iSean

when the iPhone first came out, i nearly went out and bought an 8 GB one for $599. i decided to wait, which was very hard to do as my wife had given me the okay to buy one. well, with the recent news of Apple dropping the price of the iPhone by $200, i knew it was time to buy. instead of going for the 8 GB iPhone, i decided to buy 2 of the 4 GB iPhones at $299 for the same total price i nearly bought 1 a few months back. i won’t write a review of the iPhone because they’re everywhere, but i do have to say that i held off because i had some reservations . . . and now having owned one i can’t believe i waited. browsing the internet from anywhere is awesome. and, it’s not a watered down cell phone internet; rather, it’s real, real real.

i can tell AT&T is not as good as Verizon in my area because the signal strength isn’t as strong, but so far it’s working even when i get down to 1 bar. this post is more about something that sort of irks me — being charged for ringtones. This isn’t Apple; rather, it’s the music industry. i can see being charged for a midi file that is different than the songs on the iTunes Music Store as it has the vocals removed and all that jazz . . . but being charged for the same exact song???

while i think downloading illegal music is wrong and it’s something i won’t do . . . i also think there’s just something about buying a ringtone that i won’t do. i have bought the music already. i can play the music on my iPod or burn it to a CD and play it on CD player and in DVD players and i can play the music in my car or on a home stereo. why should i pay to also have this same song play on the same device just because a call comes in? the notion that ringtones are somehow in a need of a new license agreement that i’ll pay for again is ludicrous. i bought it to play on my iPhone and it plays on my iPhone and now they want me to pay again so i can play it again on my iPhone? PUHHHLEASE!!!!!! the RIAA can go after illegal downloaders like crazy for all i care, but this is just too much. why do customers put up with this?

Technorati Tags: RIAA, iPhone, iTunes, ringtones

i am demonstrating something in my class right now:

so, i purchased Parallels for my Macbook. Parallels is an application that allows me to run Windows on my Mac. i was able to take my Virtual PC install on my main computer and copy the Windows and Parallels recognized it on my Macbook once i copied it over. i had Windows up and running inside of an hour. Windows runs far, far better than it ever ran in Virtual PC, fwiw. and, i am running XP as i am in no hurry to try Vista. but, the installation was so easy that i decided to try Linux as well. i chose Ubuntu as the distribution to install on my Mac. i literally hadn’t played with a version of Linux in about 6 years. Ubuntu really seems ready for prime time. with Vista doing so poorly, i am now starting to wonder if open source solutions are going to start creeping into the forefront for many businesses and schools. many people use Firefox . . . runs great on Ubuntu. i have email, a photo editor and many other apps. and Ubuntu runs fast on my Mac. i find myself spending hours in Ubuntu. i think i’ll only keep XP on the off chance that i need the PowerPoint viewer to view a new PowerPoint 2007 file. nothing else. perhaps i’ll ditch PowerPoint full time and go with spresent instead from now on in my classes? it’s not open source, but it’s free and keeps me out of XP. heh. anyway, back to my point . . . i think open source is on the move especially if Vista doesn’t gain traction.

on a side note . . . this short 6 week semester online class is kicking my tail. everything is accelerated. on top of that, i start a 2 week compressed graduate course next week, so i have been reading like crazy to try and get up-to-date material injected into that curriculum. i have come across so much neat stuff that i can’t wait to get back to blogging more regularly in July. Stay tuned.

profetic.org has an interesting analysis of wikis and their fit into education here. the focus is on the university context, but much of the thinking is more universal in nature. i am not going to get too deeply involved in an analysis of what they have written, but i am curious about some things. first, nearly every benefit described (e.g., maximize interplay, democratic, real time, collaboration) could also be applied to other tools. i only bring this up because my personal experience trying to use a wiki in education was not that pleasant. and, i admit that i probably went into it with the wrong attitude . . . but, i have done similar work to what i tried with the wiki and found better success using Google Docs. just look at these help files pertaining to using Docs for collaborative writing. Google Docs has it all and they are about as easy to use as MS Word . . . in fact, students can start in Word and transfer writing into Docs fairly seamlessly. For example, look at the tool for commenting on a collaborative piece:

Comments are a handy way of inserting notes alongside your regular document content. People added as viewers and as collaborators will be able to see any comments. Each comment is automatically stamped with your username and the date, and can be invaluable for communicating with collaborators about specific parts of the document, as well as making notes about changes you’ve made or would like to make. When you publish your document as a web page, post it to your blog, or print it, the comments will disappear.

but that feature in Google Docs also addresses one of the pitfalls mentioned for wikis:

Since wiki authors are typically anonymous; unless the group is extremely limited and/or identification of textual input is imposed, one will not normally know who the author is. Thus, unlike threaded discussions in which the writer is identified, it is usually impossible to identity contributions to a wiki (Schwartz et al, 2004).

