We have spent the past few days with family at a cabin in Wisconsin. Everyone but us has now gone home and we will leave in the morning. It has been a very relaxing time with family.
The most unique event of the day was a virtual chat with Sasha and Marcia from Nizhny (Russia). These are friends Cindy made during her travels and she stays in touch. The coming of the New Year seems a bigger event in Russia. They give presents and welcome Father Frost much as we do on Christmas eve.
We exchanged several vodka toasts each followed by a pickle. There appears to be an order to the toasts. I remember the second round is to remember your parents. They were eating caviar on toast. Hard for us to match that, but the cost in Nizhny is a fraction of the cost in the U.S.
We won’t be able to toast the New Year with all of our friends, but consider this a virtual toast – To you and yours, may the New Year treat you with kindness and engage you with new adventures.
We are gathered at a cabin for the holiday break and presently are snowed in. We have great wifi and plenty of ways to entertain ourselves. Last evening we engaged in some recreational problem solving.
We decided we wanted to watch “Dark Knight” using the projector we brought with us to play Wii games. Son Todd had downloaded the movie to the iTunes application on his new Mac, but then discovered that the new machine used a different “AV out” than was required by the projector. What to do?
We could have watched the movie on the computer, but what fun is that. We considered downloading the movie to an iPod and then found that we did not have the proper adapter for that device either. Target driving Todd’s machine and moving the movie to another of our Macs was considered, but then we would have had to subvert the DRM. Be illegal only as a last resort.
The final solution worked like this. Share the screen on the machine with the movie. Hook an older computer to the projector and via wifi to the computer playing the movie. We could have stopped there, but there ended up being more. It turns out Todd controls his Mac with an iPhone app and we decided to run the audio through the cabin’s surround sound system.
It was great fun, but took a while to accomplish. Cindy had to be awakened several times to make it to the end of the movie.
Hope your own holiday brings you whatever experiences you enjoy.
My holiday tech project has involved the creation of a podcast. I have been working on a project concept I describe as “Sharing Something Local”. The idea is to teach others about something “locals” may understand, but those outside your group or area may not. My first example involved the sugar beet harvest in North Dakota. I have had a second example in mind and finally found time to put it together. Our daughter worked in Ketchikan, AK, this summer and we had the opportunity to visit her. While not exactly local, the podcast reflects something we experienced. The actual podcast will appear on our Participatory Web site. We work with tools and ideas we expect to fit a middle school curriculum, but both the sophistication of the content and the production could be adjusted up or down.
Garageband makes the creation of podcasts relatively easy. This example required some extra work because it incorporates both still images and videos. Garageband appears to allow one or the other. I first generated the multimedia core in iMovie and then brought this into Garageband to add the Intro and Outro and to export. What appears below is a Quicktime movie in m4V format. I am not certain if it plays on all platforms, but it requires less bandwidth than a .mov file.
Two-year old, grand daughter Addison received a Dora digital camera for Christmas. She can turn it on, point it at something, and take pictures. She looks at pictures on the lcd screen, but you can off-load the pictures.
Sometimes, she misses (brother Preston). However, she uses the same approach that I employ. Take enough digital pictures and some turn out.
I have tried to use Twitter for several months and I am still frustrated with what for me are limitations. I will probably hang on because the system appears popular with so many, but I have shifted how I use the system.
I know that other educators find value in Twitter and have attempted to explain to the rest of us what of educational value this system has to offer. My reaction to these suggestions is pretty much my reaction to those who propose that the cell phone, the old Palm, or classroom clickers are of educational value. To me, these systems are drastically under-powered and often are cumbersome to use. “Better than nothing” should not be our goal.
I do recognize that “group microblogs” offer some opportunities. The traditional blog (e.g., this one) discourages the participation of others (mostly to prevent spam and inappropriate comments) and may offer so many opportunities that some are intimidated. I think there is another factor involved. Many simply do not want to spend the time to generate lengthy posts and post after post of 140 characters or less would appear pretty anemic within a community devoted to more lengthy offerings. Short comments are the only option available within the Twitter community.
