Author: grabe

Zoho

I continue to run across impressive web applications. Web application is a new term for me, but I think this is an appropriate term to describe applications stored on a remote server run over the Internet using a browser. The latest find is the suite of resources made available by Zoho. Exploring the growing collection (write, spreadsheet, presentation, database) has taken some time. I have struggled to get some to work – I could not get the presentation application to display images I inserted in slide. However, other applications I explored were impressive.

Zoho Writer (image below) offers every feature I use in a word processing program. The application accepts uploads (doc, rtf files) and exports files in several formats back to the desktop if you would rather store your work on your own machine rather than online.

Zoho Writer

Again, I am not certain where Zoho is headed. Picnik (the image editing program I used to edit the image appearing above and the web app I described earlier intends to offer a “for pay” full featured version and a free reduced feature version once this company has attracted users and moves beyond beta). If you are concerned experimenting with your work products, I would make certain there is an export to desktop option and save often.

I finally was able to get Zoho Show (the presentation app) working – “kind of”. The difficulty I am struggling with involves getting images appearing during the construction phase to show when the slideshow is presented. At present, I cannot explain the variables that explain when this is a problem and when it is not.

Simple Slide Show

The image (second slide) appears on the Windows OS, but not the Mac OS. Well, I was able to see the image when using Safari on the Mac, but the image was very faded. Nothing appeared on the Mac with Firefox. I am concluding this is not my fault (meaning I am not missing a plugin or something) and Zoho Show needs a little more work.

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Snow Day

When I was a kid (as if that has ever changed), a snow day meant a break. Once a winter or sometimes once every other winter, we would get enough snow for school (now work) to be cancelled. I have  not generated a meaningful post in a while and today was to be the day. However, it started snowing and walking in the snow and taking pictures seemed like a lot more fun.

Snow Day 2007

So today I enjoyed the snow and tomorrow I will have to shovel the snow. Such is life. I am working on more informative posts, but enjoy the snow for now.

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Steve Jobs, Michael Dell and Education

Watch the education blogs for the next day or so and you will likely see comments precipitated by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Evidently, he and Michael Dell (Dell Computers) were discussing the role of technology in schools during a Texas conference on educational reform. Jobs reportedly suggested that technology would have little educational impact until unions stop protecting poor teachers.

What is interesting at present is that the blogs picking up on this story have been focused on whether a business leader should make such statements considering that the company he represents does well in the education market. I guess those concerned about Apple’s bottom line might take this perspective.

There seem to be many business leaders focused on education lately. We all have opinions on matters we understand only through peripheral vision. Often such views lack clarity, but sometimes a different angle brings new insight.

By the way, the conclusions in “Tough Choices or Tough Times” are far more critical of less competent teachers than anything Jobs said. Perhaps this report, which is far more likely to influence government eduation policy, was not read in detail by the same folks now critical of Jobs. So, if you consider criticism of weak teachers grounds for boycotting Apple, check out the list associated with Tough Choices or Tough Times – perhaps you should sell your stock in Viacom, Lucent, and Motorola. Wait – you should also give up your membership in the Toledo Federation of Teachers and the Communication Workers of America. I see a lot of Republicans on this list – wait there are a couple of democrats…

My personal experience with unions has been minimal – I did have a disagreement with a union rep when as a first-year faculty members in financially depressed New York state. I suggested that the last in, first out retrenchment policy did not encourage my union membership and the alternate “bargaining fee” seemed unnecessary because assurance that union policies were followed was not a service I needed. It was not that I felt the policy was unfair. It just seemed unfair I should have to pay to have it implemented. Perhaps I was young and foolish at the time.

There had to be a better way to make this same point. Perhaps – We need to find a way to offer incentives for effective teachers so that a greater number of capable individuals are attracted to teaching as a vocation.

Here is an RSS of news stories on this topic.

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Horizon Report 2007

The New Media Center (in collaboration with Educause) generates an annual prediction of emerging technologies that will influence education and learning. The idea is to identify influences during specific time periods – next year, two-three years, 4-5 years. The report is focused on higher education, but with the exception of technologies K-12 institutions might actively exclude or ignore (e.g., cell phones in second grade, faculty publication) I would think the trends would have general impact.

