New gear for new heights

Early in the book Personal Learning Networks, Will Richardson and Rob Mancabelli compare schools to the newspaper industry. This hits home for me since I have spent much of my adult life in the printing industry as a designer. I think about how many industries have been so hugely impacted by the information age and the technologies that are here are not just part of our lives but on our persons. Think of politics, medicine, music, art, business in general– mobile devices, have literally changed the way humans operate and think. For a while industries just tried to incorporate the web as an add on tool, but now I think we all realize that the tools of the web have already transformed most industries and continue to transform them in dramatic ways.

This class has exposed us to the primary tools that are changing education. Websites, blogs, twitter, RSS, mobile apps, learning management systems, collaborative tools individually and as a whole have tremendous potential for education. I look forward to seeing even more changes in future of education as more and more school systems, teachers and students adopt these tools as part of what I like to call “learning gear.”  It makes me think of rock climbers. They need specific gear. So do learners. Learners (teachers and students), need access to and practice with this new gear to reach new heights of learning.

I have to agree with the authors when they say, “It’s an amazing time to be a learner.” I am so glad to have had this opportunity to explore this class and its content with an amazing group of learners connected by the very gear we are learning about.

Keep on climbing and see you at the next summit. The view will likely be grand.


Richardson, W., & Mancabelli, R. (2011). Personal learning networks: Using the power of connections to transform education. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Hammock time vs Realtime

Ok, I did not stay in the hammock very long.  I'm finding once you're exposed to this many feeds of interesting ideas and new technologies it is difficult to give it up for very long.

I found a neat site and wanted to share it. It is another collaboration tool that looks like it would help organize personal and group content in a unique way.  https://realtimeboard.com/

 Has anyone had experience with Realtime Board?


What is RealtimeBoard? from RealtimeBoard on Vimeo.

Feel the breeze?

Somewhere there is a hammock with my name on it. The hammock is not hardwired or bluetoothed in, there are no usb ports or ring tones. It just sways gently on a warm summer breeze.   Ahhh.

Podcast Process

I have to admit, I sort of dread doing podcasts. The funny thing is that once I get several audio tracks lined up, I suddenly switch over to enjoying it.   It is fantastic to see an idea grow and evolve into a finished audio piece.  I like to start with a very rough "sketch" recording to sort of ease into the tone of the piece.... after that everthing begins to take shape.  Not a quick process by any means.  I am happy with my content.  I do wish I had time to rerecord a few segments and work out some of the noise issues.   I had a flapping noise that I could not get rid of. If any one has any suggestions, I would love to hear them.  Here's my podcast link. I posted it on Google Drive. At the top you can click open with Music player for Google Drive.

The Learning Network Podcast

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-vedEnAntF-em5pZzVTVXZoU0U/view?usp=sharing

App Design Complete

I started the App Design assignment knowing nothing about how to design an app or even how to think about designing an app. My app is called sifter and it is at its core a jazzed up time management app.  I found that once I began focusing on how I would personally like it to work, the task of designing became easier.  I feel confident I could dialog my app design with a developer in a way that makes sense. After submitting my first proposal, Dr. Ingram brought up an interesting feature that I had not thought about:

“One of my favorite ToDo list (features) “ages” the ToDo list. For example, if I submit a proposal to a conference and have it accepted, then obviously I will need to have things like Outline the presentation, Create the Powerpoint, or whatever on my ToDo list. The thing is that I might get accepted in June when the conference is in October. Clearly, it shouldn’t be a top priority in July but the closer the conference comes, the higher the priority should be, until the program (is) screaming at me two days before to finish preparing the presentation.”    –Dr. Albert Ingram

"Sifter development team" (me) liked this idea. So now a variety of notification options are available for any date(s) added to the sub-pages in sifter. Seamless communication will also be available through popular calendar programs such as google calendar and ios and android calendars, featuring notifiatication via email, voice mail, text message, calendar alert or sifter alert.

Now on to the podcast assignment.  Happy 4th of July everyone!

How do we lead in the new space?

