Elementary Integration :: Blog

http://www.shack.ca/index.php?id=20

It was way past my bedtime but I actually stayed up to watch the Sarah Palin speech at the Republican National Convention. After hearing so much on the news, and some derision from “The Voice” on CBC’s The Current, I decided I would have a listen to what Governor Palin had to say.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed…not by what she said even though it definitely doesn’t match well with my political leanings…but how she said it. Not much enthusiasm, right off the teleprompter, obviously told to stay on message, or else.

But, that’s not why I am writing.

When the party was polling each state for their nomination, Arizona passed. I didn’t think much of it. Then, just shy of the almost 1200 votes required for nomination, all the states started to pass. Then I thought, what the hell is going on. Let us ask professor google. And then I discovered the Achilles heel of the Republican party and why Obama has been so successful with younger demos.

On the Republican National Convention website there was a blog…I thought to myself, “Surely someone on the floor will explain to this dumb Canadian why all these states are suddenly passing on their vote.” The only problem is, the last post on the blog was three days ago. Now I don’t want to cast stones because I am certainly not so speedy with the blog updates but really…three days ago?!? So then I head over to the DNC website. The last day of the convention saw 7 posts, 6 of which were video updates posted to You-tube. No doubt there were also micro updates to cell phones on Twitter and a DNC facebook group. The blog has a Tag cloud! Obama gets it. That’s why he has more money than he could possibly spend. He is tapping into the long tail…small payments from millions of people. And when it comes to getting out the vote, you can bet the SMS and emails will be flying. How will McCain get the young voter out?

Oh, and by the way, McCain is from Arizona. By tradition that state gets to cast the votes that nominate him. But, if they had kept their blog updated I could have gone to bed an hour earlier.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PortablePD/~3/378546704/

The folks at Common Craft have done it again.  This time they explain what Google Reader is all about.

Find the video here. I’ve also embedded the video below - although it is from YouTube.

Authored by Nathan Toft. Hosted by Edublogs.

There has been lots of chatter over the last week or so about whether learning styles are a real phenomenon, or just a posit that was let loose and has become a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.

I can't help but wonder, even if they do exist, do they matter? Is it my learning style, or my learning patterns that matter? As a teacher, am I wasting my time trying to adapt teaching to fit their learning styles while force fitting them into a pre-defined learning pattern that is cold and unnatural to many of them?

I have increasingly over the last 6 months found myself wanting to spend more time talking to student about this question - which I see as a key to unlocking what might be wrong with education today...

 

"How do you learn when you WANT to learn?"

 

So, I'll pose the question first to any of you reading this. How do you learn when you want to learn? Do you follow the patterns you had imprinted on you in your days as a student? Have you patterns changed? How has technology changed them?

I've got to figure out a way to try and get some honest answers to this question from students, as I am sure there is a lot we can uncover that might help us reach more of them...

 I am not a teacher but work with them everyday.  I'm always excited when they embrace technology and use it in the classroom.

 One teacher is already planning to use MP3 players for her students this year by using her new microphone headsest to record stories for her students to listen to.

 I'm currently testing out Mediawiki which is the basis for Wikipedia as a documentation site for our IT department.  It doesn't have much but I've shared it with a couple of co-workers who liked the idea.  I also showed our IT Educational Consultant who is looking for a web based system to hold educational data or reference files for all teachers.  

 Mediawiki or any other wiki would make it easy to add pages as needed, edit or update the pages by anyone and the ability to search for any key words.  The idea of editing pages by any teachers allows for easy collaboration with other teachers and up-to-date materials.

I would like to see more open source software and web based projects such as Moodle used by teachers and students.  There are some great ideas and solutions that are available that can enhance student learning.  (I like my job but I want to expand my skills and try new things).

 

 

Not sure what I make of this, but though provoking none the less.

(maybe not a good time to post this  - right after so many have just left summer institutes where differentiated instruction seems to be the theme of the day...)

 

http://www.shack.ca/index.php?id=19

I was researching wireless for a WLAN implementation RFP going out and stumbled on this website, wikia.com. It seems to be a new take on Wiki where they are grouped into communities, one of which is school computing. It looks like a great resource but I haven’t had a chance to do a deeper dive.

I am having the time of my life this summer, selling a home and moving to a new place. Oh yeah, 2008, The Summer of Love. In the midst of all the 1 million arrangements to be made, I got an email asking me to present to incoming teachers all the great things that we will be providing, technologically speaking, this upcoming year. As I happily took a break from packing, and started to prepare a list of the wonderful world of Web 2.0 and beyond, with lovely links to curriculum and classroom uses, it occurred to me just how many of those strategies am I actually using in my real, busy, and very authentic life?