Such anonymity poses enormous questions for academic institutions wherein rewards (grades, bursaries, grants, publications and hirings) are still typically based on individual contributions and efforts. However, it is possible to insist upon authorial identification within any given wiki. But the advantages of “non-identifiable authorship” may outweigh the disadvantages in certain academic sectors. Garcia & Steinmueller (2003) outline three potential advantages:

1) an intensification and diversification of non-ownership/non-proprietary models; 2) an emergence of self/other identification hybrids; and 3) the proliferation of consumer/producer horizontal assemblages, reflecting the multi-authored character of information goods produced through collaborations.

granted, an instructor could set up the wikis so that everyone has to register and so that no anonymous comments are allowed. but, Google Docs keeps track of every comment and edit and revision, etc. in a way that makes it very easy for instructors to evaluate the contributions, etc. i know i sound like an advertisement, but i really do believe that Google Docs will make life easier for many teachers who are trying to implement collaborative writing in their classes. plus, Google Docs don’t require MySQL space or server issues, etc. — they just work.

Technorati Tags: ed tech, Google, Google Docs, wikis, technology in education

so, my experience with the knowledge tree is now done and was quite a fun experience. but, now i have some free time to focus on some projects that were on the back burner. and, perhaps my number 1 project is a wiki based textbook for educational technology (preservice teachers). in fact, i will be presenting on wikitextbooks early next year and hope to have a draft to show off at that time. i have spoken with other instructors who will use this textbook and they helped me conceptualize the project. my vision was to have many folks contributing, but i don’t think that will be the case as much as i had hoped. one of the things i won’t do is just open the writing process to anyone. since we’re writing this textbook to meet Michigan ed tech standards (closely aligned to the national standards, fwiw), i want to have some control. i am probably not using the wiki nature of the tool to the best of its abilities, but i have liked the look and feel of wikitextbooks that i’ve perused thus far. one of the first items that our little group decided was whether to write a textbook that could be read from beginning to end (similar to most textbooks now) or whether we would stick to topics. the group thought that topics would be best and that each instructor could piece together various topics to form assigned readings. this is much easier than writing a textbook, but it also loses some of the cohesion that can be had when a formal chapter is written. somehow i need to find a bit of a happy medium. i am also considering scrapping the wiki altogether and just using the book module in Drupal; though, that sure wouldn’t bode well for my presentation on wikitextbooks, eh? ;~)

so, i think i will take a few weeks to view many textbooks and to try and get a better sense of why i want to use a wiki over Drupal (or visa versa) and then choose the best took. i think i want students to have the ability to print the book that is online in case they want a hard copy (perhaps using Lulu.com, which is a cheap way to publish books — perhaps under $10 for a textbook).

please note that the image above shows a screen shot from Lulu.com when i selected a 200 page book that is perfectly bound like many books you find on bookshelves. compare this price ($8.54) to just about any textbook that is published by a publisher and you can immediately see the benefit of using this service over traditional companies. and, students wouldn’t have to get a printed version, but they should probably have the option available. unfortunately, i still get students who don’t own a computer and have to rely on campus computer labs for classwork. i am not sure that printing from a wiki environment would be easy, but that’s something i need to explore. same with the Drupal book option. there’s much to learn, but i am full steam ahead.

Technorati Tags: drupal, education, online learning, wikitext

whether you think there is too much hype over web 2.0 or not, the fact is that there are some neat web-based applications that are emerging and have been emerging. i have been very busy with work and an article I was writing that I haven’t been posting much here lately. hopefully i am back on track now.

anyway, i came across a blog site last month that listed many web-based applications that are alternatives to desktop office applications. i bookmarked it using listmixer (my favorite social bookmarking site — even though i am not social about it; it keeps me synced between machines for websites i want to come back to) about a month ago and am just now getting around to reading it, but figured i’d share it since it is a continuation of some thinking i started on this blog earlier this year with regard to writely as an Microsoft Word replacement. here’s the link: http://www.solutionwatch.com/515/back-to-school-with-the-class-of-web-20-part-2/

Technorati Tags: education, web 2.0, web-based applications, spreadsheets, word processing

my university recently started subscribing to the Chronicles of Higher Education. i’d never really read it, but i figured i’d check it out. it’s a bit cumbersome to visit the library and go through the login stuff, but at least the end result is a duplicate of the actual Chronicle website. when i want to read the op-ed pieces in the NY Times, i have to use LexisNexis. it’s interface is less appealing. i have to search for the title or the author of the piece i seek and then i can read the op-ed pieces that are reserved for NY Times select subscribers. then again, i could always pay for the select service. but, back to my topic . . .

