Month: February 2006

When I do repetitive tasks, I am able to listen to audio books. It is my purposeful way of expanding the breadth of topics I think about. The latest effort of this type has involved John Battelle’s book on “Search”.

After listening to this book, I have decided to purposefully contribute my behavior to the cause. Here is what I am doing and why.

I conduct frequent searches as part of my work and all other aspects of my life. I assume you do the same. I have fallen into the habit of using Google for these activities. I regard it as the most useful search engine.

I have decided to use a greater number of search engines. I used to do this as a way to explore what different services had to offer. I now intend to to so for a different reason. I am convinced the search industry needs samples of my behavior. These data will be helpful in determining how people like me use the Internet and then using this information to improve the experience for all of us. I have made contributions of this type before. I have created several web sites that link to other web sites. Google has analyzed my decisions and has combined my “votes” on what web resources are valuable with the votes of many others to generate its page rank approach to ordering the results of your web searches for your consideration.

Contributing examples of my “click stream” works in a somewhat similar way. The terms I use in my searches and the sites I visit when receiving results from my searches are data that may somehow be useful. Such data represents a compliment to data on how the web contributors have cross linked their resources. On one side there is a system for prioritizing what providers have to offer and on the other a system for contextualizing what searchers are looking for and use.

You can contribute too (or just explore some new ideas if you see things in a different way). Try:

1) the A9 toolbar

2) Yahoo Y!Q

It’s Saturday morning and you don’t feel like watching cartoons. What to do? How about watching a few of the presentations from ACM SigGraph. More than 250 hours of content (including the George Lucas keynote) are available. You will first be required to download special software (I am guessing because someone wants to show off an application) and then enter a guest name and password provided on the page I link above.

Cindy is in the dissemination phase of her history grant. The idea is to extend the training first conducted with history teachers in Grand Forks to other teachers within the region. Today, the program involved an online experience with professionals from the Library of Congress.

No matter how extensive my background with technology, I continue to be amazed by experiences such as this – sitting in Grand Forks and interacting with people from the Library of Congress is pretty cool.

History teacher or not, the LOC is worth exploring. What a tremendous repository of resources and these resources are becoming easier to locate. While I have explored this site on several locations, the tour provided some new insights (perhaps things are being added all of the time). Here is a suggestion – consider exploring the Self-Serve Workshops.

The afternoon session was devoted to teaching with primary sources. This turned out to be less interesting and similar to other sessions I have experienced several times locally. Practicing the three stage analysis system with a couple of images – what do I see, what do I know, what do I think – was probably not the best use of a limited amount of time. This is an issue that has always troubled me in the development of teachers – given a limited amount of class time, should class time be devoted to working through examples. What can be assumed regarding the ability of educators to apply from the presentation and discussion of examples? Homework is one thing, the limited amount of time available when interacting with people from the LOC another.

The demo image follows. Like so many with a computer in my hands, I tend to get off track when not completely engaged. I immediately Googled “evacuation sale” and guessed the image was a forced sale by a Japanese store owner. It turns out the phrase brings up this topic at the top of a Google search. Was I doing history?

The buzz is that virus creators have found a way to pick on Mac users (Washington Post article). As I understand the approach, Mac users must be tricked into downloading a file purported to be a picture but that is actually a program. When opened, the program attempts to send itself to anyone on the users iChat list.

The logic works like this – here is a secret file, open it, run it, and see what happens (I am being facetious here). The danger would seem to be in situations in which you receive such a file from someone you know and do not stop to wonder why an image file would come in a compressed form, etc.

MacWorld Article

An issue Cindy addresses in her preprofessional technology for teachers class is the longevity and visibility of what we say on the Internet. Her point to future teachers is that the behaviors you describe online (.e.g., myspace) may be available for consideration by future employers (or parents if that thought is scarier).

An eSchool News article  considers a similar issue and describes some similar examples (e.g., high school athletes bragging about drinking behavior). The message – be aware of your digital footprint.

What is that expression – The wheels of justice grind slow, but they grind exceedingly fine? It was the slow part of this expression that came to mind.

