She’s been asked to generate a weekly newsletter of “what’s going on” in our district. It’s a private newsletter, produced only for our board members.

I just thought this morning of several things we’re doing this week of interest, like @beacantor going to the Henrico-sponsored #RVAUnconference at Glen Allen High School. Or tonight’s workshop I’m leading on “Producing Infographics.” I’m meeting with some interesting people Tuesday and Friday. And Wednesday, we’re working with an ESOL teacher with choosing iPad apps for a new iPad she’ll be using with her students.

I was going to actually send these in an e-mail. Then she’d copy and paste them into… a Word document. And then the Word document gets e-mailed, etc. You may now see where I’m going with this.

I share my calendar to those who want/need to see it. I blog at work. I may not highlight everything I’m up to, but the good stuff certainly makes it online. I treat my work blog as a type of online portfolio. If you care to see what I think is important about my job, you can visit.

I’m just sad we’re not using our blogs for the real purpose for which I intended to bring them to where I work. If someone can’t view a few blogs and pull out what’s going on that week in our district, then something’s wrong.

Each one of their new 4S commercials has the same music, and really, the same type of scenario. People are presented doing their daily business, asking their phone questions (that it can now answer). It’s a combination of the simplicity of the act (and how well it really works), the music (for me it arrests your attention when it comes on TV and has a tinge of wonderment and also magic to it), and the knowledge that Steve Jobs is dead that makes them hit you (or well, me, actually) emotionally.

And today–is the anniversary of when, in 1996, Apple purchased NeXT Software. If there’s anything I’ve affirmed for myself over the past couple months in reading Isaacson’s book and thinking about Apple, it’s been that the details really do matter. In everything you do.

By “upgrade” I mean, increase the RAM from 1GB to 5, and install a SSD drive instead of the default 5400 RPM drive. The original drive was 120GB, I believe, and the new drive is only 40GB, but since I run the music off of a FireWire drive, I don’t need a lot of space in the computer. (Consequently, I could have put a giant drive in there, but then it would have cost a fortune to go SSD).

OWC states that these two operations are “Advanced.” I should have listened. I’m comfortable tinkering around in computers, but it’s not part of my job. And I’d never gotten into small quarters like what we find in the Mac Mini. I am documenting this experience not to show my ignorance, but to hopefully inform others undertaking similar upgrades.

This is the computer that requires a putty knife to loosen the case to take it off. OWC has some great videos, and I suggest you watch them multiple times. I watched them multiple times, but should have watched them one more time.

The first step is undoing the antennas. This was simple. So was getting the four corner screws out. Since I do not have a magnetic screwdriver, I am not sure how I would get them back in. As it turns out, I lost one somewhere in the mini and it was not replaced. (Whoops #1).

At this point, you want to detach the top half of the mini from the bottom. There’s a cable in the back to undo, and on the side, undo the tape that’s holding the antenna wire. I did not do this, and consequently, I lost the connection of the antenna wire. (Whoops #2). This was awful to try and remedy.

You will notice in the picture above that only two wires are connected to the broadcom radio board near the back left. There are supposed to be three. The memory bank is in the front left; this was super simple to add one more DIMM to the original 1 GB for a total of 5 GB. So–big mistake on the antenna. I’d discover this later.

Now, to the top half to install the SSD.

The original HDD has a heat sensor taped to the back/top. Remove that (it’s stuck on there with stickum) and undo the taped wire. Four screws. Easy. These go in easy and are difficult to lose, so this part was fun. Getting the new drive in the slot was a little tough; don’t pinch the wire in there, and you have to use gravity and some rotation of the whole top half of the computer to get it aligned. Once it’s seated, put back the four screws, and replace the temperature sensor. Also recommended by OWC is to attach the two “spacers” which I also did on the top side of the new drive (again, attached with stickum).

Here’s the new drive in place. What would follow would be hell. This was all easy. Getting the thing back together, disaster.

So, I was so distraught I didn’t take pictures of the carnage. I next discovered that the cable to the antenna was not connected to anything. I had no idea where it went. It was still stuck to the side of the top, and the connector incidentally is on the bottom half of the mini (look for the Broadcom logo on the radio chip). They are tiny little connectors. Mine wouldn’t stick back on. It’s short and it’s not very flexible. I had to use an X-acto knife tip to re-shape the part that snaps down, finally it stuck. (Whoops #3–another one of the connectors would later become un-stuck.) So, next it was time to put the two halves back together.

They didn’t fit in like they do in the video. All those cables, where are they supposed to lay? I kept pushing down, wiggling, trying to get it right.

Then I pulled it off. Whoops #4, horror of horrors. I was pinching one of the antenna cables against the graphics card’s heat sink. It chewed through the sheathing and stressed the cord. It felt like it was about to fall apart into two pieces. I used masking tape to tape the wound, I should have used electrical tape. At least the SSD should keep the computer cooler.

So, that’s when the second antenna wire came off. Ok, fixed that. I was ready to throw the mess into the garbage at this point.

I finally seated the top on, with more wiggles and giggles. Then it was time to put the four screws back in the corners. Whoops #5: I lost the longest screw that goes in the right front. It’s somewhere in that computer.

It didn’t seem that important.

I put the antennas back on their posts with springs. Check.

Top goes back on. Pinched my hand good, and it was good enough to make me bleed. I had really botched this upgrade.

But, finally, I am happy to report it was successful, masking tape and all. The computer booted and the memory registered.

If I scared you with this upgrade, have a more experienced friend try it, or send it to OWC. I don’t work for them, but am always a happy customer.

Incidentally, like they suggest, I cloned the old HD to the new SSD using one of their Voyager devices (seen in the photo above, bottom right, cropped), using Firewire 800. CarbonCopy Cloner is another awesome product for cloning drives fast and accurately.

The Voyager Q accepts desktop-class drives as well as the mini-drives like the SSD I purchased and laptop drives.

Other links of interest:

• John’s Goochland Blog
• G21 Page
• G21 Idea Machine

This story and YouTube video of an artist re-creating Jobs’s face with white paint is amazing, but I think is also a behavior that’s akin to the creation of religious art, perhaps even icons.

To many fans of Apple products, Steve was a symbolic leader. For years, I’ve called him “Uncle Steve,” in conversations with Macintosh-touting friends, as in, “What will Uncle Steve announce tomorrow at MacWorld?”

But the artwork strikes me oddly; I think about Christian art and our desire to paint and sculpt Christ. I’ve always found this fascinating, as I do remember Biblical teachings saying not to create icons of God. Yet, our humanity prevents us from helping ourselves. We want to be closer to this diety, that we erect statues, paintings, mosaics and more in an effort to get closer to something many have difficult seeing, feeling, or approaching.

And now with the death of Jobs, I wonder if it’s the same mechanism at work. These guys you’ll see at the end of the YouTube video (there are more than the one example), have an uncanny ability to recreate what’s become a classic pose of Jobs, the one seen on the book’s cover I’m reading. And certainly they were artists before they turned their attention on Jobs.

