Monday, March 10, 2008

Never memorize what you can look up in books

Never memorize what you can look up in books

- Albert Einstein

I'm always hesitant to use quotes that I can't pinpoint a source for. You never know where they could have been cooked up, but I like this one enough that I'll use it anyway.

I first heard about it listening to BOL (Buzz Out Loud) and found one reputable resource that uses it (Library of Congress). Still no real information on where it comes from.

However, I think that it is great. If Einstein were around now, he'd likely change that to "Never memorize what you can Google." :)

Dan



Sunday, March 09, 2008

Report: 6 Out Of 10 Americans Cannot Locate Payless Shoes On A Mall Map

Report: 6 Out Of 10 Americans Cannot Locate Payless Shoes On A Mall Map 

This is just tragic. How will future shoppers help the American economy slog forward? It is a shame that more schools aren't focusing on these essential skills. If we don't educate students on skills like finding Payless on a mall map, how will they learn to do this themselves.

Some say that we are just protecting them from buying cheap shoes. I mean, if we not only allow them to go there, but show them how to find it, aren't we guilty when those $10 specials fall apart at inopportune times? I say, of course not. We need to show them how to responsibly use these maps. Point out that they can get higher quality discount shoes for just slightly more at DW or super discounts on name brand shoes at TJ Maxx.

So, don't protect students from reality, prepare them for it. :)

Dan



Hard Rock Cafe Memorabilia

Hard Rock Cafe Memorabilia

This is a neat collection of memorabilia from the Hard Rock Cafe collection. I think that it's neat that it's online like this. However, I am completely underwhelmed with the "Zoom" navigation.

Don't get me wrong, the navigation is smooth and the picture quality is great. The download time on the image wasn't bad, but this is missing the mark. This is little more than a fancy image map. For Silverlight to promote this as some kind of design advantage over Flash is really quite wrong. I've seen this same thing done in Flash before.

Raskin talking about a zooming interface quite a bit and wrote about it extensively in his book, The Humane Interface. If this is what we are shooting for, this example misses the mark. The zoom interface is more than just zooming in on a picture. The zoom interface is more like zooming in on layers. If they really wanted to do something interesting here, they would have had the information accessible on the actual picture instead of on a sidebar.

We often hear about worlds within worlds and this is what the zooming interface would do for navigation. So, unless you are going to take me in that direction, don't talk to me about Zoom navigation.

Dan



Friday, March 07, 2008

Video: Twitter in Plain English | Common Craft - Explanations In Plain English

Video: Twitter in Plain English | Common Craft - Explanations In Plain English

Common Craft is at it again. Here is their video on Twitter.



Dan



Thursday, March 06, 2008

Learning technology teacher development blog for ELT: Advertisement Project

Learning technology teacher development blog for ELT: Advertisement Project: "Nik Peachey"

Cool idea and site referral from Nik Peachey. Having students create advertisements that will be watched and judged by the public is great.

I see the downsides of this too: making students corporate agents, filtering through nasty comments, and less than optimal outcomes. However, I really do think that the authenticity of this activity blows away the negative criticisms. You students become advertisers. Not pretend, not psuedo, REAL advertisers (without the expense accounts and 3 martini lunches).

Great idea Nik.

Dan



Sunday, March 02, 2008

YouTube - 21 Accents

YouTube - 21 Accents

Fun video. While native speakers of English have no problem hearing most of the distinctions she makes in the video, non-native speakers often don't have an ear for most of those distinctions. It might be fun to show this to your students and ask them various questions about the quality of the accents (which is the most American? British?)

I'm going to use this with my pronunciation class.



Dan



Saturday, March 01, 2008

Google Sites

The buzz has been pretty big about Google Sites, so I had to check it out. It's amazing that Google has lasted this long without having a wiki. I always considered Google Docs to be similar to wikis, yet with limited editors.

So, I went there. I wasn't sure what Google Apps was. I vaguely remember hearing about this service in the past, but being very uninterested in it. It is an enterprise system that requires you to belong to an organization that participates in this or that you have a domain that can be associated with this. I actually started to set this up on my domain, but it seems that I have to change my DNS settings, which I really didn't want to do.

Then I realized that Indiana University was probably set up to do this, so I used my IU email to setup an account. Then I saw that 73 others were signed up along with their email accounts (thanks Google, but please don't post those). There was no other way to contact them. I would have assumed that a page like that would have links to their spaces.

So, then I finally set up a "site" (wiki). The templates are terrible, but you can do a significant amount of editing of the template (no CSS access :( The interface design is pretty good. The editing options are much better than Wikispaces (sorry guys, I still love you) or any other wiki that I've used. This is a multi-billion dollar corporation going after a traditionally touchy-feely market and they are going to kill (in the future).

Why do I say "in the future"? Because there is a major flaw in Sites right now. Only folks in my network can edit. In a world where things are becoming more and more open, why would Google (GOOGLE!) play with walled gardens? It just blows me away. Everyone can see the site (Here is mine -- Seoul Daddy), but the most open option that I can choose is "everyone at Indiana University" for the editors setting.

That being said, this might be a welcomed addition to K-12 teachers who are required more and more to have these walled gardens. This makes it really, really easy to do.

Dan