johnhendron.net: hendron’s digest - a weblog

In a recent C|Net article on Blockbuster, we learn of a new idea the company has which at worst seems doomed, or at best, misguided and miscalculated.

Sometimes I think you simply have to ask teenagers whether or not something is going to work.

The idea is to put movie refilling stations inside of Blockbuster stores, so that you can bring in your Archos-brand media player and “fill it up.”

Why do I think this will fail?

• The entertainment people crave is already being offered via the convenience of devices in one’s own home, i.e., cell phones, DVR-devices, cable “on-demand,” and new digital devices, such as AppleTV.
• Is the Blockbuster Internet connection really faster than the 21mb one I have in my home?
• Is your fullest catalog available? Doesn’t seem so.
• How many Archos customers are out there?

Now, if they offer this in stores plus via the Internet to homes, well then, maybe there’s something to it. But they seem to be late players in this game, if that’s a strategy.

After reading Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail, it seems Blockbuster is doomed, as their stores, which are bleeding them money, cannot compete with online sellers/renters. So, this idea on the surface is intriguing because it says “Hey, there’s a reason to come to our stores!”

Let’s see, this is 2008. If in 2004 they offered this, hmm, I might have bitten. But it’s not, it’s 2008. And I cannot think of a compelling reason why I’d want to go to their store if a) online I can match price, quality, and selection, and b) I don’t have to drive or return anything.

Unlike many of my friends, I do not subscribe to Netflix. I simply don’t have that much time to watch so many movies. So, I do visit Blockbuster stores, maybe 7-9 times a year. But I’ve gone less thus far since buying an AppleTV and trying Comcast On-Demand. Not necessarily for the huge catalog (it still needs to grow), but because these devices offer movies plus other video content that otherwise takes my time.

I don’t blame them for trying, but… to echo the comments already appended to the article, the outlook is dim.

To follow up on the earlier font discussion:

What the Font? is a site where you can upload an sample and it predicts close matches of the font in your example.

I remember reading some time ago about a (almost obsessive) human need to catalog the world around us. Some catalogers go to library school, and many enjoy the science and art of putting things in their place. The rest of us live out in the library of nature, ever so curious from time to time, to put order to things we find… disorganized. I’m not talking about a home improvement show, I’m talking about applying some sort of system to a collection of things.

In steps the Macintosh-only application Delicious Library which promises to organize your supposed home library. Who saw this coming?

To be fair, this program has been out for a number of years; I have some friends that use it and live happier now knowing their DVD collection and books are all catalogued on the home computer.

But I’ve been holding out for version 2, which just went “live” last night. I look forward to downloading DL2 tonight and giving it a whirl.

But what I find curious is that this class of software–for more or less cataloging software–is marketed for the home user. It wasn’t that long ago that I remember my mother’s library became “automated,” whereby you would scan patron cards and check out and look up and do everything with a giant computer. Then I went to college, and their library was… automated. Well, now folks, you too at home can have an automated system to track your books, CDs, DVDs, and now more just like the library.

I’d love to say this software is demonstrating something bigger here–and maybe it is, but maybe not so much–that we today as a culture have our own sizable collections of stuff (i.e., books, DVDs, CDs, video games, etc.) that we could honestly qualify as having our own personal library of things.

I know for me, there’s no better library in the world for baroque music than the giant hard drive inside my computer. While I have a very modest collection of books and own fewer DVDs than fingers, there are times that I’d like to “see” what I own, and have a fair enough system that’s easy to use (not to mention visually appealing) so that I can loan out some of the items I own that still take on a physical appearance.

Delicious Library, it might be worth checking out.

Last week, I linked to some old Apple ads and brochures online. In particular, I was struck by the “What’s On Your Powerbook?” campaign.

So, what if we asked teachers, parents, and students what was on their computers? I think this might make for an interesting research angle. I’m thinking files and type of information, not necessarily applications.

It might tell us “what’s important” to us, it might tell us how we each use digital technology. Specifically, with teachers, I think it would make for an interesting discussion. Perhaps I’ll use it myself in our district Ning network we started this year, in the fall.

I think the ads were successful (in terms of being memorable), especially those (like above) that used famous personalities. It was almost a preview of Apple’s later Switch ads in our first decade of 2000, using folks like Will Farrel or Yo Yo Ma.

