My Fixed Arm

Nice work and it’s healing well!

Miguel Guhlin shares some great videos!!!

As always  I have found interesting information at Miguel Guhlin’s blog Around the Corner!  The following three videos are worth reflecting on.   Thanks Miguel!

In this first video I hope the answer is YES!!!

Since I reside in Nebraska I wish I could have caught this act, but alas tragedy struck!!!  It’s kind of like my trees the power district cut down and the one they butchered (I have to let this go, but this song captures some of what I feel!).

It seems amazing to me that we would need to create a sense of urgency in education, but the ideas presented here are valid for any organization.

Professional Development

A few odds and ends keep showing up on my blog as I share examples of how to blog in various professional development workshops that I am facilitating this June.  We are podcasting, blogging, doing digital storytelling, video conferencing, trying out online tools, and experimenting with several tech gadgets including the Wii.  We have also been involved in Quest Atlantis professional development too.  It has been quite rewarding so far, and I myself have learned so much.  Our training resources can be found at one of my wikis:  HIT – Hokanson’s Instructional Technology Wiki. Enjoy!

PCMAG.COM: “One Cell Phone Per Child”

Interesting article at PCMAG.com:  ”One Cell Phone Per Child.”

The author’s conclusion states:

“If I sound optimistic, it’s because I am. If anything can derail this movement, it’s that almost all of these efforts have been driven by businesses that are pushing mobile adoption because it’s profitable to do so. So far, letting business take the lead has been pretty effective, but there are a lot of projects that require government coordination. I just hope that governments and NGOs aren’t so infatuated with the OLPC that they overlook the millions of portable computers that are already in people’s hands.”

Map of Future Forces Affecting Education

Now that we are two years in on the KnowledgeWorks Foundation and Institute for the Future 2006-2016 Map of Future Forces Affecting Education where are we now?

Pattie Maes: Unveiling game-changing wearable tech

David Merrill: Siftables, the toy blocks that think

Microsoft Office Labs Vision 2019

Time you are so cruel!

There are times in life when you realize time has passed you by.  This does not become apparent until you reach an age where you realize your favorite music is now part of the “classics” channel on the radio.  As human beings we sometimes get caught in time and don’t realize, because of the day to day grind, that things have changed or are changing before our very eyes and we somehow miss it.

I have had discussions lately about the “new” Macintosh G5.  Yes, I said the new G5!  Somewhere, somehow, someone missed something.  In 2005, Macintosh began the shift away from the PowerPC processor to the Intel chip.  You can run Windows on a Mac.  I know most who visit here will know this, but I want you to know that some do not, and it is a shocking moment for these people to realize that, just like hearing Jump by Van Halen on the classics station for the first time, some important things happened as time marched on.

My purpose in this post is not to cast blame, figure out why this happens, to make fun of anyone, or to cry out to the developed world to pay closer attention.  I also am not posting to start a debate over Mac versus PC or the virtues of legacy equipment.  I am, however, here to say that what once was great, isn’t anymore.  If you are waiting for G5’s to make it to your classroom, you are too late.  Nevertheless, you are not too late for AMDs, Intel Core Duos or even Atom processors in tiny little laptops (they are called netbooks).  If you want a new PowerPC processor you can get one in an Xbox 360!

Change is constant, and we can hope to get the last drop of use out of an iMac, or IBM ThinkPad.  I’m all for that, and for being cost conscious, but there comes a time when the cost of maintenance and repair is not cost effective. I type this, mind you, on a PowerBook G3 Lombard from the 20th century, but I can maintain this at my own cost and not at the cost to the taxpayer.  When new is cheaper, faster, and better it is best, and that is what we are looking for:  what is best for students.

I know the G5 was great, shoot I had an awesome IBM AT with a 286 processor.  It found its way to computer heaven just a year and a half ago!  I read LowEndMac everyday, and I think my PowerBook G4 first generation 400 MHz laptop was the best ever, but I refuse to put one in the hands of today’s students.  They deserve the best not what was once the best.

Some things get better with age.  Cheese, Van Halen (I think so), and they say wine.  Digital devices do not get better with age:  they can’t.  As devices get faster, smaller, more portable, and cheaper it makes sense that we move on wisely.  Granted we should get all the life that we reasonably can out of digital devices and plan for the future.  That is the responsible thing to do.

If anyone wants to discuss the G5 I am there for you, but we will discuss its merits in a time that has passed.  As we visit hopefully we will be listening to “Where Have All the Good Times Gone?” from Van Halen’s Diver Down album, but we’ll listen to it as an mp3 on an iPod Touch.

Digital Immigrant or Digital Native…Which One Are You?

The labels, digital immigrant and digital native, have been floating around the blogosphere and education circles for a few years now. The digital natives are sometimes referred to as the millennial generation, current K-12 and college students, that have been immersed in a technological world. At a current, and young mind you, 43 years old I have been thinking where I fit into this picture, and I know where I am.