My quarrel is not so much with microblogs as it is with Twitter. A post of less than 140 characters is limiting. What can really be accomplished through short posts. A simple request and response pattern is sometimes helpful. What can you tell me about XXX? Here is what I know. Here is what I use. etc. I do understand the notion of a conversation but I react the same to Twitter as I do to the experience of attempting to run a chat with more than a couple participants – the noise to information ratio is limiting to meaningful conversation. One way around this is to limit participation. For example, Room 24 uses Twitter to carry on a conversation or at least generate an on-going record of ideas within a classroom. The key is to connect to http://twitter.com/room24 instead of http://twitter.com.
I also don’t like the focus on text. What is the value in such a minimalist approach? Rather than text-only, I prefer the tumblr approach. Tumblr attempts to differentiate itself from blogs by encouraging posts of a specific type – a text comment, an image, a link. Tumbler attempts to explain the difference as a scrapbook vs. a journal. The idea of self-defined groups (think friends or followers) combined with simple, but diverse post types make sense to me.
It is sometimes difficult to overcome inertia. Some would argue that more recent social bookmarking services offer superior features to del.icio.us. However, the value of a service extends beyond the software to the community using that software. Perhaps the same is true with Twitter. Folks are afraid to switch from an active, but limiting system to a less popular, but more powerful environment.
I have developed my own compromise. I am using an open source microblog called Chyrp (my Chyrp site). One feature that can be activated within Chyrp allows the announcement of a Chyrp post within Twitter. Others I follow on Twitter appear to take a similar approach combining some Tweets and links from another service. I am not certain how this approach will be accepted. When I first noticed this approach, I was somewhat annoyed but what appeared to be an effort to broadcast posts across several formats. After struggling with Twitter for a few months, I now have a different perspective.
As I head into break I wanted something I could use to hold and read files (pdfs, docs) on my iPod Touch. The screen is a little small for my old eyes and I prefer to mark on documents as I read, but there are situations in which just reading will do. Apps for the Touch are less than $10 so using something a few times is acceptable.
I looked at two apps – FileMagnet and DataCase. Reviews (Appletell) had similar things to say, but the approach was a little different. FileMagnet makes use of software loaded on the computer to transfer files and a Mac will recognize DataCase as a shared device. My original interpretation of this distinction was that the Touch had to be tethered – a reading error on my part because both use wifi.
I purchased DataCase. I could not get the app to work at the office. UND requires email authentication for wifi access. Even if the computer and the Touch have access, the computer does not see the Touch. Perhaps the port matters – beats me. I had a feeling that it was the weird authentication requirement and when I got home I found there was not a problem. Drag and drop worked to move files from my computer to the Touch.
Nice product – easy to use and the visual appearance of the content is of high quality.
Google comes up in the debate over net neutrality. ISPs have complained that Google should pay more because the content they offer fills up bandwidth out of proportion to the fees they pay. Net neutrality is a tough issue because the illustration offered is not necessarily at the core of the motives of ISPs. For example, in prioritizing bit types to thwart bandwidth hogs, companies could also protect their self interests (e.g., cable providers could slow online video to protect a primary service they offer).
While this is how I have previously understood the intertwined motives and challenges of providers, the Wall Street Journal just published an article that presents a position I find confusing. Google wants providers to offer them a fast lane. Now, the situation is growing more complicated. Providers may offer priority delivery of bits provided by paying customers (e.g., Google). Would allowing this business practice also allow cable providers to slow the video bits competing with the paid video business of the same cable company? These situations are different, but once the provider can slow/speed one category of information, will any justification for doing so be necessary?
You might not expect that the issue of which bits receive priority when passing through the Internet would seem an important political issue for the new administration, but the analysis offered by the WSJ may surprise you. The article notes that Google CEO Schmidt is a member of the transition team. The new Google position would seem just as much a violation of net neutrality as the thinly hidden agenda of the cable providers. One of the cool things about the Internet has been the role inexpensive access has provided in encouraging innovation. Hope this is not another of those “pay to play” political/business games.
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