Monthly Archives: October 2011

Oct 12 2011

OTR Links 10/12/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

By dougpete • Posted in Links
0
Oct 11 2011

A Lesson from Football

If you’re connected to anything at all, you’ve heard about this interview.

Probably the fairest and most balanced report of what happened appears here.  According to the Wikipedia, “From 1991 until October 2011, a version of his song “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight” was used as the opening for broadcasts of Monday Night Football.”

Embedded in a 3:31 clip is one comment that ended a twenty year relationship, whoever’s side of the story you believe.

The result will be a change in the programming and I must admit that I enjoyed the Barry Sanders introduction this week.  But, that’s not the point.

Very few of us will go through life and have the opportunity to be big in the media like a Hank Williams Jr. or a Barry Sanders.  But, if you blog or Twitter or use Facebook, you do have a media presence.  If your students blog or Twitter or use Facebook, they have a media presence as well.

Some folks feel that they have themselves covered with statements like “The opinions expressed here are mine and not necessarily those of my boss.”  That’s fair enough and may, in fact, be a true statement.  But, if you’re on your favourite social media and you decide to slam your employer, or your teacher, or make some other really unfortunate comment, will your boss/teacher/audience read your disclaimer and say, “Oh, OK, he’s got a disclaimer”.

When I coached football, I was offensive coordinator to three different head coaches.  The common thread to all three was the message that they delivered to we coaches and to our young gentlemen that you hold your head and dignity high.  We play the game and we build character.  Nothing else is acceptable.

If you remember Barry Sanders, he was the ultimate in class.  No taunting, no spiking of the football – he played the game spectacularly and with the highest level of dignity.

I’m sure that Hank Williams Jr. went into the interview with a purpose of expressing his thoughts and opinions.  I can’t believe that he had any intention of creating the situation that followed, but it happened.

With live television, there’s no opportunity to review and edit before it goes live.  Students using social media do have that option though.  Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this situation is the encouragement to all to proofread and predict the consequences, both in the short term and the long term, of a comment or a post before submitting it.

Oct 11 2011

OTR Links 10/11/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

By dougpete • Posted in Links
0
Oct 10 2011

Looking for local Q & A

I browse through Quora periodically.  I’ve posted a few questions there and have received some interesting responses.  I find that, at times, it gives me answer quicker than going to a search engine and weeding my way through machine curated content.  Quora, by its nature, always generates people answers.  Of course, you have to critically look at the answers because they are generated by people.  They can be equally as wrong as they can be right.  You can see my original blog entry about Quora here.

A couple of visits to Quora ago, I noticed that they had a mobile application.  I thought that was interesting and so inspired I downloaded it.  After all, you might by on the go and need to have a question answered.  Now, the mobile application has the same sorts of functionality that the web version would have, including push notifications.  That’s helpful to know when there are changes to your account.

But, there’s another really interesting feature.  That’s the “Nearby” option on the menu bar.  Selecting the button lets you find out what people around you are asking.  I think that’s cool, tried it, and realized that I live in a very boring neighbourhood and probably nobody uses it anyway.

I then noticed that, in addition to the local content, there’s a Google map in the upper window of the application.  I’ve seen maps like that that are scrollable and I’ve seen them where they’re just a graphic image.  If they are scrollable, often you can change your point of reference.  So, while nothing interesting is happening in my neighbourhood, I’ll bet that there are some questions just north of us in Detroit, so I scrolled there.

This looks interesting.  I wonder what questions were asked in midtown.

I check through and find something of interest.

 

Now, that could really be helpful for visitors.

When we think of “location services”, I think that many people think of Google Maps and some of the other traditional restaurant applications.  My mind is spinning when I think of the possibilities of finding out what sort of questions people in a location are asking.  It’s one thing to search by a topic or keyword, but by location?  Very interesting.  It puts a new spin on research.

Oct 10 2011

OTR Links 10/10/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

By dougpete • Posted in Links
0
Oct 9 2011

Troll Blaster

I got a new follower on Twitter yesterday.  The user was @emobisoft.  I won’t tell you what I thought the user was but like any new follower, I checked out this account.  It’s a software development firm.  Interesting…I checked a little further and this firm was from Montreal.  You’ve got to love a Canadian startup.

It turns out that they have developed and released an iOS game called Troll Blaster and, in their stream, there was a redeem code for it.  Typically, these redeem codes are either gifts of software or a chance to preview a package.  Either way, I figured that I’d give it a try.  I submitted the redeem code and got the message back that it had already been redeemed.  Sorry about your luck, Doug.  Out of curiosity, and to let them know that the code had expired, I sent a direct message.  I figured that would be the end of it.  Not so.

Within five minutes, I received a direct message back with a different code and an invitation to try out their game.  Well, my motto has always been “cheap is good but free is better” and I downloaded the 10MB file and shot it across to my iPad.

I fired it up and thought – uh oh, I’ve seen this type of game before.  You know the game with birds and pigs.  But, this was different.  Right from Level 1, there were no gimmes.  The puzzles that are presented are similar but harder.  As I started to work my way through the levels, I realized that we were indeed operating at a new level.  Now, there may be some that will talk about using an application like this in science classes – because of parabolos, I guess.  It’s just fun and problem solving takes on a different level.

