eCROP Blog

TPACKs insufficient transitional model

2011-11-09T10:17:00.007-05:00

The currently popular TPACK model separates technology knowledge from pedagogy and content, viewing technology as a set of basic operational skills with a thing or things. This might be useful if it will be seen as the insufficient perspective that it provides. It is the equivalent to saying that writing is the basic operational skill with pencils, pens, books and paper, with skill in using and safely storing and organizing the data put on them, with skill in installing and removing books and articles and switching out procedures for different writing sequences and using the postal service. Yes, we needed to know those things to think with text for the last several centuries, and we need to know basic digital skills for the 21st century but this perspective loses sight of the forest for the trees.

TPACK is a transitional digital immigrant perspective forced on education by its low socio-economic status in our culture. Education’s SES has long prevented digital technologies from becoming ubiquitous for its primary constituents (educators and students) in contrast to the way that digital utilization has evolved in every other major industry of our culture. The TPACK model is akin to someone learning that new language, a learner focused on its underlying structure, not yet fluent, not dreaming in the new language yet.

To the digital natives steeped in the new tools, literacy has been transformed by the digital page. There are two overlapping circles, not three. Digital literacy is content. It is one of the major content areas; software (not hardware) is king; information is valued for its distribution not its possession; technology is the invisible infrastructure that makes it all happen but never the focus of the scene. The new literacy is the particular content that deals with expression and problem solving in the minute-to-minute digital happenings of their lives. These “expressive arts” are the new language arts. The words language, reading and writing are now but a subset of the larger means of expression, understanding and composing.

Digital literacy is so much more than the expression of words, having made significant progress towards having a means for editing, mixing, archiving and transmitting the full range of human senses and unique capacities. The software that holds the ideas for digital understanding and composing has major categories of many variations with a rich history of practice prior to and on the Web: text, still image, video, audio, 2D animation, 3D animation, sensors/robotics, and social interaction. I take literacy to be the capacity to compose and understand what goes on a page (or frame). Arguably within a decade these fundamental elements of digital literacy made most of the former literate world illiterate or functionally illiterate with these newer means of digital expression on screens and Web pages. This takes time for cultural digestion and transition.

This cultural transition should also be seen within a much larger scene. The current economic malaise that so impacts world educational progress can also be seen as a holding action, an impasse between the forces of information and those of wealth and force. Our setting is caused in part by our current culture’s deep misunderstanding of the unique economic and cultural power of information and its current dominating digital nature (over 94% digital), which contrasts to our long practiced history with the cultural powers of wealth and physical power/force (manufacturing, military, agriculture) (Toffler, 1990). The political process of putting the digital natives in positions of significant leadership and authority is going to take some time.

Freedom Box

2011-08-26T16:05:00.003-04:00

It's hard to see freedom and its ally of privacy disappearing, until they're gone. Nice software project underway to get it back using off the shelf hardware.

To play the CBS News story, click the next link: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7358702n

http://www.sdtimes.com/blog/post/2011/08/24/Taking-Control-of-User-Data.aspx

http://freedomboxfoundation.org/

Original outing of the idea, 57 minute lecture, http://www.law.columbia.edu/magazine/interactive/5848/view-more-professor-eben-moglens-2010-internet-society-speech

The knowledge society: How can teachers surf its data tsunamis?

2011-03-08T15:39:00.003-05:00

Properly sifted and mixed, data becomes knowledge and occasionally wisdom. The ongoing explosion of information, represented by the graph on the left, has challenged our cultural capacity in the extreme. Your comments and reactions to a much larger article, The Knowledge Society, are encouraged.

Info Age Against Industrial-Military Complex

2011-02-19T12:03:00.006-05:00

The revolutionary struggles in the Middle East, facilitated by the social networking tools of the Web, are one more sign of the titanic struggle between the growing power of Net collaborating and the heterarchical nature of the information versus the Web and the centralized power of the hierarchical forces that President Dwight D. Eisenhower (also commander in-chief of the free-world military in WWII) saw and warned about in his closing address to the nation in 1960 in regard to the industrial-military complex (and in his 1953 Chance for Peace speech). In the United States the next election might be defined as information systems vs. money and weapons systems, the Web vs Wall Street.

Exponential Gaps

2011-02-16T14:57:00.006-05:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The rapid growth of information provides a constant source of change and new opportunity. Information management can be divided into 3 major divisions, each evolving at their own unique pace: storing information (reaching across time, 23% growth per year); communicating iniformation (reaching across space, 28% growth per year); and computing information (composing or processing, 58% growth per year) (Hilbert & Lopez, 2011). The impact of that growth is continually revealed in a number of cultural changes whose implications are still being analyzed. One sign of the information age transformation from 1950 to 1980 was that manufacturing goods had been eclipsed by information management as the dominant economic activity in the world. The tipping point in information storage occurred in 2002 when more information was stored digitally than in analog format. In 2000, 75% of the world's information was still in analog format (paper, videotape, etc.) but by 2007, 94% was preserved digitally (Hilbert & Lopez, 2011).

Interesting details, by why is pondering the increasing deluge of data important? See the related multimedia composition that addresses the exponential and growing gaps in information storage, analysis, composition and access (the digital divide) that cause problems for all of us. And data is just one of many exponential challenges. How should we deal with them all?

Digital Divide as the new "Iron Curtain"

2011-02-04T23:25:00.025-05:00

The digital divide is becoming the new "Iron Curtain" of the 21st century. That is, there is a significant group of citizens even in the United States that are walled off from access to the rapidly growing Net by lack of knowledge and wealth to the technology and software of the 21st century. They are increasingly as restricted from participation in the economically and politically viable part of world culture as those left behind the Iron Curtain in the 20th century (left photo). The new digital wall is invisible. It is not created by powerful, nationally centralized and impersonal control from individuals, but by powerful globally decentralized and impersonal networks. In democracies, our vote on policies control access. To move national and global culture forward, citizens are re-examining the nature of the universal rights of citizenship and the value of questioning and communicating that digital access promotes.

The digital divide, though the most significant, is just one of the many information age gaps brought about by the data explosion.

Finland (Pictet, 2010) is the first to recognize that the creation of a fully functional information society requires access to high speed broadband as a legal right. The cost of the Net access device, some form of computer, is increasingly a minor to trivial cost. The more major barrier is the monthly cost of access to the Net. Many countries are edging towards joining Finland in the world's new liberation zone. Japan, South Korea and Sweden have moved the cost down to under a dollar a month for very high speed services at many times the national average speed in the United States. Other policies such as Britain's Race Online 2012, currently provide cheap refurbished PCs with subsidized Net connections seeking to "make the UK the first nation in the world where everyone can use the Web" (HM Government, 2011).

The flipside of this issue is the cost of not having or losing Net services and not educating and digitally liberating citizens. The current disturbances within Egypt (February, 2011) that shut down that small country's access to the Net cost the country over $90 million dollars in just 5 days (Bryant, 2011). The digital divide shuts down far more at a cost that researchers are just beginning to analyze (Delgado, 2010), but by implication a high multiple of the cost to Egypt.

It is time to tear down that wall. The wall must go.

Open311: another model for questions & solutions

2010-12-12T21:15:00.002-05:00

The story on What a Hundred Million Calls to 311 Reveal About New York in the Nov 2010 issue of Wired explores 311 applications, and puts an accent on Open311. The growing set of 311 applications help citizens report problems such as open manhole covers, graffiti and broken water mains. It was discussed that they also might evolve to collect ideas for areas of need for a community and to direct citizen volunteers to assist in various projects. I see 311 type projects as one more class of question systems, but a type which provides a more substantive focus on real world solutions. Both types provide schools with a ready source of problems that can be used for real problems that can used in different curriculum content areas such as science and language arts.

Adobe's Rome for Education

2010-11-14T21:06:00.006-05:00

Ah, the promise of Rome - no, not sparkling fountains. Sorry. The goal is an application suite for the full range of the digital palette for 21st century composition and problem solving (see graphic for elements). That would certainly make our fountains of creativity sparkle. Adobe's decided to leave the rarified air of professional design and come after the home/small business/school market with a highly integrated media suite called Rome.

The Rome app includes composition editors for text, graphics, images and animation. A simplified animation editor is huge. I can also see a way to insert video and audio, but there is no evidence that I can yet see that it includes an audio editor (features from their Soundbooth would be nice). So it doesn't offer a challenge to GarageBand. I see nothing yet for a video editor (features from their Premiere would be nice). So, no challenge for iMovie. Or have I just not found those Rome tools yet? It does not include live collaboration tools (features from Adobe's Connect 8 would be nice). So, no challenge for FaceTime and iChat. There is no 3D app. But if this startup gambit is successful, they clearly have the audio, video and collaboration apps to trim down and insert into Rome. The game has gotten more interesting but Rome does not yet offer the full range the 21st century digital palette.

E-readers - Kindles and more

2010-10-15T12:38:00.010-04:00

The university library at Western Carolina University has been swamped by requests to checkout its Kindle e-readers. Schools, such as the Standish-Sterling Community Schools in Michigan have started limited pilot projects with just selected classes so far. But it has them thinking. As part of their 3 year technology plans they are exploring 1 for each student.

Let's help them out. The ereader market is just part of the mobile digital literacy scene. Is it too soon to buy in big? How would you use them in your classroom? What educational challenges would these devices help solve?