But what is it — if not the fervor of a “religious” experience — that inspires them to recreate the likeness of Apple’s recently deceased CEO? I am not suggesting Jobs was a saint-like figure, nor deserving of a reference to Jesus Christ. But his many flaws help paint for us a picture of extremes and hopefully a better understanding of human potential. Greatness is achievable by some, but the cost to that end is sometimes severe.

Macworld magazine liked it. I remember not knowing if I wanted one or not… but my superintendent bought some on the first day at the computer store (Capitol Mac here in Richmond.)

He gave me one.

I carried the Capitol Mac bag home. It was a fond memory — I remember feeling well-cared for to be given one of these new gadgets. “What am I to do with it?”

“See what potential it has for education!”

And so I did.

In the photo above, taken today with my iPhone 4S (FaceTime camera isn’t as jazzy as the one on the back), I am holding the original iPod I received 10 years ago. It later got given back to the school division, and our media specialists used it as a backup drive.

One in particular told me it didn’t work anymore. “Should I throw it away?”

I took it from her.

It turns out her cable was bad. The iPod was fine.

I’ll have to find a 400->800 Firewire adapter to charge and sync it. 10 years. Wow. Time has flown. And so many things that fit in your hand just as easily have been developed.

If anything, being given this iPod was inspirational for me. I cared enough to keep it, ten years later. Sometimes objets d’technologie can be good investments if they inspire the end users. Building and designing things we want to touch, use, and own is a powerful enterprise. We shouldn’t ignore the affective nature of the tools we use. It can affect the work we do, for sure.

Looking through scans of notes from graduate school (Case Western Reserve University), I came across these 15 “distorted” ways of thinking. They include:

• Filtering
• Polarized Thinking
• Overgeneralization
• Mind Reading
• Catastrophizing
• Personalization
• Control Fallacies,
• etc.

What a neat list!

This ought to hang on a wall to remind us to think clearly. I know I’ve been (and colleagues too!) guilty at committing a few of these over the years.

Tonight, I showed up for class early. I have class on Wednesday evenings. I checked my work e-mail, and I had a message from a colleague. Finding out I have been ill, she wrote me to tell me she had found out. I wasn’t prepared for a note like that. It’s then I realized I probably don’t think too much of myself. I was overwhelmed when she told me she thought I was an amazing person.

I shut my laptop. I took a deep breath.

I’m going to be fine. But that note was profound to me. So are the actions of real friends.

Before class ended, I received two texts on my phone. One broke the news slowly. The other—just came out and said it. “Sad news – Uncle Steve is dead.”

No, he’s not my uncle. It’s a nickname we use. I put my phone back in my pocket. As I went outside to my car, the phone rang. It was my friend whom I’ve known since high school.

We talked about it.

And when I got home, all I could do was read the comments on blogs, and especially on the NY Times article. 528 comments. And I just kept thinking: “What a shame. It’s too bad he couldn’t read these… such an admired man.”

We shouldn’t wait to share how we feel about people. Of course the boyfriends, girlfriends, and spouses. Also your extended family. But also your friends and colleagues too.

Mr. Jobs may have lived a very full, yet short life. I know he wasn’t perfect. None of us are.

I hope he knew the reasons why folks admired him.

I feel fortunate today — to know in a small way that someone thinks I make a difference.

It’s worth it to share. Even when it may be uncomfortable.

With 9/11 at ten years this weekend, I’ve not only re-thought about that unfortunate event, but the last ten years of my life. I was working at Goochland High School – the new one opened just weeks prior – and was in a new position. Having the freedom to not have a class – we were struggling to get Internet, news, and our TV hadn’t yet been hooked up properly. Phone calls came in, and news reports weren’t terribly satisfying about what was going on. I had a friend living in New York City who lived among the chaos.

I realize that I’ve put a lot into my professional life over these ten years. While I’d be lying to state that I never took time to rest, have fun, or follow non-professional passion, my immersion in technology has taken a huge chunk of my energy. My own health of late is the root cause for my reflective process; chemical changes bring back previous memories and experiences, and this reflection has been interesting and hopefully educational (for me).

I’ve learned so much about teaching and learning over these ten years, too. Which isn’t something I ever aspired to be an expert at… I entered college focused on just a few things. Using tools to help improve the educational process wasn’t’ one of the things on my radar. Yet, the technology piece has always been in my life.

From Odyssey 2 by Magnavox, to TI-99 4/A home computer by Texas Instruments, to the Apple //e, the Apple Macintosh Plus, the Macintosh IIsi, the Power Macintosh 7500, and around 2001, the PowerMac G4 tower… I’ve been “computing” for a long time.

One of the things I’ve taken deep interest in since the early Mac days is typography and publishing. I remember with relish the time I visited my friend Lucas’ two uncles in California. One had a copy of Adobe Illustrator 88 that he let us copy (via floppy disk). That box was so damn gorgeous, Botticelli’s Venus wrapped around it, the numbers “88″ on one face to another, the box itself oozed design. I am not sure it was the actual latest version (this was 1992, I believe), and I think the one we began getting into at home was Illustrator 3. We’d seen Display PostScript attending the NeXT World conference in San Francisco the same trip. It was an influential time for me (likely for him too). And yes, Adobe was known too for their creation of fonts.

Among their most successful designers is Robert Slimbach, a name I’ve known for years. I just recently re-discovered his Brioso font, a most delicious Italian Renaissance style script. It was far more ambitious than Poetica, which is “too perfect” in some regards as a typeface. There’s enough variation built-into Brioso to, when used sparingly, fool someone into believing it may not be digital. Either way, I had a great 30 minutes examining Adobe’s 2003 specimen PDF (linked above).

It caused a flashback for me to college. My roommate my first two years of college was a computer geek too. He too took an interest in my fascination with fonts. One day he came in with some discs. “Some kid upstairs has some good fonts… check these out…”

Evidently, they were copies made from the infamous Adobe Font Folio. The mega-CD-ROM that had every Adobe Typeface on it. It was the holy grail, before independent boundaries began selling their own fonts. Back in 92-94, you only had some big names making fonts available in PostScript format, then of course, as TrueType came on the scene with Windows95, the Internet helped create a new venue for all types of font vendors to emerge profitable.

Yet, today even, the admiration and collection of fonts tends to be centered around folks who do type/design for a living. I still get great pleasure from using fonts that people who notice, say, “Hey, what font is that? Do I have that on my computer?”

“No, it’s not a default font…”

“Oh… it’s really nice.”

“Isn’t it?”

Can you imagine? All types of people you have nothing in common with, starting up intelligent, intellectual conversations about the art of letterforms. Okay, not all types of people. They were few and far between “common.” But after the secret pleasure of knowing I own a font someone else does not, the feeling suddenly fleets as I re-consider the competitive stance I first have taken. “Maybe I ought to develop this conversation, this is someone who has an eye for detail!”

