Move over "$100" Laptop...

Well today my dell mini 9 has arrived. I could not be happier. It comes with Win XP SP3, 16GB Solid State HD, integrated webcam, wifi, Bluetooth, 1.6 GB Processor and 1GB of RAM. I swapped out the 1 GB Ram for 2GB immediately. Even with the upgrades it was less than $500. It is extremely portable, durable and contains no moving parts. The Mini 9 comes with an expandable SD slot. I bought a 16GB SD card but I have not used it. 16GB is a lot of space, when you consider that you will not be using it for games, music and videos. I’ve installed 10 full applications and I still have plenty of room to spare.
Instantly I saw the potential for education. Forget about the XO, The Dell Mini 9 offers a solution for school districts trying to achieve 1:1 computing at an affordable price. The Dell Mini 9 offers everything a student would need for the classroom, short of the software (Open Office runs great on it, even Office 2007 runs well too).
Despite the good, the Mini 9 has some drawbacks; it does not have a CD Rom. You can attach one separately, but it is not built in. In addition, the keyboard has made some compromises. The “F1-Ff8” keys are now part of the function button and “F9-F12” are nonexistent. All of the keys have been made smaller but certain keys have been made smaller than others. “Right Shift” is smaller than a standard keyboard key and the ‘ “ key (quote/apostrophe key) has been moved to next to the space bar. These changes take some getting used to, but the sacrifices made for portability outweigh the negative.
I was especially impressed with the webcam. I was expecting a cell phone type webcam with a choppy video and it worked smooth on recording and on Skype. The Dell Mini 9 is truly a wonderful buy and a great computer on the go if your laptop is too big and your phone/blackberry is too small.

Boldly Go into The Future: Make it So!

Call me a geek, nerd or trekkie – I love Star Trek. In my younger years, I was afraid to mention that I thoroughly enjoyed the adventures of Picard, Riker, Data and crew, as well as Captain Janeway. I even thought that Enterprise was very good and was canceled too early. However, with the buzz about the move reboot of Star Trek this May by J. J. Abrams, I began watching the original Star Trek again. As I was watching I could not help but notice that the technology that James T. Kirk and his crew had was outdated by today’s standards. Further pondering this idea led me to realize the time in which Star Trek was conceived. During the 1960s the United States was at the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The Space Race was in full swing and both the Soviets and the Americans raced to the sky…or actually beyond it. Over the years leading up to 1966, both the Soviets and the Americans had made great advances in propulsion technology. Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek creator and visionary had thought that these leaps in propulsion technology would continue. He was dealing with 300 years into the future. Although propulsion has not advanced fairly quickly another technology has: communication. Did anyone think that communication technology would be the future in the 1960s?
With more than 250 years until society reaches “Kirk’s” time it seems odd that Kirk’s communicator looks like a pay-as-you-go-phone circa 1999. Sure maybe it has an incredible range and can communicate on a subspace frequency, but as far as design it seems very old. With technologies such as Bluetooth and touch screens it seems like 250 years from now there is going to be a regression in technology. Another issue is the computer. It would seem that the computer cannot perform many of the tasks that we take for granted today. I could go on and on, but let me get to the point.
It will be interesting to see if J.J. Abrams focuses on the advancement of touch screens, computers, and mobile technology in the 40 years since Gene Roddenberry’s vision. Because the series is a reboot he has the “authority” to make such changes. The big question is: What technology advancements will be depicted in the new movie? Perhaps more important, what technology will advance most in the next forty years? Will my grandkids look back on the 2009 Star Trek and laugh at how primitive some the technology looked as I did when I watched the original Star Trek series? Time will only tell.

What is the Purpose of Education?

