Plasticity

I’m not entirely convinced I agree with the premise of Daniel Wilson’s essay for The Wall Street Journal, “The Terrifying Truth About New Technology“.  

The fear of the never-ending onslaught of gizmos and gadgets is nothing new. The radio, the telephone, Facebook–each of these inventions changed the world. Each of them scared the heck out of an older generation. And each of them was invented by people who were in their 20s.

My reason for disagreeing is that I have actually worked with a number of people well-outside their twenties who are far more into technology advancements than I am.  And there’s of course the most famous 50-something CEO on the planet, Steve Jobs.  That guy probably likes new tech.

I’m not saying you have to keep up. But at the moment you choose to stop growing, your world will begin to shrink. You’ll be able to communicate with fewer people, especially the young. You will only see reruns. You will not understand how to pay for things. The outside world will become a frightening and unpredictable place. 

 As they say, the only constant is change.

The World of Tomorrow

We will become advanced enough to put arithmetic, math, science and any other subject into an interesting game.

A student response to how schools will be different in 2015. I guess the limitation is not resource-based but just a matter of evolving our educators’ mental faculties to support such concepts. Of course, nothing tops this hopeful prediction:

You might be able to stay at home and take all classes at home while teachers and other school staff go to school building and have several monitors monitoring each student, checking their work, grading tests, teaching classes through video chat or a handheld smart board.

All kidding aside, it is telling that some students were hoping for improvements as simple as accessible computers that are “fast enough” in their dream of 2015. Or that some students expect that in 4 years, we’ll all be teaching programs like Word or PowerPoint. Having just come from a private Liberal Arts school with an education program that has its undergrads teaching 1st graders how to use WordPress, it’s important to remember that access to technology is in NO way equal.
And that we all want to stay home.

Social Media Done Right

I may be hyper-sensitive to the correct usage of Facebook as a social marketing tool because of the new MC Facebook Page, but regardless, I thought this was a cool project:

College of IST has introduced a game whereby students are asked to identify the locations in which this little lion (cue Mumford and Sons) is photographed.  The story is that he’s the Nittany Lion’s younger brother and is touring campus this week.  Students are also being given the opportunity to name the mascot.  My favorite so far?  Lulz Lion.  

Car Tech

You probably recall that I’m a car fanatic through and through.  A particular fascination – being a techie, too – is automotive technology, both in the car and around the culture of cars.  As I’m also always on the prowl for my next vehicle, the latest New York Times “App Smart” column blends several loves into one.  

Apple’s iCloud on the Horizon

I just blogged recently about the confirmation of the iCloud on my iPad blog, but thought it would be worth a mention over here, too.  Especially given Wired‘s great write up about this 4th go-round for Apple.  A choice quote:

Apple is finally getting serious with online media services. The company began building a 500,000-square-foot data center in North Carolina in 2009, which would support an enormous volume of data. […] “The companies that are building the biggest data centers tend to also have the biggest cloud ambitions,” said Rich Miller, an editor of Data Center Knowledge, regarding Apple’s data center […]

Given that I haven’t used MobileMe since it was Mac.com way back in the early 2000s, I’m very excited to see what Apple has in store. If this gives me the ability to upload my music to online storage and access it from anywhere on any Apple device, I’d be willing to pay just about any reasonable monthly fee they can come up with. I suspect I’m not alone in this thinking, either.

Fan Pages Hurt

I spent this fine afternoon creating a brand new Facebook Fan page for the Media Commons as our old Group page was set to be frozen in carbonite – with no option for mercy.  Armed with advice from our resident social media guru, I set to work with a spring in my step.  Most everything went fairly smoothly and we started racking up fans even before the bulk of the move was complete.  However, I hit a snag when it came time to start adding apps.  

Critical Documentary Making

The data demonstrated that critical documentary making is a pedagogically rich classroom ac- tivity, providing holistic experiences for pupils through connecting school life with the outside world; facilitating pupils’ explorations of societal issues which may support a sense of belong- ing to the wider community; empowering pupils to develop skills which can be used for voice and to make a difference; and enabling pupils to learn to critically read the media and become competent with information and communication technology which is transferable to other school activities.

A thesis posted on DML’s site on research conducted on the impact of documentary filmmaking in the classroom.  While Rosalind Cooper was looking specifically at Finnish primary school children, I think the findings (exemplified by the above paragraph pulled from the abstract) really apply at the college level – especially at some of the more rural Commonwealth campuses.  

IDS Mobile Media Kit

I was recently tasked with putting together a collection of gadgets and accessories that could comprise a Mobile Media Kit to be distributed to interested Instructional Design staffers throughout the Commonwealth. Once I found a suitably versatile Lowepro bag I set about filling it with a 32 GB iPod touch (in the same Belkin Ergo case with strap that we’ve been using for our Mobile Media Pilot), PED-3 tripod mount, GorillaPod, iRig Mic and Griffin stylus. I also put together a pack-in sheet that will let recipients know on which apps we would recommend spending a $25 iTunes gift card. 

No Facebook, No Problem?

A really interesting new video that presents some statistics and thought experiments on a world without the now ubiquitous(-ish) Facebook. A good five minutes 3:22 to get you pondering.

The Dream of the 90s (Hackers)

Do you remember how ridiculously inaccurate the hacking depictions were in Hackers?  Ever wanted to just slap haphazardly on your keyboard and feel like Crash Override or Acid Burn?  Well, now you can thanks to Hacker Typer!

Hack the Planet!

(io9)