I hardly have time today to get lost in the world of new and curious fonts like I used to. That’s why I actually treasure getting e-mails from the font vendors now — introducing new specimens and designers. There is life after Slimbach. But nothing was as sweet as discovering this digital art on my own, with special friends, in my youth.

Nothing quite beats sharing your passion for something with peers that share your fascination.

I’ve been spending more time blogging over here over the past several months. I’ve got to figure out an elegant way to combine the two blogs again so relevant “universal” posts can be ported over here while still being published for my Goochland audience.

Often, Mail crashes. Safari gets bogged down and loads webpages so slowly it’s painful (as a test, I load the same page in Chrome at expected, fast clips). Control-scroll wheel zoom no longer works (even though it’s checked-off to use). Sometimes I can’t drag windows around.

I like some of the enhancements and refinements. But it doesn’t seem fully baked.

I actually now enjoy going to my work laptop running Snow Leopard. Here’s to hoping these bugs get squashed through an update soon.

It has been far quieter than its predecessor, a PowerMac G5. But, it does suffer one flaw: the Bluetooth antenna was improperly made and installed, and Bluetooth performance suffers considerably. I cannot use Bluetooth mice or audio devices with the machine with any reliability.

But with a 2 years and 4 months behind owning this machine, and several upgrades in hard drives, I figured it was time to get the most out of the machine. I’d call this its mid-life extension upgrade. Typically I might upgrade memory, or perhaps a graphics card, but my needs for performance have not increased since buying the machine in April, 2009. While I use one nice display (a NEC PA271W), the graphics card could still drive a second.

After using a MacBook Air and its SSD flash memory, I knew what I had to do… go for a faster drive.

I was forward thinking back in 2009. When I purchased the machine, I also purchased a VelociRaptor HDD that spins at 10,000 RPM instead of the typical 7200. This smaller drive maxed out at 300GB and could not accommodate all of my data. So at that time I installed Mac OS X on the fast drive and moved my user folder onto a second, larger drive.

To wit, my drive configuration currently is this:

• Boot (Mac OS X, 2 user accounts)
• Data (2 TB, shared folder, my home folder/account)
• Media (1 TB for iTunes movies and music)
• Scratch (250GB for temporary storage of video, Photoshop cache, etc.)

So the tricky part was moving my Home folder to another drive. I did this through the Advanced Options by right-clicking on my name under the Accounts Systems Preference. It’s best if you have a root account where you actually perform this, then logout and login.

I should also mention at this point that I also use Time Machine, through an Apple Time Capsule base station connected via Ethernet. It only backs up my home folder, and I complete other backup tasks by cloning each of the three main drives using Carbon Copy Cloner and a Voyager HDD accessory (it mounts SATA drives without an enclosure).

I chose the so-called 6G model from Other World Computing which has been a good source for my HD and memory needs over several years. They ship fast and they have some of the better products for Macs for sale.

At 240 GB, this drive would shave off some growing room from the VelociRaptor, but I also did some pruning on that drive to lighten the space required.

1. I cloned the drive using CCC after already upgrading to Mac OS X Lion the week before.
2. I took out the old drive, and slid in the new. The SSD required an adapter to fit into the 3.5 inch slot in the Mac Pro.
3. The machine is now even quieter. (The one downside of the VelociRaptor is its noise.)

Boot time now is insanely quick. After the gray screen and gray Apple, it’s almost instantaneous to see the login screen. Cool.

But logging into my account, the change in speed was not dramatic. After all, my user account was on a slower (but far larger) hard drive. I know the current trend is not to move the entire Home directory to a slow drive, but instead to take your larger media files and move them to the larger drive. This would stand to reason if you had a MacBook Air and then when you could, you’d connect to a larger server to access music, photos, etc.

Likely at my next machine upgrade I will take this approach.

But could I squeeze any more speed out of my current configuration?

I logged into a secondary account that lives on the SSD. I don’t have a lot of files there, as I never really use the account. But web browsing seemed a tad faster. Hmmm…

So to squeeze more out of the new drive, I moved my Caches to the SSD drive. Caches are directories which store temporary information, including your web browser. Normally, this is information we’d want to store in memory so it was quickly available. But memory is expensive and far from infinite. So, we store it on disk. As your computer needs to constantly write/read to these caches, it slows down at each process. Take away that latency, and you should feel that the computer gets faster.

To move the ~/Library/Caches folder, I used Ditto in the Terminal. The command looked something like this:

ditto ~/Library/Caches /Volumes/Boot/Users/Shared

This copies the folder over. Since all users can use “Shared,” permissions wouldn’t need to be touched. This is fine for me, as I am the only user of the machine. If you share your Mac and are concerned about privacy, then you should change the permissions on that directory.

Then, I logged in as root, deleted the original “Caches” directory in my jhendron account, and then created an alias to the new “Caches,” and moved it into my Library folder. Conversely, I could have done everything from the command line using ln -s to create in Unix-speak the “symbolic link.”

When I logged back into my main account, things went well; new data was being written to “Caches” without incident. And yes, things like browsing do appear to me to be Snappier.

The optical drive didn’t really concern me. I rarely burned discs, and far less, did I find myself reading CD-ROMs.

But this article recently pointed out that Apple’s war against the physical disc is continuing now with their Mac mini.

Some criticism stems from the fact that they excluded the drive, but the space for it is still present in the case design. (A souped-up model can be ordered that places an SSD in the vacant chasm.) I really didn’t think it was a big deal; after all, the iMac still has a drive and so does their Mac Pro (the model I use at home). But as I pulled a CD from the shelf today, as I considered we need to upgrade soon another MacBook Pro here at home, the thought hit.

“How will we listen or rip CDs once all the drives are gone?”

Of course, Apple sells a stand-alone drive for folks who need it, but that’s extra money, and it’s extra space with a cord.

I agreed 100% with Apple on their decision in 2000 to ditch the floppy disc with the iMac line. Today, of course, flash drives have replaced floppies and even the larger copy-cats, the ZIP and Jaz drives. And with 4 GB flash drives becoming the norm, they’re replacing the tedium of burning data onto a double-sided DVD-ROM. But I am nostalgic for the CD jewel case, the booklet inside (most today are made of cardboard as opposed to plastic), and even though you can buy digital music with PDF-booklets, the booklet too many times is an afterthought. And the quality of an iTunes album isn’t the same as the 16-bit version on CD that’s endured as the standard for over 30 years.

The good news is that higher-resolution albums are now for sale. But before Apple ditches the optical drives forever, they ought to pave the way by innovating further in providing a superior experience with booklets, higher-resolution digital files (uncompressed, 24-bit would be ideal), and a backup solution that doesn’t require Joe Music to go out and buy a NAS device.

This is a very different beast for a number of reasons.

