The Village Green

Chording Mouse?

Matthew Woolums — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:48:58 +0000

I’d almost think this was a practical joke, except this isn’t April. OpenOffice now has a mouse, the OpenOfficeMouse comes with 18 programmable buttons. I think there is plenty of room for alternative input devices, and the mouse can definitely use some improvements, but I’m not sure 18 buttons is the right idea. It sort of reminded me of the one-handed or ‘chording‘ keyboards, but combined with a mouse. Take a look. Can you, or your students, come up with something better?

OpenOfficeMouse: The Multi-Button Application Mouse for OpenOffice.org

With thanks for the tip from Daring Fireball

T+L 2009

Matthew Woolums — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:01:27 +0000

Last week I had the pleasure to attend the NSBA T+L 2009 Conference. I spent much of my time on the vendor floor trying to see if there was anything I should know about. I was surprised at the number of vendors who provide district/school/teacher web sites these days. Someone must be making money off of that market. One of the highlights from the vendor floor was the opportunity to meet Moby, the robot from Brainpop. He didn’t have much to say, but if you know Moby, that’s to be expected.

Moby

I attended a session from Steve Hargadon from Elluminate He reviewed some of the trends in technology and their impacts on education. Some of his conclusions include:

Must use Linux to afford the OS for ubiquitous computing.
Must start using collaborative tools including open source software.
Must provide real world authentic audience environments for students.

Steve Hargadon

I also attended a session from David Thornburg who brought his depth of historical perspective to provide us with the insight that we need to be preparing for the transition from smart devices to smart networks. We’ll need a lot more bandwidth if we want to provide our students with the sort of access and tools they will need, not necessarily an expensive laptop and individual computing power. The computing power will come from the network.

David Thornburg

Net Neutrality – It Still Matters

Matthew Woolums — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:31:44 +0000

I haven’t blogged about Net Neutrality for some time, but there seems to be more of an effort to get Net Neutrality codified by law under the current Whitehouse administration. Of course there are other priorities at the moment, such as the health care issue, that receive a higher priority. For those of you who are new to this blog, or just aren’t familiar with the term, I like to think of Net Neutrality as a freedom of access to Internet services. Those who provide the access should not determine what I can and can not access. Why is this important? Check out the video below to get a better idea of the issue of Net Neutrality.

My thanks to Open Thinking for pointing out this YouTube video

open thinking » Open Internet

A Little on the Light Side

Matthew Woolums — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 18:19:38 +0000

Just in case you needed something fun today, try this.

[ INCREDIBOX ] presents [ THE INCREDIBLE POLO ]

Because They Care

Matthew Woolums — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:01:52 +0000

Much of the criticism of Wikipedia, and wikis in general, stems from the open authoring design that lets anyone contribute content. There are limitations, but the idea that anyone can be an expert is more than a little unsettling to some. Still, that openness is also the whole point behind wikis. Authorship isn’t an accidental process. Motivation to contribute mostly happens when someone cares about the content. Take for example the linked Washington Post article below. Seems Adam Lewis, an ‘amateur’ historian cared enough about the Washington DC Wikipedia entry to fix it up. I think we should all care about something like Adam does.

How an amateur historian rescued D.C.’s Wikipedia page – washingtonpost.com

Wikipedia

Is Broadband Access a Legal Right?

Matthew Woolums — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:54:39 +0000

TechCrunch is reporting that Finland has declared that broadband access is a legal right for all of its citizens. This might be a first world-wide. I’m guessing Finland won’t be the last country to declare broadband access a right. In an age where online participation in politics and access to government services is moving to the Internet, it only makes sense that we should all have access. Of course, how that is paid for is another question. How important is broadband access to you? To your country? What flavor of broadband access would you prefer? Wired, wireless, or cellular?

Applause For Finland: First Country To Make Broadband Access A Legal Right

Inventions for the Year 2020

Matthew Woolums — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:08:04 +0000

The BBC has a nice article on a project asking students to imagine helpful inventions for the year 2020. Among some of the 85,000 ideas submitted are magic pencils to automate their homework so they don’t have to do it, which sort of defeats the point of homework. Seems robots are going to be big in the future too. I’d like to see cars that drive themselves so we don’t have any more excuses for distracted or impaired driving accidents. In the classroom, I’d like to see a device that is a content delivery mechanism as well as a research tool and collaboration device, although I don’t think we’ll need to wait another 11 years to see that. What would you like to see? Besides magic pencils, what would your students like to see?

invention

BBC NEWS | Technology | Children draw own visions of 2020

Certifiable

Matthew Woolums — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:08:13 +0000

Spent the last two days in Boston attending mimio train the trainer training. And yes, I even rode a train to get around in Boston. Anyway, for those who don’t know, mimio is a less expensive interactive whiteboard solution, one that is simpler than the other, more familiar boards.

One of the reasons for the cost effectiveness is that mimio does not rely on providing a board. There is a bar that attaches to any existing white board, so no need to remove an existing board, or retrofit a complicated room. The capture bar can be attached with simple picture hanging tape strips, so there isn’t any cost for installation either.

The training I received makes me excited to bring what I’ve learned back to the teachers in my district. And now that I’m certified, I can!

Need More Bandwidth?

Matthew Woolums — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:31:00 +0000

Maybe I should upgrade to pigeon for my next network upgrade. I wonder how long it would take my ISP to offer carrier pigeon as an option. Just think of the bundle of services: satellite TV, phone service, and Internet pigeons! Read the BBC article for more details.

BBC NEWS | Africa | SA pigeon ‘faster than broadband’

One Word

Matthew Woolums — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 03:33:43 +0000

Of course, if 1400 words is intimidating, try your hand at a one minute write. You get a single word at the top of the page, a simple text box in which to write, and a timer to tell you when your time is up. Might be a nice warm-up for a writing class. From Langwitches Blog list of links for today.

one word. so little time.

Langwitches Blog » links for 2009-08-25

Twitter, Meet Woofer

Matthew Woolums — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 03:05:05 +0000

If you thought 140 characters of micro-blogging at Twitter was mostly pointless, try a site that requires a minimum of 1400 characters. Good thing so many people know about copy-paste. From a MacWorld UK article.

Woofer | Macroblogging

The opposite of Twitter: new site requires 1,400-character minimum – Digital Lifestyle – Macworld UK

Who Are You? Who? Who?

Matthew Woolums — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 02:17:03 +0000

With apologies to The Who, MIT produced a new way to search for yourself online. Called Personas, you type in your first and last name (I’m guessing the more common your name, the less personally relevant) and after data-mining information about your name, produces a graph of how your name is perceived on the Internet. I’m not sure what the ‘Illegal” section is all about, but here’s my personagraph. From an article by Techcrunch.

Seems to work with screen names too.

I wonder what it says about me that my screen name and real name show different results.

The Personas Project From MIT Is All Kinds Of Cool