Speaking of levels, there are 64 of them to tease you.  The graphics are beautiful and the sound really adds to the game.  Like that other game, you’re advised to do a pinch in so that you can see the entire stage for any particular level.  Like that other game, you have a number of weapons with varying effectiveness.  There’s a cross-bow, a couple of cannons, and something that looks like it could be a grenade launcher.  I haven’t got far enough into the game to know what it does and what damage it will do.  And, like that other game, you only get about enough weaponry to solve the puzzle.  Unlike that other game though, you’re not locked into using the weapons in any particular order.  Select the one that makes sense and go ahead and use it.  Just that function alone adds so much more strategy to the game.  If you’re a Dungeons and Dragons fan, you’ll understand the concept of strength and why sometimes you need to attack a troll more than once to knock down the life, shown in a green/red bar over top of each troll.

So, I’ve been addicted to the game while watching the baseball game last night.  It’s a really well crafted game.  Kudos to the developers; I think that you’ve got a real winner here.  Had it been to market before the other game, it would be wildly successful.  I hope that lots of people who have either solved the other game or become bored with it give this one a shot.  It’s more strategic and at $.99 a bargain.

Oct 9 2011

OTR Links 10/09/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

By dougpete • Posted in Links
1
Oct 8 2011

Map your PLN

OK, so you’ve been following the Twitter advice and have worked hard on developing your PLN.  You may have a hundred, a thousand, a few thousand more or less followers.  Where are they all coming from?  Wouldn’t it be nice to know?

Now you can.  In fact, you can display them nicely on your computer screen using Tweepsmap.  Hit the website and decide if you’re going to map and tweet about it or look down to the smaller print and just map yourself.  I decided to give it a try.  Tweepsmap needs access to your Twitter account so you’ll need to allow that before proceeding.

The first result gives you a world map with percentages of your total followers overlaid on the country.  Looks like most of my followers are from the United States, followed by Canada.  But, there’s more!  Click on the little bird to get a little more detail.

Note that the maps below are resized to fit into the blog layout.

But, plotting by country is but one option.  Let’s try by city.  This time, the winner is Toronto!

In addition to maps, the site provides results in a nice pie chart.

How about a breakdown by province or state?  I could see this nicely fitting into an infographic.

But, you aren’t limited to just your account.

It’s a fun little app to play around with and get a sense of where your followers come from.  If anyone from the site happens to read this blog, I think it would be a nice enhancement to be able to plot a list  for example, like the Ontario Educators’ list.

When you’re done, just remember that you’ve given the application access to your account.  If you’re ok to continue with that, great.  If not, go to your account settings on Twitter and revoke access.  While you’re there, it might be a good time to scroll through all of the apps that you’ve given access to and adjust accordingly.  In the meantime, enjoy analysing your reach.  You may just be surprised at how far it extends.  If you have a classroom Twitter account, your student may be a little more than surprised and what a way to inspire some geographic research!

Oct 8 2011

OTR Links 10/08/2011

  • Computer Science Collaboration Project

    Of interest to Computer Science teachers

    tags: computer science csc project edlab group engage youth

  • Computer Science Collaboration Project

    Please provide the following information to register for “CSTA: Services and Resources to Engage Youth in Computer Science”. CSTA is the Computer Science Teachers Association, a membership organization of 10,000 educators, institutions, and companies dedicated to supporting and promoting the teaching of computer science and other computing disciplines in K-12. This webinar will focus on services that CSTA provides for formal and informal educators and the free resources it provides for helping young people, their families, and their educational community better understand the computing disciplines and the world of opportunities they provide.

    tags: Computer science collaboration project

  • Ada Lovelace Day

    This Ada Lovelace Day on October 7, share your story about a woman — whether an engineer, a scientist, a technologist or mathematician — who has inspired you to become who you are today. Write a blog post, record a podcast, film a video, draw a comic, or pick any other way to talk about the women who have been guiding lights in your life. Give your heroine the credit she deserves!

    tags: technology history feminism tech blog science Ada writing

  • How to Teach Online With Screensharing and Screencasts | Getting Smart

    Sharing ideas visually is no new concept. A hundred years ago, teachers used chalkboards. Then, with the invention of the smelly, dry erase marker, we upgraded our boardrooms and classrooms with shiny whiteboards. Then along came old fashion projectors, and we wrote on clear plastic, shining the ideas up on a pull-down screen. Years later, the projector has gone the way of the chalkboard though, because now we have digital projectors!

    tags: screencasts

  • App Store – VoiceThread

    Create and share dynamic conversations around documents, snapshots, diagrams and videos — basically anything there is to talk about. You can talk, type, and draw right on the screen. VoiceThread takes your conversations to the next level, capturing your presence, not just your comments. Anyone can join the discussion from their iPhone, iPad, iP

    tags: voicethread app

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

By dougpete • Posted in Links
0