1. It is distributed via Apple’s Mac App Store (online).
2. It comes without Flash built-in.
3. It’s got some glaring UI flaws.
4. It introduces across the system the idea of full-screen apps.
5. It adopts interface elements from iOS, their mobile platform.

In about a year, Lion will be awesome, as 3rd party developers will have adopted (hopefully) some of Apple’s ground-breaking features. The distribution and installation went well for me, even though I split my install over 2 drives (one for OS, the other for my data). This won’t be an exhaustive review, but let me note a few things I’ve noticed.

1. The correction while I’m typing is well-done and better than what appeared earlier in apps like TextEdit. On-screen controls show me it’s correcting my (bad) typing, and widgets appear as needed for correcting their correction.
2. It has a very white, very-light gray feel to the interface.
3. iTunes in full-screen mode sometimes doesn’t take up the full screen, moving to the side on the left to accommodate a not-there Dock.
4. The release feels fast and stable, while doing things like Misson Control.
5. They hid the Library folder in your ~/home directory. You can get it back through a terminal command. (Stupid!)
6. The drive where my home folder is located keeps appearing in the sidebar in the Finder as a “favorite,” despite the fact I keep removing it.
7. I like different desktops for different screens (via Mission Control)
8. The iTunes screen saver is “live” now, and allows you to play the CDs/albums.
9. Scrolling is backwards, but can be reversed.
10. Quicktime 7 still lives on.
11. Scroll bars are not bad, they are often displayed in my windows as a light gray widget which I can live with.
12. A launcher like Alfred is still faster than their “Launchpad.”
13. The computer no longer “wakes out of sleep” with a shake of the mouse (not real sleep, but the sleep that turns off the monitor).
14. The mail icon’s display of the number of un-read messages is more difficult to read.
15. Mail could use more than a blue dot to show unread messages.
16. Autosaving files is cool for the apps that support it.
17. iPhoto won’t launch now for me.
18. The user icons are all circles.
19. Spotlight indexing takes a long time the first time you login after updating.
20. Too many blue icons (Safari, App Store, iTunes, iChat).
21. Mail window moves up as a new message gets sent; have seen instances where it gets sent, but the window does not woosh away.
22. You’ll need to update your 1Password.
23. I like moving between “spaces” or screens with Command-arrows.
24. The window widgets are now smaller and further apart.
25. Screen zooming is broken for me, using Control-scroll wheel. Using a window to do it (new feature) does work, and is interesting.

That’s it so far… it is neat discovering new little changes and tweaks across the system. Be sure to report issues as found. I did so for the Mail bug, but oddly enough, the webpage it took me to, to report the issue, only listed 10.6.8 as the newest version of OS I could report using. Whoops.

The Virginia Society for Technology in Education’s summer learning events–Mobile 21: New Teaching – New Learning- Just $60 brings you a full day of learning and networking around mobile applications and devices. Breakfast and lunch are included!

The conference program can be found online and features sessions for everyone from elementary and secondary teachers to librarians and administrators.

Learn about productivity apps, educational apps, and management strategies! These mini-conferences will help you advocate for the use of mobile technologies, stay on top of trends, and learn from the experience of others.

Online registration using credit cards, checks and purchase orders will be open through Friday, July 22.

We hope to see you!

Educators may learn more about some of the variety of Google’s amazing search tools (and beyond!) from this blog post from my work blog, Technology Times.

Our students and teachers both use Google Apps for Education – in two separate domains. I work for an all-Macintosh district that’s begun to deploy iOS devices. We love the fact that Google’s innovative tools and services are cross-platform and work on mobile devices. Be sure to check out Google’s mobile tools for iOS and Android such as Google Goggles, Google Translate, and support for Apps for Education.

Along with my colleague Bea Cantor, I became a Google Certified Teacher in 2009 in Washington, D.C.

You are the key to unlocking the potential… This message has been communicated by ISTE to its membership at the conference this summer. In fact, at a major session, you’ll see it appear in animated graphics across the big screens. The theme of the conference, after all, is unlocking potential…

There are several things to be said about this, including that educators who work with kids are in the strongest position to enact change. And to make real change, it takes qualities of effective leadership.

Tuesday’s keynote featured Steven R Covey, who has recently released a book entitled The Leader in Me focused on school reform through his 7 habits of successful people. My friend Bea didn’t care for the presentation at ISTE and I understand her perspective.

First, I think it’s great that one could apply the teachings in a self-help book towards a positive school change. If we accept that what following the advice does is to focus our attention on habits of leadership, then that’s a good thing. I’m happy to read that the methodology is being studied and scrutinized.

I question how technology fit into the program, however. And I also question the delivery of the information, and likewise its commercial bias.

Today’s keynote was begun with an introduction from one of Covey’s lieutenants. It was long, and the speaker spoke with conviction and a careful, metered cadence. But the introduction grew long and went over the top with platitudes for Dr. Covey. The admiration our speaker had was almost otherworldly, at the time he announced that Dr. Covey was a “treasure to humanity.” Wow.

I’m not here to discount the man’s sincerity, or the reputation of Dr. Covey. After all, he’s sold millions of books and there are plenty of folks who value his advice.

But the show and the push for his method was too commercial. While the intended audience was appropriate (educators), it was a failure in in addressing the critical issues standing in the way of education today with regards to technology.

Dr. Covey joined us remotely via a teleconferencing solution that was less impactful than an in-person speech. That aside, I question the appropriateness of his perspective on making positive change with technology in the lives of students.

Instead, I wondered about Covey’s newfound interest in providing professional development for schools and education leaders. Instead, I really should have been challenged to think about these types of issues:

• Improving access to online learning in the US,
• A call for reform with regards to internet filtering,
• Success stories with the use of mobile devices,
• Impactful pedagogy,
• Gaining the support of all stakeholders for change,
• Innovative new technologies (something like the Siftables from an MIT Media Lab project)
• New school models,

Dr. John Medina’s talk was appropriate and relevant. Sure, he has a book to sell, but who doesn’t? I attended a great session led by Dr. Scott McLeod with school principals which would have been good for an on-stage discussion. Let’s hear about effective school leadership that leverages the tools we’re interested in using.

There is great value in sharing experiences at a conference like ISTE. And I’ve been experiencing excellent examples. We should all be interested in the success of our schools. And if there’s an approach we can adopt that works, then that’s worth sharing. I ultimately felt today that the keynote experience was squandered… there are educators with great experiences to be shared who should have joined principal Summers who articulated a clear message about how they successfully maneuvered towards success. Instead, it was too much a celebration and dedication to a man whose ultimate success is selling books to those in the business and religious communities.

I look forward to practitioner and principal Chris Lehmann on Wednesday afternoon.