So here is my quick check-list of relevancy:

Did I use the Internet?  

And how!! From changing my address, to researching home provider options, to listing my home, to booking a moving company, to emailing my poor friends about all this, the list is endless.

Did I Podcast, Blog, or Wiki?

Well, I’m blogging now anyway.

Did I use Digital Media?

Yup, got some pictures of my house out there for all the world to see.

Did I use a social network?

Yeah, the old-fashioned kind, my first-life, physical friends, to help pack, sort, lift, tote and have a w(h)ine. Couldn’t do this without them.

Google Docs?

All those Googlers out there will be happy to know I did!

 
The point is, it’s not whether the New Tools are relevant. I couldn’t have done any of the above without critical thinking, analysis, PROBLEM SOLVING, research, and, oh yeah, the Internet. We need to keep it real, and give the kids authentic tasks. Actually, this would make a great, cross-curricular assignment. “You are a Moving Consultant, faced with limited budget and an impossible task…..”

 

Barb

http://www.shack.ca/index.php?id=18

I have been trying to install Wine on EeePc for a while..the most popular instruction, to use the Xandros repos at wine.budgetdedicated.com don’t work. They throw an error about a Winbind dependency. So I am reading a forum post that describes this problem perfectly and I wanted to share the reply:

_this is not a wine bug

nor is the repo for xandros

but rather for ubuntu and debian.

either build wine from source a get a package for your Distribution. _

Super helpful.

If Linux is going to win converts, the user base has to realize that the vast majority of computer users don’t compile the software they use. In fact, most mainstream computers don’t ship with the tools necessary to compile from from source.

Maybe some Linux users believe this is a must have skill for anyone that is going to use Linux. If that is the case, hope you are enjoying life on the sidelines because that is where you will stay.

http://www.shack.ca/index.php?id=17

Well, it took me a while but I did validate the instructions I found for a factory eeePC restore from USB. The instructions are almost perfect except I had better success copying the boot tool folder to my Windows XP hard drive and running from there with the Recovery CD in the ODD. So, my version of the instructions, without the pretty screenshots, would be:

Easy Eee PC recovery in ten quick steps

(Assumes E: is your DVD Drive)

1. Insert the Tools DVD into your computers DVD drive and copy the E:SoftwareBootToolBootTool folder to your hard drive.

2. Remove the Tools DVD and insert the Recovery DVD and your USB Key. Navigate to the BootTool folder on your hard drive and run FreeOSTool.exe

3.Once the utility is started, please ensure the disk drive chosen is correct and select “Copy EEE PC 700701 image to USB flash and make it bootable”

Once complete, press execute.

4. The warning message will pop up to make sure you have backed up your data (if any) from your USB drive. Press Yes if confirmed.

5. Next, wait for a minute before formatting finishes. During formatting, a message pops up to ask you to unplug and plug the USB drive back and click Retry.

6. Wait for a while before the files are copied to the USB drive. Once completed, a message shows up and you may click Yes to close the program.

You may then unplug the USB drive.

7. Plug the USB Drive into your Eee PC and boot up. When the Eee PC logo appears, click the Esc key couple of time to go into the boot device menu. Please select the USB Drive and press Enter.(Note: Due to the manufacture may vary, the name of the USB drive may be different. However, they should show “USB:…” to begin with)

8. Please wait a few minute before the recovery system is activated.

9. Next, it will ask again if one wishes to recover. Input “yes” and then Enter to continue.

10. After a few minutes, the process will finish and one may click Enter to reboot the system. Once rebooted, the recovery is completed.

http://www.shack.ca/index.php?id=16

As I was searching for a way to speed up my video encoding I stumbled on this article. I couldn’t agree more. Even if Moore’s law holds true, it will be 10 years before a home PC will encode video to DVD at an acceptable speed. With video editing becoming a more mainstream activity there needs to be an easy way to aggregate the processing power of the 3-4 computers in some of our households. There is a Java X-Grid client which allowed me to connect 3 machines to my Mac for a total of 12 Ghz of processing power but I can’t run my encoding client on an X-Grid of mixed platform. I wonder how schools with active video production facilities are dealing with this…maybe a video encoding grid at Secondary would help these students be more productive and address one of the least appealing aspects of digital video production.