This Cyber Life - A Blog

Election Watch, Web2.0 Style

Tue, 4 Nov 2008 17:52:32 -0800

Like many Americans (most I hope), I’m sitting hear anxiously tracking election returns tonight. Also like many others, I’m doing this not only in a “traditional” (read television) sense but also Web2.0 style.

Currently I have about 8 windows open as I try to track all of this data coming through. Four years ago much of this technology didn’t exist, and it certainly didn’t eight years ago (I was teaching US History during that historic election, and this one proves to be every bit as important, not only because of who is running, but also because of the record turnouts that we are currently experiencing).

Here are some of the sources I’m attempting to track:

Joe Wood is live blogging at the moment - and every time I check back he’s posted another source - very up to date and informative.

Twitter is an amazing source of information and today I stumbled on election.twitter.com which specifically tracks election twits.

FiveThirtyEight has some interesting projection maps and very interesting scenario analysis as does RealClearPolitics.com with their table of solid, leaning, and toss up states.

The Flickr updates from Grant Park are pretty amazing (thanks for that one, Joe) and of course, my text messages are blowing up (just heard from a friend who lives in Chicago and who is NOT at Grant Park right now.

I could go on, and may as the night goes on, but difficult to write and keep tabs on everything. For now I”m going to sit back and attempt to absorb...

ILC 3

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 06:52:33 -0700

One final entry regarding the ILC that ended last night. I caught two very good presentations before heading back to Sacramento. The first was Leslie Fisher’s preso on digital photography. Now, I’ve seen this one before - twice before in fact - but I’m a huge fan, what can I say? If you ever get a chance to see Leslie, do so. You won’t be disappointed. She is a true geek who is also very talented in the area of photography and digital editing. As she says, “Just Google ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - Leslie Fisher’ and you’ll get several blogs detailing the presentation”.

Speaking of Google, I had the pleasure of catching fellow ADE, Jerome Burg’s presentation on Google Lit Trips. Jerome asked a powerful question early in his presentation. He asked if anyone else was concerned that there seemed to be a lot of old practices being done on new tools. Yeah, I’ve seen that here and there and it is a concern. 21st Century Education is about a different way to teach and learn, that just happens to benefit from technology use. Anyway, Lit Trips offers a different way to immerse the reader in the literature. At early levels, it’s all about putting the young reader into the story. With older kids, it’s about having them create the lit trip using Google Earth. Imagine having students metacognate on such things as location (geographic), images, weblinks, etc. while they are reading the novel. Then those students could work together to create a Google map which highlights all of those elements and ties them together in an interactive and media rich world that could be shared with others. That’s 21st Century education.

On my way out of the conference, I ran into Mike Lawrence, Executive Director of CUE. We talked about the conference and he said that next year it will be at the end of the week and include a weekend (good news for those wishing to attend but couldn’t subs) and that they plan to include more of the tech industry and attractions of San Jose. I did mange to spend a couple hours at The Tech Museum of Innovation so it will be great to see similar attractions built into the program next year. All and all, a great conference. Can’t wait until next year.

ILC Part 2

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 08:43:40 -0700

My kids, like most kids today play video games. I have absolutely no problem with this as I subscribe to the Marc Prensky school of thought that video games are wonderful learning engines. Like some kids, mine are beginning to ask, “how do we make our own video game?” Great question as video game creation deals with logical thinking, math, graphic arts, storytelling, creation, etc. Sounds great but the only problem is that you need to be an uber object oriented programmer with a team of uber OOPs, artists, managers, etc. Sorry kids...

Well those days may just be over. I sat in a great session yesterday (yes, yesterday - no live blogging here) that introduced me to the easiest video game development environment I’ve seen. I’ve played a bit with Scratch and I’ve built some apps in Flash and action script, but Multimedia Fusion is a new kind of animal.