Join the online discussion. Click the Comments link below.

Defining the Web

2010-05-31T15:29:00.003-04:00

Curt Hopkins wrote a neat posting titled Our Network is Alive seeking a new name for the Net or Web. Fun! The comments from responders so far have included these names: The Culture, emergence, noosphere, consciousness of Gaia, noocortex, metamind, knot, fabric, mesh, nodes, network, iweb, awakening, enlightenment, overmind, reflexive,  intervines, the collective,  exchangeable,  avastent , avast,  pangeant, media maze, slice, VALIS-Vast Artificial Living Intelligence System, flambango, metaverse, global digital brain, cellular neural technical network, anti-singularity, rhizome, now-now, flutternet, thinkhammer.

Go add your own.

"The Web" seems in a slight lead among these options. Should the name define how it is structured or what it does?

Innovations in Image Composition

2010-03-22T17:11:00.002-04:00

It's fascinating to watch the doubling of pixels for camera resolution for the same price, making it almost worth while to buy a new camera every year. The innovation curve for image making continues to shoot upward. Keep an eye out for new developments in image creation and comment away with news of the latest changes.

Online Live

2009-11-04T15:36:00.002-05:00

Increasingly our computers and smartphones are becoming the centerpiece of handheld, desktop and room-sized communication studios where we communicate our ideas, our personality and our 21st century digital literacy in a live setting. Webcam videoconferencing and microphone audio conferencing are a growing part of the social fabric of twenty-first century living which adds new elements to our social skills.

Many webcam users are not in ideal lighting situations. Be on the lookout for some of the newest webcams which come with one or more LEDs to raise the light values of the presenters face. Search for "webcam light" to find specific products. The example on the left can be found at LightInTheBox.

For more, read Communicating Online Live: Best Practices.

Faster than vocabulary-ereader merged with elibrary

2009-08-05T06:55:00.011-04:00

Ereaders are erasing the distinction between a book and a library. Readers are familiar with paper book sizes and weights that range from those that fit in the palm of a hand to paperback and textbook size to poster size. Now imagine digital equivalents of great variety, lighter weight and notably thinner, think clipboard thickness. More importantly, these devices will hold not just one book or article, but hundreds of books initially. Moore's Law (long article) will push this capacity into the stratosphere in the years ahead. The end of familiar careers? Not a chance. Now everyone will need a personal librarian and personal cataloging system. Everyone may also need the equivalent of personal first grade or primary level teachers to periodically update and review digital reading basics (long article).

The range of such devices currently extends from the iPod Touch and iPhone in the palm of the hand to the larger and more paperback to magazine sized reader products. They include: the readily available Kindles from Amazon.com, the scarce OLPC devices, Sony's PRS-300 and PRS-600, the expectation of a tablet computer from Apple and similar devices from PlasticLogic that will be promoted by Barnes & Knoble bookstores. The innovation in mobile information systems is just revving its engines. Much more is yet to come.

Change is coming faster than the vocabulary needed to talk about it. What should the term or phrase be for the merger of the ereader and the elibrary? ReadBrary? Librook? Use comments link below for suggestions!

Sensors & Remote Control Composition

2009-07-22T09:41:00.002-04:00

The IPSO Alliance recently announced over 50 members were now leading the movement towards the establishment of Internet Protocols for physical objects, an Internet of Things, an alliance including Cisco, Intel, SAP, Sun Microsystems and Texas Instruments. However, news of finished agreements from the Internet Engineering TaskForce (IETF) are not yet available. As this planning is finished, expect to see an explosion of designs and products from these global leaders that broaden the opportunity for compositions that incorporate sensors and remote control. For education, this raises the question of the curriculum goals needed to prepare students for this future.

This should raise a number of questions for educators, including: How many ideas can you imagine that would incorporate sensors and the Internet? What should the educational goals be? What should the curriculum competencies look like?

1 to 1 computing - netbooks - When?

2009-07-15T08:04:00.007-04:00

Many see the advantage of every student having their own Web-book, their own computer in the classroom. Recent reports show purchase of netbooks doubling around the world while sale of laptops, etc. are flat. PriceGrabber shows numerous models from $200 up. Is it time for schools to begin major investments in them? PixelQi thinks $75 is within reach in the near future. In addition to cost, I'm thinking that the palm, netbook, and touch tablet designers can still greatly improve battery life and screen readability for differing light conditions, which will come with new screen designs announced summer 2009.

Here's more detailed thinking on this topic with references that could also use some reaction. http://bit.ly/3qRRt

ranking uses of Twitter

2009-06-22T14:59:00.004-04:00

Much as been made over the trivial nature of the tweets of many Twitterers. However, that critique could be leveled at much that is composed in many forms, not just Twitter.com on the Web. The greater challenge for Twitter is to build sufficient twiteracy to create useful and interesting roles for the application. So, let's push the envelope. What are the rank-ordered top ten problems or challenges that Twitter can address or even solve?

I've parked a couple of ideas on this page, Twiteracy Top Ten in hopes of adding more. Comments that can be added to the page are welcomed!

finding info by Web Country codes

2009-05-05T11:18:00.007-04:00

P.S. For those who Twitter, this post can also be found at http://tinyurl.com/dkwfp6

If you want to Google (search) for the perspective of someone from a different country or if you want to find someone with an email account, or media created by someone in a different country, then in the search string use site: followed by the country code. For example, if looking for a history professor in Germany then one might search "history professor" site:.DE and yes there is a period between the colon and the letters DE. Odds are that the history professor's Web pages are in German requiring you to know the German translation for history professor in order to do the search. Of course, knowing the country codes can be a challenge. So here's some country code solutions.

I copied down the country code text from wikipedia and saved as text file from Word, then imported into Excel, then imported into Blist. The Blist database is titled Web Country Codes. Now anyone can search by continent, country or any of the other columns. You may also want to watch the short but great videoclip on how to filter (search) and sort this data. By the way, Blist is an exceptionally well implemented Web 2.0 tool and the best way I've found yet to teach database use, way better than starting with MS Access.

Oh, you also are likely to need translations when scanning pages in other languages. Use Google's language translation service (part of the larger Google Guide) that might get you closer to understanding the page.

These particular techniques are just some of the many features usable in Google search to get more of what you want, not just more. Explore these "cheat sheets" for more special commands: Google Help's Cheat Sheet; and my favorite, About.com's Google Search Shortcuts.

Google's GeoEye hotshot imagery arriving

2009-03-25T11:48:00.003-04:00

It has taken some time since he September launch of the GeoEye satellite, but the fine tuning is done and the images have been pouring in to the Google Earth database.

The first fabulous samples can be found here:

http://earth.google.com/geoeye/index.html

Even more important is the new version of the app, Google Earth 5.0, which includes the multimedia options for making narrated movies of traveling across Google Earth to see the scenes from under the ocean to across all land masses.

Gapminder-data for the socially conscious

2008-11-16T13:19:00.000-05:00

When the goal is to show the evidence, the tangible results of verifiable measurement, Gapminder provides the statistical power in a visually compelling way.

New satellite-Visual literacy with Google Earth

2008-08-30T13:03:00.005-04:00

Most real problems have a geographic factor. Google Earth is a superb application for educators and problem solvers, one that is constantly improving. One problem has been the display of fuzzy to high quality images from satellite images that might be up to several years old, depending on whether you were rural or in a fast growing high population area. The San Francisco bridge image on the left is an example of the high quality to which Google is soon switching (click image for larger photo) for all its images. The company GeoEye launches the GeoEye-1 on Sept 4, 2008, just days away. According to Google's Hurowitz, it "has the highest ground resolution color imagery available in the commercial marketplace and will produce high-quality imagery with a very accurate geolocation." At highest quality, a twenty-two inch (.41 meter) area in black and white or 1.65 meters in color will make up 1 pixel. In one click it can capture great quality of an area the size of the state of New Mexico. Further, it could produce these high quality maps of the entire United States every 30 days.

It will be almost two months after launch before the new images begin to flow into Google's databases, then another month or so to complete the set of overlapping maps for the U.S. This means the end of the semester will be a good time to re-visit the satellite image of your school or other locations. Could be fun to screen capture the best resolution now, then again to compare at the end of November.

New online digital literacy options

2008-08-25T16:26:00.003-04:00

The number and quality of the applications available on the Web continues to grow. In fact, applications that don't have an online equivalent are increasingly hard to find. Some of the most notable of these new Web 2.0 applications that I'm exploring add to the text tools of the digital literacy palette (on left). They include the database applications of Blist (database with spreadsheet features) and LazyBase. Of further interest are the Spreadsheet applications within Google Docs, and EditGrid. However, these are just some of the highlights of hundreds of Web 2.0 applications that are categorized on the Evoke-Problem Solving page.

The affordable "digital pencils"

2008-04-11T13:14:00.021-04:00

Thirty years after I first took my first personal computers from Commodore (the PET), Radio Shack (TRS-80) and Apple (the Apple II) into my elementary classrooms in Wisconsin, we are almost there, finally close to realizing the dream of a new public school curriculum built on the metaphorical digital pencil (e.g., affordable, networked, every child has one in the classroom, personal computer). For example of price movement in the right direction, see EB's simple MIMD prototype to the left or explore Gillette's excellent chart comparing the current leading low cost laptop computers, which does not include the Elonex One (100 UK), Northec Gecko ($300 and up), or the more than 25 new Intel Atom processor devices ($250-$350) coming soon.