• Audio Recorder
• Aperture
• BBEdit
• Bryce
• Chicken of the VNC
• Final Cut Studio
• DeskLickr
• DockLibrary
• Enkoder
• Flip4Mac
• FotoMagico
• HyperDither
• InterMapper
• iShowU
• Logorrhea
• Macromedia Flash MX (does this still work?)
• MarsEdit
• OmniOutliner, Omni Graffle
• Pianoteq
• Punakea
• Quinn
• ScanSnap
• Scrivener
• Squeak
• SuperDuper!
• Transmit
• Twitterific
• Yep

Did you know you can print your own Monopoly money?

Here’s a pair of links I thought I’d share.

Amar looks at keyboard design (something I have shared some passion for) and talks-up the Apple Extended Keyboard II.

I still have my AE-II from high school, and used it throughout college. Several years ago, I began using it again with an ADB -> USB adapter. I have since put it on the shelf for safe keeping while I use Apple’s newer, mini Bluetooth (aluminum slab) keyboard. The new keyboard isn’t bad, but it is no AE-II. I am waiting for more desk space to bring the AE-II back into service.

Care to see a collection of Apple ads through the ages? This is fun. Some years ago an old high school friend gave me a collection of all of Apple’s commercials. Those were fun, too.

(both links via daringfireball.net.)

It’s one of those detail things in life that drive some of us nuts; for others, they never even really notice.

I’ve pointed out to colleagues:

Your draft looks good, but you do know, right, that you’ve used two different fonts here…

Typically, I can already hear the response:

“Oh, really? I had never noticed? I wonder how that happened!”

This is the person that doesn’t know, doesn’t care, and the extreme version is someone who cannot tell the difference between sans-serif and serif fonts.

I have also come to the realization that I might be the unique one here. Sure, there are other colleagues who might profess to have a favorite font, or two.

Oh, John, you like fonts? My favorites are Arial, Helvetica, and Comic Sans!

When I hear that, I slowly begin to dissolve into a pile of goopy matter (for our high school chemistry teacher told us that “rain” could never melt us, and so we should say dissolve).

So, it was with great interest that once again, someone had linked to this post about the Microsoft font, Comic Sans.

Those of you who know me well know that I cannot stand this font. I am a member of a big club, I know. While the creator of this font in the link above defends his font in the end, only because Apple “copies” it, the first half seems awfully apologetic, to me.

It’s also another tony example of Microsoft just shoving a bunch of stuff in a package and putting it “out there.” No matter that some of those fonts stunk (like a skunk), we now all know the names and have to deal with them in memos, signs, and bake sale labels (Arial, can you hear me sing your name?).

So, to tell if you’re a fontista (a totally made-up word suggesting someone who knows their fonts), see if you can tell the difference between Example A, and Example B.

Example A

Example B

Example B is the typeface chosen for this webpage; however, because it’s not very popular, you probably see A. Both are related, however. The first is Palatino by Hermann Zapf (creator of the famous Dingbats font). The second is also by Zapf, called Aldus. Aldus is thinner and taller; you can think of Palatino as the everyday, for books version of Aldus. And then Microsoft stole it in their rip-off version, called Book Antiqua.

My font rant is over for the day. Thanks for reading.

A blog post at Betalogue details the painful process of re-mapping keyboard shortcuts in the 2008 Macintosh version of Word.

A sobering report was recently published by a group concerned with understanding perceptions of digital media on learning.

While “access to the Internet” scored high as important, things like online socialization and games did not.

This echoes, for me, some traits I’ve seen in the adults that teach our students, and likely too mirrors many parents.

If you don’t use the Internet for social interaction–from friends and Facebook to daily communication (e-mail, chat)–you likely won’t see it important for your kids. The same goes for games.

I’m less convinced games are a great idea, just because a multiplicity of good, educational games have yet to be written. They have tremendous potential, however. I’m glad to see this year some of our students using tools like Scratch or Stagecast Creator in our schools. Not a profound nod in this direction, but a start.

This report better underscores for me some trepidation from our teachers in embracing social networking and the opportunities for students to learn through using technology for communication. As ever, we need to highlight the better examples and light some fires to get a teacher here, or another one over there, interested. There is potential–a huge amount–among those bits and bytes.

Despite what some of my colleagues might think I believe, I don’t believe all the technology in the world is going to improve education. With that said, now I can move on, since I was tapped, on what I do believe about education.

First, what can save education? Does it need saving? Most folks agree that the public education system is broken in the U.S. Despite the dollars spent, the standards prescribed, or the teachers trained, we (as a country) still aren’t competing at the same levels as other countries. A recent Time magazine article documented some of the differences separating U.S. schools from those in other lands, notably Finland and Singapore. For one, they outlined that

Most U.S. teachers, on the other hand, have no time to work with colleagues during the school day. They plan by themselves and get a few hit-and-run workshops after school, with little opportunity to share knowledge or improve their practice.

