Monthly Archives: January 2008

Robot High School

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via Boing Boing.

Robot High School is a music video directed by Roel Wouters with music by My Robot Friend.

Despite how it may appear, the video was shot in a single take with no significant computer-generated effects added, just some minor post-production cleanup.

Robot High School allegorically questions what happens when our perspective and views of reality are manipulated by those in authority without any moral concern for the outcome.

Interesting video and message.

And sorry for this space taking on the link blog/Tumblr approach lately … beginning of semester is always so busy.

Visual Perception Videos

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I noticed this colour changing card trick today that I feel would be useful for sessions demonstrating concepts related to visual perception.

There was another one floating around Youtube a few years ago (has been since removed) and I was surprised to learn that a lot of people hadn’t seen it. Follow the instructions carefully and then watch the video.

    1) The video lasts only about 20 seconds.
    2) It is CRITICAL that you focus completely for the twenty seconds to get an accurate result.
    3) The objective is to COUNT HOW MANY TIMES THE BALL IS PASSED BETWEEN THE PLAYERS IN WHITE SHIRTS.
    4) This can be tricky since the players in black are only there to distract you.
    6) Do NOT count the number of times the ball is passed between the players in black.
    7) In other words, IGNORE the people in black shirts.
    8) Do NOT read any comments on this post UNTIL you watch the video and post an answer. (Reading posts first may bias your results.)
    9) Do NOT attempt to cheat by pausing frame by frame. Let the video play ALL the way through.

Now, watch the video on this page (it is the contained in the applet below the text).

To learn the answer, view this video.

Canadian Blog Awards

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I forgot about this, but I have been nominated for a Canadian Blog Award in the Education category. I am very flattered to be in such amazing company (and not sure I belong). There are MANY other excellent Canadian blogs that should be in this list.


In any case, if you think this blog is worthy, I’d love your vote. As Clarence Fisher writes, Vote now. Vote often.

Future of Ideas – Now Available through CC

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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.

Teachers Caught Cheating

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I remember reading about this problem in the book Freakonomics by Steven Levitt. Teachers have been accused of rigging the results of standardized tests so that schools are not penalized for low performance, as legislated by the No Child Left Behind Act

Cheating among teachers has become epidemic in America’s schools, with cases from New York to California, Florida to South Dakota, Tennessee to Maryland. “It’s more prevalent than anyone wants to admit,” says UNC-Chapel Hill professor Gregory Cizek, an expert on cheating in schools. “Teachers are paid to be role models. It sends a really destructive message to kids.”

Many experts say this disgraceful behavior has surged due to the 2001 No Child Left Behind law, which annually tests academic performance and can punish struggling schools that don’t show improvement. Feeling this heat, some teachers resort to showing students test questions in advance or—if you can believe it—changing their answers after the fact.


Source.

Tangible Rhythm Sequencer/Bubble Gum Sequencer

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This is a beautiful thing.

A tangible rhythm sequencer. Ball bearings are used to trigger drum sounds. Visual feedback is displayed from underneath to indicate the current time and the state of each ball bearing.

Update: I just noticed this “bubble gum sequencer” video, same idea, but the video explains the process much better.

The Bubblegum Sequencer is a physical step sequencer that lets you create drumloops by arranging colored balls on a tangible surface. It generates MIDI events and can be used as an input device to control audio hardware and software. Finally, people can’t claim anymore that electronic music isn’t handmade.

More info.

Big Party – The Interview

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There was some news this week about the “Australian kid” that threw a big party (500 people) at his parents house while they were out of town. The fallout from the party resulted in a lot of damage to neighboring vehicles and homes. Here is a video of the boy’s first television interview.


Funny Kid Isnt Sorry About Huge Party – Watch more free videos

This is interesting to me, not so much in the sense that the kid has little regret about the incident, but more so in the way the news host attempts to discipline and force the child to take off his glasses and apologize. It felt familiar. I have witnessed this before in the disciplinary approaches of many teachers and administrators, and almost always, it has a similar result.

Seem famliar to you?

Digital Advertising Right To Your Grocery Cart

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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.

OLPC & Education

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If you follow me on Twitter, you’d know that I have been trying to get people to convince me of the value of OLPC. I have been intending to write a comprehensive post on some of these responses and my thoughts, but I just noticed an important post from Teemu Leinonen that will the gap in the meanwhile.

Leinonen shares that likely the greatest accomplishment of OLPC so far is that it has created a market for low-cost educational computers.

One Laptop per Child – the laptop project of the OLPC association, a North American non-profit has change the markets of low-cost mobile computers for educational sector. Even that in the OLPC there are such a multi-billion industry sponsors as the AMD, Google, Nortel, and Newscorp, the achievement of changing a whole market, or actually creating it, is absolutely remarkable.

In 2008 we will have the Intel’s Classmate ($250), Zonbu notebook ($279 + $14.95/month), Asus Eee laptop ($299-399), Nokia Internet Tablets ($150-$299), Nova NetPC “thin client” system (around $80/unit), and the OLPC’s XO laptop ($200).

Leinonen then goes on to argue that the OLPC is really a laptop project, and not an education project (as OLPC founder Negroponte continues to state). Leinonen follows with three reasons why the OLPC is in fact a laptop project. These include:

    – The OLPC has shown total lack of understanding of education as a system.
    – The OPLC has a naive believe on computer technology (per se) as a silver bullet in education.
    – The OLPC do not understand different cultures and traditions.

From everything I have seen related to OLPC, I would have to agree with Leinonen. There are some excellent points here, and the post is certainly worth the read. Most importantly, I think, Leinonen doesn’t see this all as negative, rather, he calls for a greater educational emphasis on the project.

I have a lot more to say about this, but it is much too late, and morning is near.

Networks vs. Tools

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I’ve been wanting to talk about the importance of helping teacher embrace and participate in rich, learning networks vs. bombarding them with the tools. However, Kelly Christopherson has done this for me.

Showing other teachers all the tools isn’t what is needed. Helping them develop relationships and make connections is. We can show and demonstrate, rave and mandate; it will not bring others to question, grow and adopt. We have many examples of educators who are beginning to delve into using these tools. Overwhelming them with the possibilities just pushes them away. Helping them to build their own networks, seeking out teachers who, like themselves, are testing the water and encouraging them to continue in their own lifelong learning will empower them to develop even more. Not all of them will see the benefits of all the tools they encounter but the relationships they develop during this process will go further, I believe, to bringing about powerful change than any tech person can hope to do by themselves.

This is one of the important ideas that I am trying to extend in my Grad course. Read the rest of this excellent post here.