Basically, the software creates a graphical user interface by which objects can be dragged and dropped on a background and then manipulated. Each object’s properties can be accessed through a pull down menu. Conditions can be tested, information can be polled, data can be passed between objects - all without knowing a single line of code. What this allows educators to do is to have students concentrate on the logic of the game (critical thinking anyone?) without getting hung up on the syntax.

Currently the product is only available for the Windows OS (only only creates Windows .exe files), but promises to have an OSX runtime module by Spring with a full Mac version to follow. There are also three levels of the software, from the basic “Game Factory”, to the full developer bundle. The Multimedia Fusion 2 release offers exportation to a java applet that can be run over the web.

I envision a day where kids can create learning games for younger students, themselves, the world, and begin to be creators of the worlds they love to play in. With software such as this, it brings us a step closer. Don’t take my word for it, click on the video below and see how easy this interface is to use. Here’s to the next generation of game developers.

Innovative Learning Conference 2008

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 07:05:10 -0700

My colleague Joe Wood is forcing me to be a better blogger (which isn’t too hard considering my track record). He has already blogged a couple of times about the Innovative Learning Conference in San Jose so I guess I’d better get a move on.

I was able to catch a very good session yesterday afternoon led by Cheryl Lemke. The session was entitled Critical Thinking Through Digital/Social Media. In a nutshell, her presentation was about the fact that “teens spend six hours a day using digital media, yet are often disengaged from and educational system that has not yet capitalized on the power of today’s technologies”. Sounds familiar. She highlighted several schools and class rooms who are beginning to use today’s technologies to help kids think critically. I thought two sites were very helpful:

The first is Immex site. Created at UCLA, this site offers “problem sets” for kids to work through. In the example, students were on the USS Kennedy and had to figure out what other near-by ship had attacked them. The lesson was slope intercept and the kids were definitely engaged. The site offers many other problem sets such as a HAZMAT simulation.

The second resource is Gapminder. This software is very cool. It is a free download that allows the user to input different parameters and compare changes over time. This is an incredibly visual piece of software that can really help students visualize relationships between different points of data. Take a look at the video from the TED conference.

I went to a great session this morning also - but I’ll save that post for a bit later.

Finally Back With Part 2!

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:20:48 -0700

Well, one thing that hasn’t changed is my incredible ability to procrastinate. Sure, I could throw out a whole bunch of excuses why I haven’t posted in three months, but no one wants to hear that and I’ve probably lost the one reader I had anyway, lol. Before we go on I really need to that Joe for getting my back in gear. We are now working together and he’s pushing me to keep up. This is going to be a good year.

Anyway, Part 2 of Creativity in Schools really deals with music. As a kid, I was a product of the school band until I decided to break off into other areas. Don’t get me wrong, it was a great musical foundation, but I wanted to be a rock star. The problem is that in those days it was difficult to do. You had to find others who were able, willing, and had gear. Eventually I found a few others, had some fun, but like so many musicians, it wasn’t much.

Now compare that to my daughter. At the age of 10, she has already written and produced five or six songs. The first one, “Drama Mama”, was an amazing process to watch. I had shown her how to use loops in Garage Band and that’s all it took. The lyrics came first. She showed me and I suggested a tune and rhythm, but she already had her own ideas. She “auditioned” loops, mixed different grooves, tested tempos until she had it. This process went on for well over a week until she had it exactly how it sounded in her head. Next came the voice capture. I helped a bit with this. We recorded her and I thought it sounded a little lack luster. She sang it again and I noticed that the waveforms lined up exactly. We used both tracks and it gives a slight chorus effect (imagine what George Martin went through to get that effect).

I recount all of this to illustrate the creativity, problem solving, critical thinking, and technical knowledge that is evident in this process. Not to mention the fact that she has a sharable product, something that I could never achieve in my wildest dreams. This has also increased her interest in music and she is planning to continue in more “traditional” forms of musical expression as well.

I include for your enjoyment my daughter’s first song, “Drama Mama” (check the top of the page). And I hope I’m back on track now. See you next week.

-JL