Here are some resources I recommend:

• Scratch Website
• Scratch Ed Website
• Goochland Scratch for 21st Century Skills
• DesignBlocks Website (Currently unavailable)
• The Daily Papert
• Classroom 2.0 Wiki
• PICO Boards
• Scratch Programming for Teens Book
• Digispired II
• ITTIP
• John’s ScratchSite Cat Race
• John’s Page on the Scratch website

And for Alice:

• Alice Website
• Alice Programming
• Alice Lesson Plans

We ran a pilot program this past year called iLearn, how original, right? For a roughly 3-week period, we put a set of iPod Touch devices (one per child, one for teacher) in elementary classrooms. First, third, fourth, and fifth grade classrooms were utilized. My involvement was very limited in some, and in others, I could play an active role in leading some of the activities.

While so much of what I read through Twitter or even on blogs is about the software on these devices, it really boils down to the same issue I have with computers. We stopped buying a lot of the so-called drill and kill software long ago on our computers. We don’t use fraction software, software that drills in verbs (over nouns), but we have put money into video services. And I am not sure how much longer we can afford that.

Reflecting on my time yesterday with teachers, the first reaction is to gravitate towards all of the “educational apps,” and to be fair, we started with one.

Motion Math.

Yes, it drills students on where certain values belong along a time line. Fractions, percents, decimals, and even graphical pie pieces. I think this game is expertly designed (no touch is required, it works by tipping the device side to side). And it’s drill. John doesn’t like drill.

But I think I need to make a qualification… even if you didn’t know that 3/4 is larger than 2/4, this game is teaching you this without language or strange examples. It trains you to position 3/4 to the right of 2/4 on the number line. Sure enough, after 10 minutes into exploring this game, you look at the folks holding the devices (in this case teachers, and not students), and they’re all 100% engaged in rocking their iPods from side to side. This is a winner of an app.

And while there are other apps that have merit, I feel that the magic starts a slippery slope downward after Motion Math. We’re back to the 1980s-90s era of educational software again. It’s not all bad, and I’ve tried to only put the better examples on the devices. But the eventual desire is for teachers to horde-up as many of these drill and kill monsters as possible. “Educational software is back!!!” (To be honest, none of our teachers did this, nor did they exclaim the aforementioned phrase, but it’s my generalization to how educators have reacted to the iOS platforms).

The benefit of these devices isn’t the drill software. It’s the same things that make computing strong. We should be focusing the majority of our attention on:

1. Apps that inspire creativity,
2. Apps that allow for meaningful communication,
3. Apps that simulate real-world problems,
4. Apps that increase the productivity of learning,
5. and Apps that teach us something fundamental at the right pace for us.

That’s why these apps are real front-runners for me:

• iMovie, video camera, camera – let’s create something with the artifacts of life
• Facetime, e-mail, Google Apps – why not interview someone in another part of the state, or ask a question of someone who is an expert?
• I haven’t yet found any great simulation apps, but we can’t forget good old Safari for access web-based information. There are some puzzle games that aren’t bad, that follow physics principles, for instance, that are a step in the right direction. Logo is also available for the iPad.
• QR Codes and Scanners come to mind when thinking about productivity – they make the transfer of information in and out of a device a little quicker and simpler. Teachers had a real thrill using QR codes we hung around the room, and learning how to create their own.
• Prescriptive games I am guessing aren’t simple to write, but again, Motion Math I think sets a high bar.

Our class went from 9AM-4PM and I think it was time well-spent. We explored movie making (using iMovie on Mac OS X with video captured on the iPods), book making (using StoryKit), a social activity using QR codes, and of course…. the world of apps.

The challenge going forward will be getting folks to try the deeper, higher-order activities the iOS devices can let happen as familiarity sets in, and using the apps to get them to try something new.

Mr. John Gruber writes in It’s All Software about the differing views of cloud computing from the viewpoint of Apple vs. Google. It might be unfair, but he makes no mention of another company who has been talking about cloud-based computing for years.

He writes, emphasis mine:

I’m biased, insofar as I consider Apple’s strategy more appealing than Google’s. But that’s because my interest lies in having the best possible user experience — the best-looking UIs, the lowest-latency responses, the smoothest animation, the most elegant designs. I share that interest with Apple. Google’s interest is in reaching the largest possible audience.

From the point of view of an educational institution, which is best?

I make no apologies for loving Apple products and services–I’m a Mac owner, iPhone carrier, and iPad hipster. Okay, I jest, I’m no hipster.

But Apple’s had sad offerings in cloud-based and social-minded services. When I buy an album on iTunes through their store, I have no interest in telling my friends about the purchase. The begging of Ping to let me share borders on pathetic. Their iDisk was forward-thinking at the time, but their WebDAV enabled service was, and has remained, slow, compared to that of today’s popular Dropbox.

So, several years ago I migrated my e-mail from a .Mac service with Apple to Gmail with Google. I stopped paying Apple to sync my bookmarks. MobileMe works for some folks, I think there’s a flaw with Apple’s approach even with iCloud for schools. But we must remember iCloud isn’t Google Apps.

There is overlap in the services offered through Apple’s just recently announced iCloud. And for consumers with iPads, iPhones, and iPods, this is a great thing. Gruber’s right, the emphasis is on a great user experience. Apple sucks away the geekiness and leaves behind magic. Take a photo with your iPhone, and it’s on your iPad. It’s on your Mac. Even your PC’s photo collection. Magic.

But I think the model presented by Google, where “cloud” is represented with what’s in a browser window, makes more sense for education.

Here’s why:

1. Everything is tied to one account.
2. Right now that account is free and doesn’t cost the school or the individual a thing.
3. The sharing and collaboration options Google has offered in Docs & Spreadsheets is unparalleled currently.
4. Google shows commitment to education through it’s training programs for teachers, administrators, and certification.
5. Look at the “Chromebook.” Everything’s in the cloud – the mail, the docs, the sites, the applications are delivered remotely.

But it’s not so simple, either. I think Apple makes superior applications for media creation which are critical tools today in education. There’s no analog to “iLife” in the cloud. There’s nothing like iPad’s GarageBand, or precise productivity tools like Photoshop in the so-called cloud.

The bottom line is that the “web” as we know it today is not the same as the application frameworks on Windows, Mac, or our new mobile platforms. Both platforms have potential to do innovative things still, even some of the same innovative things (Gruber points out that SubEthaEdit is a collaborative tool, which is true, and existed long before GoogleApps).

But I think Google as a “platform” has more appeal – even though the “applications” offered via the Web are simpler, mostly focused on productivity (writing, calculating, and drawing, etc.). They work on the open platform of the Web… meaning a Google Doc on a Windows 7 machine is the same as one on my Mac laptop, or even the Google Chrome notebook. This large audience is what can work across organizations, especially when the tools are offered at an affordable price. We supply the hardware, Google provides the software. And installation is practically non-existent. Everyone gets the same cache of apps and access.

