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Things I Learned This Week – #14

CC BY Sister72

Happy Easter! I started a new job this week, which immediately gave me some perspective on how easy it is to assume that the education system is one way when it’s actually completely different. I also attended #BectaX (about which I’ll be blogging in more detail) and met with an educational publisher about the ways the Apple iPad can revolutionize the textbook. Exciting times! 😀

http://delicious.com/dajbelshaw/TILTW14

(62 bookmarks)

Tech.

  • Hello and welcome back to those who have been living under a rock for the past few weeks/months. There’s this new device called the Apple iPad and everyone’s a bit excited about it – especially as it’s been launched in the USA this week to rave reviews. If the outside of it’s not enough, have a look at the inside as well. It might be enough to change the dominance of Flash on the intertubes. Seth Godin thinks that if you’re a journalist or magazine that is average, the iPad means you’re screwed. I’m more excited about things like Mixr, ‘a DJ app done right’. 🙂
  • Packrati.us auto-adds links you post on Twitter to Delicious (with advanced options including hashtag conversion) Awesome!

  • The above says it all, really. But seriously, for most people there’s a dip between being a child/young adult and then having children that manifests itself as a ‘dip’ in technology adoption and understanding. That’s my theory, anyway…
  • I’ve moved from using Google Apps Education Edition at the Academy to Microsoft Outlook at JISC infoNet. Gah! At least the Xobni add-on for Outlook makes it a bit more bearable… :-p
  • In the future we could be using gestures and our skin to interact with machines. Wow.

Productivity & Inspiration

  • Zen Habits has some useful advice on 13 small things to simplify your workday. Number 2 is über-important in the long-term!
  • Ever wanted to gaze at the wonder of the Sistine Chapel? Now you can immerse yourself in it in 3D. (N.B. If you go and see it for real, there’s no way you’d be able to see the walls – there’d be too many people in the way! Trust me.)

  • GMail for iPad has an awesome two-pane view. Here’s how to use that interface on your regular machine (N.B. this didn’t work for me so I used this advice to set up Safari to achieve the same result!)
  • Need to free up some space in your wardrobe? Here’s a simple hanger trick for weeding out the stuff you don’t wear often.
  • Stammy shared a great tip on Twitter about email productivity: “when someone sends me an important email but has little text, i reply to it to myself to add keywords, so i can search for it easily later.” Great idea!

Education & Academic

  • The trouble is when you see things like Reading in the Digital Age is that, unless you know the background of the author, you take his opinions seriously. I happen to have read Sven Birkerts’ The Gutenberg Elegies which is a few hours of my life I’ll not get back. File under ‘people with some status who just don’t get it’.
  • Ofcom have published a report about UK children’s ‘media literacy’. It includes interesting stats such as “Seven in ten (70%) 12-15s with the internet at home have a social networking site profile, compared to 52% in 2008.”
  • GPS-based educational games? Whatever next?! Good stuff from Wönky, who presented at #BectaX

Data, Design & Infographics

  • Want to create an infographic but haven’t got an ‘angle’ on some data? Try this post Themes For A Good Infographic!
  • Need to make a large number or statistic more tangible to your audience? NumberQuotes is good for that. For example, I’m 29 which is same wage, in dollars per hour, as instructional coordinators make in the US.
  • For all those wondering how to spot if someone’s wearing a handgun, here’s a useful infographic
  • Open Educational Resources are huge. Don’t believe me? Check this out:

Misc.

