When is the Cloud Not the Cloud?

Here I am sitting in my classroom about to teach a class at the local community college and I am on the college’s computer.  Yes, I can go access my docs on Google, but I recently added Google Chrome Frame to my personal computer so I can do all the neat Google Doc sharing on Internet Explorer rather than Chrome.  Even though I do have Chrome on my personal computer, I need to use Internet Explorer for certain sites and I don’t like switching between them.  So Google has Google Chrome for Internet Explorer which allows you to download an add-on.  Google also has another add-on called Google Cloud Connect  that allows you to open, work on, save, share  and download Micorosft  office documents in Google Docs.

This is all very cool, but these add-ons are on my local computer and I can’t load them onto the college’s computer because it is locked down.  So sometimes the cloud doesn’t quite work out.

I would imgine that eventually the browser will get smart enough so that we don’t have to keep loading add-ins, but right now, it seems a bit out of hand.

If we are truly mobile, it should mean full funtionality at all locations and all platforms.

 

Fredrick Law Olmsted

Just watched a PBS show on Fredrick Law Olmsted. I knew about him, but didn’t realize that he was a genuine genius.
Olmsted was to the urban landscape as Tesla was to electricity. I spent many hours with my grandmother as a young child in Central Park. She lived only a block away on 75th Street. As a young teacher, I taught a few blocks from Central Park and regularly brought my classes to the open fields for sports and games. I spent many hours running its famous roads as a member of the NY Roadrunners and every once in while, when the snow came down hard, I would cross-country ski on those same roads. I spent many hours playing on one of the 26 tennis courts north of 96th St. I don’t get back to the park as often as I would like, but it is certainly, in the least, a unique and calming place. I recommend watching this documentary.

You can watch the entire program at the site below. Just click on the link “Watch the full program”:

http://www.thirteen.org/olmsted/

Other Olmsted sites:

http://www.pbs.org/thinktank/transcript803.html

http://www.fredericklawolmsted.com/

http://tv.nytimes.com/2011/04/20/arts/television/the-olmsted-legacy-on-pbs-review.html

http://www.theolmstedlegacy.com/

Game Theory

I spent a day in a local middle school last week and saw a class in the computer lab looking as if they were playing 3D games. The were doing the typical stuff kids do on PC games: zooming through rooms in 3D as avatars and trying to destroy enemies as they go. They were totally engrossed. The math teacher, who was walking around the lab helping individual students, explained to me that to advance in the game, they had to solve math problems and that they played both against each other and against players all over the world. The students often helped each other both in and out of the game.
I started thinking about assessments, test administration and test taking. Students are taking more and more tests in school and often those tests become a primary method of determining the progress of a student. Students who learn both in a virtual and the real world are assessed in both environments. The teacher can go online in the aforementioned game and see the progress of a student. The student has a stake in his/her own progress as the game progresses. A student who is considered a “bad” test taker often has high anxiety when the a high stakes test comes around. But if the same student is assessed more frequently and in ways that are less nerve-raking, a teacher may see their true ability and weaknesses.Not unlike sports,  there is a certain tension during  games. Usually, since it is an enjoyable activity, that tension is not debilitating. A combination of online educational games, with project based learning (and an occasional high-stakes test) appears to me to be a more equitable method of assessing our students.

Dimension U

Is Ethnicism the New Racism?

Two articles in the NY Times this week brought out the problem of how ethnic identity issues seems to be taking over and becoming the new racism.

The first United States winner of the NYC Marathon came to the US when he was 12 years old with his family and has been an citizen of the US for over a decade. Who is it for anyone to say he is not a “true” American?  My grandfather came to this country 75 years ago through Ellis Island.  Was he not a “true” American. This country is a melting pot and will always be a melting pot.  That is why this is such a great country.  I would ask these doubters to please read the inscription at the base of the Statue of Liberty.

The second article brings out the fine line between religion and ethnicity.  It shows how one is intertwined with the other in deep and significant contexts. Defining a “true” American is not quite the same as defining a “true” Jew in Great Britain but there are similarities.

To Some, Winner is Not American Enough

Who is a Jew?  Court Ruling in Britain Raises Question

No, I don’t have a Blackberry or Iphone.

A long time ago, in a different technological age (around 8-9 years ago)  I owned a Palm PDA that allowed me to get my email just about anywhere I went.  At the time, I didn’t own a cell phone, so I carried the Palm device just about everywhere I went. It used Palm’s own ISP service and I even had the Web, and various Apps such as CNN news and ESPN.  I was very happy that I downloaded a CarFax app that allowed me to get a CarFax report while in a dealer’s lot.