I was born in 1965, and just before my 4th birthday Sesame Street went on the air. For the most part I always remember having a television in my home. I remember my first digital football game, playing pong at a local eatery, my sister’s Atari 2600 video game system, our laser disc player, and the Apple IIe computers that entered our high school building pre-1984. From high school on out through the rest of the 80s, 90s, and now in the 21st century I have not known a time when I didn’t have access to a computer.

For those in my generation, late boom, early or pre-millennial, whatever you want to call it, we have feet placed on both sides of the digital immigrant and digital native worlds. I would say we are more native than immigrant, and we really don’t have an excuse when it comes to embedding technology into the curriculum. I am going to go so far as to say that if you were born after 1960, a digital native you are (As Yoda might put it!).

Starting in the 1980s we, the digital explorers I will name us, began attending and graduating from educational institutions that were digital, but pre-internet. We took each innovation into our lives and embedded it, we changed with the times, but we understood what a dial phone was, knew people who had actually grown up on farms, and had some compassion for those that couldn’t understand how to set the clock on the VCR. We helped our elders along the digital road and did it for our folks because they didn’t know how.

As the digital explorer generation, we hoped that our education system that we knew would be transformed, but after 25 years removed from my own high school graduation not much has transformed in the classroom. The internet connections are there now, much of the hardware and software is there, but too much instruction is the same as it was in 1984. Why?

As part of this newly named digital explorer generation I have a call to action. If we look around right now we may want to realize and notice, if we haven’t already, that we have reached the age of decision making. We are in a position to be great influences in generating a cultural shift that has failed to move as fast as we have always hoped it would. As educators we especially cannot rely on an excuse that we are digital immigrants, we are not. We are the digital explorers and the first digital natives.

My challenge to my generation of digital explorers is to set the example. Continue to embed technology in your classrooms, start embedding technology in your classrooms if you have been avoiding it (we really have no excuse as we know the language and the customs already), and we must help digital immigrants embed technology in their classrooms. I do, because I am a digital explorer and one of the first digital natives, and we are the generation that knows how to change. As for the younger digital natives they expect something different, and we must help forge the trail because we have been the digital explorers and know the way.

“The Linux laptop goes to school”

Article on the Asus EeePC 900 ($400) from ZDNet in the Linux/Open Source section: “The Linux laptop goes to school.”

“School of Everything”

This is an interesting idea and site: School of Everything. “The Big Idea” for the site is as follows:

THE BIG IDEA

“Our current education system was designed in the industrial revolution to prepare people for factory work. The world has changed a lot since then – and the time has come to rethink education from the bottom to the top.

At School of Everything, we believe that learning is personal, and starts not with what you ’should’ learn but with what you’re interested in. So we’re building a tool to help anyone in the world learn what they want, when, where and in a way which suits them. Putting people in touch with each other, not with institutions.

This isn’t about e-learning. There are lots of great online tools, but not much beats being in a room with someone who wants to teach you the thing you want to learn.

Millions of people already make a living as self-employed teachers. But that’s just the start: think of all the underused skills that exist in any neighbourhood. From active retired people, to teenage whizz-kids, to hobbyists in their garden sheds, there are people everywhere who could gain satisfaction, confidence – and maybe even a new career – from passing on what they know.

We don’t mind whether you teach for money or simply for the love of a subject – we think the world should be full of people sharing what they’re passionate about.

Our goal is to do for education what YouTube has done for television, or what eBay did for retail: to open up a huge and fertile space between the professional and the amateur. A space where people teach what they know and learn what they don’t.

It’s this vision of a bottom-up learning system that gets us excited. We’re very new, but we’re growing – and we’ve got big plans.”

Space and Science

Two interesting articles I have come across:

An Orbital Tour

“One of my favorite orbit tracks starts over the equator southwest of Hawaii. At this point, looking down you will just see water and clouds. The Pacific Ocean is a deep bright blue color…” (Earth Observatory – NASA)

Eight New Human Genome Projects Offer Large-scale Picture Of Genetic Difference

“A nationwide consortium led by the University of Washington in Seattle has completed the first sequence-based map of structural variations in the human genome, giving scientists an overall picture of the large-scale differences in DNA between individuals. The project gives researchers a guide for further research into these structural differences, which are believed to play an important role in human health and disease. The results appear in the May 1 issue of the journal Nature.” (Science Daily)

A Video From One of My Teachers…

My blog has been a place where I have met some wonderful people.  These great folks have become my teachers and as they share their knowledge, experiences, products, concerns, and hearts they become my friends.  Kyle Addington teaches me more and more each day, and he created a video that I have been meaning to share and it cannot wait any longer!  Watch, learn, and do:

Digital Storytelling at My House…

My son Charlie created a claymation video yesterday. You can visit his blog to leave a comment about his project. I think it’s pretty good for a first time go at claymation; so, let him know what you think.

Charlie’s Blog: http://chokanson.wordpress.com