It took the recent threat of Nicholas Negroponte's $100 XO laptop vision for the computer industry to "get religion" on the topic of functional ubiquitous child-priced computers. The industry then shifted close to panic this January as Mary Lou Jepsen (past CTO for Negroponte's XO project, now head of Pixel Qi) promised a $75 device in large quantities by 2010. She can deliver and they know it. Though fearful of cannibalizing older product genres, the current hegemony of digital power is wisely recognizing self-interest in the creation of an entirely new product category. New low-power, cheaper chips seem to be announced almost daily from the chip foundries like Intel, who are hopeful of a new computer-rush.

This hopefulness is generating a bit of interesting spin-master product placement fantasy. Educators be alert! The labels of $100 laptop or OLPC or XO have been awkward, so new terms are emerging, including "Handheld-size MIDs,--short for Mobile Internet Devices and Netbooks" (Crothers, 2008). Intel and other major corporations would like to sell the concept to schools that though the inexpensive devices will have cheaper and slower CPUs, the cheap MIDs and Netbooks will be at least great information delivery devices, Net readers if you will. Embedded in their pitch is the impression that the larger more expensive software applications and computers will still be needed to do the real work, the creative composition of the world. How protective of the status quo sales of expensive laptops and so belatedly Web 1.0. Whoa - did they sleep through all the million news stories on Web 2.0 over the last three years? Do they have any idea how big the set of online applications has become which is competing with desktop applications? Since dirt cheap laptops are heading into the market, doesn't IBM look brilliantly prescient having sold their personal computer line to Lenovo in China years back?

Shades of the time-share terminals of the 1970's, the hardest computing is getting done on the networked server, not on the laptop. The creative compositional/editing work from text to photo to music to video is increasingly getting done on IBM's "big iron" mainframe style computer with the web browser serving as the operating system for the computer as remote terminal. This transition gained huge momentum with the text blogging movement, a technique that I am using now to enter text into an input box on a web page for this editorial. That is, we increasingly don't have to have expensive software such as the Microsoft Office apps or Adobe Premiere which require expensive high speed laptops and desktops in order to do compositional work. Also we don't have to have a printer. All we generally may need is a web browser to reach composition tools and the Net to publish the creations.

There is a further and much greater educational affront than failing to develop computers priced for every child to have in schools. This is the corporate computing concept undergirding "netbooks" marketing to schools that classrooms are information delivery vehicles ("open brain, pour in information, now even faster and cheaper with a Netbook!"). Want to compose something? Buy the more expensive technology." Such "worst practice" models should be stamped out where ever they rear up. Especially in a democracy, literacy should mean both reading and composition, the capacity to understand AND create what goes on a page (cellulose OR digital). To a certain degree, a cheap Netbook or MID will do both just fine, thank you, and with a browser to reach online applications, can do so at a level appropriate for K-12 to introduce the full range of 21st century online composition/editing: text, photo/drawing, animation, audio, video, 3D, and electronics.

Moore's law and other trends will eventually make the cheap $75 computer as powerful as today's expensive laptops. So, watch carefully for new sightings of the products noted above and others that might emerge. Post your comments and finds here. Good news - within the next two years, public education will be able to fully enter and embrace the 21st century and its new literacy requirements and in large measure, obliterate the cause of the digital divide. If legislatures finance appropriately, public schools can do the rest. Are we ready?

21st Century Literacy

2008-03-10T22:12:00.007-04:00

If a quick definition of literacy is the capacity to both understand and create what goes on a page, then to determine current literacy needs we must be able to compare what happens on paper pages with what happens in 21st century communication on Web pages. Is the digital palette on the left a sufficient summary of the major forms of composition on the web? Of the elements on this palette, how are these Web forms being combined and integrated with the historical precedents of literacy? By what strategies will public education incorporate these forms into public school curriculum for all students?

A more in-depth treatment of digital literacy is also available online.

Serious questions-LinkedIn

2007-10-05T01:33:00.000-04:00

The social networking site for professionals, LinkedIn, provides a great question/answer service, LinkedIn Answers, http://www.linkedin.com/answers/
And like many such sites, LinkedIn provides permanent links to a question. This is a key feature for building a web page of questions and tracking responses generated by an individual or by a team.

Community Based Research (CBR)

2007-10-04T23:52:00.000-04:00

The CBR Networking Initiative has created a wiki site with the goal of building an online handbook for those engaged in community based development and research, http://www.cbrwiki.org/.

Flatworld Processor

2007-07-14T09:23:00.003-04:00

Entrepreneurship Mashups

Concept: given the host of web 2.0 composition tools and resources on the net, the potential exists to create entrepreneurship processors for composing a new business. Since the concept of "The World is Flat" is only marginally realized, aggregating mashups at higher levels accelerates the world's capacity to add value to its systems. Doing so makes the highway to flatworld more inclusive. The question is fairly straight forward. Given a set of steps or procedures for creating a new organization, whether business or non-profit, what web 2.0 etc. tools match each step?

As there is no magic formula, there are many sequences that can work, just as there are many recipes for a good meal. Elegant recipes turn out great meals in the fewest possible steps. So, the challenge is on - to design and create a set of elegant processors for startups and beyond.

Let's coin a phrase:

The Flatworld Processor

Define/describe and name the entrepreneurship process.
Attach Web 2.0 features to as many steps as possible.
Attach the process to a social network with a global economic focus.

Challenge: Working this into school curriculum goals and objectives.

Comments?

Intel-MIT Mashup-in common software!

2007-07-14T09:17:00.000-04:00

The XO (MIT's $100 laptop) and Classmate (the $200 laptop from Intel) were competitors. Now the mashup is on. XO is has set the lot size from 1 million to 250,000 at $176 each. Intel will apparently sell their model in any quantity at $200. The new goal is to design code so that programs developed for one will work on the other!

WWW idea processor

2007-06-05T12:51:00.000-04:00

As the Web as idea processor gains acceptance, educational systems have an opportunity to engage the community in developing intellectual operating systems. At their core lies a concept at the heart of creativity and innovation. A question. How does one nourish and distribute a crop of interesting questions? What does the post-question processor look like? Use these question to guide further planning and organization.

3D Leaps Forward

2006-11-25T23:16:00.000-05:00

We work and play in a three dimensional world. We jump into 2 dimensional space for our textual and photographic information and most of our compositions. Creating in 3D used to mean sculpting rock, clay and other media. In digital environments, it also meant significant costs for software and hardware to create 3D images. A pair of programs have changed the cost to computer users, Google Earth and SketchUp. See samples of Google Earth at
www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2006/03/expecting_lots.html. See video tutorials of SketchUp at http://sketchup.google.com/tutorials.html

affordable digital literacy for the rest of us

2006-10-29T21:32:00.000-05:00

Two major projects accelerating low cost digital literacy options are scheduled to hatch in January 2007. One is from a major computer maker and one is from a major open source team.

To track Apple's release of their chameleon like device which may play video, music, have keyboard and work with wi-fi and cell phone wireless, search Google news for iPhone. A version of it may go for free for a long term cellphone contract. http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&amp;ned=&q=iphone&btnG=Search+News

To track OLPC's progress with the $100 laptop, skim Bender's weekly reports and archive at
http://laptop.media.mit.edu/laptopnews.nsf/latest/news?OpenDocument

Croquet and history of eTools Presentation

2006-09-10T01:28:00.000-04:00

Alan Kay and colleague review the history of eThinking using 2d and 3d interfaces, show clips of pioneers from the 60's. During the last 25 minutes of this 58 minute videoclip they partner to demonstrate their new 3D operating system, Croquet. Date, Oct 10, 2003, at eTech Conference.

http://cf.mannby.com/blog/2006/08/squeak-and-croquet-demo-etech03.html

National Net Neutrality Defense System Needed

2006-04-22T13:51:00.000-04:00

Hello Jamaicans. The OLPC ($100 laptop) hardware and Croquet/Linux software movements are within range of the land of almost no-cost citizenship to the digital 21st century for all citizens. By grooving a path to those at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, we will further increase the educational levels and economic competitiveness of a nation. For example, many groups who have been disenfanchised have recently been making great strides, such as the giant leaps forward taken in Internet use by the black community. Further, many ambitious rural and metropolitan regions that have been challenged economically have been building wireless and wired networks to increase local Internet access in hope of also catching up. However, the successful and intense multi-million dollar lobbying of the phone and cable companies is powering up for summer 2006 to get the legal power to end the prior legislative understanding of net neutrality. They will thereby gain a toll-gate monopoly of priority-based toll roads across the path of accessibility to the Internet and its vast treasure trove of free and commercial resources. See (http://www.cio.com/archive/041506/net.html?source=cioinsider).

Perhaps it is time for a national net neutrality defense system (NNNDS) and a national meeting of minds to develop alternatives to the "last mile" access that is currently managed by phone and cable companies. I'm also open to a better acronym for the effort. National Education, Economics & Communication System (NEECS)?

It is helpful to review the history of past highly successful efforts for national communication and economic development systems, such as the interstate highway system advocated for and achieved by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. See http://www.infoplease.com/spot/interstate1.html. The interstate was orginally proposed as a tollway system but now serves all users without regard to economic status and without the kind of priority lanes and tollway mechanisms being proposed for the Internet by phone and cable companies. Similar values apply to our national library system, which has co-existed successfully with commercial bookstores for quite some time.

