Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech

Living a digital life and being immersed in the Web 2.0 world I forget that most haven’t even begun to explore this world. Quentin was quoted in the CBC article about Darren and Clarence that

Darren and Clarence are those one-per-centers that are leaders,” agreed Quentin D’Souza, an elementary resource teacher with the Toronto District Catholic School Board. “Once you move 10 or 15 per cent of the teaching population in that direction, the rest will follow. There’s a big change going on in society, and we need to think about different ways to interact with that change.

From time to time, I’m compelled to consider the wide gap between educators using the tools of Web 2.0 and those who aren’t. Those of us (the one percent) who use them likely believe all teachers and students would benefit from these tools when implemented correctly.  I’ve got some thoughts as to why I think they aren’t being used fully, but wanted your opinion first. I’ve created a very short 5 question multiple choice survey that I’m hoping you’ll take.
Click here to take survey
Feel free to link to this and I’ll share the results in a while.  Scott Mcleod’s survey provided insights into personal blogging but this one focuses on barriers. The survey is limited to 100 but that should provide a reasonable sampling.

Virgina Thompson

RenegadePress.com TV show where kids and create episode ideas interact with the website to develop ideas

CornerGas…going to be on WGN in Fall

• Discusses the power of content creation in all media. Importance of presences on youtube, myspace, TV.
• Going to design a treasure hunt of sorts to promote in the US. Give away free episodes online to try and build the fan base.
• Beginning to build “mo-bisodes”.
• Haven’t been released beacuse they haven’t been able to create a wider platform…all phones and services.
• Not worried about copyright issues for their shows on Youtube. Just happy folks are talking about the show.
• Make sure you have good stuff for people to “steal”.

Thoughts:  Interesting perspectives on using variety of media and also the copyright issues. Make sense to me.

Kevin McNulty

Play is serious business

• How we learn best
• empowering
• emotional engagment
• behavourial change

Immersing Storytelling into games

Simulation based learning

Thoughts: Admittedly….I shut down after about 15 minutes…demonstration videos didn’t work. He works for Terris-Hill and focused only on a simulation used to decrease injuries and accidents on oil rigs. Not a great deal of value for education but maybe I just didn’t get it.

John Lester Blogged Live Intro to Second Life

• Free to access
• All about the way we interact in the real world
• Shared experiences
• 150+ square miles
• 4 million users
• Live Video and audio streaming..live concerts
• Tools to create whatever and share
• Cool time lapse video showing 4 people build a house together
• Emotional bandwidth…the use of real world emotions and cues rather than emoticons
• Avatars range from very realistic to surreal and fantasy like
• http://secondlife.com/education

Have a look at this video to see the potential of Second Life 

Thoughts: Need to do some work with this. Certainly many are discovering its potential but like the web, it can be different things for different people but there’s something for everyone.

Technorati Tags: secondlife education johnlester

Kenton Janzen

Client Technology Manager Sasktel

Blogged Live

History

• History of Telecommunications
• PhotoPhone invented by Bell in 1880
• PicturePhone introduced by AT&T in 1964

Media Convergence

• email on your TV
• Video on your phone
• Upload photos on your phone
• Talk to people on your computer

GPS technology with cellular in Kid Tracking, Pet Tracking

Displays

RFID…electronic tagging

OLED…flexible displays

Retinal Displays

Bluetooth Tooth

Touch 

Buzr…Takes the vibrating feature of cellphones one step further…receive a shock alert

Scent 

Microscent uses a USB device to generate smell

Going Beyond the Senses

Human/Computer Interface…technology enables thought to move a prosthetic arm by attaching to nerve endings or Jens Naumann

Non-Implant Devices…VEP

Teleportation

Thoughts: Consideration and awareness of new technologies important to consider. In today’s world of exponential changes, most of these ideas and applications are not far off.

Megan Cole

Blogged Live

Talks about the use of Social Media in her personal life

• Began blogging last year when she worked at the Olympics
• Focused on sharing with family and friends
• Flickr and tagging
• Youtube
• RSS
• Delicious
• Digg
• Social networks…myspace, facebook
• Citizen Journalism…public contributions

Discussion about transparency and the need for business to be aware if not highly involved in the use of social media
Thoughts: Mostly discussing personal life….sounds a bit like mine…Still trying to figure out the audience. Someone asks, “why would anyone want to blog?” Not sure what they’re after or where they are at. As an educator I’ve presented similar content and tried to link it to educational contexts. It appears the trend is for audience to determine their own links and applications.

Technorati Tags: megancole socialmedia

Blogged Live

Chris Brooks and Scott Bateman

Focus on Artificial Intelligence and Web 2.0

• Smart agents….software which autonomously interacts with its environment
• Intelligent agents can adapt and learn from each other by observing their environment and interacting  (example…Clippy…not a very good one)
• Semantic Web hasn’t fully developed and is limited to niche areas not used broadly
• Web 0….Few to Many
• Web 1.0 Many to Everybody
• Web 2.0 Everybody to Everybody
• While these ideas were happening in academia, a parallel movement was happening called Web 2.0
• AJAX is allowing us to use our web browsers like applications
• Refers to blogs as online diaries…(Alan are you listening?)
• Talks about the Long Tail
• Importance of diversity in environments and products
• Amazon use of suggested products
• Shows the Kansas State video The Machine is Us
• Limitations of Web 2.0…millions of blogs to sort through
• Refining tags
• AI isn’t ready to automate many of these features but is necessary to deal with the larger set of data
• Semantic Web uses machines…Web 2.0 uses people…NEED CONVERGENCE

Thoughts:  Interesting ideas…important theories to consider

Mike Parkhill.…Academic Director Microsoft Canada

Blogged Live during his keynote

• Focuses on Change…shows a short PPT on change
• Shows Did You Know presentation remix of Darren’s version
• 18% of 2 year olds in North America are on the internet
• Refers to Prensky
• Kids aren’t learning Math, Science specifically but rather how to share, learn and collaborate
• Talks about a grade one student in Nunavut who speaks perfect German because her best friend lives in Germany and she plays video games online with her
• Convergence is happening…Glucoboy is an attachment to a gameboy which monitors blood sugar for kids with diabetes
• 

Challenge to adopt the culture that’s happening around us.

Thoughts: Not a new message to me but perhaps to the rest of the crowd.