  • I was at Stansted airport on Wednesday when someone official-looking tried to stop me to “ask me two questions”. As is usual, I said a polite “No, thank you” and walked on. She proceeded to follow me, asking me what I was doing walking past her. I explained I wasn’t interested, at which point she said “I’m from the government”. I asked (admittedly, sarcastically) if she was going to lock me up. She looked bewildered that the “I work for the government” line didn’t work on me and stood in front of me. I still didn’t answer her question and walked around her. And no wonder when the ‘representatives of the people’ (that I didn’t vote for) are going to push through an unwanted Digital Economy Bill and change the law to be able to open people’s mail without them being present. Democracy? Pah!
  • Taberinos is a very addictive, simple snooker-like geometric Flash game. And I can’t believe that nobody told me about the amazing Angry Birds iPhone game!
  • Tom Barrett shared some hopes he has for his son as he enters the UK education system. I have similar ones for Ben (who starts school nursery in September)
  • Need to collaboratively browse and chat online? (who doesn’t?!) Try Nurph!
  • Wikipedia a bit too bland for you? Try VisWiki!

Quotations

People who work sitting down get paid more than people who work standing up. (Ogden Nash)

We must never forget that the ultimate purpose of an explosive is to explode. (Petri Pihko)

One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. (Anon.)

When nothing looks like it’s working, Everything is working. (Ryan Biddulph)

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not. (Andre Gide)

Things I Learned This Week – #13

Image CC BY Pink Sherbert Photography

This week I returned from the UAE only to head down to London and then immediately back up to Doncaster for the Open Source Schools Think Tank (#osschools) and TeachMeet Yorkshire & Humber 2010 (#tmyh2010), respectively. They were both great events and I was very kindly put up by Dughall McCormick (@dughall) on Friday night, allowing me to attend the TeachMeet. 😀

http://delicious.com/dajbelshaw/TILTW13
(43 bookmarks)

I’m delighted to have seen references on other blogs to this series of weekly posts and I’m glad people find them so useful!

Tech.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfamTmY5REw&w=640&h=385]

  • I don’t often disagree with the conclusions Lifehacker comes to, but saying that “[Google] Chrome for OS X is still much too young for full-time adoption” whereas Firefox is great is not true in my opinion. One of the reasons I switched to Chrome (whilst still in Alpha!) was not only because of its speed but because Firefox was crashing several times a day, despite reinstalling, etc.
  • Want to jazz-up the ‘new tab’ page in Google Chrome? Try Incredible Start Page:

Productivity & Inspiration

Education & Academic

  • Using video game-style ‘experience points’ instead of grades in school? <strokes beard> Interesting…
  • Need stories for deaf students or those with partial hearing? Try Signed Stories!
  • Want a (very) simply guide to getting started with Google Apps Education Edition? Try here. And then you may want some ideas on how to use it:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah2rg5tIEeE&w=640&h=505]

Data, Design & Infographics

  • According to a 1984 paper cited by Nathan Yau at FlowingData, scatter charts are the easiest to decode in terms of representations of quantitative data. Bar charts and pie charts come next. Although probably not 3D ones produced by M$ PowerPoint… 😉
  • It turns out, somewhat unsurprisingly, that if you’re a kid you don’t want the misfortune to have been born in Afghanistan. It kind of affects your life chances:

Misc.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUGjUCHSKLM&w=640&h=505]

Quotations

It is easier to stay out than get out. (Mark Twain)

It’s all right to have butterflies in your stomach. Just get them to fly in formation. (Dr. Rob Gilbert)

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. (Henry Ford)

A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down… (Arnold H. Glasow)

It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. (Charles Darwin)

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:

  • beWeeVee is like Etherpad on steroids. But likes Microsoft Silverlight a bit too much for my liking.
  • Picnik, the awesome browser-based image editor, has been acquired by Google. This is not a good thing: Flickr (owned by Yahoo!) allows you to use Picnik to edit your photos. I guess we can kiss that functionality goodbye. 🙁
  • Second Life has never been more than a curiosity to me, but Leon Cych has put together a video showing some new features which might make it a viable proposition to do something useful:

[blip.tv http://blip.tv/play/gr8cgci7PwI]

  • 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

[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”present/embed” query=”id=dcfg9b66_383699snms6&size=m” width=”555″ height=”451″ /]

  • 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. 😀
  • 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)

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