As Google, Yahoo and Microsoft should be opposed to the end of net neutrality, I suspect they'd be willing to fund the effort and maybe even recognize their mutual need for alliance in spite of their intense competition in other areas. There are interesting technical solutions that regions can consider, including Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) and important new develpments in digital wireless systems that can be brought into play.

Is anyone engaged in this effort already? Here's some: http://www.savetheinternet.com/ and there's Senate effort. Use your net skills to reach out and touch someone on this issue.

interaction's perfect storm-Croquet, OLPC & I2

2006-04-17T21:32:00.000-04:00

Increasing the depth and frequency of interaction is at the core of the science of education. Shaping the means and methods to this interaction for a particular learner and teacher forms the art of education. One can begin to see the converging lines for radical changes in the power of interaction. One converging force will come from radical increases in accessibility to computers and Internet resources driven by OLPC, Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child, beginning at $137 per child and dropping to $50 or less by 2010. The second converging force is the radical increase in bandwidth provided for education by Internet2 systems. A third force is the radical merger of online systems of communication, collaboration and cooperation and 3D display within Croquet. This merger borders on a new operating system and could easily be extended to be one. A synthesis of OLPC, I2 and Croquet is not difficult to imagine.

As Croquet is reported to be free and requires a fraction of the code space for the Windows operating system, might it run on top of a light Linux on OLPC's $100 laptop?

One of the principal architects of Croquet, Lombardi, reports today that the download release of Croquet 1.0 is imminent. UPDATE - on April 18, 2006 Croquet Beta became available! No excuses; download this beta developers application for a Mac, Linux and a Windows computer, then follow the tutorials to see how all 3 systems work with each other. Instant peer-to-peer network connections, no servers: in the picture above right, one bunny is driven from my Mac and the other from a Windows computer. Can you still remember the world before web browsers? This is the same kind of giant leap that was taken as we went from the developed world of Gopher file moving technology to the emergence of Mosaic web pages. Yes, its buggy and crash-prone and in development, but so was the paradigm breaking beta Mosaic web browser technology in 1993. Use the link above to download it. If you don't have the time to download and explore now, watch the tutorial screen movies. Get some experience and see the future.

Alan Kay's Dynabook may be far closer than we imagine. Bruner and Piaget are being reincarnated within this next operating system paradigm. "In Conversations with Jean Piaget, he says: "Education, for most people, means trying to lead the child to resemble the typical adult of his society . . . but for me and no one else, education means making creators. . . . You have to make inventors, innovators—not conformists," (Bringuier, 1980, p.132).

High Bandwidth Education

2006-04-09T14:14:00.000-04:00

High Bandwidth Education is an online multimedia article that explores the nature of fast computer networks and their relationship to K-12 education and to local communities. Internet2 is the first national and international high speed system, but regional and city groups can design and build their own high speed networks and may or may not choose to link them to I2. Internet2's global reach, many free resources and accent on high quality video and multimedia will be a great incentive to connect. Your feedback and thought on this essay and its issues are appreciated. Please use the Comments option to contribute.

To participate in a future audio or videoconference on this article, please send your email address and interest with the email subject heading of I2 videoconference to houghton@email.wcu.edu. When sufficient interest accumulates, a proposed date will be sent. The event will use Internet-based conferencing software to draw the group together. Participants will need an Internet enabled computer and a headphone set with microphone.

$100 laptop aims at $50

2006-04-09T14:07:00.000-04:00

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1945967,00.asp

Negroponte delivered a keynote address at LinuxWorld 2006. See above link to the eWeek story. The price points for the device now look like $137 in 2007, $100 in 2008 and $50 by 2010. The 7 inch screen will have 1,110-by-830-pixel resolution in black and white in outdoor mode and 640 by 480 pixels in color indoors. Only the state of Massachusetts will receive units in the U.S.; the rest are emarked for other countries in the world. Massachusetts is the only U.S. governor and state to have endorsed the goal of these inexpensive computers in the hands of all his state's students.

'closing the digital divide' progress

2006-03-31T03:59:00.000-05:00

In 1890 Frederick Jackson Turner used the data from the recently completed census to enter the history hall of fame through observations and reflection on the closing of the American frontier. An even more important cultural closing is at hand. The closing of the digital divide continues to progress. The Boston LinuxWorld (Apr. 3-6, 2006) is hosting a major speech on the $100 laptop project. Discussion will become available at the LinuxWorld Wiki collaboration space, sponsored by SocialText. Read all about this session and other conference session descriptions, speakers, and other important conference topics.Get involved at http://www.socialtext.net/linuxworld and watch for discussion of Negroponte's speech.

Digital Divide Part II-Microsoft's Wierd Counter Attack

2006-01-30T20:42:00.000-05:00

Like all highly successful corporations Microsoft has been active in responding to actual and potential competition. The $100 Laptop Project of MIT pioneer Negroponte for the schools of the 3rd world and the not so rich becomes a challenging competitor as this cheap laptop plans on using Linux software for its operating system and for its office and productivity applications. Mr. Gates's company will make no money from that. Seven nations (Thailand, Egypt, Nigeria, India, China, Brazil and Argentina) are close to committing $700 for 7 million of these laptops. Then millions of 3rd world children will learn the Linux applications. The nonprofit group, One Laptop Per Child, that is directing this effort, signed an agreement on January 28, 2006 with the United Nations Development Program to work together to develop this technology further along with learning resources. This will require technical support jobs, servers, and more and there will be no money for MS to gain from that. It is hard to come out against computers for the developing countries, so an alternative is needed to prevent this Linux operating system from gaining even further critical mass in the marketplace. Microsoft recently demonstrated a keyboard hooked to a cell phone hooked to a TV. I could chuckle at the idea of children trudging some dusty Egyptian road to and from school carrying a separate keyboard, cell phone and TV set, but that would be too inconsiderate of the 3rd world poor. I don't think Microsoft gets it, or do they? Microsoft's solution seems only possible in lst world countries, the ones more likely to buy laptops and have a ready steady supply of electricity and TV sets at home. Is this the real goal, a defensive strategy to head off Western countries, and U.S. states and school districts anxious to put the "digital pencil" in everyone's hands that might jump for the $100 laptop? But what school has or wants to have a bank of TV sets waiting for kids to plug in their cell phones? Further evidence that they don't get it. Couldn't the immense resources of MS just invent their own hand-crankable laptop running their own software to compete instead of promoting this distracting cell phone gimmick?

solving the PC accessibility issue- the Google PC

2006-01-03T22:16:00.000-05:00

InformationWeek ran a story about numerous press reportings addressing Google in secret negotiation with Walmart about selling a Google PC.

It could easily be a rebranding of the MIT $100 laptop design that Quanta will be making but others see signs that it will be a specialized design for searching, not for running other applications. Put this in the class of a hot rumor, but still a rumor until Google and Walmart confirm it is true; at the moment they are denying it. Though co-founder Larry Page spoke this Jan 6, 06 to the Consumer Electronics Show, he said nothing about this, but was pushing GooglePack and Google Video, both free hot options, for those who have computers and net access. So for now, Google is growing its reputation as a creator of innovative software. Yahoo has countered with its own collection, http://go.connect.yahoo.com/go/pc (Yahoo Go Desktop). Gotta love the competition. I'm thinking the rumor will stay a rumor as MIT is a year away from having a manufactured product as even a prototype.

Manufacturer Quantra winner for $100 laptop production

2006-01-02T01:40:00.000-05:00

"Taiwan's Quanta, the biggest manufacturer of laptops in the world, has signed on to the $100 laptop project." (hardware.silicon.com)

Negroponte said in a statement: "Any previous doubt that a very-low-cost laptop could be made for education in the developing world has just gone away." (MIT)

Free Wireless-Towards Ending the Digital Divide

2005-12-24T16:37:00.000-05:00

Very inexpensive mobile computers ($100 laptop project) and free software still need the steady progress of free wireless to complete the digital commons. Once done, the CROP education needed to free the economy from the ball and chain of the digital divide has a chance of being effective. Slow but steady progress can be seen.

Maine's Governor is moving aggressively to be the first state to build a state wireless network for its citizens. (New York Times)

San Francisco has an RFP (request for proposals) to make it a wireless city. Google is is just one of the companies that is in line for the opportunity. (sfgate.com)

Philadelphia, long past the proposal stage, is confident that the wireless work will be done by the end of 2006 by a company from Atlanta, Georgia. (Daily Pennsylvanian)

Other interesting wireless developments are being tracked as well. (New York Times)

Towards Ending the Digital Divide: Free Office Applications

2005-10-31T22:12:00.000-05:00

A major factor in the digital divide is the issue of cost. The October 2005 Census Bureau report shows that only 30% of those earning less than $25,000 a year have a computer with Internet access at home versus 80-90% above $50,000. One of the problems of computer integration has been the high cost of the most basic computer applications, such as word processors and spreadsheets. For computer integration to be effective this means that homes and public school systems must also buy the same applications and many families are more challenged than school systems to come up money to buy the hardware and software. The retail price of the dominant Microsoft Office suite of applications can cost $500 or more, which is more than a low cost computer. The open source community has a pair of options called OpenOffice and StarOffice that changes this price from free to $30 to $100 depending on how much direct telephone support is needed. This does not solve the problem of getting a low cost computer (see prior posting), and getting free Internet access which is a topic for another posting, but it is a major piece of the puzzle.

