I remember reading about the Mosquito a few years ago, a device which was designed to prevent teens from loitering in private places by emitting high frequency noises only audible to youth. I now just noticed free Mosquito Ringtones, ringtones that teens can download and use which cannot be heard by their teachers.
This is likely old news, but very interesting.
Chris Lehmann, principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, was last night’s guest in EC&I 831. Chris shared his experience as a progressive educator/administrator, and provided many valuable insights for our participants.
The recorded Elluminate session is available here.
Ustream version available below:
And finally, Rob has provided an mp3 version.
Thanks so much for presenting Chris. This was an excellent way to round off a great group of presenters!
Penguin Publishing has put out a neat site where it seems six stories by six authors will be told in the coming weeks via Google Maps. The first story is 21 steps by Charles Cumming, and with this, you can quickly get a sense of how the stories will be told.
Content and marketing aside, this could be a very powerful way of telling a story.
Pretty amazing!
Boston Dynamics has just released a brand new video of their DARPA-funded Big Dog robot. Big Dog, the older brother of the Little Dog robot we covered a while back, is meant to be a “pack mule” for soldiers some day. Behind Big Dog is some pretty cool force-controlled technology. With its quadruped gait it can regain balance if it’s kicked, handle rough terrain like rocks, and climb inclines up to 35 deg.
In this new video, in addition to some footage from previous videos, you can see it handling slippery ice, slopes in deep snow, and demoing its new walking gait. About halfway through is the ice part — this thing is better than I am at regaining balance. There’s also a demo of it carrying a 340 lb load, much heavier than it has managed in the past.
via Automaton.
Clarence Fisher was our guest presenter in EC&I 831 this week. Clarence was incredibly inspiring and he helped us all better understand how geographical characteristics, particularly remoteness, is no longer a barrier to rich, global learning opportunities.
The recorded Elluminate session is available. The Ustream version is also available below.
Thanks so much Clarence for being a part of our learning experience. I know you have gained many new fans, and we look forward to learning more from you in the future.
I spoke to a group of EPS 100 students last week, and Del Fraser (one of their instructors) wrote up some notes about my presentation. I thought that these were well done and captured much of what I talked about.
One of the opening lecture points I made was that I wanted you to think about your role as an agent of change in your teaching practices. Not change just for the sake of change, but change for the continued adaptations we need for students to succeed in their new worlds. One such change is that of using Information Technology as a partner in successfully teaching your students.
One of the responsibilities that teachers may assume is that of “protector”. We assume this role in a natural way as we assume responsibility for the learning community and students who are part of our everyday circle of contacts. It is somewhat natural for us to be aware of how connected our students are while under our guidance and care.
Alec Couros showed us several ways of connection and emphasized the huge value of students thinking globally … the many benefits for learning which accrue through information sharing and interaction.
He asked that we 1. Understand media, 2. Know the power of media, 3. Use media for opening creativity in our students, 4. Be aware of the social activism aspect of media, 5. Check and recheck the background of media connections.
Initially, we all are confident in our ability to use computers in our personal lives. The recent (i.e. last two years) advances and developments in technology offer an amazingly quick way to access information in standard and mobile processes. As beginning teachers, consider the plus and minus aspects of technology in your teaching.
There are many advantages and many concerns regarding the use of information {IT} technology in teaching. This will not change. We need to maintain an on-going review of the effectiveness of any strategy and/or instructional process in our teaching. A reflective professional will do this.
How we deal with IT in our classroom is one part of the reality which teaching professionals face in classrooms, school communities, and school divisions. It is not an isolated issue and we are not alone in our discussions or actions.
As a beginning teacher, consider:
1. What part does IT have in your plans for professional growth?
2. What are the issues for you relevant to the use of IT in teaching?
3. Are you going to be the kind of teacher who wants to be constructivist in implementing IT?
4. What are your plans for keeping informed about IT for the classroom – in the face of rapid changes in technology?
5. Does a corporate agenda present itself regarding IT? Is this a good thing – why or why not?
6. Will you be prepared to confront and deal with issues of a negative nature …… cyber bullying, sexually explicit websites, racism, social injustice, violence, stalking, pornography, hate sites, copyright, text messages, technocheating and whatever else may rear its nasty head?
7. Will parents/caregivers expect you to fully inform them and educate them regarding your IT plans in your future classroom?
8. SaskLearning is a source of guidance regarding IT. Is there an STF policy, a Schoolboards policy?
9. Will you be an agent for change when you see inequities in IT resources?
10. Where does IT fit in your worldviews regarding the Five Commonplaces?
Thank you Dr. Alec Couros for your timely and humorous presentation.
It’s always a pleasure speaking to our new preservice teachers. I hope they enjoyed the presentation as much as I did.
Larry Lessig’s book, The Future of Ideas, is now available as a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licensed download.
In The Future of Ideas, Lawrence Lessig explains how the Internet revolution has produced a counterrevolution of devastating power and effect. The explosion of innovation we have seen in the environment of the Internet was not conjured from some new, previously unimagined technological magic; instead, it came from an ideal as old as the nation. Creativity flourished there because the Internet protected an innovation commons. The Internet’s very design built a neutral platform upon which the widest range of creators could experiment. The legal architecture surrounding it protected this free space so that culture and information–the ideas of our era–could flow freely and inspire an unprecedented breadth of expression. But this structural design is changing–both legally and technically.
Read this book. Now.
It looks like Microsoft has plans to test a new technology known as “Mediacart” in some grocery stores in the US.
Customers with a ShopRite loyalty card will be able to log into a Web site at home and type in their grocery lists; when they get to the store and swipe their card on the MediaCart console, the list will appear. As shoppers scan their items and place them in their cart, the console gives a running price tally and checks items off the shopping list.
The system also uses radio-frequency identification to sense where the shopper’s cart is in the store. The RFID data can help ShopRite and food makers understand shopping patterns, and the technology can also be used to send certain advertisements to people at certain points – an ad for 50 cents off Oreos, for example, when a shopper enters the cookie aisle. Microsoft said it is still working on how it will present commercials and coupons.
If this is successful, grocery shopping as we know it may be very different in the years ahead.
This is a short but interesting video describing excerpts from Paul Otlet’s “Tratado de Documentación”, the Book on the Book. This work seems to predict multimedia content distribution much in the way the Internet currently provides.
From Wikipedia:
Paul Otlet also aimed to extract “substance” from books much like we strive to separate content from presentation on the Web, and then cross-link this substance with other contents and automatically provide enriched combinations in ways unforeseen by the original book authors. This vision is strikingly similar to Tim Berners-Lee’s late-1990s concept of the Semantic Web.
The video on Otlet fits really well with this ad from Nokia titled “The Essay”.
This idea and technology has so much potential. I wonder if this potential will be realized in my lifetime.
via WatsonCommon
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