If Apple wants a place at the table in education, at least when it comes to cloud-based computing, then either they or their partners need to consider the competition with Google in their long-term strategy. That is, of course, until Google offers 3rd party apps through the cloud for fees and the process becomes more cumbersome.

I unfortunately have both good and bad examples to share, but I wanted to collect my thoughts on the talk here, along with a few resources I plan to share.

1. What’s your definition of “Web 2.0?” We used this as an interview question. We’re interested in your take (btw, if you’re ever asked) and not just a dictionary definition.
2. Tell me about your experiences in what you do, and your experiences thus far in this class.
3. Digital footprints. I’m going to take a cue from Professor Becker here and try this activity, to “Google” the students. What will we find? What’s their contribution to the crowd of voices online?
4. Pros/Cons What are some of the pros and cons of social media they’ve learned about thus far, and what examples do they have?
5. Blogging, and teacher blogging. What’s the point, and what are the potential advantages?
6. Goochland’s goals when starting teacher blogging in 2005. Blogs have played a role in the way we operate, and what’s come about from this?
7. Emulation, Copyright, and Legal Issues.
8. Twitter and the World of Tweets. Share guide posted today, Tuesday.
9. Getting Social. “Goochbook” and our Ning Social Network
10. Blogs, RSS, and Podcasting – discussion about the world of podcasting. Are we still social?
11. Final Exam: What does it take to learn online? Discussion about putting all of this into context… Khan Academy, MIT Courseware, open textbooks, and what’s next?

John Hendron is also podcaster for the Virginia Society for Technology in Education.

A few recommended blogs:

• Joho the Blog
• Confessions of an Aca-Fan
• Creating Lifelong Learners
• Classroom 2.0
• Teach Paperless
• Kottke – the Liberal Arts 2.0

As I continue to refine and re-think our G21 (Goochland Twenty-First Century Skills) projects and framework, I think this will be a valuable resource to share with teachers and administrators.

See also: Collaborative document on digital literacy in education.

I used some software called Instiki. The basic idea is this:

I wanted a single spot, accessible from anywhere (I had Internet), where I could collect information that would be, or was, important to me. I wanted John’s “wikipedia.”

It lasted for awhile, but then, I gave up.

It failed because the DNS settings would need updated, or the machine at home was off or asleep. And then I got a new router, and had to figure out how to open those home ports up again. Bother.

But I think the concept is still very important, and one that’s liable for expansion with the proliferation of cloud-based services.

First, a few points.

1. The type of tool used isn’t critical; it can be a wiki, or a blog, or simply a “notebook.”
2. It ought to be “cloud based” with a local capability, too.
3. It ought to have privacy and publishing capabilities.

In many ways, bloggers have implemented such a system. You may have seen a blog post (I know I have but do not have a reference handy at the moment) where the author notes that the post is “for themselves.”

Just today, I e-mailed myself about 6 URLs to things I was researching.

But e-mails get lost, and blog posts are typically public affairs. And wikis are great, but perhaps a bit too geeky for most folks.

More and more I’ve turned to using a cloud-based note system. I’m using SimpleNote on my iOS devices, and Notational Velocity on my Macs. NV syncs to SimpleNote (like so many services sync to DropBox), and I didn’t realize I had re-invented my wiki idea.

Let’s take a practical example.

I want to know some good places to eat in Philadelphia, as I’m going to ISTE in late June. After doing my research, I can post this in a number of places, including in e-mails to colleagues. But where can it go, so I’m ready to reference this list the next time I visit? I shouldn’t have to look it up again, at least, in a short time period. And if I visit Philly again in 3 years, I ought to add to the list, instead of totally recreating it.

A good blog, tagged and categorized, can work. But a wiki strips us of the temporal aspect of the blog, and instead, relies totally on search. My notes work in a similar way. I can search for them in either app, and make updates that get updated everywhere. The “server” in wikispeak is the SimpleNote server; each app is simply a client to the server.

And if I’m offline, the apps will sync the next time I’m connected.

After using this for over 6 months, I put a lot of notes into the system. I’ve been bitten once by a syncing mistake. But I’ve also found the single repository for John’s meeting notes, to-do lists, and basic information (like great Philly restaurants) really helpful. And I can publish my note, or share it with a friend.

I realize there are now a variety of tools now that will do this… but the individual tools aren’t important. It’s that you utilize the connectedness of the network to corral your digital thoughts and information in a central, digital collection.

In addition, I’ve proposed two sessions for administrators:

• Twitter
• Creating an Online Portal

First, I’ll discuss the rationale behind these two topics, then second, I’ll dive into the idea of creating a “package” for the classes.

Administrators

I’m always of the belief that our non-teacher, instructional folks need professional development just like teachers. But often enough, these folks forego what’s offered in-house, and only get what’s offered elsewhere (conferences, books, meetings). And what they do get might be fine, but it often never touches upon the use of technology to either a) improve learning, or b) do their job.

We have a blog for every teacher, but not every administrator blogs. Some have one and do it infrequently. They may wince when it’s brought up.

And some have no clue of what Twitter is, or what use it could be to them.

They likely all understand Facebook just fine, but that’s for personal things. How can social media be used to improve their jobs?

That’s what the workshop on Twitter could be about. Join conversations about education. Blogs do this, but typically most folks don’t converse. There’s a threshold involved in becoming a conversational reader. Twitter is all short – no time to profess. Instead, it often times is dialog. Either with one’s self, or with others. They should know and experience how this works.

The second one was an idea from a new principal. She’s been working in my sphere of influence for 2 years at the office and next year will become a principal for the first time. Her idea? Use technology to improve education at her school. It’s got to be efficient, with everything in one place.

When you think of it, that’s part of the appeal of the dashboard concept. Everything in one place. That’s why, I think, Facebook appeals to so many. Log-in, and instantly be connected. See what’s new. Follow what’s been updated.

The geeks have known about RSS, but it hit me recently in my graduate class. The school’s portal has a screen called “MyVCU” and shows you everything in one spot. Single sign-on, and your e-mail, your Blackboard announcements, and more. Even your library fines. One-stop.

E-mail has exploded into dysfunction. So how do we build such a portal on the cheap?

My idea for building administrators is to show them how to build a customized portal for their teachers using Google Sites. It won’t be as slick as what the university has, but it will be one place–one address–to find memos, announcements, the faculty handbook, and updates.

We’ll see if they bite.

Packages

How do you create materials for professional development? I’ve tried a variety of approaches, from a simple presentation (Keynote, Powerpoint, etc.), to a more interactive approach, with a Google Site, employing comments. (I must have had time!) I’ve tried presentations with an open back-channel, I’ve tried a wiki “hand-out” page that folks can edit, and I’ve created Moodle courses that are little more than a repository for links.

Recently my colleague asked, “How do you want me to prepare this workshop?” I replied, “I don’t know, don’t care… do what seems best!”

That wasn’t much help for either one of us.