I’d like to bring some light to the book we’ve been reading for our class. With all the technologies we’ve been consuming we’ve not had much time to reflect on the reading. Tonight I’ve been reading the “What it all means” chapter 10 and realizing the responsibilities we have in the role of technology educators. While much of what we learn in the skill zone is exciting and the realized abilities for ourselves and our students to make cool stuff with our new literacies is all good and certainly fun,  I can’t help ponder the more serious side of all of this. Will Richardson highlights some of these topics from which I’ve gleaned the following:

We must model and teach:

• Critical thinking, reading, viewing and writing - not simply reiterating what we have consumed but always questioning for deeper understanding
• Safe and ethical use of the tools
• Creative ways to share ideas and equally important– ways to manage ideas we collect and create
• The power of collaboration and the potential for good that can come from it

There is considerable weight to the comment from George Siemens, that (in this new space)  “Ideas are presented as a starting point for dialog, not the ending point” (Seimens, 2002)

I respect all of your opinions and I hope to get some feedback on these questions:
How can we be more than trainers of technology? What must we do to be leaders in this new space?

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful Web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Questioning Technology

Today I stumbled upon a podcast that may be of interest to all of us.  It talks about the promise and perils of technology.  I think it is important to examine the ways we use technology and the ways we teach technologies so that they bring us together to make real human connections and not divide our efforts into solitary technical snippets.  The podcast is the TED Radio Hour Podcast   episode title: Do We Need Humans? June 26, 2015.  I know I should be working on my podcast assignment, but it seemed like a reasonable diversion.

Sifting the Mobile App process

After reflecting on the mobile app design project, I realized how different the online, interactive space is compared to static design. It seems to me for effective design your thoughts have to always be in the mindset of the user of your product.  I would love to take a course in User Experience to delve deeper into this concept.

My app is about time management. Here is a brief explanation of the project. I worked up my design plan in InDesign. I am wondering if anyone has had experience using its interactivity features.

I know it can build interactivity for Ipads, but I'm not sure if my version 6 will allow for any other mobile devices.  Back to research mode. 

Introducing...

sifter

A mobile app that helps you “sift” your interests, activities, and endeavors.

Origins

Productivity

Time management

Activity tracker 

Goal achievement

Motivation

Organizing priorities

Primary interest identifier

Finding mentors

Establishing community around the interests

Audience

Any one who wants to improve or change the way they spend their time. 

Educational Application

This app could be useful to students and teachers to help them reach achievement goals.

Basic Concept

This app will allow you to visualize how your time is being spent. Once you have a visual capture of time expenditure you will see why certain goals are not being reached. 

Through a series of time tracking activities and prompts for action, the user will soon be able to intentionally, and intelligently choose to spend the time needed to keep their goals on track.  This app will provide top-of-mind awareness of how you spend your time. It will also provide the tool to help you improve your productivity.

No more boring “to do” lists, sifter offers a whole new way to organize your time.

Why?

Because time is gold.

lol... I know it sounds a little corny. I couldn't resist.  : )

Mobile Capabilities

As a graphic designer, I have come to rely heavily on my mac based double monitor desktop system. My primary workspace is on the left monitor. My tools, palettes and dialog boxes are on the right monitor. Plenty of space and easy comfortable access to all of the things I need.

Spaciousness is the thing I most miss when I attempt designing on a mobile device.  For many years, I have wondered if mobile devices would ever become an space for creating and designing.
Just today I tried working in Google Slides as part of experimenting for what to include on the wiki page.  Despite it being tiny, I was impressed with the ability to create a simple presentation on the fly.
If you were at an airport or away from your desktop and needed to organize an idea, it could be a very helpful tool. I can also see it as a useful classroom tool. For instance, students could build a collaborative slideshow about a fieldtrip adding slides for things they learned and images to build the stories.

In the future I would like to see improvements and greater controls, editing, and creating images within such programs.  It could be that the things I need are a just few clicks away.

WebQuest Conquest

http://botanicalexploration.weebly.com/process.html

After what felt like rounding up a herd of gazelles, I have pulled my Webquest into order. For a while the content grew and grew and then I had that out-of-body voice, you know the one, it speaks in a direct tone and uses your first name.  "Jodi, you need to focus."  And so I did, but it still took a long time to complete.

My topic is Botanical Exploration and I welcome any comments and suggestions you all might have for it. That being said, I completely understand if you do not have time to do so.

Off to pick some berries for a break from all this technology.

Sharing Technologies

So I wanted to blog about a slideshare that Nate Luke linked to in his post on the discussion boards about RSS that will soon be tweeted about.  How is that for an technical intro? Take time to look at this great slideshare if you have not seen it already.

RSS in Education from leonardstern

I am curious about citeulike.org. Has anyone had experience with it?

