Month: January 2010

Time for subsidized wifi

Topics I write about often seem to coalesce from active themes. I can kind of identify the sources for this post – iPad announcement, reaction to health care reform, and reading the first chapter of “Rethinking education in the age of technology”. The topic that emerged is – Time for subsidized wifi.

Components:
1) From Collins and Halverson – the claim that the education that occurs outside of school is changing and the related concern that those most likely to benefit are those who can afford the toys and the access
2) From the iPad – this appears to be a great tool (although pricey) for exploring and participating online
3) from health care reform – are citizens of the U.S. capable of getting beyond what they can do for themselves to consider what might be best to do for the country

I do think that learning outside of school offers significant possibilities, but the notion that “hand held” devices as they presently exist will change much ignores the cost of access. I always wonder when I listen to presentations about hand held devices why no mention is made regarding the monthly cost for a data plan. Sure, a proportion of kids of all backgrounds may carry a cell phone, but SMS is not going to get it done. Schools might provide the devices (see below – Cindy working in our kitchen), but who will provide the access.

I like the idea of public wifi as a government subsidized option (hence the reference to health care and what we are willing to do for each other).

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GigaOM on wifi renaissance

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Acknowledge your perspective

One of the down sides of social media is that we have control over the connections we make. We tend to select sources that fit our own biases and while we assume the inputs we process are making us more knowledgeable, we may simply be becoming more entrenched in flawed positions.

I have summarized the comments of others on this topic in previous posts (e.g., Keen) and proposed that we all force ourselves to read different positions before we consider ourselves informed (e.g., Bauerlein). I still like the mental image of simultaneously watching Fox and CNN news.

I cannot remember exactly how I came by this resource, but I recently visited Political Compass and completed the instrument supposedly designed to reveal my political “leanings”. The concluding representation was pretty much how I would describe myself without going through the process. A bit of a liberal supporting individual choice. Still, not that far off center. Hence, this blog originates from such a perspective.

Maybe all bloggers should provide such information on “personal perspectives”.

I do think it a concern if online services could connect such data (and responses to individual items) with any individual. I am willing to share, but the instruments asks some specific questions in order to arrive at this more global representation. As a university affiliated researcher, I know the safe guards institutions require before they will let a research collect data. The Political Compass claims that no personal data are retained (no login is required, but an IP could potentially be stored), but does warn that a Facebook app collecting similar data does not offer the same assurance.

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Google Docs to WordPress

[gdocs id=’0ARA4QeFVmMb3YWg0cGp3cGh2emQ5XzI2OWdxeG1nM2Z0′ type=’document’]

This technique involves the inclusion of special markup that is called by the plugin (see above with last part of the document ID obscured for security). The technique works, but after experimenting, I now consider it more appropriate to WordPress pages more so than blog posts. The one situation I can think of that might relate to blog posts would involve making groups responsible for posts to a protected blog. The blog administrator could share a Google doc with specific individuals and establish a link from different docs to a post in WordPress using the unique document IDs. This still would seem a more likely page than post technique.

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A Kid and her Dora Cam

I was taking pictures as my grand kids opened their Christmas presents. Our two and one-half year old granddaughter received a Dora camera. My son gave a quick tutorial on taking pics and off she went. Maybe she just liked the flash. She aimed her camera at me and I reciprocated. My son must have off-loaded her pictures, because the following image arrived today.

The following was my perspective.

There is always a debate regarding when children should be exposed to technology and how much time they should spend. Wouldn’t it be cool to just let young kids take pictures of their world. I wonder what they find interesting? They may wonder the same thing about us.

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Hobby Coder

I enjoy writing code. I have developed the tools I use in my research and I have created some other products I think are useful. The problem I have is keeping up.

Back in 2006, I took an open source, social bookmarking product and added my own modifications. I wanted to create a service that prioritized search suggestions. So, I extended the social bookmarking product by adding a system that counted the number of times suggested links were followed and also allowed users to rate the value of sites they visited. These data were saved and search results were ranked by a combination of these data. My little project continues to be used by those who find it and I was even asked for my code.

Time passes and technology projects age. The original Scuttle was upgraded to Scuttle Plus. I have no idea if any of my code ended up in this project. One of the problems with making your own modifications, especially to projects that involve a database, is that you cannot easily take advantage of upgrades to the “official” project. When improvements have been made by others, merging your modifications with an improved product means you have to carefully go through the new product and understand how the code has changed, determine if the modifications you made can be inserted in the same way, and consider whether changes in database structure require some other modifications. To tell the truth, I forget where in the code my changes even are. So, I am stuck with my 2006 era code.

One thing I came to realize is that my ranking scheme is confounded with time. Some records have been in this database for four years and have accumulated more hits (on average) simply because they have been available longer. This confounding increases in severity because older records are then displayed first and the suggested links followed more frequently. This results in suggestions that may not be suited to current interests. The ratings feature worked great and could potentially counter balance the time confounding problem, but I had to protect the opportunities to rate sites behind a password system. Scuttle was fairly open as I guess a social bookmarking site should be and I began to encounter trouble makers who added inappropriate content. Can’t have that if you hope to offer a service to educators. By limiting inputs behind a password system, you seem to discourage raters. Works great, but too much trouble to use.