Compare this with Finland, where education is specialized for the needs of each learner, or in Singapore, where

To get the best teachers, the institute recruits students from the top third of each graduating high school class into a fully paid four-year teacher-education program (or, if they enter later, a one-to-two-year graduate program) and puts them on the government’s payroll. When they enter the profession, teachers’ salaries are higher than those of beginning doctors.

What I believe, then, is yes we have education problems, and yes there are solutions available better than what we’re trying now. First, our communities have to take a bigger, more significant stake in the educational process. I’m talking going beyond attending a principal’s breakfast or a PTA meeting. To take that bigger role, families can’t leave their kids unsupervised while they work. They have to physically get themselves into schools more often. Schools, or whatever we want to call the environmental hubs of the educational system, need to serve our communities as centers of cultural and information exchange. This process might start by giving students and their families more voice in the vision of a school. But it might also include lifelong educational opportunities: public schools for adults and parents.

Second, we really need to raise the status of teaching in America. We need to do it socially, granting educators more respect, through compensation, and through professional practices that raise expectations for utilizing the latest research, tools, and information we have to teach.

Third, the educational system must shift with the times and prepare students not for simple jobs, basic citizenship, or “just” college preparation. While these are each noble, American schools should set sights on survival in a globally-connected world through the mastery of a variety of twenty-first century skills. Central among these should be creativity, problem-solving, and communications.

This is what I believe about education:

• Families should become more involved in the educational process through participation in school activities and the elevation of the school as a community center,
• America needs to raise the status of teachers by paying them more professionally, raising expectations for keeping them at the top of their game, and by giving them the voice of the experts they are in their field,
• Re-shape curricular goals by emphasizing so-called 21st-century skills.

I tap several of my colleagues, on what they believe.

• Tina McCay
• Bea Cantor
• Matt Wilson
• Leona Barnes

Now, Google Spreadsheet Forms have new power, the ability to embed the form within a webpage, without anyone signing in!

Check out the roll-out on the Google Blog.

Here’s a handylink: Tons of GTD Apps.

GTD stands for Getting Things Done, an organizational framework I’ve presented about/on before. My favorite GTD app at the moment is Things, linked in the list above.

Technology keeps getting… easier.

Vidnik is a new Mac application that lets you record from your built-in iSight camera, and posts the video straight to YouTube. They give the idea of keeping a video diary.

Keeping a video diary intrigues me, but I also don’t always like to watch videos. Sometimes the written word wins: i.e., I can listen to music while I read blogs. Second, I don’t always sound succinct or lucid if I just “hit record.” Maybe you don’t either. And does that matter, sitting side-by-side more polished writings and presentations?

Kevin Lim recently posted a presentation he created on using the Wikipedia in academia.

Thanks to Slideshare, you can see his visual aid (the link above will actually show you a video of the talk).

| View | Upload your own

It’s a great idea to invite college students (undergrad or higher) into a high school to tell high school students how they conduct research for their classes. I always felt I had to sort of “teach myself” the ropes of research when I was in college. We knew how to use the card catalog and the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature, but were wholly unprepared to deal with academic writing, an electronic card catalog, and journals.

What I found missing from Kevin’s slides, and it’s likely missing in a lot of other places too, is the detail surrounding what he mentions around his discussion of “berry picking.” The Web is an excellent research tool because you can link to all these other sources of information. But it’s also a poor one: there’s so much stuff (good and bad), you may not be able to easily distinguish expertise from good marketing, and how to you manage all the webpages you do find?

I can imagine the kid hearing this (honors or not), and thinking… “Gee… this is kind of like… you know, wearing your seat belt. It’s good to do it, because it can save your life. But… I mean, last week, I got away with it. I drive safe enough. I didn’t get killed. I didn’t get caught.”

More research? Yeah, research isn’t typing “G O O G L E” or “W I K I P E D I A” and printing the first thing you find. I’d advise any teacher to break up research projects by stopping kids at every step and doing mini-evaluative assessments. Maybe, even, kids can draw a meta-map of their research process (there are many tools to do this, my favorite, Omni Graffle, another popular in schools, Inspiration).

