Blog Juice for Educational Technology

Pete Barr-Watson has some pictures posted on Flickr under a CC license of a working prototype of the $100 laptop.

I want one

Let me tell ya’ something. Back in my day, we had a think called Discipline. It did NOT involve a prescription from a licensed dope dealer. “Being sent to the office” didn’t mean the psychiatrist’s office for a few pills and a bill; it meant the Principal’s Office. Sittin’ in that office was a big fat bald man with a purple face and a paddle. If you didn’t behave, you’d discover the business end of his perforated “Attitude Adjuster” connecting with the soft tissue of your tender and soon-to-be repentant backside. Back then, “Sit down and shut up” meant something. Of course, that kind of thing is now as ancient history as Coca-Cola with real sugar, and kids are being told to let their ADHD run rampant for the sake of fighting flab. That’s right–no need to sit still and listen; heck, let’s jump around while listening to iPods instead of this multiplication and spelling crap.

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Well, thank the FSM, here’s an mp3 player for the rest of us. These things are built to withstand the assaults of a fully functional 3 year old. For those who don’t know what havoc a 3 year old can wreak on a humble piece of electronic equipment–well, I suppose you’ll just have to ask Mr. Richter. (Anybody ever get a cheeseburger shoved in their VCR?) Anyway, what question being asked at Boing Boing about this player is whether it’ll come with Digital Restriction Management included. Wouldn’t it suck if you bought this for your kid and then ended up having to actually pay some jackass for “Frere Jacques”? But who am I kidding–they’ll hack the thing and be listening to Mobb Deep a few days later. It’s just a matter of chewing.

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I posted this earlier on TechRhet, but thought it was important enough (to me, at least!) to crosspost:

Greetings, folks. We’re currently in the process of planning a new media lab for our English department. We have a budget of about $50,000, though there are hints that we could get more if we could make a compelling enough case. My thoughts are that we should try to design this lab with a new media production mindset. I had the pleasure of discussing these issues with Madeleine Sorapure at GPACW, and she recommended Photoshop, Dreamweaver (or perhaps Fireworks), and Flash Pro 8. These sound like good choices to me as well, though I’d like to hear from others who might have other thoughts. (Naturally enough, my FS proclivities make me want to yelp “GIMP” and “GNU/LINUX!”, but I’m not sure anyone would take me seriously.)

NB: Mike Edwards contributed heavily to these notes. In fact, most of what’s here is his work, so I want him to get credit for it.

The CCCC Blogging SIG had a large and productive meeting Thursday night in
Chicago. We began by discussing some of the initiatives the SIG had proposed
the previous year, including the one-page paper handout guide for teachers new
to blogging (which, we might hope, will continue to be revised collaboratively and kept up to date as necessary), as well as thoughts about assessment of weblog writing,
outcomes of weblog use in writing courses and professional endeavors, and a possible large multi-institution study investigating the
classroom uses of weblogs.

Following the initial discussion, we split up into five small groups focusing on
action in specific areas. The groups discussed their areas and reported back when
we reconvened. Here are the results of our discussion:

My colleague Rob Dornsife just published the following in _Radical Pedagogy_:
“Coming to (Digital) Terms: The Work of Art in the Age of Non-Mechanical Reproduction” at http://radicalpedagogy.icaap.org/content/issue8_1/dornsife.html.

Another plug, but I couldn’t resist after reading Matt Barton’s review of the Steven Johnson book a couple posts down. I’d like to alert Kairos readers to a thread recently begun at if:book — the blog of the institute for the future of the book — where we have mounted a multi-post, ongoing critique of EBIGFY, in which Johnson himself is participating. We were moved to do this after witnessing the near-universal acclaim the book has received since publication. We’ve already come across numerous instances of it being assigned as essential reading for new media and design classes, in some cases by teachers who haven’t even read it. It seemed time for a more rigorous discussion…

A small plug for the new Games, Learning & Society program offered through the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Details here:

http://website.education.wisc.edu/gls/index.htm

Areas of study include digital literacies, digital game-based learning environments, gender and gameplay, and MMOGs.

Nicholas Negroponte and the MIT Media Lab have finished the design for the $100 laptop. Check out the images. Note that it can run on AC current, a battery, or be charged using a hand crank, a requirement for rural areas of developing nations. It has table writing capabilities, can be an ebook reader, and has a dual display that can run color or black and white (for use in sunlight). And of course it runs on Linux.

So far, five countries have expressed interest in the laptop. Notably absent in the announcement list is the US. While I agree this is a great innovation for developing nations, I’d like to see one distributed to every public school child in the US. Can’t we get rid of a few multi-million dollar figher planes for this?

Dear Kairos Readers,

The Institute for the Future of the Book is pleased to announce the launch of next\text, a new project designed to encourage the creation of born-digital learning materials that will enhance, expand, and ultimately replace the printed textbook.

There are two stages to the next\text project. The first is a curated website showcasing significant projects currently in the field. The aim is to draw attention to a broad range of experiments that identify ways in which digital media and networks are expanding the potential of textbooks, redefining the role of teacher and student, and converging to create new ecologies for educational institutions. These areas include, but are in no way limited to: “expanded” multimedia textbooks; “open-source” textbooks continually improved by teachers and students; dynamic, networked textbooks with live or regularly updating components; collaborative work spaces; and multi-user games.

This is a neat new technology which one of my students this semester pointed out. The Optimus keyboard, to be released in 2006, doesn’t have writing on the keys to denote which key is which; rather, it uses LCD technology to display the key. Your computer applications will be able to change the key display on the fly. The pictures do a better job of explaining it than I can.