Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech

Although I subscribe to their podcast, I often pass over many recordings that I know don’t interest me. This one did. 

This week, the group discusses a variety of topics, including some
related to conferences attended by Scott and Ben. Scott reviews two
conferences held in conjunction with the Digital Life Conference in
September. One dealt with the topic of “Millennials”, people born
between 1982 and 2000, while the other involved “Tweens”, children
between seven and twelve. Scott talks about how these young people have
a completely different attitude towards technology and online activities.

Here were some key ideas and takeaways.

• Kids can sniff out fake….They discussed in particular how advertisers are forced to create authentic ads. Hmmm…remind you of anything.
• Myspace and Facebook aren’t the same…Myspace is about who you are, Facebook is about what you’re doing.
• Simple is good.  Reinforced my ideas about design.
• Flash and Ajax are key technologies
• There is a growing need for non-browser based apps. Twittercamp is one example.

I like the fact that these non-educators are saying and recognizing many of the things forward thinking educators have seen for a while. After all, I’m just following Stephen Downes’ request.

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Dr. Rick Schwier talks about instructional design for the third in my series of talking with design experts for the K12 Online Conference. Rick was my advisor for my Masters Program and really knows his stuff.

Technorati Tags: design, richardschwier, edtechposse, k12online07

 

 Instructional Design with Rick Schwier: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (680)

Bud alerted me to this via twitter,

Almost a new take on Did you Know but it’s actually another video from Michael Wesch of Kansas State who produced The Machine is Using Us.

Don’t dismiss this because it’s focused on higher ed. The message is pretty much the same. Powerful.

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Second of three interviews I did for the K12 Online Presentation on Design. This time my good friend Clarence shares his ideas on classroom design.

Technorati Tags: design, k12online07, clarencefisher, classroomdesign

 

 Classroom Design with Clarence Fisher: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (417)

This is part of my K12 presentation. This is the 30 minute interview with Christian Long and his thoughts on school design. (I said his blog was called thinkpad….it’s thinklab. I knew that I just misspoke) I only used a couple of minutes for the presentation but if you’d like to hear Christian’s thoughts on school design, you’ll enjoy his perspectives. I won’t give too much away in terms of the K12 portion but this may act as another teaser.

 

 Design Talk with Christian Long: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (427)

I always like the question on the Did You Know video that asks, “to whom were these questions (the 2.7 billion searches per month) asked Before Google?” Turns out Google has been answering our questions for at least 200 years.

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Cathy Nelson alerted me to this site via twitter and being that I’ve been immersed in my K12 presentation on design, I  began to consider why this works.

As Cathy alludes to, it’s very familiar format. Reminds me of a combination of the Apple ads and Lee LeFever’s plain English explanation videos of web 2.0 tools and concepts. There are certainly many similarities and I’m not sure which came first but there are some important design elements that make these effective communication. The common elements include:

• Whitespace…both literally in the use of a plain white background but also negative space which focuses the ideas.No distractions, just you and the ideas.
• Personal touch…with all the ability we have in technology to automate and create very slick interfaces and interactions, we are still drawn to people just talking; talking like they’re your friend, not a sales person. He’s not wearing a suit and tie, just a regular guy talking to regular people.
• Simple messages….using familiar tools and approaches to convey ideas.  Pen and a white board.

I think this is a trend we’ll be seeing more and more. Simple is good. But the use of complex tools such as flash (as used in the UPS ads) enables slick interactivity. The average user still struggles with creating visually interactive work of this nature but as with most things, these tools will become more prevalent.  The key is for us to examine the simple, clean nature of these experiences and never lose sight of the importance of clear, concise communication.  Show kids these sites as examples of effective communication techniques.

Technorati Tags: ups, communication, k12online, cathynelson

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Kathy Cassidy’s grade one students tell what they are thankful for on this Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. Warning: cuteness alert!

If you’ve never used or heard of flixn, it enables you to record directly to the website and provides a embed code for you to place on your blog. No need to register just click record, stop and paste the code. I’d be thankful if you left a comment on her blog.

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