These two alternatives share the same code base, whose applications run across multiple operating systems, including Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Unix operating systems. Where OpenOffice is free for the download (all 80 megabytes of it), StarOffice charges but then provides commercial level support that is critical to business and organizational needs. They both provide the same suite of applications which are integrated, including: word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, draw, and database. These applications can also work interchangeably with and open files of the same application type from Microsoft Office.

Read the reviews to get a sense of the big picture, then check out the tutorials. The tutorial resources to teach and learn these programs is currently small, but growing rapidly.

Software Download Sites

OpenOffice - http://www.openoffice.org/
StarOffice - http://www.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/index.jsp

Product Reviews

Why OpenOffice.org 2.0 Is Your Best Choice, October 20, 2005 http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1874157,00.asp
OpenOffice.org database application: A first look review, Tuesday January 25, 2005 http://software.newsforge.com/software/05/01/25/1758245.shtml
StarOffice™ 7 Office Suite vs. OpenOffice.org Comparison http://www.sun.com/software/star/openoffice/docs/SO_Comparison_OOo.pdf
Comparing OpenOffice 2.0 to StarOffice 8, Oct. 24, 2005 http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS9041617422.html

Tutorial Resources

News of new reviews and new tutorials would make a great follow-up comment.

I want to teach the world to surf in perfect harmony

2005-09-30T11:08:00.000-04:00

Updated January 2, 2006

It is exciting to work on so many new ways to solve problems with new technology. It is also easy for this excitement to come at the expense of putting time into addressing a giant local AND global problem, the digital divide. The biggest global Information Technology issue is solving the problem of how to radically grow the base of the cyberspace literate, to reduce the drag on the economy by increasing the number of participants in the global digital economy. One solution is now past mirage status. Negroponte's project to get the MIT $100 laptop out the manufacturing door is looking great (see and click pictures on left or right for more pictures and information, credit to MIT Labs for pictures). What can we do to help evangelize? Know and tell. The story first broke into major news feeds with the September 28, 2005 Emerging Technology Conference at MIT. A physical model was shown at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) took place in Tunis, Tunsia, Nov. 16-18, 2005. It was announced in December 2005 that Taiwan's Quanta, the world's largest manufacturer of laptops, will make the first ones available in the fourth quarter of 2006. Keep hope alive.

I'm helping with some small scale, special funding, 1-to-1 projects, including the Swain West Elementary School's laptop implementation and aid the 1-to-1 New Schools Project for Cherokee H.S.’s which seeks a wireless laptop for all in the High School. But I’ve not been able to see a tangible end game which would roll out the "digital pencil" to all students until the $100 laptop. At Sept. 28’s Emerging Technology Conference, announcements finally enabled us see a way to scale to meet the needs of the rest of our region (and the world). The $100 laptop project brought out its prototype in November and will and begin low scale production within a year. The project led by Negroponte to design, build and market a $100 laptop is coming much sooner than predicted a year or so ago. After following this story for many months, the story is really breaking into the popular press with hundreds of articles now available at Google News in the Sci/Tech section. Details can be found in the links below.

Here is a summary of key facts gleaned from this reporting so far. The laptop will: run the free Linux, Open Office productivity tools (similar to the Microsoft Office suite) and other free applications; require a minimum order of 1 million; provide no sales to individuals, only for students and teachers; have a prototype planned showing, November 2005, volume production late 2006; have 5 countries preparing to order 15 million of them; include an innovative wind-up power source; feature a 500 MHz processor and 1GB of onboard memory; be WiFi and cell phone-enabled and will have at least four USB ports; be foldable in different ways; have an AC adaptor cable that will double as a shoulder strap; be “able to switch from a full colour screen to a monochrome alternative, which will be much more easily viewed in bright sunlight; will provide alternate electrical power by turning a crank for one minute which will provide 10 minutes of power”; have a “non-profit One Laptop Per Child group which has ambitious plans to distribute 150 million laptops in three years.” be very rugged laptops, encased in bump-proof rubber "so that when it closes, it's hermetically sealed to protect it from the elements such systems might be subjected to (for example, in the jungles of Cambodia)". So, who would not want one of these.

Some do not believe this vision is possible. Enderle Group principal analyst Rob Enderle told LinuxInsider that if these $100 laptops were widely adopted, it could collapse prices of computers even further. However, he added, the numbers and the timeline Negroponte cited are both overly aggressive.

"The production figures he is citing are well ahead of the current manufacturing technology currently," Enderle said. "They are talking about numbers that exceed the manufacturing capacity of the segment by a couple of times."

Enderle said Tier 1 laptop vendors don't have anything to worry about just yet. There is a long way to go before the $100 laptop becomes viable. Besides production capacity, there are questions of user education and simple electricity.

Hundred-Dollar Laptop Prototype Set for November Release, LinuxInsider, http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/LRXq2uF6eQmrG2/Hundred-Dollar-Laptop-Prototype-Set-for-November-Release.xhtml

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My own analysis is that this will be a far more disruptive technology to existing corporations than industry pundits and computer executives expect. Enderle’s argument that production capacity is not available is both true and meaningless. Creating or repurposing factories for this purpose can happen quickly. Once the design stabilizes within the next year, and people realize that sufficient software exists for the Linux OS (browsers, productivity tools, basic media tools) then the Asian companies that have been doing knock-offs of famous world brands for a long time will get involved, build more production capacity, create something software compatible (since it uses the free open source Linux OS) and sell it to individual buyers even cheaper than MIT's concept. As the foundation directing distribution does not want to sell to retail outlets, only to governments a million at a time, there is a built-in incentive for competitive models to emerge. I know I want such a ruggedized machine.

Little is being said about how data storage is being handled for when the computer turns off. The answer is that the capacity will be limited to a gigabyte of flash memory, with no DVD drive or floppy drive as motors break too easily and cost too much, but if one also stores data for free on the net in some account space (I’m thinking Google which is an MIT partner in the project and already does this), who cares about limited space on the computer itself. Further, reports elsewhere show that Google has been on a buying spree picking up inexpensive fiber lines, experimenting with small city projects for free wireless and buying companies that handle other forms of net delivery such as Internet over power lines, so new solutions for net connection may suddenly appear as well. There is much more to this story that has yet to surface.

This news raises a number of questions. Should states and countries be encouraged to take part in the early rounds of buying? How does one build the political momentum to do so? Would a joint statement to the media by those engaged in 1-2-1 initiatives about why they see the 1-2-1 initiative important and what the $100 laptop design would enable be helpful on the larger state scene in motivating local leaders to think about how all grade levels might get such units? What new curriculum developments would build on such a base to help educators and learners take better advantage of such technology and the networked global economy?

Evangelize. Our schools need your help.

Podcasting and Schools

2005-09-02T10:11:00.000-04:00

Nora Carr has followed our audiocasting experimentation covered in earlier postings with a fine eSchoolNews article that provides some important extensions to the value of podcasting in educational settings. See the piece "Try 'podcasting' to broaden your PR reach"
http://eschoolnews.com/news/showStory.cfm?ArticleID=5850

Podcast Audio-Conferencing

2005-07-30T00:43:00.000-04:00

Does your phone have a Conference button? I'm realizing that I've been under-utilizing this feature and have recently begun to take better advantage of its capacity to get consensus or collect team ideas without making multiple one-on-one calls.

Advances in the blogging movement however transform my phone and conference button into something almost unimagineable. With a couple of keytaps, my phone transforms into a recording studio with up to six guests for an attached web-based radio station with global syndication! Whew, sounds like a real whopper, doesn't it. It isn't. Listen.

This is an audio blog, and making this show with Norr Carr, columnist with eSchoolNews, couldn't have been more simple. The current buzz phrase for these things is podcast, named after the ubiquitous audio and music players called iPods which grab audio from computers for mobile listening. Yet desktop media players and other computer mobile products and even cell phones can all play the podcasts. Podcasting adds new elements to CROP's problem solving stage. The Evoke stage uses phones as a new composition tool. The Assess stage provides the feedback of a conference call, and the Publish stage has a new tool, providing global syndication of published audio.

How simple? When I realize that a phone conversation has some universal appeal, I can explain that our dialog would benefit a much larger audience and ask if we can "rewind" a bit of it, and make a podcast. If we agree, I tap the Conference button, dial my podcast system phone number, enter my password, tap my phone's conference button again and I'm recording our dialog until I tap the # key on the phone. Once tapped, the recording system automatically converts the audio it was recording into an mp3 file, links it to my designated blog, inserts a player icon, and notifies the syndication service that a new posting has arrived. Other than my phone minutes, the service is a free add-on of the free blog service site, www.blogger.com.

But it is not quite a podcast yet unless the syndication link (newsfeed) is pointed to by Feedburner, and the web address of the audio file is entered in the link field. Setting up the link of course happens after the blog is recorded.

Future competition is promised by others planning similar podcast call service such as www.odeo.com. Toll free numbers are in the promised plans of garageband.com.

Whether for solo orations without a conference button or for multiple conferencing guests, a new age of oral communication has arrived. And using phones is just the tip of the podcasting iceberg. The ancient Greek orators would have an honored place is this new world.