in the Chronicles yesterday, there was an article about ‘Students Lack of Information Literacy.” i have talked about this before, but it’s nice to see a large organization addressing this issue. apparently ETS has developed a new test designed to measure students’ information literacy and computer savviness. the test is called the ICT Literacy Assessment Core Level. with a name like that, it’s bound to catch on quickly. [/sarcasm]

ETS ran a pilot study on 3000 college students and 800 high school students and found:

According to the preliminary report, only 13 percent of the test-takers were information literate. ETS set what company officials described as a rough, unofficial information-literacy bar using information from a variety of sources, including the Association of College and Research Libraries.

obviously, the result are pretty pathetic, but what do we expect? not a single state test that is required under No Child Left Behind is testing information literacy skills. why would a school spend valuable resources and time trying to promote these skills if a portion of their funding is going to be based on NCLB testing results? even if it’s the right thing to do and will help students in the long run, school administrators are really in a bind.

i applaud ETS for trying. i am 100% behind their efforts to start measuring information literacy skills. that being said, i also realize that changes to NCLB are going to have to happen first . . . and our students continue to miss out.

and, to provide you a little snippet for those who don’t subscribe, here is a finding that was labeled as “good” by ETS: Students generally recognized that Web sites whose addresses end in .edu or .gov were less likely to contain biased material than those with addresses ending in .com.

and here is a finding that was labeled as “bad” by ETS: Students were generally poor at identifying biased Web content.

this is right in line with an activity that i do with my students, unfortunately. i wish ETS all the luck in the world as they try and get this new test to catch on with educational institutions and states.

Technorati Tags: education, information literacy, NCLB, Chronicles of Higher Education

okay, it’s not often that i get off-topic, but i have to make an exception. apple announced yesterday that they are now selling movies through their iTunes store. i’ve checked it out and i think this is doomed. here’s why:

1. movies are not DVD quality. they are 640 x 480, to boot.
2. movies cannot be burned to a DVD.
3. each movie is going to be a Gigabyte or more, so many users won’t have the room to build a library.
4. downloads take more than an hour on DSL and are impossible on dial-up.
5. the price is barely better than many of these same movies on DVD at Best Buy or Walmart.

personally, i would have considered the idea if apple had gotten into the movie rental business (ala netflix), but for the price of a movie, i can have 2 movies mailed to my house and return them and do that again many times in a month — same price. sure, i don’t keep the movies, but most movies i watch are only worth watching once.

i predict a failure here.

but, i think the new iTunes is really nice. And, the iPod shuffle is quite neat. that’s what we’re giving my son for his birthday in a few weeks.

Technorati Tags: iTunes, Movies, iPod

two posts in one day . . . sorry about that. but, the creative guy just turned me on to ecto. this is the killer app i was looking for in a blog editor. i get to test it for 21 days, but i have a feeling that they’ll have my $20 by the end of the day.

they make a windows version as well, but the Mac version is definitely made for the Mac. it has all of the features i wrote about below. this is it. i need to test how adding an image works — how about wilt chamberlain when he played at Kansas?

whew!

Technorati Tags: ecto, blogging, wordpress

one of the things that i’ve not enjoyed about blogging is the tool i have been using. i have been using Qumana, which is available for Macs and PCs. I use a Mac. Qumana has been in beta since i started using it earlier this year. i guess i had forgotten that until i noticed that version 3 was released yesterday. i’ve used it long enough to know that i don’t want to pay for it so that got me looking for a replacement. to be fair to Qumana, i appreciate that they make a Mac application and a PC application. my guess is that they built Qumana using Java. i don’t particularly like Java apps. selecting text is more cumbersome and some keystrokes that i am used to don’t work. the environment is just slower in response to my typing, etc. the little things added up and realizing i was going to have to pay finally pushed me over the edge.

i fiddled with Bleezer. this is also available for Macs and PCs. i can tell from the interface that this app is also not Mac native. probably Java again??? i think i actually like Bleezer over Qumana, so if nothing else, i’ll come back and play with Bleezer before i return to Qumana.

i am currently testing out MacJournal version 4. something tells me this isn’t a native blogging tool, but it is clearly written for Macs and the spellchecking works just like in MS Word (with the red underline). i had to customize the toolbar just to get it ready to use as a blog editor. i also can’t find an easy way to add tags to a blog entry, which is something that Qumana and Bleezer do with ease. i added “keywords” so we’ll see what that does. the other thing that is easy with Qumana and Bleezer is the ability to make my entry have a category. i don’t see categories with MacJournal. hmmm. i don’t think i’ve found my solution just yet. i’ll keep fiddling with this tool (15 day trial), but also searching for the killer Mac blog editor on the side.

aha, i just went to send this to my blog and a little window popped up that allowed me to choose the categories i wanted. that’s a bonus. but, i had to manually add the tags below. that’s crummy.

Tags: qumana, bleezer, macjournal, blogging, wordpress, macintosh