I like Moodle because there is interactive capability, but often it suffers because it’s behind a password wall. I have no problem in sharing our content.

Videos are often time great, but they don’t appeal to all folks. And they’re aren’t really something you’re going to use in class.

In the end, I’m not sure there’s a single great answer.

I worked with many of them frequently, and one application I installed on each iPad was Simple Note. Another is Dropbox. They’re free, which is the right price, but they’re also powerful.

These apps put your content in the cloud.

Most folks don’t know why you want this. Why you need this. And they are admittedly baby steps. I also setup their e-mail and calendars “in the cloud” via Google Apps. And when it works for them, it’s like magic.

No joke. I’ve had these conversations and confirmations.

“John, I put this on my phone, and voila, it’s on the iPad! I love how the calendars are in sync!”

“John, I took notes in my meeting in SimpleNote, and later when I was on my laptop, there they were, in Notational Velocity. Love it!”

Or, “How can I get a document on my iPad without e-mailing it to myself? Ah, that’s what Dropbox is for!!”

I mention this because the iOS platform is deeply flawed in not making cloud storage a central aspect of the user experience. It’s folks like Dropbox or Google that are adding some of the “magic” to the experience. I haven’t used an Android device for more than 2 hours, but I hear that’s a really cool thing to set one up.

1. Login using your Google credentials.
2. Wham, your e-mail is set up. Your preferences move!

That’s it.

I think Apple must be working on this for their next revision and their NC data center. I’m less enthusiastic about music, and more so about going to different devices and having my settings travel with me. This should include things like:

1. e-mail accounts,
2. other accounts (Twitter, bookmarks, etc.)
3. apps
4. calendars
5. stuff in these first four categories.

But, I think to go to the next step, the devices ought to all sync with one another.

• new account on iPad1? It appears on iMac 3.
• black desktop on Macbook? Same on the Mac Pro.
• Preference for French as second language in dictionary? Voila, it’s the same on your phone.

Then, there’s what I might call smart computing. It might get too Microsofty with too many pop-ups (Windows, Im talking to you…), but I’m ready for personal preferences.

For instance, I have an app on my Mac called Chronories that records a good deal of my daily digital life on my home computer. Which apps I use, who I get e-mail from, and it can even take a daily photo of me, or a desktop screenshot.

If the device knows I usually pick it up in the evenings and spend most of my time playing a game (say, an iPad), then it ought to customize the experience for me following my habits. Or if I just uploaded some new photos I like to Flickr, maybe another device pulls one as my new background. Or if I stream a movie to a device, it later puts the artwork from the movie on my device for me… i’m just thinking here, but there’s a lot we do and this information could make us more efficient.

Which goes back to the cloud… having a centralized place to sync our habits and our information is becoming crucial as we manage multiple devices. The company that wins us over will do so seamlessly, securely, and they may even surprise us with a little innovation.

I hadn’t purchased his last book, but I did watch his last film, An Inconvenient Truth.

But I am not sure we should call what I purchased a book, per se. It’s an iOS app that works on iPhone and iPad. It’s a the first release from a company called Push Pop Press which I have been aware of for a couple of months. The members of this team know their stuff, and they aim to publish a tool to make your own rich media experiences, “Books 2.0″ if you will, like this example from Al Gore.

I have not read much of the book yet… so I can’t speak to the quality of the writing or content (it’s a continuation of Gore’s climate change information and a proposal of solutions). I can speak of the quality of the new book experience…

I am so uncomfortable calling this a book. It’s in a league so far removed from Amazon’s Kindle or ePub. But I will call it a book, in italics.

• The book opens with a video in clear, sharp video of Al Gore introducing you to the book. This is so cool. It probably doesn’t hurt that I’m a fan of Mr. Gore’s.
• Al next gives you a primer on how to use the book. You’ll see as much at the website, linked above.
• The introduction is presented… and from there, you can supposedly navigate to other chapters.
• The app had issues loading chapters 2+, then it crashed. I’ll try restarting the iPad.
• There’s one orientation (wide).
• I found no controls for changing the text size.
• Media spills-out beyond the page, indicating it is manipulative.
• The infographics are well-done as interactive models.
• The controls and UI are perhaps not typical, but seem to make sense and are easy to figure out.
• I did not find a mechanism for setting bookmarks, having the book read, or looking up words in a dictionary.
• The definition of a book has been changed. April, 2011. That’s what we’ll tell our grandchildren. “The world of books changed in April, 2011, and it was Our Choice by Al Gore. Maybe. But as a book interface, this is a good start.
• Clearly, I’ve noted some drawbacks, and these may be on the drawing board for future feature enhancements.

Part of my job in using the iPad in my work setting is to help evangelize the platform. How are you to understand what an iPad (or any new tablet or handheld device) is, until you spend some time working with it? Navigating among apps and launching a game is one thing, but using it to reply to an e-mail, to make a dining reservation, or in the education world, to do something like scan a QR code to access a library of photos to be used in another app where you’ll write a short multimedia book is what’s required. When considering it as a new-media platform, an app/book like Al Gore’s by Push Pop Press is just one of those show-off books. (Alice in Wonderland, with its moving illustrations is another good one).

I should add that I don’t think the iPad is so magical that it will solve all of our educational problems. But it is a prototype of one technology solution that is personal and portable. My experience has shown that personal and portable are excellent qualities for technology in the classroom. It’s not yet perfect, because that “personal” quality has issues related to accountability and supervision. But these technologies we’re looking at ought to do something different than the ones before them. This is an example, I think, of the software that couples with the new device and together is a new technology that does do something differently. It’s like a pop-up book with built-in speakers, and in some cases, a built-in television. 3D, texture, and smell are what’s left out.

Right now, no other platform is quite this innovative. The credit Apple gets is with the hardware yes, but also with the head-start in developing a developer community. In 5 years these experiences will be on all platforms—but for the short term, they’re on the longer-innovative iOS.

Update: Apple’s Response

The news of late has been ripe with accounts of Apple’s “security breech” with the iPhone, so I downloaded iPhone Tracker to test the whole thing out…

My initial thoughts:

1. Will it work, and might it be cool to see where I’ve been?
2. Is this really a security concern?
3. Maybe I want to encrypt those iPhone backups now?

After seeing the results (granted, my trips to Paris, Versailles, and Reims accurately displayed above are more interesting than my jaunts between Henrico and Goochland Counties), I realize the software I used (iPhone Tracker) is more of a proof of concept.

What you see above is a generalization about what cell phone towers picked up about the whereabouts of my phone. It doesn’t have pinpointed time or detail about what building I was in, and for how long.

The data, however, is more specific. It’s just, well, I’m not sophisticated enough to have the wherewithal to grab the data, and time/map it more accurately. But I suspect someone will make an app that does that, and likely law enforcement will have that.

So what does this mean?