Visual Decision Making - GIS

2005-07-14T10:08:00.000-04:00

Learning, understanding and problem solving have a very high visual component. GIS stands for Geographic Information Systems, applications which compose maps of relationships as easily as one would compose a paragraph. These relationships are as basic as the above map of schools in western North Carolina or a state highway map and as complex as multiple layers of a community’s infrastructure of pipes, wires, roads and buildings. Deeper understanding of GIS begins with learning more examples of applications and the elements of a GIS map. GIS plays a significant role in problem solving at both the Look and Evoke stage of the LEAP model.

GIS software enables a user to build maps in layers and to search data which can be displayed as relationships among the data on the map. Applications range from desktop computer tools such as ArcView by ESRI to web server map systems such as provided by maps.google.com, earth.google.com/, maps.yahoo.com and http://www.mapquest.com/, terraserver.microsoft.com/ and http://terraserver.microsoft.com/. All play an important role in data driven decision making. See this example of mapped criminal activity in Chicago and imagine the use of this information by both police and local citizens.

Study a free GIS program. Use it to compose your own maps, and explore its tutorials as a next step in understanding the power and functionality of GIS software.

Podcast Sync Revolutionized TV, not Radio

2005-07-04T09:16:00.000-04:00

How many revolutions were ever completed and no one noticed? I can give you at least one example. Podcasting capacity to link audio with images using quicktime web tracks or other technology will transform public use of television, not radio. The discussion of podcasting appears blinded by the box of radio thinking. How does one use blog systems (podcasting) to duplicate or top what can be done with transmitter based radio? Rob Griffiths's lament in Macworld that podcasting is just more noise in the system is a case in point. His question seeking what folks like and do with podcasting now frames discussion within the early development potential based on existing knowledge of radio. Short term innovation is always overhyped and long term is undervisioned, but holds the real value.

Application capacity for synching images with audio is as old as quicktime (1991) and with iPhoto 4.03 has been around since August 5, 2004 in a linked but not in a form that allows the author to choose the sync spot for each image. The media podcast player called iPodderX will enable podcasting of an audio file and a set of images, but once downloaded they only play along with a set of photos, not synchronized to different places in the audio file. Like the iPod, iPodderX has one setting for the duration of images (not a different duration for each image). Flash from Macromedia and video editors are examples of programs that do handle the higher degree of synchronizing on an individual basis for each image. A free solution is Chapter Tool that can be found on the bottom of the GarageBand page. Also, Quicktime Pro 7 offers an inexpensive approach which works on both Mac and Windows computers.

These current solutions are too expensive or too complex (high geek index) for most blog users. Designs that are blog posting simple are needed, whether web-site tools or desktop applications. News of podcasting applications that move to this next level seems likely. When that appears for podcasting, more radical changes are possible.

For example, let's say the evening news wants to report a car accident and get it on the evening news quickly. At the cheapest, they roll a van loaded with a reporter and a camera holder (two salaries), a very expensive digital video camcorder, and very expensive satellite uplink capacity to get the high bandwidth information back to the station quickly which must be received by expensive equipment and a staff member to write a script that will be used by talking heads (more salaries). What they broadcast in a very expensive broadcast studio (more salaries and costly equipment) is 30 seconds of anchor "talking-head" before and after 30 seconds of the "in-the-field" footage. Half of what they showed on TV did not require the field shots, just some technology (in this case people) to get the script read. And what was in the 30 seconds of fields shots? A wide shot of the accident scene (a good photo would do); some close-ups from different angles (also replaceable by good photos of same), and an interview of someone at the scene (of which a single photo of their head would do). Oh, and then the viewer must wait until the TV station's allocated time for the 15 evening news broadcast (the other 15 minutes is commercials).

What would the alternative look like? Viewers don't really need video at 30 frames per second for the evening news; just audio with some synched still shots capture its essence. A good cell phone with quality photograph capture used by a net news service will not only outscoop the TV system in timeliness, but cut them off at the knees in terms of cost. A staff member at the "web station" or the reporter with their wireless laptop in the field will grab the phoned-in audio track, attach the phoned-in images to the appropriate places, trim some audio and be done with the podcast. Podcasting with its RSS technology will deliver notice of the news item's availability to your news aggregator (Itunes podcast player) as soon as it is available. This will work as well for the 56kb modem crowd as those that have broadband. Further, with some tiny tweaks to existing cell phones, anyone could play audio with synched still images back on what they have in their pocket.

Look out CNN. High-stakes TV news has had a stake driven through the heart of its technology. The technology revolution is over, won by webbies with better technology; however, the cultural revolution to spread the idea has barely begun. The only question remaining is when will anyone notice their independence, begin trade with the new entity and continue monetizing the concept? Almost every radio station, newspaper, corporation and public school system has the high-geek index people and technology in-house today to compete with the technology of broadcast television. Who will be first to market with the needed playback cell phones? Apple has a cell phone in the wings; I have some bets on what it can do. It's time for the entrepreneurs to get to work.

July 4's Independence Day celebrations are as auspicious a time as any to report on this new level of independence from standard TV. It took a long time for the U.S. to become the international powerhouse that it is today and so it will be for "radiovision", which will further extend Apple's reputation for leadership in IT. The audio/still image merger will be the basis to extend the revolution that so few have noticed.

It should be noted that podcasting with synched audio/images is just the quick cheap tip of the podcasting iceberg. Change the playback device from iPodPhoto or cell phone to a computer screen or TV set and rolling video can be podcast as well. That is, recent development thinking has also led to not only personal TV networks but personal media aggregators, delivering anymedia-vision. Got yours?

Wiki Leadership

2005-07-02T14:25:00.000-04:00

My study of the wiki phenomena seems headed for a one word summary, leadership. If leadership is about getting teamwork done, of drawing others into effective action, then wiki work is a fine training ground for the needed attitudes, habits and practices.

My review of key wiki developments can be found at 123 Wiki.

Wikis are just one part of an overall vision for problem processing, but they provide a unique application for collaborative work at the Evoke stage. Their different perspectives serve each of the LEAP stages. Many wiki projects have advanced to the point of having respected information for the Look stage, which grows their perception as outlets for the Publish stage. Their edit history tracking and comments provide feedback for the Assess stage.

Outlining Roars Back

2005-06-29T16:15:00.000-04:00

To outline means to organize the relationships between the main and subordinate points of an idea, activity, project or argument. Digital outlining adds the ability to move, minimize or hide less important details. Though the paper-based use of outlining had fallen into disfavor in writing classes, its fluid digital reincarnation brought it back to life in school classrooms and adult planning activities. The announcements of free tools with strong or complete online operations have brought it roaring back into action. Check out the recent announcements of Cmap and Inspiration (for handhelds and Smartboards) as well as management organizers such as Backpack and Basecamp for new ways to think about the concept of outlining.

Outlines provide concise visual ways to organize knowledge in order to create meaningful change in the world. Outlines create an organized bridge of prioritized steps between the Look and Evoke stages of problem solving. Such tools adress the overwhelming mass of information presented by the world at large and the complexities of selecting different computer applications.

Concept maps go beyond text outlining to provide a very fluid form of outlining. Outline use contrasts sharply with rote learning with reports showing that it is not only being better for meaningful learning but better at fostering long term memory (Kaczor, 2005). Outline creation is useful for both building understanding and testing or evaluating that understanding. This way of organizing helps take the results of brainstorming and planning and makes it easier to organize, prioritize and prune the thoughts that emerge, then proceed with the expansion of the structure that is left standing. The ease of use and efficiency of computer-based outlining brought new life and power to the concept.

Click outline essay to go deeper into the idea and practice of outlining.

The Blogosphere Show - Simple Podcasting Systems

2005-06-22T12:50:00.000-04:00

Click above to listen. Only a single phone is needed to create a podcast. But both the speakerphone and the cell phone shown in the picture below are needed if someone at a distance needs to participate. If your phone services do not offer conferencing, this is a simple workaround; otherwise the audio will be higher quality if phone conferencing is used to make a three party call, with the third party being the blogger.com audio service.. To start an audio conference with the design in the picture, I begin holding the cell phone next to my head for some initial comments, then set it on the speaker phone. The picture shows what this setup looks like.

Blog audio conference set up.

Here's the transcription of this 3 minute 17 second podcast.

"This is another podcast in the Blogosphere Show with Bob Houghton speaking. Welcome to this podcast on simple podcasting systems. This is a test of using my cell phone for automated podcasting. I'm using my cell phone as a microphone to record an audio conference using a speaker phone. When I finish recording and tap the # key on my cell phone, I have the option of replaying it, deleting it, or immediately posting it to one of my blog sites as an mp3 file. If I post it, when my blog site is opened, an icon for playing the audio file is visible and plays with a single click.

Here's what I'm doing right now. The current most simple set up I can think of is to open the cell phone and place it on its side on top of the speaker phone. The speaker phone is sitting on top of an upended standard size box of Kleenex to put the phones close to my lips. The microphone within a cell phone only records well within a very short distance. Within the speaker phone, I have the phone number I'm calling on speed dial so the tap of a single key will dial. This procedure will waste as little cell phone time as possible.

To test this equipment without interrupting someone else, find a local number that plays a tape of information, such as a movie theatre that plays a recording of its shows and showtimes. I'll dial that now.

[I put the cell phone down on the speaker phone. The phone rings, the tape answers, and I talk over pieces of the playing tape which forces the speaker phone to silence the theater recording until I stop talking.]