If you are an educator, you are all too familiar with State Standards and assessments. Educators are often forced to “teach to the test” and comply with State Standards in every lesson. Although I like the idea of specific standards for each subject, topic and lesson, I am weary of what standards are being enforced.
Think for a moment about education as a whole. What is the purpose of education? That question may be too broad, so let’s start with a simpler one: What is the purpose of your specific content area? Let’s use Math as an example. Many would say the purpose of learning math is know how to count, add, subtract, multiply and divide in a nutshell. However, the true purpose of learning Math is to train your brain in problem solving. Problem sloving is the skill being taught and Math is merely the vehicle or the method of teaching the skill. Sure it is still important for students to know how to perform basic functions and know important formulas, but if students learn one thing in Math it should be the ability to logically solve a problem. This idea goes back to last week’s blog about teaching skills over content. Let’s look at another example: Social Studies. We have all heard “if you don’t learn history, you are doomed to repeat it”. Although learning about history is important, the real purpose of history in school is to teach government, citizenship and cultures. It is also used to explain consequences and cause and effect relationships. Again, history is the vehicle for teaching specific skills.
So let’s get back to the purpose of Education. The purpose of education is to give people the skills they will need to be productive members of society. It is a purpose that is all too simple and all too complex. What skills? What does productive mean? What society? These questions are all valid. In order to truly understand this it is necessary to consider the following: Today, when a student graduates from a k12 institution they should be prepare to be productive members of the society. That can either mean going directly into the workforce based on the skills learned in High school or going on to High Education. Either way, graduates should have the knowledge to follow one of those paths. With the skills they learn they should be able to go out into the workforce and contribute to society in some way. However, there is a huge problem with our educational system.
The skills being taught on the K12 level do not match the skills needed in the rapid changing workforce. There is a skills gap that is rapidly growing. Think of it like this: Imagine being taught all of your life how to use a VCR with the hopes of one day becoming a VCR technician. You learn how to record, stop, rewind, fast forward, tracking and everything there is to know about a VHS tape. However, when it is time for you put your top-notch skills to use, you realize that all the schooling you went for was obsolete, and you really needed to know how a DVD/Blu-ray Player works.
Blogging, Podcasts, Wikis, Social Networking, Virtual Worlds, Twitter, are often blocked in many school districts across the U.S. Why? Educators should be incorporating these communication tools into their lessons. I know many people fear that if students use these tools they may be used inappropriately. Well they are RIGHT! Without an education on how to use these tools correctly they will be bound for trouble. Many teens and fresh out of college students use these tools on a regular basis. Why not teach them how to use Social Networking to get a job or wikis to complete a collaborative task. These tools are popping up in the corporate world all over the place. Few know how to use them effectively. Schools need to start integrating skills that students can transfer to other facets of their lives. It is hard to plan for the future, but if you teach in the present, you won’t be left in the past.

Are You an Educator or a Teacher?

I believe as an educator, it is my responsibility to educate students not just teach them. Many people of my profession would argue that teaching and educating are the same idea. Although, the distinction between teaching and educating may seem small; it is very important. It is possible to teach someone how to perform a task. If you teach them correctly, they will be able to perform that specific task over and over again. However, if you educate the person about the task and the meaning behind the task and its importance, not only will they be able to perform the task, they will be able to apply it to other situations. Teaching transferable skills and concepts is educating. In my classroom, students are taught nothing and educated in everything.
The modern educational system was founded in the early late 1800s. It was designed to prepare students for the workforce; much like the system is today. Unlike today most of the workforce was working in factories and had manual labor based jobs. As a result the educational system was designed to teach students how to complete tasks and follow orders. Students were given drills in root memorization. The jobs they would have later in life required a person that played by the book and followed a process step by step. Today’s job market requires much more than that. Workers need to be able to think independently and collaborate with other colleagues in a service driven society. However, in many cases the educational system does not reflect these changes. Students need to be taught concepts and ideas, and transferable skills.
In order to effectively engage students in this method, I must step away from the trappings of content driven lessons. The content often distracts educators from their objectives. Instruction should be student-centered. Educators need to create real world scenarios in which the students can discover on their own the concepts that they are learning. I feel that the best way to teach concepts is to give students a problem to solve as a group and they must use the materials they are given to effectively solve the problem. The content of the lesson is woven into the scenario, yet the focus of the lesson is the concept or the skill not the content itself.
I believe that it is extremely important for our educational system to revamp its entire thought process about technology. Technology should be used to immerse students into a real situation and have the student come up with the outcomes and the consequences. There needs to be more simulations in the classroom. Students will learn the content through the successful completion of the simulation. Many people fear that these types of activities will not prepare students for state assessment exams. As long as simulations align with State and National Standards, students will still be able to perform on well on tests.
It is with this framework that I propose that K12 schools begin to adopt some modern practices and focus on the important things: Skills and Concepts. The transferability of skills and concepts is more important they promoting memorization of facts, dates, and formulas. In the future, it is the transferable skills that educators provide to students that will lead them to excel rather than the information taught by teachers. So here's an important question for you to ask yourself: Are you an educator or a teacher?

This is your brain on Google...

I have just read a fascinating article:

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

It talks about the possibility that because of the internet and search engines we have lost the ability to process lengthy texts of information. We are so used to searching to find an answer, that the actual substance of what we are trying to find is lost. The article goes on to state that many people have shorter attention spans and no longer read long texts. Try not to skim the article, if you do perhaps Google and the internet have already rewired your brain.

Trivia Hero a Huge Hit...

The good folks at TeqSmart have reviewed my Trivia Hero Review Game.

Check it out:

http://blog.teqsmart.org/?p=212