1. It’s really important to keep your data secure. I’ve always believed this. I used to send e-mails that were PGP-protected. No one else seems to care.
2. It’s really important to keep your phone secure. Yes, putting in your pin or password repeatedly is a bore. But I don’t want others to have access to my mail or my shopping lists. Now, it seems, they could access my whereabouts last month. This is so unimportant to me, but just wait until someone’s iPhone is part of a plot line on CSI. “We know you murdered her, because records from your iPhone told us you were there.”
3. It’s really important to do business with secure entities. But wait – here’s the rub. I’ve always assumed AT&T could track this information. I feel more secure about me handling it than them. Just last week, three corporations I do business with wrote me to tell me that their customer e-mail service they contract had been compromised, and my e-mail address might have been leaked. Their notes all said something like: “Be vigilant! Be aware of rogue emails purporting to be from us.” How am I really supposed to know if it came from you, Capital One? Here’s a company I loan money from all the time, and the folks they’re sharing my data with can’t keep tight security.

So, no, it doesn’t bother me that my whereabouts are being tracked onto my phone. I keep reasonable measures to keep my phone locked, and it’s my phone, and my responsibility. I’ve never left my phone someplace (and don’t plan to). The geek in me thinks it’s cool that my travels can be plotted on a free program over past months of time.

And yes, Apple will probably change this practice to make folks feel more secure. But in this day and age, so much digital information is being created by us that any sense of “freedom” we might have is really not there. It’s reality. My car has a black box in it that will tell the truth if I have an accident. My rental car is being tracked. My cell phone is tracking it’s location. My tweets may give away my location. My credit card company may need to issue a new card and number because of a stupid breech in their security because their employee didn’t take the proper precautions.

In related news this week, Dropbox has come under fire regarding a change in its policies on your data. This upsets me more than the Apple issue.

I use a software program called 1Password to secure all of my passwords. I have this on my Macs and also on my iOS devices. I trust it, and I trust it with everything. Credit cards, blog passwords, Amazon account, etc. I want secure passwords, and I simply can’t remember secure passwords. This program makes them and keeps track of them for me.

But the keys are stored in a file I put on Dropbox. This makes the same set of passcodes available to all my devices. When I change a password to an account on my home Mac, I’ll have it available right away on my work computer. It’s a cloud sync for passwords.

But if Dropbox can give up my keys to the authorities without my consent, I have to re-consider. In the short term, it will be something I have to live with. For those who use, or are considering using these services, please know that 1Password does encrypt the keys. It’s AES, 128-bit strong. Likewise, Dropbox encrypts your data between the cloud and your devices.

As realistic as it may be that Dropbox has to comply with the government, it goes back to the sometimes uncomfortable feeling that we’re creating data about ourselves with the technology we use. And in some sense, it is limiting our sense of freedom. But this is why it’s critical that we maintain a government that is just and fair.

And in case I’m implicated in any wrong doing in, I dunno, Akron, OH, I hope this proves I haven’t been there since I got my iPhone.°

° of course this proves no such thing, but only that my phone wasn’t in Akron. Yawn. Evidently, Al Franken cares.

I see the points of ease of use when everyone is in the same space, but I also find it a lazy excuse. “I’ve moved to Europe” (from comments) and “all those other ways to stay in touch are gone.”

I’ll just be stubborn…

Should a computer come with something today?

Which isn’t that far from the truth. Children today see other people using a computer and a mouse all day long, be it on the bus, in bank offices, stores or when watching their parents buy plane tickets for the next vacation at home. Their parents answer their curious questions, and they probably even “play computer” with cardboard boxes. In most high schools, students are taught the basics of computer use, even up to writing Excel formulas. Typing and basic computer usage is a necessary, ubiquitous skill today.

Or what’s the basic set of skills one should have before “getting work done” with a computing device?

I often run into teachers who remark, in amazement, that something can be done on the Mac (as that is what we use)… “Wow, how long was this possible?” might be a follow-up question. Sometimes I am a little surprised, because this newfound knowledge was actually something quite basic towards the way the computer worked.

So, to understand the answer to my own question, perhaps I should reflect on my own experiences with computers.

• They’ve always had keyboards.
• They’ve always had some other input device (paddles, joysticks, mice, trackpads)
• They’ve always eluded some folks.

I find the sentiment that someday, folks who need help on using keyboards (or any such basic skills) will someday just “die out” similar to one I’ve heard in education circles… “Someday, those folks will retire.”

New skills, new hopes, perhaps.

But I’m interested in getting folks to where they can “own” the tool. Then the tool gets out of the way, and the task becomes the most important thing. Let me make a musical analogy.

Jamie is learning to play the piano… I can hear her in the other room… “Three blind mice, three blind mice… day datta do…” Ow! I’ll be glad when we can play this without the mistakes.

Imagine mom’s in the kitchen, and her daughter is learning to play a song. Hitting the wrong keys, or hiccuping the phrases in the music isn’t right… and we know it. Learning is taking place. But music is taking time to flower.

A piano virtuoso has practiced enough to not miss the notes, to command the instrument to sing in well-crafted musical phrases, and he or she can move on towards learning new pieces quickly with affective results.

We want teachers who are computer virtuosos, right? Not to suggest these are computer “composers” which would be teachers who can write their own applications, and weave their own web sites. But they know right sequence of keys to hit, and the right manipulation of the mouse to make this tool do its thing… from calling up the right web-based resource, to organizing activities for students to practice a new skill.

In Virginia we have the TSIP (Technology Standards for Instructional Personnel) which is an attempt at this, but it’s sadly out of date, and since 1998, the bar has been raised so far.

It has been interesting watching friends and colleagues adapt to the relatively new devices, like Apple’s iPhone or iPad. While the basics like launching apps is easy, and they take great delight in how “easy” it is to get started, I don’t see advanced skills finding their way into their vocabularies.

• Do you know how to switch applications? (multitask?)
• Do you know how to shut down the phone?
• Do you know how to organize apps into folders?
• Do you know how to lock the screen orientation?
• Can you connect this set of wireless speakers?

“No, but I know how to launch Angry Birds!!”

Just like with computers, the new kids on the tech shelf have their own levels of complexity that aren’t apparent to casual users. Maybe it’s not important. But my experience has been that any platform matures by becoming more complex with time. And to really take advantage of the tool, it’s helpful to have a systems-understanding of the tool. Imagine.

We have a lot of teachers who complain about their computers becoming “too slow.” Often, they have 8 or more applications running simultaneously, and one of them is often a Microsoft Office application.

In our environment, it’s a 2004 version which means Apple’s favorite memory hog, Rosetta, is running to provide the PowerPC -> Intel conversion. When that’s running, things are slow. These are 1 GB machines.

A systems-understanding of “slow” comes with the solution: launch fewer apps, or avoid toggling Rosetta.

This long post is just a reflection on why we need to still shoot for creating more virtuosos among us. I’m not willing to wait for anyone to “die out” or retire, and the tools are always evolving.