I’ve been working with our technology resource teacher on a “Research for the 21st Century” initiative. It’s a work in progress, but it gives students actual concrete tools for reporting what they find (verbatim), how they have backed it up (found confirming sources), what they know about the source(s), and how what they found expands their initial research idea (thesis). I figure if we do well enough, it could be a nice guide or better, a book. We cover advanced techniques with Google. We cover non-traditional media. We cover domain lookups. We also suggest methods of digital collection and bookmarking (using folksonomization tools) and here’s another idea–getting feedback from peers.

Kids need help with research more than ever. It’s too tempting to believe the first thing you read. (Many adults need reminded of this, too.)

I think too many educators “feel” and consequently block Wikipedia when there’s nothing to fear. Like Lim says, quoting his former professor, Alex Halavais, the search ought to begin with using a encyclopedia (read: Wikipedia), but never end that way. It’s funny, but I’ve heard that same advice in our own libraries and media centers for years, referring to the World Book and Encylopædia Britannica.

This year I’m really looking forward to going to NECC: I’ll be busy with three presentations, and I hope to meet a lot of edubloggers I’ve been in communication with this past school year.

I thought I’d share a little Web 2.0 magic in a tool I’m late to discovering: Slideoo.com. It takes Flickr photos and puts them in a horizontal strip for pasting into a webpage or your blog.

Enjoy these photos from NECC 2005 in Philadelphia.

Clay wrote earlier this month about the state of teen blogging, taking apart some recently published statistics. To boil it down, he only recommends blogging in a [English] course that’s advanced: for kids who really like to write. The reason? Blogging, computers, and the technology don’t instantly make writers out of kids. If they didn’t want to write with paper and pencil, why is the technology going to change that?

I agree with his general point, but from a much different perspective. As the guy who has to manage student blogs, I don’t want hundreds of kids in our system blogging. At least until we have a better logistical handle on how to do it.

So, I’d rather just a few cases here and there emerge, with teachers who are going to regularly use blogs in the classroom, with kids who naturally like to write.

But I also look at the computer, the blog specifically, and the audience it gives emerging writers and wonder that if we hold back on the blogging that we might be throwing-away the incentive to write. I’ll be honest here, when I’ve asked kids to write in my classes, I get things that I’d never expect out of their mouths. Reading what they write was interesting. And despite the statistic Clay cites for how important kids think writing is for success in life, a good writer/communicator is never something that holds you back.

So, I don’t see the harm in introducing blogging if it gets kids to write, even when they don’t have a natural need of writing. But I am not sure I’d use it in the same way Burrell does–in English class.

I’d be interested in blogging in a blogging style: to keep track of what was learned, personal reflections, etc. To make this successful, we have to show models. Are there good models of blogs as learning databases out there?

Tonight while looking at several MIT online courses, I came across one by Mitchel Resnick. Of course, he was behind a project I’m real fond of, Scratch, which is a simple programming environment that is appropriate for elementary and middle school learners. (I personally think Scratch can be introduced a grade 3, but it will likely become limited after 3 years of use, i.e., use at grades 3-5, 4-6, or 5-7).

I also came across a reading he lists, from the Alliance for Childood, their Tech Tonic. The brief is highly suspicious of corporate entities (read: Intel, Apple) and some organizations like CoSN and ISTE.

Some points are valid questions. They are opting for less screen time and more people time. In today’s American culture, I don’t think anyone would argue that “quality” time from/with caring adults could ever be in excess, harming a child. Instead, we often identify problems with children in situations where parents are too busy, missing, or abusing.

In a section of the report centered on “Developmental Guidelines” (see page 79-82), they suggest middle school age children just might be introduced to educational uses of television after they understand how TVs work. And suggest high school students be able to perform research on the Web, at the same time that they become involved participants in community-based ethical norm setting to help them deal with both the obvious and hidden aspects of using technology.

I’m all for helping develop literacy, ethics, and technology fluency in schools. But, to suggest that we deal with the ethical issues only at the high school level, or research at the middle school level, is rather novel. Naive, perhaps, too. Parents who aren’t card-carrying members of the Alliance may not have TVs or Internet at home, and certainly don’t give their children cell phones. But what about those misguided parents who do have broadband Internet, have 2nd graders who can load DVD players, and a copious pile of cell phones at the ready in the home?

I feel this “tonic” assumes that the only technology students have access to is in school. And it is highly suspicious about most of it. The premise, assumed, is: “It can’t be good if its good hasn’t yet been proven. For the sake of Mother Earth, technology is of course assumed suspect!”

