Post Category → science and technology

Is This What You’d Call a “PC”?

I’ve been working on a presentation for the VSTE Mobile Learning Conferences (one next week and another the week after), which means I’m paying more attention to anything related to the subject at hand.

Like this view of the tablet business from the president of Microsoft phone division.

The use of the mobile OS would be “in conflict” with Microsoft’s notion of having the full speed of a computer in any design, including truly mobile tablets. He insisted that users would want to do PC-style activities on a tablet and saw Windows 8’s networking and printing support as being important.

“We view a tablet as a PC,” Lees said.

Interesting. I think I’m doing a “PC-style” activity, namely writing this post, on this iPad right now.

Anyway, I suppose it really depends on what you want, when, and how you want to do those PC-style activities. Certainly I’m not going to write the great American novel on this thing (not without using a bluetooth keyboard) or work with complex spreadsheets.

But I can edit video, record audio, and create music, as well as do a whole host of other things that a few years ago would be considered “PC activities”. And more functionality is being added every day, some of which would be difficult to do on your standard PC.

So, while the concept of what is considered a computer is getting fuzzier, the remarks of this exec makes very clear the distinction between Apple’s concept of post-PC devices and Microsoft’s dedication to more PCs.

I rather like the post-PC vision.

Everything You Need to Know About the Internet (abridged)

A British “professor of the public understanding of technology” writing in The Guardian offers nine things everyone needs to know about the internet.

For anyone who’s been connected and paying attention, which I suspect includes many people who read blogs like this one, this is a review of what you already know.

However, it’s still a great read, detailing some important concepts about the web that many people still don’t get.

Three of them stand out for me as an educator.

DISRUPTION IS A FEATURE, NOT A BUG

One of the things that most baffles (and troubles) people about the net is its capacity for disruption. One moment you’ve got a stable, profitable business — say, as the CEO of a music label; the next minute your industry is struggling for survival, and you’re paying a king’s ransom to intellectual property lawyers in a losing struggle to stem the tide. Or you’re a newspaper group, wondering how a solid revenue stream from classified ads could suddenly have vaporised; or a university librarian wondering why students use only Google nowadays. How can this stuff happen? And how does it happen so fast?

Or you’re an educational institution and the traditional structure where all information flows through one teacher makes no sense in this age of instant connection to many teachers.

THE NETWORK IS NOW THE COMPUTER

For baby-boomers, a computer was a standalone PC running Microsoft software. Eventually, these devices were networked, first locally (via office networks) and then globally (via the internet). But as broadband connections to the net became commonplace, something strange happened: if you had a fast enough connection to the network, you became less concerned about the precise location of either your stored data or the processor that was performing computational tasks for you.

We in the education business also need to recognize that the network is also the classroom. And vice versa.

OUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY REGIME IS NO LONGER FIT FOR PURPOSE

Since our current intellectual property regime was conceived in an era when copying was difficult and imperfect, it’s not surprising that it seems increasingly out of sync with the networked world. To make matters worse (or better, depending on your point of view), digital technology has provided internet users with software tools which make it trivially easy to copy, edit, remix and publish anything that is available in digital form — which means nearly everything, nowadays. As a result, millions of people have become “publishers” in the sense that their creations are globally published on platforms such as Blogger, Flickr and YouTube. So everywhere one looks, one finds things that infringe copyright in one way or another.

Which has incredible implications for teaching and learning.  We need to spend more time teaching kids how to be responsible producers as well as smart consumers.

In the end the writer notes that it “would be ridiculous to pretend that these nine ideas encapsulate everything that there is to be known about the net”.

Still his excellent points are well worth the read.

iPad First Impressions

I’ve only had this new device for a little over 24 hours so this won’t be much of a review. More like a collection of random thoughts and observations.

First, as with every Apple product I’ve owned in the past ten or so years, the iPad has a real solid, quality feel to it. Excellent design and execution. Is it worth the price when “more capable” netbooks are lower priced? It is to me.

I’ve read all the complaints about no camera but I don’t care. I’m not sure I’d use it anyway. Besides there are several good tools for voice communications and that’s enough. It will probably come in a later revision, although I wonder if someone could build one that plugs in the dock port.

The other big negative in most reviews is the lack of multitasking. While I agree the iPad (and iPhone for that matter) needs it, that’s likely something that can be fixed in a software update. I can wait.

