eCROP Blog

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,...

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

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 p...

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.mi...

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...

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.

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 i...