Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia is an amazing phenomenon .  WikipediaVision is a visualization of edits to the english Wikipedia as they happen (well, a couple of minutes behind and only a selection).  The site was developed by László Kozma, a grad-student at the Helsinki University of Technology. Its absolutely fascinating. I’m amazed at the number of Australians who are posting about all sorts of strange things.

Here’s a challenge.

Post something to Wikipedia (anonymously) and see if its included in the Wikipedia Vision a few minutes later. Screen shot it and link it here. I’ve tried and failed!

I really like the sound of this – An Australian researcher is on the road to riches after discovering a way to make broadband connections up to 100 times faster.

A clever mathematician has found a way to extract even more life out of the copper!

Its all about how you deal with cross talk which was one of the favourite subjects in my systems cabling training days. Here’s the tech speak -

“We formulate a (standard) model for how DSLs attain their data-rate, considering crosstalk interference effects. We exploit the fact that interference varies across the frequency spectrum, and that if we are clever about the way in which we allocate transmission power amongst the various frequency bands, we can manage the interference between (strongly) coupled lines. For example, one user that interferes strongly with others within a band may be “turned off” within that band to avoid damaging the other lines, consequently raising the overall network rate.”  The Channel Register

Check out the news article here but don’t hold your breath.

“If it is successfully licensed to equipment vendors, Dr Papandriopoulos expects the technology to be implemented by internet providers around the world within two or three years.”

I think that our Telcos need to do some serious work on our infrastruture before then!

Nice!

FreeRice

Here’s a word site with a difference!

For each word you define correctly 10 grains of rice are donated through the United Nations to help end world hunger.

Visit www.freerice.com

The site was launched on 7 October 2007 and to date over half a million 45 million grains of rice have been donated.

I love the relationship between Maths and Music so this quotation captured me

“Nocturne, of Chopin, so beautiful music. But few people will appreciate the music if I just show them the notes. Most of us need to listen to the music to understand how beautiful it is.

But often that’s how we present statistics; we just show the notes we don’t play the music.”

Take some time to watch this presentation from TED2007 by Professor Hans Rosling of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. I was mesmerised by this incredibly compelling and fascinating lecture which is a combination of his wonderful presentation style and some amazing software. Have I used too many adjectives?

Do put aside some time to listen. Its 21 minutes short with a rather different ending!

Hans Rosling: Watch the end of poverty

Try out the Gapminder World (Trendalyzer) software yourself at http://tools.google.com/gapminder/ (yes – Google have bought it – its that good!). It brings statistics to life and would be a fantastic discussion tool in Maths and Social Sciences classrooms.

Its been a long time since I ran the Edcom Boot Camps for school techies and teachers with technical responsibilities but I was reminded the other day how that although technology has advanced considerably the basic principles remain the same.

We used to discuss the 4P’s of tech support so its quite funny that I now work for a company that is called 3P Learning (totally different P’s but more on that later!).

In no particular order the main technical problems that occurred in schools could be categorised under four headings – Power, Printers, Passwords and People.

Power
A keen new staff member in the office reminded me of this when she left for the day and switched off all the power switches – disconnecting me from the internet! We’ve all read the stories about cleaners unplugging servers to plug in vacuum cleaners and calls to help desks compaining of computer failures during power outages. I’ve had my fair share of teachers not realising that their computer wasn’t just “the TV bit” and pushing the power button on the monitor and telling me it went “green, green, green, orange”.

Printers
This used to be such a fraught area! They were expensive and (I’m showing my age!) very few of them were networkable so we used to set them up as shared printers. Folk couldn’t get their head around actually choosing the right printer to print to. Generally these were the same folk that “lost” documents that they’d saved as well. Shared printers were the bane of our lives as well meaning folk moved them from PC to PC as they did some housekeeping in their classrooms and then complained that ever since you installed Encarta on the server they hadn’t been able to print to the printer – forgetting they’d shifted the thing!

Certain InkJet printers with design issues (a vertical paper intake) were receptacles for bits and pieces in junior classes that used to make their way into moving bits and render printing impossible.

Now – its bliss! When you choose Print it goes off into the ether and you can go to any printer which is also a photocopier and retrieve your job.  

People
Sometimes we’d have to tell people that their computer had a PEBKAC error. They’d nod sagely, not wanting to admit that they had no idea what we meant.  You can find its definition on Wikipedia! – Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair. Check out the PEBKAC videos on YouTube as well! User errors are responsible for most computer problems. It can be the personal user of the computer (whether teacher or student) or the inadequately trained techie that set up the system/network! 

Being able to describe what has gone wrong simply and accurately is often the key to resolving the problem. “It doesn’t work” just doesn’t cut it! Think about what you’re trying to do and describe what happens. Most of the time the operating system or application tries to tell you what’s wrong so read any messages dialogue boxes that pop up. Its actually a great practical application of thinking skills! 