At the moment the speaker phone is still sitting approximately some 7 to 8 inches away from me. I'm going to pick it up now and put the cell phone next to my head. I'm putting it next to my face in the usual manner. You should now hear the voice quality improve somewhat. The free web posting service that I'm using is through a sign up with Blogger.com which in turn uses a service called Audioblogger.

For better recording quality, plug a headphone set with microphone into your cell phone. This allows you to experiment with positioning the speaker phone and your lips further away from the cell phone and still have decent recording quality. However, it does require you to remember to carry around a headphone set to carry this out.

This is the Blogosphere Show and Bob Houghton. Check blog-study.blogspot.com for other broadcasts." END OF PODCAST

Assuming you have a national cell phone calling plan, the cost of such work is just in your cell phone minutes. If your podcasting is official company work, then there is no additional cost to be the "host" of a podcast. Audio quality varies greatly with the quality of the microphones and related knowledge and software. The audio quality of a Blogger.com recording is not as crisp as a live phone conversation because it is compressed in making it an mp3 file. The above design in the picture is further lowered in quality by using a cell phone microphone to record the sound from a speaker phone. Higher quality audio requires more professional equipment. Information on podcast setups with real microphones are not hard to find, e.g.: $100 U.S. Roadhouse design; or $200 U.S. BSW's podcast packages. See a Google search for "podcast setup" to sift more, but such approaches require much more web editing skills. Even given their five minute limit per recording, I find Blogger.com's cell phone arrangement for podcasting to be not only the simplest and most efficient approach, but low-cost and mobile as well.

Partner Blog and Web Page Designs

2005-06-21T16:32:00.000-04:00

A "partner" blogsites parallels a standard web page so that sections of a web page essay can have a place that allows commentary and feedback on its sub-sections. Consider the similarities. Blogs are generally thought of as a collection of periodic postings organized by date, each posting its own topic that does not necessarily directly relate to the last. An essay or any large document is also a collection of headings or sub-topics but organized by sequence so that each sub-topic follows from the last to form a coherent whole. Here's an example of a blog organized as large document or essay.

http://blog-study.blogspot.com/

See the sidebar link in the above blog site which connects to its parallel as a web page. The web page in turn has a link to its blog site. At the blog site readers can use the comments link to discuss each section. The author or authors of both sites having the passwords to both would keep these two parallel, building on the feedback and re-weaving it into the section of the web page essay and re-editing the original blog posting. Revisions to the web page would come after consensus formed in the posting at the blog site. The web page provides a streamlined printout or reading without the distractions of the comment and date data. The web page also provides more secure control of the developing document than with a wiki, but slows down the evolution of the more comprehensive document. The comments section of the blog provides a way to track, remember and negotiate each heading section of the document. This has interesting implications for group editing of policy statements, manuals, and grant and curriculum development.

It would also be possible to create a troika, a three way partnership of blog, wiki and web.

I will post other examples of these tandem and troika concept as I have them.

Mossberg and The Mystery of Blog Creation

2005-06-16T10:04:00.000-04:00

Blogging remains the fastest way to generate a web site for addressing community problem solving. In comparing the top three free blog creation services, Walter Mossberg's excellent Wall Street Journal column on blog creation (2005, June 15, D4) found that blogger.com's approach to photos was a hassle. There are points to quibble with in his review.

Mr. Mossberg was most kind to respond quickly to my email which complained that he had his facts wrong in noting that one cannot quickly and easily add narration to a photo in Blogger. I retract the "facts wrong" thought and leave his paragraph as misleading. He intended his critique to knock Hello which works with Picasa to upload selected and edited images. He wanted to be able to add the narration or description to the photo while in Hello during the upload process. I prefer the editing to be done back in the back in the blog. Why add the duplication of editing in Hello when it is already quite adequate in the blog editor?

He wants the Blogger approach seen as cumbersome and slow, a view that I find too narrow in just weighing upload time. There is a larger "environmental impact" in working with images and ignoring it misleads readers. This line of thought will require another post.

What he concluded was a problem of blogger.com's design for uploading photos using the Picasa photo editor, I find a powerful free application well worth the effort to learn. He found it a hassle to download and install this free program. There is a larger view that he did not address by focusing on just the quickness of getting an image in a blog posting. The fact is that anyone who uploads images will need to work with an image editor to crop or touch up the photo. Once installed, users will find it is a jewel of an editor, and an image collection organizer that photographers should not be without. Picasa adds to efficiency and simplicity in managing collections of images in addition to making image posting quick and easy. Yes, it involves more steps than MSN Spaces, but then it is a more comprehensive approach to the larger set of problems in working with images, a process that everyone must deal with in one fashion or another using some additional application.

His comments failed to discuss audio uploading and podcasting for beginners, which Blogger provides for free and in a design of great simplicity. Image posting is an important feature, but as much attention as image and text posting has been getting, podcasting is even hotter. Blogger's telephone call in feature which automatically converts your "voice mail" to an mp3 file and makes a clickable linked icon automatically deserves widespread attention. MSN Spaces and Yahhoo 360 have yet to even get started on adding audio posting services. I've enjoyed the ease in Blogger.com with which I can copy and paste image, audio and text into one posting to provide a real multimedia experience that still makes for quick display times. See other postings in this blog for such multimedia examples.

That said, Mossberg's review of the big three blog services highlights important features and conclusions for those getting started with blogging. I thought his best hit was the current lack of privacy controls in Blogger which both MSN Spaces and Yahoo 360 provide. Privacy controls are an important option. His analysis ranked MSN Spaces first, Yahoo 360 (not yet publicly available) second and Blogger.com in third. Stay tuned as the feature set of all three of these services is bound to change for the better in the months ahead.

PR Harmonizing

2005-06-10T14:41:00.000-04:00

A critical factor in community problem solving is listening and remediating ideas. Remediating? Habermas would call it harmonizing. Humans have an amazing capacity to hear and see what they expect, not adjust to what really is. Stereotype thinking infects us all. Nora Carr makes a career of dealing with this as a publication relations (PR) specialist, who keeps a column going in eSchool News, with one eye focused on the "dark side" of media. She recently mentioned this blog and other work of mine as part of her column that can be found here:

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStory.cfm?ArticleID=5711

For those following the CROP perspective of this blog, Nora makes a key point. "The key to building an effective blog is to view it as a relationship-building tool that will help you engage your stakeholders in new and important ways." Solutions to real problems have to begin and end with mutual agreement and understanding about many things.

Habermas as Blogging Philosophy

2005-06-09T21:42:00.000-04:00

Audio FAQ

It is hard to match the socializing and harmonizing potential of sharing a meal with someone. What is there about the clink of silverware and dishes that stimulates conversation and a little problem-solving. Are blog sites just a weak substitute for good mealtime conversation? Unless videoconference pricing drop off a cliff, it is hard to imagine replacing blog sites any time soon with doing a videoconference lunch with multiple points around the globe. Now there's something to look forward to. A meal seems such a perfect image for communicative action theory. Given global social customs, one could conjecture that brains and stomachs take particular pleasure in doing their digesting together.

Habermas's Communicative Action Theory (1984) provides a deeper perspective from which to examine the nova-like explosion of blogging. Who would have known there was such an additional pent-up life-force needing further social discourse? What was so limiting about phones, email, newsgroups, listservs, chat and web pages that blogs exploded across the web's social universe with such force? Considering the virtues of a blog site, one must surmise that the needed harmonizing of ideas in the public sphere was not public enough in email, not interactive enough in web pages and not a stable or a clear enough narrative in newsgroups, email lists and chat.

For an introduction to Habermas, try Deflem's less dense treatise.

Deflem, Mathieu. 1996. “Introduction: Law in Habermas’s Theory of
Communicative Action.” Pp. 1-20 in Habermas, Modernity and Law, edited by
Mathieu Deflem. London: Sage. Available June 9, 2005 at http://www.cas.sc.edu/socy/faculty/deflem/zhablaw.htm

Even more digestible translations of Habermas would be of interest.

Blog Thinking

2005-05-10T12:15:00.000-04:00

I have not found an overview of developments in the Web Logs or Blogs that has adequately covered the range of developments underway. So, I have been composing my own. Visit this page titled Blog Thinking for the latest edition.

http://ceap.wcu.edu/houghton/EDELCompEduc/Ch1/blogthinking.html

Somehow blogs seem like a one legged stool. They help people clarify and refine their personal voices. Important, necessary, but missing something. I've included some information on wiki's in this piece because I think they are another leg of this stool but I'm missing the perspective yet on what overarching concept and system will pull these and other communication elements together. Blogs are a step to a higher level, but what will the next level look like?

Questioning and Foresight

2005-03-27T21:31:00.000-05:00

- Latvia (Wikipedia)

Dr. Artur Puga, head of FSU (Forward Studies Unit, Latvian Union of Scientists), offered a most thoughtful reply to my blog post titled "Beyond Computer Literacy" Revisited. A link to FSU is provided above.

This appears to be a current summary of Dr. Puga's area of interest. http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-site/whoswho.cgi?action=detail&id=102392&authorid=701916

More details into his thinking can be found in this Powerpoint presentation. http://www.innovation.lv/baltdyn04/
presentations/Session4_Universities/15-15_Puga.ppt

I will share some of my response here. It is so humbling to have people reach out to me in my own language when I cannot respond in theirs and delightful that cyberspace makes such interaction so easy. Dr. Puga and I share an understanding of the word community as a highly scalable term, from the interactions of the community of ideas within our heads, to teams, departments, organizations and nations.

