Monthly Archives: April 2009

Apr 10 2009

Semantic Web

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon with our Teacher-Consultant for libraries updating the subscriptions database page available from our Student Reference Portal.  The SRP is the default opening page for all of the students in our district.  It was designed to give quick and easy access to meaningful resources for them rather than typing long URLs or searching anytime you want to find things.  It’s not all-encompassing, to be sure – we have Google or Yahoo! for that.

The Subscriptions Database is our attempt to direct students and teachers to resources that have been licensed by the District, the Ministry of Education, and more recently, the Knowledge Ontario initiative.  These databases are commercial, are authoritative, and the sort of thing that teachers will accept as sources for research and quotation in articles.

There are some assumptions that are made when you use resources of this type.  The are predicated on the assumption that you know a certain amount about what it is that you’re searching for.  You don’t sit down and browse an encyclopaedia.  You generally have a concept in mind and you’re looking for facts.  In that respect and for those uses, these resources are great.  Normally, there’s a charge for access, but for students and teachers, someone else is picking up the tab.

They are very supportive of some of the traditional goals of education, research, and report writing.  The internet opens up a whole different perspective on research though.  There’s just SO much information available that folks are looking at different ways to work the web for information.  I’m starting to focus on the “Semantic Web” and its implications.  A quick video explains a bit.

Intro to the Semantic Web

In support of my attempts to get my head around this, I have installed the Operator plug-in into my browser to try to get a handle on things.  At this point, I’m just exploring.  I’m not quite sure where I’m headed with this.

I really like the concept though……

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Apr 10 2009

links for 2009-04-09

Apr 9 2009

You Never Know…

…where your sphere of influence extends or for how long.  It’s one of the things that we hang our hats on as teachers.  It keeps you going during the good times and the bad times in the teaching profession.  You know that you have an impact from day to day but the true test shines through years later.

I received an email from my former superintendent (a Peturson) who was at a meeting where someone congratulated him on his son’s work on the Rubber Side Down movie.  Apparently, she had attended the screening at the Capitol Theatre and enjoyed and was impressed with the work.  My former boss indicated that Andy was actually my son and that he had nothing to do


Image by Old Shoe Woman via Flickr

with his skills.

But he did.

It was his plan to take our board down the Communications Technology path and offer this opportunity to kids.  It was his desire that this take off and so he bought the equipment and my job was to help teachers with it.  It was at that point that I turned the learning over to The Boy who attacked it with enthusiasm and taught me.

After the email message, I started thinking about memorable moments from my own education.  I do recall exciting projects and activities in mathematics, science, and computer science.  Interestingly, it was the activity itself that I recall immediately.  It was only after hard deliberation that I could think of the teacher’s name and the names of classmates that I worked with.

In all my memory, I only recall one English activity and it wasn’t a good one.  We had to write a short story and I wrote one about vampires.  I don’t recall the details of the story but only the red marks that the teacher put on the top, when it was returned to me, accusing me of stealing the work of someone else.  I still remember how upset I was because I’m not the best of writers and I thought that I had done a pretty good job on that piece.

In education, we provide all kinds of chances for students to work together, collaborate, and show what they know.  We make memories, good and bad, and our influence extends far beyond the end of the course.

To the teachers that read this blog, what kind of lasting memory will you make today?

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Apr 9 2009

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Apr 8 2009

Real Time Duke It Out

Yesterday, Seesmic released its new product, Seesmic Desktop.  Those of us who are Twhirl users were excited to see what work was done and I downloaded it first thing this morning…before even my morning coffee.

They’ve done a nice job and I’d encourage you to take a flyer on it at http://desktop.seesmic.com.

The common thought is that Seesmic Desktop competes directly with its sister product, Twhirl, and Tweetdeck. Into the fray also comes Nambu.  Ah, the perpetual betas.

So, which is better?


Image by rMen via Flickr

I would encourage you to check them all out and make a decision for yourself for what works for you.  They’re all great products.  I’ve always like Twhirl for its ability to handle multiple Twitter accounts.  Seesmic Desktop makes monitoring them even more seemless.

