with Google Translate). Your boss wants to discuss your group’s contributions to some marketing documents? Lean on Google Groups. You’re not even out the door yet. You have the rest of the day to search for work-critical information on the Web while you’re at the office–to say nothing of snatching a few moments to download a game, check stock prices, organize your medical records, share photos and pick a restaurant and movie for the evening. How convenient.

I love Apple stuff. I love Google stuff even more because it’s free, is often the best solution, and most of the time promotes collaboration and sharing. However, I’m a bit concerned that they could know a little too much about me. Here’s the Google stuff I use currently:

  • Google Chrome web browser
  • Google Apps (personal)
  • Google Apps Education Edition (at work)
  • Google Picasa
  • Google Product Search
  • Google FastFlip
  • Google Maps
  • Google Dictionary

I wasn’t very far away last month from purchasing AlertMe Energy for our house. This uses Google PowerMeter to show how much energy you are using at home. It’s better than the LCD display we’ve got currently, but I was a bit uneasy about it – for the same reasons that I would be about using Google Health.

It’s all very well using the best stuff, but at what cost? All it would take is a government requisition of the data from one company and, if I used Google PowerMeter and Health in addition to the products I already use, they could know:

  1. What I’ve been looking at online.
  2. The names of my family and friends.
  3. Where I’ve been recently.
  4. Who I’ve been communicating with and what about.
  5. What I look like, as well as what my friends and family look like.
  6. My political bias.
  7. How much energy I’ve been using at home.
  8. My health record.

I think that’s too much information to put into the hands of one company, even if there mantra is Don’t be evil.

So I won’t be buying an Android phone. I won’t be buying AlertMe Energy (or any other service that uses Google PowerMeter) or using Google Health either.

I have to say that it’s a potential problem, not an actual one at the moment… I’ll keep you updated.

Further reading:

Posted: December 21st, 2009
Categories: Technology
Tags: , , , , , ,
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Social media, open standards & curmudgeonliness.

The problem:

Harold Jarche:

The increasing use of software as a service (SaaS)… is simple, easy and out of your control.

Luis Suarez:

I guess I could sum it up in one single sentence: “The more heavily involved I’m with the various social networking sites available out there, the more I heart my own… blogs“.
…
It all has got to do with something as important as protecting your identity, your brand… your personal image, your own self in various social software spaces that more and more we seem to keep losing control over, and with no remedy.

A proposed solution:

Harold Jarche:

Own your own data (CC-BY Harold Jarche)

I’ve decided to start the Curmudgeon’s Manifesto, which may serve as a call to arms to start dumping platforms that don’t understand how to play nice on the Internet. It’s our playground, and through our actions we get to set the rules of conduct.

Here’s my start (additions welcome):

  1. I will not use web services that hijack my data or that of my network.
  2. I will share openly on the Web and not constrain those with whom I share.
  3. I will not lead others into the temptation of using web services that do not respect privacy, re-use, open formats or exportable data.

An alternative solution:

Wikipedia:

An open standard is a standard that is publicly available and has various rights to use associated with it, and may also have various properties of how it was designed (e.g. open process).

…

The term “open standard” is sometimes coupled with “open source” with the idea that a standard is not truly open if it does not have a complete free/open source reference implementation available.

OpenSocial:

OpenSocial

Friends are fun, but they’re only on some websites. OpenSocial helps these sites share their social data with the web. Applications that use the OpenSocial APIs can be embedded within a social network itself, or access a site’s social data from anywhere on the web.

Harold Jarche:

Blog Central

One way to keep information accessible is to use an open, accessible, personal blog as the centre of your web presence.

OpenID:

OpenID is a decentralized standard, meaning it is not controlled by any one website or service provider. You control how much personal information you choose to share with websites that accept OpenIDs, and multiple OpenIDs can be used for different websites or purposes. If your email (Google, Yahoo, AOL), photo stream (Flickr) or blog (Blogger, Wordpress, LiveJournal) serves as your primary online presence, OpenID allows you to use that portable identity across the web.

Conclusion:

Change the name of the Curmudgeon’s Manifesto to the Open Educators’ Manifesto (or similar). Back OpenID and OpenSocial. People like to sign up to positive-sounding things that cite big players or existing traction. I’m sure Chris Messina and other open (source/web) advocates have a take on this! :-D


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