The predictions:

Coming soon

  • User-Created Content (flikr, YouTube, blogs – and tags)
  • Social Networking

2-3 Years

  • Mobile Phones
  • Virtual Worlds

4-5 Years

  • New Scholarship (new models of publication and recognition for publication)
  • MMEducational Gaming

They describe the identification process as research based (qualitative). It is in a sense – they comb the literature for themes. I would rather see some type of survey that quantifies how widely specific applications are used in actual classroom settings, but I suppose with the exception of the “coming soon” categories this would show very little. At some point someone needs to get beyond describing cool applications that exist here or there and attempt to identify trends that have encouraged a little higher level of adoption. Perhaps this organization should go back to the list of applications/activities identified a couple of years and now survey the frequency of adoption.

I found the wiki associated with this project to be more valuable than the actual report (no offense, but this is the same type of content that seems to be the focus of a couple of keynotes at most conference I have attended recently). The wiki offers plenty of links to examples, connects to del.icio.us links, and seems to develop the arguments in the report in more detail.

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Wikipedia is failing

Wikipedia is failing. First, these are not my words. They are the title of an essay posted within Wikipedia. The short essay attempts a logical and quantitative analysis that on the surface suggests Wikipedia is not living up to expectations.

The argument is based on a grading scheme that attempts to establish whether Wikipedia articles are equivalent to articles found in “old school” encyclopedias and a list of vital topics were selected for review (no idea how these topics were selected). The conclusion:

These topics should have articles of the very highest quality. So do they? In fact, of those 1182, only 72 are featured articles. This means that 94% of the essential topics that should have excellent articles fall short of the standard.

The essay also outlines some of the issues Wikipedia must overcome. While many appear willing to contribute on topics of personal interest, the argument seems to be that folks are not necessarily willing to work on essential topics and contribute for as long as it takes to fashion articles of high quality. The essay contends that six years of work have generated 3000 articles of good or excellent quality (out of an estimated 1.6 million).

The template for “grading” articles is worth a look.

I find Wikipedia useful. For me, it is often a place to begin when exploring a topic. I see nothing wrong with a resource that serves just this purpose. I also value the efforts of those who are attempting to look seriously at the quality of Wikipedia.

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picnik – another web-based application

I keep encountering new web-based applications. The most recent is picnik – an online photo editing application. If what this means does not strike home, it amounts to uploading one of your photos to a remote server, appying various basic editing features to this photo (crop, resize, modify colors, sharpen, remove red-eye, etc.) using your browser, and then saving the modified image back to your computer, Flikr, etc. This is not a Photoshop level app, but how often do most of us really require the photoshop-level power. Even if you own a quality editing program, you probably don’t (and shouldn’t) have it loaded on your office machine, your home machine, your laptop, etc. Schools face a similar challenge – how many copies of photo editing software do they purchase and which machines do they load what they purchase on?

Take a look. The present offering is a beta version. When fully developed, there will be a free version (with basic editing features – I did not read what these would be) and a premium version.

edited photo

This image was uploaded from my collection. I used the crop and resize tools to arrive at something appropriate for a blog and then downloaded it back to my own computer.

edited photo

Image after application of vignette effect.

These web-based apps amaze me. At the most basic level, I must admit I do not really understand how they work. My programming background and web/server activities end up making what I experience even more confusing – no idea how you can do things like this through a browser. However, such technological advances are not really what fascinates me the most. I keep trying to understand why those who create these tools do so. Some might describe this reality as the “business model.” I don’t think this is a for fun, open source venture. There must be some long-term vision here. Include ads? Become popular and sell to Yahoo or Google? Beats me.

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Web 2.0 Trends

I am involved in a writing project related to Web 2.0. As I explore online resources, I encounter lots of interesting things. Here is a dynamic site presenting what are supposed to be the web sites generating the most interest. Since Web 2.0 is a vague and “unofficial” concept, scanning through the list sites/services is one way to gain a sense of what others think qualifies to be included under this heading.

I did notice one additional thing – I am working from a middle school lab today and nearly all of the sites on this list are blocked. Wikipedia worked but few other sites were allowed.

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