The on screen keyboard is actually better than I expected. I won’t be writing the great American novel on this thing but for short blog posts (like this one), Twitter, taking notes, and the like, it seems to work very well.

During EduCon, the weekend after Apple made the big reveal, I tweeted that the iPad looked like it would make a good conference computer. When you combine the great portability with the more than adequate functionality and excellent battery life (I’m still working with the charge that came out of the box), this is going to be ideal for long days in buildings with limited power outlets.

So, is this the device that transforms education, saves newspapers and magazines, and revolutionizes media? Probably not. It will depend on whether those institutions try to use it to prop up their failing business models.

However, I do believe the iPad will turn out to be the beginning of a major shift in the way we look at computing/communications tools.

Complain about the lack of content creation tools if you like, as some I follow on Twitter were doing before it was even on sale. I suspect they will come as this type of device evolves. And evolve it will.

This is just the first of many iPad personal computing tools I will own, each gaining more capabilities than the previous generations, the same way laptops have developed in the past twenty years.

Anyway, bottom line is that I’m happy with my iPad so far. Your mileage may vary.

Curing Math Inferiority Complex

Educators in this area want students to know that there’s no such thing as a “math gene”.

To counter the notion that mathematics ability is inscribed in DNA, school officials and corporate executives are waging a public relations campaign for the hearts and minds of the average math student. Their goal is to immerse more middle school students in algebra and toughen high school math requirements so graduates can compete for increasingly technical jobs. Their message: Advanced math is not only for rocket scientists.

Agreed. However, it’s going to take a whole lot more than rap videos and a “public relations campaign” aimed at persuading students to love math.

WebFor one thing, the traditional curriculum in most American schools is far too repetitious in the early grades and does a poor job of incorporating technological tools.

Even worse, we spend way too much time teaching, drilling, and testing the mechanics of mathematics (or too often arithmetic) and not nearly enough on how the process is actually applied to real world situations.

Learning how to grind through algorithms rather than solving problems.

It’s no wonder so many students arrive at high school with both a distaste for math and a bad case of insecurity about their abilities in the subject.

Just Ignore The Evidence

I think I’ve figured out one big problem with science education in some parts of this country: we have too many people who know nothing about science trying to write the curriculum.

The latest case in point comes from Texas where the State Board of Education has just approved new science standards containing all kinds of non-scientific crap.

However, it’s this attitude from the board chair that highlights an unfortunate distain for the whole concept of education in the first place.

Board Chair Don McLeroy did not disappoint, as evidenced in this YouTube video in which he makes an impassioned plea for two amendments to the standards that would undercut instruction on evolution. Mystified as to why the scientific community didn’t see things the way he did and apparently unable to contemplate the possibility that he has things wrong, McLeroy urges the board to join a crusade against the scientific community. “Somebody has to stand up to these experts,” he said, while expressing incredulity about their opposition, stating, “I don’t know why they’re doing it.” Elsewhere, he argued that evolution isn’t science, saying, “it’s an ideology” and “evolution goes back to someone who came up with a philosophical speculation.”

Those “experts” he wants to stand up to are, by definition, people with a “comprehensive and authoritative knowledge or skill in a particular area”. Also known as scientists in this particular area.mad_scientist.png

Oh, but the chairman does approve of genetics which “goes back to a Christian monk” (that would be Gregor Mendel – even I remember that from my science classes :-).

Anyway, the primary focus of the new standards would have students “analyze, evaluate, and critique scientific explanations” based in part on “examining all sides of scientific evidence of those scientific experiments”.

Which, of course, says that “all sides” should have equal weight in the discussion even if they don’t provide equal evidence.

More generally, this focus on multiple theories makes frequent appearances when elected bodies, like school boards and state legislatures, attempt to modify science education. It suggests that, when faced with the fact that science has adopted a theory that the officials dislike, they assume there must be another, competing theory that is more amenable to their beliefs. In reality, having an explanatory model reach the status of scientific theory by necessity means that it explains the scientific data better than competing ideas, so there rarely are competing theories.

But the bottom line here is that the Board in Texas wants their kids to get a good science education, possibly even a “world class” science education (to use the popular political modifier), as long as the scientific evidence doesn’t get in the way of Mr. McLeory’s beliefs.

And we don’t need no stinkin’ experts to do it.