I am preparing for my instructional design class and I want to talk about what research tells us about instructional software. Reading research articles and reviews of research articles is often frustrating for education graduate students. The results often seem inconclusive and marginal making it difficult for those searching for clear guidance to reach any kind of conclusion.

Then it came to me – the Department of Education would provide the information I need. From some dark and seldom accessed region of my brain, I dredged up the recollection that the U.S. Department of Education in keeping with the requirements of NCLB that educational practice be based on “rigorous scientifically based research methods to provide evidence of effectiveness” had undertaken to “carry out a national study of the conditions and practices necessary for technology to be used effectively to improve teaching and learning.” This program was mandated by Congress in 2001 and the press release identifying the software to be evaluated and the companies to conduct the reseach is dated 2004.

“Why bother with the journals I normally read?” I thought. No reason to consider the findings of those university professor types, why not rely on the research sponsored by the government?

Do you remember this topic? Companies were worried their software would not be considered (only a few commercial programs were accepted for evaluation) and were worried that only “approved” software that demonstrated achievement gains could then be purchased with federal funds (the list of software selected is included in the site I link to above).

The Feds would certainly be in a unique position to do certain types of research. Major studies are very expensive – to assure cooperation schools and teachers will likely be compensated to make certain the methodological definition of the control and treatment conditions are maintained, supervision to make certain compliance with such assignments will also be required, there will likely be the need to purchase content specific evaluation instruments, etc.

After wading through the literature and the typical criticisms, I do want to read the methodology of these well funded studies. What will serve as a dependent variables? Will there be multiple dependent variables to assure that a range of outcomes and possible benefits and liabilities be evaluated? What will be considered a “control group”? etc.

Evidently, government funded initiatives do not operate under the “publish or perish” directive. I have been looking, but I cannot find anything that would indicate what has been accomplished to this point. I can find online resports announcing that a company’s software has been selected for the research and I can find comments on the government initiative and discussions of what qualifies as quality research. What I can’t seem to locate are SRI or Mathematica (the companies selected to perform the research) reports. I will keep trying and if something surfaces I will add it here.

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A related project, the What Works Clearinghouse, provides what I think is a useful tool for those interested in educational research. Among other services, the site lists various research studies and identifies which meet and which do not meet “quality” research standards. It appears that middle school math is the only content area with reported studies at this time.

Somewhere in my Intro Psych notes (I teach the course from time to time), I must have some lecture material on “addictions.” What is an addiction? Are there good addictions? etc.

The concept of a technology “addiction” surfaces from time to time in a negative way. The “message” in such concerns might be that – “Kids need to get outside and stop spending so much time in front of the computer” or “People don’t talk anymore – they just send emails”. I remember in the early days of email and the Internet, there was a notion that technology was leading to shallow interpersonal relationships and a greater incidence of depression.

I tend not to think of such issues in a personal way – I just spend more and more time using technology to do my work and my life. Perhaps I should consider what my use of technology is doing to my inner child, my relationships, etc.

OK – after a few seconds of thought, I have decided everything is fine. Or, more accurately, I have decided that my life, imperfections and all, is my life and this life simply includes many experiences that involve technology. These are real experiences that involve real people, real emotions, and the real world. I communicate with technology because it is an efficient and effective way to communicate. My wife IMs me when she is done teaching her class and we can go to lunch. I take digital pictures instead of capturing images on film or the more personal “sketches or paintings”. I enjoy the process of collecting digital images, I can’t draw, and while I enjoy nature in my face it is -20 today and there is nothing much about that is green or moving. How I interact with people or the world around me is less significant than is that the fact that I interact.

I suppose these “concerns” resurface with each new technology. I read Toffler’s “The Third Wave” many years ago and remember Toffler’s observation that with each new wave of change there is a certain nostalgia and even attempts by some to move back to the lifestyle of an earlier time. He observed that often the good old days were not actually as good as we remember or as are reported by those who romanticize and do not actually experience.

ABC News offers the comments of several experts on the topic of Computer Addiction or Just Modern Life.