Passwords
Pre-PINs and and internet banking this was a fraught area. Teachers really objected to having a password and really, really objected to having to change it regularly! Some teachers still grumble, but having your personal files accessed and deleted or some other horrible experience soon changes your perception and practice. Its really helpful to know and use the quick keys to lock your computer. In the Netsafe ICT Manager’s workshops we’d tell the story of the kid who took off out of the classroom and the teacher that took off after him leaving his laptop fully accessible to the other students who then wreaked merry havoc. Its as simple as choosing <flying window> + L (for Windows users) to lock your computer.

Actually there are 5 P’s. The 5th one is related to Passwords, because passwords give you access to your privileges, but the 5th P deserves its own space.

Profiles
Profiles can be so frustrating if set up incorrectly or if the user has been granted inadequate rights and privileges to do their job. If profiles are set up well they’re wonderful!

There seem to be two schools of thought when granting rights and privileges to teachers. The first (and worst IMHO) is “lock down, lock out”. If teachers want to try out a new piece of software on their own laptop they have to contact the service provider and pay for them to install something they were perfectly capable of installing themselves. The service providers’ rationale is that if the teacher (or anyone in the school) has administrative access they’ll muck things up and the service provider will have to fix it up. What they’ve actually figured out is that if you have admin access you may need to call them a few times but you’ll probably learn how to do things properly for yourself and won’t need to call on them so often (less $$$’s). If you need to call them for everything – more $$$’s! What actually happens is that teachers get frustrated and negative (and why wouldn’t you?) and the integration of ICT is severely compromised in the school.

The other philosophy is “empower the user”. Give users the privileges. If they muck up encourage them to ‘fess up (you’ve got to break some eggs to make a cake) and after you’ve fixed it, show them what when wrong and why, and show them how to fix it if it happens again. Believe me, you’ll never be without work to do – the only thing is you won’t be stuck at changing print cartridges and installing programmes the rest of your life! Its all about education – let’s make sure our service providers are education providers rather than education stiflers!

And the 3P’s of 3P Learning?

Play + Practice = Progress. Isn’t that just what I’ve been writing about?

Top 100 Learning Tools

This report has been linked to in many edu blogs. There are some cool tools listed and the links are taking me off to lots more interesting places!

However let’s be a bit more critical about the statistics and who the tools are appropriate for.

I’ve done a very quick analysis of this report. The sample group was so small it meant that a product only had to get 3 votes to be in the Top 100.

109 people were surveyed; therefore 1090 tools were submitted producing a list of just over 400 tools. The Top 100 were collected from those that were listed 3 times or more. Not a large survey and not a lot of tools. The top tool (Firefox) was mentioned 61 times. Most items were mentioned less than 10 times! The list creators are quite open about the statistics and I do not for one moment think they intended the list to be quoted in the way that some are quoting it – as the definitive list of Top Learning Tools. Its an interesting list of what successful people are using.

The contributors were mainly from the corporate/business world and in some cases were the developers of the programs they listed (well, why wouldn’t they?). The next largest groups were university employees and education/ICT consultants. I found around a dozen contributors who were employed in secondary schools, one at middle school and none at primary or early childhood level.

I got suspicious when I read that PowerPoint was at #5 and Inspiration was 72nd equal (with 3 votes!) and that site performance monitoring tools, anti virus programs, mail clients, FTP apps and HTML editors were listed among the tools. So are they Learning Tools or tools useful in the implementation of learning?

The site obtains revenue from Google Ads and Amazon and there are also a number of “sponsor” ads for products that are listed. Developers and promoters of products in the list are now using this list as a reference in advertising their products on their own sites. There’s some communal back scratching going on. That is all fine, they’re not trying to deceive us – it’s the way that other folk are using these statistics that concerns me. Reading the data first hand you can make the connections but quoting them out of context can be misleading.

Is it an interesting list? Yes. Are the products that are listed good? Undoubtedly. Is this list an indication of the best that’s available out there? No. Is this a list of the best tools a teacher could use in their classroom? Definitely not. In fact it’s totally disingenuous to advertise a product as a world leading elearning resource for use in schools because it appears on this list – with 3 votes!

Let’s be a little more critical about statistics. Let’s have bigger sample groups. Let’s have sample groups that have no vested interests. Let’s quote surveys that relate to our field of operation.

Let’s ask classroom teachers for a list of their Top 10 Learning Tools.

These holidays I’ve been totally occupied with back-to-back conferences. NZAMT10, the bi-ennial Maths Conference, was in Week One at St Cuthberts in Epsom, Auckland and ULearn07, the annual ICT Conference was in Week 2 at the Sky Convention Centre in Auckland CBD.

At NZAMT10 Shane Hill presented in the Main Hall at St Cuthberts on “Play and Practice, the Key to Progress in Mathematics – the Mathletics Story” and I ran a workshop on “eTools for Maths Teachers”. We tried to gate crash Ian Clark’s lively workshop on “Mathletics at Wellington College” but there was no room! I ran a Special Interest Group session for MUGs (MUG = Mathletics User Group) which attracted a good crowd. A bonus was catching up with my old TI mates from Aussie.