In the meantime, watch these browsers duke it out for supremacy in the Twitter client forum.

You can’t beat good statistics.  You can beat live traffic.  You can’t beat live statistics.

Watch these clients go head to head here.  Move your cursor over the data stream to see how they’re doing!

You can read a review of the new Seesmic Desktop here.

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Apr 8 2009

links for 2009-04-07

Apr 7 2009

Another Design Opportunity

I spent a lot of time yesterday thinking about the post that I made about taking a regular computer classroom activity and putting it to the masses as Campbell’s did.  I couldn’t help but think about the impact on the classroom of having students design for the real world.  I really liked the concept and was feeling pretty good about it.  I even wondered why more companies didn’t do it.

It’s just like learning about a concept.  It’s one thing to read a book or to hear someone talk about something.  But, ask any teacher.  There’s nothing that forces you to learn something like having to teach it or do a presentation about it.  You have to dig into the topic and learn all that you can so that you’re not caught off-guard.

That’s where education and corporate contests seem to cross.  If you’re going to design packaging, you’d better know the product in and out so that there are no errors in your design.  In the process, you’re going to build a great deal of product loyalty.

Yesterday afternoon, I was out and about to do a workshop at one of our distant schools.  I stopped at a convenience store to pick up a package of gum to chew on the way.  As I’m standing at the counter waiting for my product to be run through, I looked at the rows and rows of candy that’s sitting right at little kid eye level.  Ah, marketing.

Then, one of the packages caught my eye.  In among the brightly coloured packages that are screaming “Buy Me”, I see a white box.  It really stood out and


Image via Wikipedia

I thought to myself that maybe it had fallen into some water and the colouring washed away.  I picked it up; it was in a stack of Smarties candies and it was a box of Smarties.  But, it was a good box – it was designed to encourage purchasers to design and colour the package.  Serendipity, as my buddy Paul would say.

As a parent, that would be the box that I’d choose.  After the candy was done, the child could be engaged to colour it and so I’d get twice the bang for my buck.

From the corporate perspective, I did what I’m sure that they want all parents to do.  I went to their website to see more details about it.  Interesting design and you have to wade your way through Smarties all over the screen to navigate.

Sure enough, there were details about a contest.  This time, it was a “Design Me Egg Contest”.

Back to the classroom, here’s another authentic reason why we would assign a design activity to students.  It’s not just a goofy little classroom lesson – it’s got an application to the real world.

Now, obviously, the intent isn’t that classroom teachers should be searching out contest opportunities all the time.  The point is that there are real world applications for such activities.  The fact that we can tie it into regular day life lends so much more credibility to it.

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Apr 7 2009

links for 2009-04-06

Apr 6 2009

Activity not so Goofy

In Business Education, one of the things that we do in Marketing and Computer Applications classes is to have students design posters and product labels.

It’s an opportunity to teach and directly apply the skills of using programs like Adobe Photoshop Elements or Microsoft Publisher.  There are many things to think about in terms of design.

  • How do you attract the consumer?
  • How big is this going to be?
  • How do we create this as to not be offensive to some members of society?
  • How do you modify your design for a book, a box, a can, an internet product…?
  • Where do you place product warning labels?
  • What is the size of the contents in the product?
  • What are the ingredients that you are required by law to put on the label?

    Image via Wikipedia
  • Are there any value added components to what you’re designing?
  • What colours compliment each other?
  • What colours clash with each other?
  • What is the company logo?
  • How do we use this design to support the branding of this product?

While it may be a motivating assignment for some, the typical response is “This is boring” or “This is goofy”.

Well, would $5 000 change your mind?

From The Campbell Soup Company comes this offer from their Ideas for Innovation.  Here we have a huge corporation that’s willing to pay for ideas to help their corporate presence.

Some classroom activities seem a little less goofy now, don’t they?

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Apr 6 2009

links for 2009-04-05