The cost of this service was $9.99 per month.  It was not fast, but it worked 90% of the time around the NYC area, even in the subways.  I had it for 2 years, then the service disappeared when Palm went with a major carrier.  Then I got a cell phone but I couldn’t get my email.  I still can’t get my email unless I am carrying my laptop and I am near a WiFi hotspot.  I would say this is 30-50% of the time that I am outside my house or my office.  So 50-70% of the time that I am traveling I have no access to my email.  The only problem I find with this is if I cannot get my email for one day, I have to spend about two hours going over the messages, returning messages or making phone calls regarding the ones I received during that day.  But I can live with that.

What I can’t live with is people who assume because I work in a technology-related field that I automatically check my email every few minutes.  Here is what I mean:

1. Someone at work sets up a meeting at 2:30 in the afternoon at the office while I am out of the office at a meeting with no access to email.  Yes, the Outlook calendar will send me an email notifying me of the meeting, but I only see it when I get back to the office at 3:00 PM.

2. A friend sends me an email to my personal email account at 3:15 pm on  a Saturday about a get together with other friends at 11:00 am on Sunday. My last reading of personal email at home was at 2:45 on Saturday.  I see this new email at 2:15 on Sunday.

This is what I want- A single device similar to an iPhone whereby I can  make cell phone calls based on a per-call, pay-as-you-go plan and also have Web, text, email for a reasonable monthly or per-use cost.

OK.  I rest my case.

Literacy, Writing and Publishing for the Real World

School 2.0 tells teachers to work with students to publish material for the Web. Creating blogs, social networking pages and videos for the web in the context of the curriculum is certainly what all schools should strive for.  However, it is easier said than done. It is tough enough to try to make sure whatever projects are undertaken, they are in line with what higher authorities (State and Federal) say what the skills are that need to be learned.

The other, even more challenging issue is to create and publish quality material for the web.  If students projects involve publishing material that could be reused by other students and teachers, it should be their responsibility to make sure that the published work is up to par.  Who, then is the authority for vetting the work?  It could be the entire Web, if what they are publishing is placed in a public Wiki.

The key is that whatever project it is, if it is going to be published on the public Web, then it needs to be of the best possible quality.  What this means is that attention to detail, correctness,  presentation and credits is of utmost importance.

Also, even if the project is a video project, the correctness of language and prose should be attended to with great rigor.  Writing remains an important part of today’s world, on and off line.

This doesn’t mean that the student work can’t be tested and adjusted off line or within a closed educational network.  In fact, doing this first as part of a project could assure a quality product when published to the outside Web.

It would be a good idea for you and your students to realize that anything put on the public web is, indeed, public.  So the more useful the site is for others and the more high-quality it is, the more those who google you or your students will say “well done” and “I’m impressed.”

School 2.0 tells teachers to work with students to publish material for the Web. Creating blogs, social networking pages and videos for the web in the context of the curriculum is certainly what all schools should strive for.  However, it is easier said than done. It is tough enough to try to make sure whatever projects are undertaken, they are in line with what higher authorities (State and Federal) say what the skills are that need to be learned.

The other, even more challenging issue is to create and publish quality material for the web.  If students’ projects involve publishing material that could be reused by other students and teachers, it should be their responsibility to make sure that the published work is up to par.  Who, then is the authority for vetting the work?  It could be the entire Web, if what they are publishing is placed in a public Wiki.

The key is that whatever project it is, if it is going to be published on the public Web, then it needs to be of the best possible quality.  What this means is that attention to detail, correctness,  presentation and credits is of utmost importance.

Also, even if the project is a video project, the correctness of language and prose should be attended to with great rigor.  Writing remains an important part of today’s world, on and off line.

This doesn’t mean that the student work can’t be tested and adjusted off line or within a closed educational network.  In fact, doing this first as part of a project could assure a quality product when published to the outside Web.

It would be a good idea for you and your students to realize that anything put on the public web is, indeed, public.  So the more useful the site is for others and the more high-quality it is, the more those who google you or your students will say “well done” and “I’m impressed.”

P2P U and the “Old” R & D

A couple of unrelated acronyms here.  However, reading two separate articles- one about a free online university and the other about a the new methods of research and development seem to be singing the praises of collaborative learning and creating.

Collaboration in learning- students learning from one another may be the wave of the future. P2P U is just the beginning.  R & D in business and education was often confined to each corporation’s or university’s research center.  These centers were often in competition with each other.