Congratulations to NZAMT for running a really positive, pacey and practical conference – and thanks to Auckland for turning on some great weather! My work is well cut out for Term 4 following up on all the class trial requests from this conference as well as the next one!

The ULearn Conference was mainly experienced vicariously. I was grounded for the duration in the trades hall apart from a brief foray to assist Mark Webster from Meadowbank with his great workshop on Mathletics @ Meadowbank. I was staggered at the improvement results his class have recorded an dreally enjoyed the video that the students put together.

Although I was stranded on the stand lots of people visited and it was great to hear about the workshops and keynotes that they had attended.  Teachers were very positive about the offerings and I’ve been trolling blogs picking up tidbits of impressions and activities. It was neat to meet those folk whose blogs I keep an eye on (aka lurking!) and to catch up with old friends.  Us old hands had a good reminisce about the early days and specifically the first ICTPD Conference at CIT – no phone lines, no internet, precious little power! Its quite funny how many of us are now resident in the Bay of Plenty!

It was great to meet F2F with teachers I had only previously had e-conversations with. Many had participated in the Trans Tasman Maths & Spelling Challenge and I loved hearing about their experiences. It was great to hear about kids turning up for school early begging to do Maths and how in one school when the kids realised that some other students hadn’t yet obtained their Golden Guru status they donated their online time so that they could! We can see the fun happening online but again, its all experienced vicariously. We miss the fun those at the chalk face are having! I’d encourage teachers to YouTube or TeacherTube these events – perhaps an extra prize for the best video clip could be an option?

NZ Schools are invited to join the Aussies to celebrate the Australian Numeracy and Literacy Week by participating in an online Maths and Spelling Challenge. Schools can register online at www.mathletics.co.nz/challenge

“More than 100,000 students in over 2000 schools across Australia and New Zealand will participate in real-time battles of mental arithmetic and spelling using the renowned Mathletics and Spellodrome eLearning products which are currently used by more than 500,000 students in over 10 countries.

As well as enabling students to have fun, the Maths and Spelling Challenge aims to improve students’ literacy and numeracy skills significantly by engaging students and empowering them to strive for their personal best. The Maths and Spelling Challenge carries on 3P Learning’s tradition of organising and hosting compelling events. Late last year more than 150,000 students were united for the Trans-Tasman Challenge where students correctly answered over 2.5 million questions using Mathletics, registering average improvement rates of 76%.”

I’m preparing presentations for a few conferences and am using Google Notebook extensively to collect thoughts, sites, quotes and information as I’m working. It has proved to be a really useful and easy to use tool. I work on a laptop and desktop and don’t do the synchronise thing – partly because its a fraught process but mainly because I like to practice my belief that working in an online environment is the most efficient.

Because Google Notebook is an online notebook I can access it from any computer connected to the net.  It is a very transportable tool. You can download a browser extension so the notebook icon will sit on the bottom bar of your browser and pop up when you click on it or access it by signing in to Google with your gmail account. You can also share your Notebooks.

Its like a library of sticky notes! I use it everyday.

  By Barbara Kingsolver

I have a number of books on the go at any one time. This was my book for plane trips which is ironic when the author addresses “food miles” and the needless consumption of fossil fuels.  I’ll ameliorate my guilt by planting some trees and veges!

This is a book that makes you think, question and change. Barbara Kingsolver, the author of the Poisonwood Bible, tells the story of her family who made the decision to “eat locally” for a year. This book is a diary of their decision to eat locally, eat seasonally and eat well for a year – and more. It makes you question where your food comes from geographically and biologically and examines the topical issue of food miles. Interestingly it also makes the most compelling arguments I have read against being a vegetarian!

Barbara’s husband Steven Hopp provides some interesting asides including this amazing statistic that has haunted me for weeks “If every US citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of local and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption  by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. That’s not gallons, but barrels. Small changes in buying habits can make big differences.”

Camille Kingsolver supplies some great teen opinions and wonderful recipes and I think that everyone that reads this book would love to meet Lily the social entrepreneur with the eye for a deal and the health of the planet.

The American diet (and sadly that of an increasing number of Kiwis) is generally pretty terrible and consists of derivatives of (GE) soy and corn where taste and food value has been sacrificed on the altar of convenience and looks. This book however opened my eyes to an America beyond the food halls, fast food outlets and mega marts where farmers’ markets abound and taste and freshness are king.

So I’ve bought packets of seeds (from Koanga Seeds, not your common old garden hybridised varieties) and am looking forward to growing some very local food – if the free ranging chooks can be contained and the cows kept to the confines of their paddocks!

I was about to put a hyperlink to the book on Amazon – and then thought about the fuel expended to wing one copy over from the US. So here’s a link to one available on Trade Me!