He wrote in his Powerpoint piece of knowledge and the knowledge society. That raised some questions for me. By knowledge should we mean: answers; the procedures and processes by which we find the answers; questions; or the procedures and processes by which we find the questions? Which is the most important knowledge to search for and collect, questions or answers? My own answer is that historically this balance has been going through a long period of change. My observation is that thriving organizations in today’s culture put an accent on the question while surviving organizations put an accent on the answer. Teams that fail will focus so much on the product itself (an answer) that they miss the next question that would have kept their organization growing, thriving and relevant. Questioning focuses us outward and into relationships and into emerging realities.

The heart, the motor of CROP is questioning. This includes discovering, generating and sharing questions. Such skills are critical in order to move from surviving to thriving in this time of rapid change in the world. With CROP we have an ever-changing product. CROP serves as the foundation and set of solutions for organizations that wish to thrive and schools that wish to prepare learners for such organizations. CROP’s database products provide question management as a major aspect of Knowledge Management (KM).

Dr. Puga's use of the word “foresight” is highly compatible with CROP design. One of the products of the CROP system is foresight. Rapid change means that the problem is constantly changing, and constant questioning and requestioning is needed to keep answers (and products) relevant to the changing problem. CROP’s ideas are very compatible with all programs designed to foster creativity and problem solving. For more on the political and economic value of core creative thinking, I highly recommend the book “The Rise of the Creative Class” by Richard Florida. Florida’s point of view is very compatible with the entrepreneurship thinking which is important to Dr. Puga's work.

CROP value overlaps such agendas. How must we change the education of our children and the curriculum in our schools to better deal with the rapid change of the 21st century? That is the problem I explore, study, write about and for which I create solutions, such as CROP. My most recent work is an effort to create new questioning curriculum that integrates entrepreneurship with other forms of creative thinking for schools. (I am in a College of Education which trains school teachers.) We will have much more to offer in the time ahead. As my ideas have developed, I have come to realize that they are as valuable for adult organizations as they are for organizations of younger learners.

There is much development going on with CROP which has kept my new posts so far apart. Some of these changes include a redesign of the web site, and the creation of new alliances to include more community participation.

For more on CROP see the web link in the Links area.

For related sites of interest, see
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/index.html

The "Lisbon Strategy" http://europa.eu.int/growthandjobs/index_en.htm
Key quote "Jobs, growth, the environment and a proper social net. These are, in a nutshell, the main concerns of Europe’s citizens. The current lack of economic growth affects all of us;, our pensions, salaries and our standard of living considerably suffer from it.
If we do not act immediately, our valued social and environmental model will become unaffordable. In the face of international competition and an ageing population, growth could soon decrease to 1% per year (more than half of today’s growth )." The Lisbon Strategy is a set of ideas that seek to tackle this problem.

"Beyond Computer Literacy" Revisited

2005-02-07T14:56:00.000-05:00

Click the title of this posting to see Stephen Ehrmann's essay to which I am reacting.

Let's try another perspective. Once there were two highly competent professors, Socrates and Plato, the former rejecting the invention of writing, the radical new transforming technology of his day, and the latter, reinventing it for his thinking. Staying with the tried and true did not harm the wisdom or the values of the thinking of Socrates. However, Plato did have to speak for him by writing some of his ideas in ways that would reach us across time. Digital technology also offers new ways to reach across time and reach across space in ways more relevant to the highly interactive nature of human beings. On that I think Ehrmann and I would agree.
My first disagreement is with his college level perspective; the digital desert of the public school desktop would also greatly benefit from computer literacy. My second is with Ehrmann making the case for change by leading with examples of what one can only do by using current digital technology. Though a common strategy of the polemicist, creating a friction to diverge is counter-productive. We might better be able to proceed by finding common ground with the "Socratic faction" instead of making them feel disabled. I would prefer that we work from terminology that supports a continuum of skills and procedures, from stone tools, to speech, to writing and to digital expression.
As counter to his thinking I would offer these 3 starting branches: problem finding, problem framing and problem solving. For an example of how this strategy might proceed, I invite readers to click the iCROP link towards the top right of this page and explore how these dimensions do lead deeply into the digital age. We are at the threshhold of both local and global communities that deeply engage themselves to resolve their problems. Communities that Resolve Our Problems (CROP) makes digital tools central to the process, yet encourages the effective nature of prior systems of thought. No one system can do it all; any single system that attempts it all will fail.

Now, use that Post a Comment button below!

Rich Media Blogging-Text, Image and Audio

2004-10-23T23:20:00.000-04:00

Image FAQ

Audio FAQ

This was great fun! Can you hear the crunch of the damp leaves along the river bank? Resting on the warm river sand, I could shoot upwards at low hanging branches, capturing backlit fall color against a clear blue autumn sky.

iCROP meta-thinking: Click the title of this posting for a page that describes how to get image, audio post and text in the same posting display.

Fall Paddling and Picture Taking

2004-10-23T13:10:00.000-04:00

Listen to the streams trickling into pools along the river. Paddling down the river, there were many nice places to stop in the warm afternoon sunshine and photograph the rich fall color. Click the title of this posting or see paddle map for a link that goes to a map of the paddling route that was taken below the Dillsboro Dam. The photograph entered yesterday was taken not far from where the paddlers are in this picture.

Meta-iCROP thinking. A part of the content for 21st century learners is to learn how advances on the net increasingly make certain types of communication easier than the tools previously provided for desktop computer applications for doing similar things Further, they make other things possible that cannot be done in paper communication, such as adding comments and related source material directly into the original publication, as this blog technology allows.

Mobile Problem Solving Gets Better

2004-10-13T06:01:00.000-04:00

This Wednesday, 13th October 2004, the market price leader in PocketPCs, Dell, announced their X50 PDA series. Its outstanding features include Bluetooth and 801.11b wireless capacity, provides an SD slot and a CompactFlash slot, and seems designed not only to handle music downloads but to also prepare the way for a new level of computer graphic display. Cost of models runs 299, 399, and 499.

The CompactFlash slot makes it possible for sensor/probe companies to keep their products viable with the current level of features in PocketPCs.

There is no discussion yet of whether this can be turned into a cell phone via 3rd party cards or installation of software using an internal microphone and speaker.

Combo phone/PDA with cellular & Wi-Fi speeds

2004-10-11T14:22:00.000-04:00

Combo phones biggest disadvantage may be their explanation. Their feature set though is here to stay. Mossberg's July 29 piece reviews the basic features of the HP iPAQ h6315. The model seamlessly integrates a handheld computer (PDA) with cell phone. http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20040729.html Palms Treo line has been doing this for some time. What makes HP's product much more valuable is the integration of slower speed cellular systems with high speed Wi-Fi networks with wireless data access ($500). Competition soon from Noka and Motorola will hopefully drive this price down.

Combining computer networks with cell phone networks will come in many variations, such as Vocera Communications products which are voice activation only (no keypad).
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/telecom/2004-09-12-biz-cell_x.htm

Authentic Problem Solving & Cultural Artifacts

2004-08-16T08:51:00.000-04:00

Seeing the relationship between textbook questions based on the reading of a chapter or a story and authentic problems is a challenge for the school classrooms. Answering the challenge is essential in giving students the motivation and confidence that they can tackle real world problems. See this link to T. Lowrie's solution to this problem using cultural artifacts which can easily be collected from the communities of learners. For those adults immersed in real world problems, this issue is different. The adult problem is more one of spotting and sharing the problem. Communication systems which tie adult abilities to find and share problems with teachers seeking classroom useable authentic problems would be helpful to both. iCROP uses its SUP (Still Unsolved Problem) database as one model of such a system.

Autoposting of field work questions

2004-08-08T22:49:00.000-04:00

Use iThink tools for remote sharing of field research questions. Scientists might ask: "What kind of plant is this? Leave responses using Comments." Click the above image for a larger picture. Writers might share images of entire web pages or scanned images of or within the article or book. This image posted using Google's free Picasa image collection management software to find and Hello software to online discuss and then autopost to blogs the thumbnails which are automatically linked larger size images. The larger size can include sizes much larger than this example.

Interesting Web site - a phoned in reminder

2004-08-07T20:50:00.000-04:00

early web crawler photo

2004-08-06T14:18:00.000-04:00

iCROP - a problem processor on the web

2004-08-06T13:34:00.000-04:00

http://ceap.wcu.edu/houghton/learner/basicidea.html
iCROP is a web based problem processor useful for both educational and economic development. Enjoy. Comment.

iThink: 21st Century Problem Processing

2004-08-06T11:28:00.000-04:00

Spectacles became the rage in the 13 century; telescopes and microscopes became hits in the 17th. These are but a few quick examples of a centuries long march in increasing human ability to discover, think about and apply new ideas. In the latter half of the 20th century a combination of ideas created the most significant hit yet for thinking, what might more aptly be called a complexityscope. Even now in the 21st century it is still referred to by tedious and obscure titles such computer network, electronic technology, World Wide Web or computer and the Internet. Is it still so close to us that we cannot yet see it clearly? The complexityscope is capable of using almost every form of expression and composition known to our species to magnify our ability to process finding, contemplating and solving problems. This blog will use a two syllable expression of this complexityscope idea, i-think or iThink.