In the world today, research centers need to collaborate to survive.  It began with Tim Berners-Lee and the first web browser in 1990.  He wanted to make sure that research documents could be shared easily and linked to similar documents.  Hypertext markup language was then created. It continued with the expansion of the Web and the vast content of knowledge that it exposed to the world. Then that knowledge was combined in technology such as WIKIs and products like Wikipedia.  It is continuing with the social online networks of today that foster learning and sharing. The technology that allows FaceBook, Wikipedia, Twitter, YouTube, etc. is essentially the same and has been around for 15 years.  It proves, that it is not really the technology that has changed but the culture around that technology.  The college students and young entrepreneurs who have developed these new online social networks have used collaboration, both human and digital to create their products and earn their fortunes.

I don’t think we actually realize how vastly the culture has shifted.  It is affecting the human community on every level.  We are witnessing something quite amazing.  We need to provide the tools to those in this world who are isolated and deprived.  That is why programs like the XO laptop and Give One Get One program are so important.

The Network is the Computer

Talk about foresight!  John Gage of Sun Microsystems stated “The Network is the Computer” in 1984.  He also predicted “cloud computing” and “virtualization.”

There was an Internet at that time, but he was thinking in the world view.  He did not know at that time that the Internet would become the THE network.  I think that this might be the greatest statement regarding technology period.

The Final Frontier

Space is truly the final frontier.  But today, if you mention space, people wonder if you are talking about MySpace, Facebook or real estate.

I contend that my entire life has been the result of the original race for space.  My interest in science, technology and electronics originated in two areas: My father’s interest in science and the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs of NASA.  Of course, I also attribute it to the fact that TV was emerging as a major news source.

Today, a Shuttle is launched and you barely hear about it.  But things are lot different than they were in the 60′s and 70′s. We have people living in a Space Station with an international crew  and US and Russian spacecraft supplying it.

The Space Race of the last century is directly responsible for:

The personal computer
Medical Imaging technology
GPS
Wireless Networking

various scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs who designed or created systems and technologies such as ethernet, LANs, WANs, hypertext, the graphical user interface, the computer mouse, voice recognition, and the internet.

and these are just a few items.

There are a number of scientists and NASA folks who believe we should abandon human spaceflight for robotic exploration.  I have enjoyed following the Mars Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, for the amazing length of time they have been communicating with the earth.  I do believe that robotic exploration is necessary.  I don’t believe that it should replace manned exploration.

I do, however, believe that without the excitement generated during the last Space Race, it will be difficult to convince most people that we need to continue to explore space with human beings.  Somehow, we need to generate the interest again-  especially for kids who are now immersed in social and personal technology. Space is the final frontier.  It is the ultimate challenge, both physically and mentally.  It is not about the technology.  It is about the human race and its destiny.  Just as the great explorers of the past provided us with our destiny, there are great space explorers who will do the same.

As a teenager, I expected that we would be on Mars or further by now.  I also expected to be one of those explorers.  Neither of these has come to pass.  I am a bit disappointed but I am very excited to be living in an incredible age of technology and to be part of it.

The only way to get people excited again is to re-ignite the space race.  The original excitement of the US- Soviet race to the moon is needed.  Also TV news needs to be prompted to cover it.  Right now,  there are multiple companies vying for the prize of being able to deliver humans to space in a relatively inexpensive method.  There are scientists working on different propulsion methods that would cut the time to get to Mars by 80%.

I hate to be such a romantic and I know that I will never be able to see a Mars landing by humans in my lifetime, but I believe that we should go ahead right now and publicize a series of races by companies, NASA, whoever,  that would be highly visible with major rewards.

We need to be excited again.  We need to fulfill our destiny as explorers.

By the way-

It’s the 40h Anniversary of the Moon Landing:

Here are recent photos of the remnants of the Apollo program on the moon:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html

Using these photos in combination with Google Moon is very interesting:

http://www.google.com/moon/

Where will all this go?

I recently found out that a web site I had neglected for a while had been taken down due the closing of the site provider.  Since I had a backup of the site, this was no big deal and I simply transferred the site to another provider.  But what about blogs like this and other sites like Facebook or Twitter?  How many blogs or web pages have stuff you have written, but is not backed up anywhere?  If you were smart, you would type everything into a file in your computer, then transfer it, which I used to do.  Then I got lazy.  Besides, most of the time, you still have to make the links within the blog itself.

This is the problem with content in the cloud.  Sometimes it’s preserved and many times it is not.  I believe in the future there will be digital archeologists who surf the Web (or whatever it will be in the very far off future) for ancient digital content.  But I digress.  How can we preserve our own writings?

Well, if you are using a public blog (meaning you don’t have your own web server with your blog) then you need to download the contents of your blog to back it up. Software that captures Web sites will do that. WebGrabber for Mac and SurfOffline or HTTrack for the PC work well.  I suggest you do this once in a while as you never know when a site can just disappear.  Usually the site provider will notify you and give you instructions on how to grab your content, but that is not guaranteed.