Month: July 2003

New Toy

iSight Image

I have a new toy – an iSight. The iSight is a video camera/microphone from Apple. I made the purchase because of another product – iChat AV. iChat allows audio/video/text interaction. At this point, I can’t say I have interacted with anyone using the video capabilities of this system, but Cindy and I communicate using audio (she is in Japan this summer) and the quality of the audio is great. We may have to wait a bit to try the video. There is supposedly a new Apple store in Tokyo, but she could not find it.

iChat is presently available as a free beta to those operating on OSX machines. I read the ads to indicate the product will eventually cost $30 to those with existing OSX software and will come with the next version of the operating system. Try the beta to see what you think.

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Front Page

A listserv I follow has recently been discussing Microsoft FrontPage. In my opinion, this web authoring program has had a bad reputation. The messages to the list continue to support this view, but some disagree. One link that surfaced – Front Page Updates – seems to show that improvements have been made.

I would certainly welcome comment if you have had experience with this product.

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Last Day

Blogging NECC has caught on. I see that an organized group of contributors is creating NECC blogs so a link from here is warranted.

I have noticed there is not a lot of support here for “No Child Left Behind.” Perhaps this is a function of the sessions I select. I listed to Ferdi Serim this morning. He and a colleague talked about the difference between growth (NWEA) and performance orientations to evaluation. The idea is that a hurdle system (performance) does a poor job of informing teachers how to work with individual students and is insensitive to entering differences in capabilities/background.

I attended a David Thornburg presentation to end the day. Again, a big picture person with challenging ideas. The theme of the presentation was helping students navigate from data to understanding. Thornburg offered some interesting data on data – just how much of it we experience. He also recommended tools for working with data – how to locate meaningful data (Grokker), how to organize (Inspiration) and how to personalize and add context (eZedia). I assume other tools could be substituted. Grokker was new to me. This application is a different type of search engine/organization tool and it is certainly worth a look.

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Alan Kay Keynote

I like presenters who offer both big ideas and specific examples. If you have the time, connect to the archived video of Alan Kay’s keynote. You will have to wait a bit to view the archived version, but in a week or so try Minds TV. If you once were excited by the ideas of Papert and LOGO, this presentation is for you.

Since this video will likely go away soon, you might also explore a web site that attempt to promote some of the same ideas – Squeakland.Org.

Recommended site – Adobe Digital Kids Club. Learning and apply the skills of digital photography.

50 Ideas for using a digital camera in an elementary school.

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