The reality in many communities is that students and their families are quite fluent with the use of a variety of technologies. And the effects of assuming a digital lifestyle aren’t always traditional, healthy, or advantageous. Yet, we push forward, for a variety of reasons–reasons that schools are inadequate to significantly influence. Instead, as some have called for, we might turn to the “tools in their pockets” as a new means to educate them.

I felt that this report gave some valid concerns about current-day society, without fully accepting what society has become. It’s far too late to turn Luddite and think we can make our digital reality go away. Their call for “giv[ing] our children and youth the full opportunity to get to know themselves through play, the arts, and hands-on learning, so that the have a solid sense of self–and confidence in their own creativity and competence–before tackling the major issues of the world” need not be exclusive of a world that communicates, emotes, sings, dances, solves problems, and sees itself with digital technology.

Being an educator, I sometimes marvel at the lack of “professional development” time or dollars that are spent in other professions. I have a close friend, who over the past 3 years at one job, has not once been sent for training of any type. No on-site mentoring. Nothing, save, for a book or two, and permission to attend a conference (where, I might add, the emphasis was placed on him winning an award).

I think any one who we expect to be on top of their game ought to undergo regular “PD.” Sylvia at “Generation Yes” spoke recently about PD concluding that, according to S. Papert, a project-based approach where PD was happening in the classroom live with students was the best approach. One commenter called this method guide on the side.

We have that model here in Virginia, although it works differently among schools and school divisions. ITRTs are crucial “guides” on the side. No doubt, this model isn’t ideal for 100% of our teachers and administrators, but it likely is one of the better approaches.

Time and money (economics) dictate workshops. Do we have 20 trainers/guides? No! But we can teach a skill to 20 teachers in one session. If they’re motivated (and lucky) enough, they might get to use what they learn. Or, try it, and fail, and never attempt it again. It’s no wonder some teachers have a bitter reflection of using tech in the classroom.

But reading Sylvia’s post also reminded me of the Google model, which isn’t precisely professional development, but could be. Their “20%” rule has been described as an incentive to work on “personal projects” in the workplace, among a creative (read: non-constrained) environment.

Today at work I checked out some new Web 2.0 websites for about 30 minutes. I felt guilty doing so, to be honest. But that should count as my own PD. Explore new tools, consider the possibilities; educate myself.

No doubt, we’d likely have better schools if we granted teachers professional time that allowed them to network and self-discover new approaches to pedagogy.

Khoi Vinh likes using Keynote–even for print-based projects.

I do love the program myself; when Apple releases a new version, I can’t wait. What it and some other Mac programs–specifically here, Omni Graffle do–is make arranging objects and text on screen easy. Things “snap” into place like magic.

Unlike Vinh, I’ve never used Keynote specifically for a print design (but I have used Comic Life). But I am thinking of one project in particular that might be perfect. A tip of the hat for the idea!

I will be very interesting in reading Malcolm Gladwell’s upcoming book, focused on the workplaces of the future.

I don’t like to think of us as educators as making future workers (there is something far more lofty when thinking about preparing our students for their future lives as democratic citizens), but I’ve made the most impact when I’ve talked about why we need to change in the field, when I’ve tied it to future work.

So, David Warlick always talks about the workplace of the future and says we don’t know much about it. He does a nifty trick where he shows you a home office and makes everything disappear. But I do think we know some, and I’m sure Gladwell has some good insight.

We might also talk about the school of the future. I know less about that, but to say, we have a hard time changing that. There are many reasons, I’m sure; here are a few I believe in:

• schools are built for use in multi-year increments (25-50-75 years)
• new schools are designed around what schools have been to the current administrators and architects
• schools are built on the cheap
• we don’t train teachers by in large to teach in different spaces

I mean, schools just have:

• lockers
• gyms
• cafeterias
• band rooms
• classrooms with rows of desks, and sage platforms

I’ve seen some new schools that are certainly impressive, but they aren’t typical. Many of note are experimental charter schools. Here are some things off the top of my head I’d like to see, should I be building a school in the next couple of years:

• unique spaces, not a collection of similar classrooms
• adequate space for storing and charging computing devices
• adequate power in learning spaces
• spaces students can build in

And what else, while I’m dreaming? Why not make it easy for students to communicate privately with teachers (e-mail, chat), deliver great bandwidth with big fat network pipes, and accept only students with good attitudes?

Okay, I am dreaming. But we ought to be thinking about what would make a better educational environment. There’s always room for improvement. And it’s not a bad idea to look ahead to a future world of work.