Counting the number of times a link to a recommended site is followed does not create security problems and I am attempting to generate a system that would weight popularity by time. I suppose I could create a variable that continually divides the number of hits by the number of years a link has been available. There must be a way to make use of the information in the tens of thousands of times links have been explored from this site.

Maybe I will just wait until summer and then take a look at modifying the official upgrade.

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Why is it always STEM?

It appears that the math, science, and technology folks may be able to cash in on the vague connection between the competitiveness of the U.S. economy and education (see Washington Post article). I would ask the same question of this initiative that I would ask of the focus of NCLB – why the narrow focus? Why not just take as a starting point that K-12 is probably grossly underfunded or is functioning poorly no matter what the content area? What not give increased attention to reading, writing, general health, languages, etc.

As a college prof, I do not actually have a dog in this fight (or whatever the expression is), but I am interested the preparation of K-12 educators and I also have some thoughts on claims made regarding an emphasis on math, science, and technology. In part, I am reacting to claims made by supporters (e.g., Eduflack) that to me seem over the top.

Just a couple of comments rather than a full analysis:
1) I would suggest that while the concern that all students develop problem-solving skills is certainly valid, the notion that a given content area offers the best area for developing such skills is unsubstantiated and likely rejected. My understanding of the position of cognitive psychology is that problem-solving is fairly domain specific. For example, if high school physics or calculus does develop problem-solving skills, these skills do not necessarily matter in other areas of human endeavor.
2) I am of the opinion that the skills that actually place a country in a more economically competitive position come out of the college setting rather than the high school setting. This is a derivative of my more general concern that economic development is only one of many goals of K-12 education. For those going on to college, the question of what best prepares students for college may be quite different than how can we improve STEM.
3) I have little perspective on international economics, but if I were to increase the emphasis in any given area at the K-12 level with regard to this focus it would likely be language skills – both reading and writing in English because of the feed-forward advantage moving into higher education and a PROFICIENCY in some other language. We tend to envy the emphasis on math and science we see in other countries. My wife who has a great deal of international experience makes another point. I think she would suggest that what we miss in this focus is that these same kids in these same countries are Skyping with kids in our classroom. In her most recent experience, the Russian kids are speaking English. Do you think any of the U.S. kids are speaking Russian?

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A commitment to 365 days and at least 365 pictures

Year end always brings goals and resolutions for the year to come. The goal of taking and sharing a picture a day received some attention within this general discussion and Cindy thought it sounded interesting. We have made the commitment to give it a try.

As I thought about the concept, it occurred to me that I had encountered it before. Under my coffee table (now the table in my office that holds my Tivo, AppleTV and HD TV) is a book by Jim Brandenburg – Looking for the Summer. I think of Brandenburg as the nature photographer from this area famous for his wolf images, but this book is a one picture per day thing. I thought the book was based on an even more challenge premise – take only one photograph per day – but in rereading the Intro I learned that this was an earlier Brandenburg book – Chased by the light. I remember that self challenge and have always been impressed. Impressed, but not sure that I exactly understand the point. Perhaps it involves a personal commitment to perfection. My personal standards are not so high. I find life with all options available, even some second takes, about as challenging as I can handle.

Then, I remember seeing a news story about a photographer, a college prof if I recall correctly, who walks to the same location each day and takes the same picture. I also tend to remember this as a Minnesota photographer. I tried to find this collection online and failed. Perhaps someone will recognize the individual or can identify a related web site.

The 365 photos project (there seem to be several) is presented in several ways. Version 1 – improve yourself as a photographer. Version 2 – reflect on or photoblog your life. There are perhaps other foci as well.

Here are several web sites on the concept:
Photojojo 365 Project
365 Project
Flickr Project 365
Lifehacker Description (this is the source I reviewed)

There must be some interesting educational versions (e.g., Middle School Matrix, CogDogBlog). Perhaps a photograph from each school day. Seems like this is a little different than a photoblog. Instead of “here is something interesting I encountered”, think “this is what was interesting today”. Perhaps this is about realizing that there are interesting things around us at all times. Isn’t that what good photographers are able to show us? Things that we see, but don’t really SEE.

Our own plans are still a little sketchy and I not sure yet how we will format our final version. We are presently just uploading images to my Flickr account and attaching the 365 tag. Our personal rules are simple – the picture must be taken on that day. I think “taken” is close enough for me. If necessary, I think I will let upload and annotate slide a little. So far, three days and three images. I wonder how long we will go before we forget? Will I get out of bed when I remember and trudge outside in the snow to find something I can photograph with my Blackberry? Actually, this may increase the likelihood that I will carry my phone with me a little more. We will see.

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