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