Professional Development Needed

In their Education Digest article, Using Blogs to Improve Differentiated Instrucrtion, authors Michaela W. Colombo and Paul D. Colombo zero in on something I have been pondering for a while- and that is the need for technology education at the instructor level.

"Successful blogging requires content-area master teachers to rethink current teaching models and to make decisions regarding the effective integration of technology. Teachers need to consider how to best adapt content to online format. They also need to experiment and share their work with others in the same content areas to evaluate its effectiveness. Teachers also need access to technology and to professional development. Those who are technologically savvy will benefit from experimenting with new technologies and sharing ideas with colleagues; those without technological expertise will need more focused training and sufficient practice time."

These are big and time consuming tasks to ask of teachers. Is there time in the day for this? If not, what is the solution?

Current Picks

Here are some of my top picks for RSS so far- some serious, some fun!

Art
Illustration Art – Constant stream of great illustrators featured in depth
Behance  – Creativity motivator, amazing work, a gallery at your fingertips
Brain Pickings  – Creativity in all areas

Education
Edutopia – Seems to be a valuable education resource
TED talks – Can’t get enough of TED
TED Ed – Still can’t get enough of TED
Best Content in ALT Lab – Virginia Commonwealth Academic Learning Transformation Lab....     seems like a very interesting program for higher ed tech transition
Science NPR – There is never enough science in the news in my opinion
Mind Shift  –  I liked the title and it looks like a nice mix of education and current topics

Food
Green Kitchen Stories  –  Healthy eats
Smitten Kitchen   –  Lots of great vegetarian ideas
Organic Gardening  –  Ok, maybe I don't need more gardening ideas

News
CNN top stories  –  For when you have to have some news

Productivity
99U  –  Inspiring shifts of thinking that make you reexamine things
zen habits  –  Meditative productivity tips that steer clear of commercialism

Psychology/brain
Brain Candy NPR  –  Amazing stuff to ponder about all topics
Shankar Vedantam  –  I love his topics on morning edition NPR
Psychology Today  –  More cool brain research

RSS flood warning

I have had a reoccurring thought this week.  Three letters  "TMI", which usually is exclaimed when you don't want to hear something.  In my case it's a bit different– I do want to hear more. Too Much Information is simply a realization that clearly we have way more information than we can humanly process and put to good use.  There is something to be said for having access to variety, but until I can get a handle on filtering some of it out, it may continue to be what feels like a mind flood.

Anyone else feeling this way?

Blog toward the future

I had to repost this fantastic article from Blackboard. In part because I want a record of it.

campustechnology.com/articles/2015

Feeling better about RSS

Now that I have set up Vienna and Feedly for my desktop RSS use,  I am feeling good about the power of RSS. Getting everything in one place and being able to filter out what you do not want has tremendous value for personal learning and classroom use.

I saw a few questions that I can possibly answer since I ran into the same questions myself.

• If your blog feed text looks HUGE, it may be because you did not title your blog post.  

• Once you establish one RSS folder in your reader, you can export the list as an .opml file which is similar to a .csv file for email. Then you can easily import the .opml file to another reader to compare how they handle the feed.

Next, I am going to try feedly again on my iphone.  

Does anyone know how to get the .opml file onto your iphone?  I emailed it, but cannot hold it somewhere accessible by feedly.  I suppose I need to sync with my mac to do that.  

Vienna it is

After several random tests of various RSS readers, I am going with Vienna.  While I would like to review more options, the timeframe of this class simply does not allow for languid browsing.
Here is a snapshot of what the interface looks like.  It works, and at some point we have to remember that is what is most important and then move on.  Pretty cool to get everything in one place.

Running a test

This blog is simply to test an RSS feed reader.

Simple RSS stream

I am now testing out Vienna RSS Reader for Mac desktop. I will test on the iphone soon.
I like the overall simplicity and ease of use so far.  It is free without the advertising stream I have seen in several readers. More details to come.

Extensive RSS Options

I have been sorting through an extensive list of RSS reader options.  There are so many to choose from and the exploration into their individual features is time consuming. I tested feedly on my iphone 6. It seemed straightforward with a clean design but after signing up for 3 of our classmates blogs it froze up. I realized while having an RSS feed on the phone and knowing how to set that up is important, the most efficient way for me to read large amounts of information is first on paper, second on a desktop computer. So I began the search for best RSS readers for mac desktops.
I will post my findings soon.

Hello ITEC class!

This blog is part of my graduate coursework – Instructional Applications of the Internet. I will be posting about the things I learn and experience in this class.