Category: General

I experience frequent situations in which I must capture part of the screen for use in a document or presentation. I knew what to do in the old days (OS 9 on the Mac). Command-shift-4 would allow me to select the part of the screen I wanted and save the selected area as a PICT file on the hard drive. Now I use XP and OS X and things aren’t so easy.

As far as I know, XP allows only Alt-printscreen. This captures the entire screen and allows this stored image to be pasted into an application (Paint) for editing. The clipping has to occur in the “paint” application. I know there are products that offer options, but nothing that is built in.

OS X is not much better. Command-Shift-4 – will save a selected area, but the file is PDF. What am I supposed to do with PDF files. Command-shift-control-4 (definitely a two hand move) saves the selected area to memory and a second application (e.g., Preview) can be used to save the contents of memory as a desired file type. OS X does come with the “Grab” utility. Command-shift-A and an area of the screen can be saved as a TIFF. Again, I have to open a paint program to save as PICT or JPG. I still like the old OS 9 system the best.

Looking for good utilities ……

If you have not experienced QTVR, here is your chance. Those associated with the Harry Potter movie have created some online examples. Make sure to explore for hot spots.

I have always felt there were opportunities for using this type of technology to provide improved educational experiences and I have observed a view simple examples. I happen to come across this non-educational example and thought it might at least make a good illustration.

Jamie McKenzie of “From Now On” fame has started a new web site protesting the fundamental principles of “No Child Left Behind.” The web site, titled No Child Left, will offer articles and cartoons pointing out the “unproven and untested” principles on which the new political agenda is based.

Ezedia is a company in Winnipeg, Manitoba (just up the road from here), that creates great and inexpensive multimedia authoring environments. They have been working on an interactive Quicktime authoring system for some time and this product was released at MacWorld.

EzediaQTI creates Quicktime movies but you have to “think different” to understand exactly what you can create. If you have had experience with hypercard (my all time favorite), Toolbook, or HyperStudio, think in terms of the book/stack that you create (cards, buttons, text, images, movies). Quicktime has similar capabilities (frames in the movie serving as pages) — there just hasn’t been an easy to use authoring environment. Until now. The really cool thing is that Quicktime is well suited to web delivery. So it will now be much easier to create interactive experiences for the web. The price – right now educators can get it for $69. Regular price looks like $100. Trust me on this one — you need this product.

I created a very basic demo last night. The Quicktime component does not have to be this small. The movie within the movie is something I happened to have available.

I watched Steve Jobs do his semiannual MacWorld online (with 50,000 other Mac fans)

OK – there was no tablet computer. So I was wrong. The only new hardware annouced were upgraded powerbooks. Very cool and powerful – but pretty pricey for the K-12 crowd we work with.

Here are some topics that may be of value:
1) The free copy of OS X for educators has been extended. Go to the Apple educators site.

2) There is a new lite version of Final Cut Pro – Final Cut Express for $299 that may of value to those wanting to do digital video but find the full price for Final Cut Pro to be too high.

3) Both iPhoto and iMovie have also been upgraded. iMovie has a new enhancement described as the “Ken Burns effect.” This provides a way to use a still image for pans, etc.

4) Apple now has its own browser – Safari – free, fast, and some nice bookmarking features.

5) Apple also released a new presentation tool – keynote – inexpensive and powerful (I will have to give it a try).

Maybe, the tablet computer will be announced next time. 🙂

MacWorld is this week and mac types always look to this convention for new announcements. If you are interested, you can watch the keynote tomorrow online (9 Pacific Time). The game is always to predict what the new products will be. I am betting on a pen-oriented, tablet computer (prehaps iNotepad). The Wintel world beat Apple to announcing such a product about 6 months ago. Apple included a pen input system (Inkwell) in OS X and this would make little sense unless they were moving toward some type of hardware that would make use of this method of interaction.

I think tablet computers (something like PDAs on steroids) will eventually be part of K-12 and college education. This will be the device we carry to class and that will be used to study ebooks.

I think that those of us who spend a good deal of time thinking about and working with technology begin to form different visions for how technology might change things. By a vision, I mean a view of what might be possible, but has yet to be achieved. Some see technology as an inexpensive way to find and access useful information. Others as a way for everyone to offer opinions on the issues that interest them. Probably the vision that most excites me is that of collective intelligence.

By collective intelligence, I mean that each of us knows and can do different things and the combination of such knowledge and skills typically far exceeds what any individual possesses. Wouldn??t it be great, if each of us had some reasonable way to tap into this collective pool of resources.

A great example of a way in which technology allows us to take advantage of collective intelligence is the discussion list. The discussion list is a direct way to tap into the knowledge and skills of a group which shares some common interests. So why don??t more people use discussion lists to address more personal needs. My guess is that there are too many collective costs in the necessary commitments to generate the necessary collective benefits. Perhaps most folks have to sort through too many messages to find something that is useful. In a different situation, there are a few experts and many who feel in need of information. In this case, the experts receive little benefit because there are few opportunities to learn new things and yet there may calls on their time to meet the needs of others. The ??few experts, many in need?? model works in one situation I can think of — the experts benefit because they support novices who use a product. The novices benefit from what the experts have to say. The experts benefit from the sale of their product or at least a product they are associated with and because they learn what makes their product difficult to use and hence how it can be improved.

I have been trying to determine how I might help activate a collective intelligence of some type. I have always felt the faculty members who adopt our books for use in their classes and their students represent a potential collective intelligence. Hear me out — I am not selling anything here. The faculty members have a great deal of experience in teaching this subject matter and perhaps also in related research and practice. If only there were a way for them to share this expertise. It may be useful to the courses they teach. What readings have they found to best supplement the text? What are some great projects for students? At one time, I had hoped to interest such faculty members in allowing me to link to their course syllabus. The idea never really seemed to interest many instructors. I still think it is a good idea and relatively painless.

Here is a related idea. What about sharing a great web resource? We provide access to a database consisting of URLs and short site descriptions — what if people shared a link and a short description. Would this work only if those who contributed could have access?

Maybe I will be able to add more possibilities to my list of ways in which individuals can make a contribution to the collective intelligence with minimal effort. I will let you know. I think this is an idea worth puzzling over.