Ryan Collins

🕹️ Do Something Great! 😄

Author: ryan

  • Thursday 3 for Jan. 31, 2013 – Educon 2.5

    EduCon 2.5 took place this past weekend in Philadelphia. I was
    extremely lucky and grateful for a chance to attend last year, and
    attend isn’t quite the right word to use. A better word would be
    experience.

    What is EduCon?
    EduCon is both a conversation and a conference.

    It is an innovation conference where we can come together, both in
    person and virtually, to discuss the future of schools. Every session
    will be an opportunity to discuss and debate ideas — from the very
    practical to the big dreams.

    Videos of Educon sessions

    All of the sessions are available to watch on Youtube!. Try not to
    be overwhelmed by the number of videos, just take one a day/week/month.
    A great resource for an edchat in your school district and a glimpse
    into how learning takes place in other schools.

    Why Preaching to the #educhoir Really DOES Matter

    I’ve written about the echo chamber before and the perils therein,
    but Bill Ferriter writes how sometimes you need the echo chamber.

    The simple truth is that being a change agent can be a REALLY lonely
    experience.

    Hashtag visualization of Educon 2.5

    Jonathan Becker has put together a visualization of all the
    tweets     with the [hashtag #educon][]. It drags my
    machine down to a crawl, but it is still useful. 🙂

  • Thirty years of tech, where are we now?

    This January marks the 30 year anniversary of the Apple //e and the
    Apple Lisa. While the Apple //e had profound effects on the computer
    world throughout the 80s, I am in awe of how much the Apple Lisa
    foretold of the computing world. No matter what your thoughts are of
    Steve Jobs, the man had a knack for going “where the puck is going to
    be, not where it has been    “. Reading through BYTE magazine review of
    the Apple Lisa     shows what Steve was envisioning. It seems so quaint
    how the writer had to describe using the “mouse”, what the “desktop”
    was, and how to double-click.

    Although the Lisa was a failure in the marketplace and its document
    centric model being bypassed by an app centric model, it did set the
    stage for the direction of computers over the next 30 years. BYTE
    magazine, the world’s second personal computer magazine, started
    publication in 1975 as a platform agnostic magazine. The Lisa was so
    different that the reviewer didn’t quite know how to review the
    computer, and, in fact, foresaw the end of the megahertz race and the
    death of computer specs.

    Reporting on the technical specifications of a computer toward the end
    of an article is unusual for BYTE, but it emphasizes tha the why of
    Lisa is more important than the what. For part of the market, at
    least, the Lisa computer will change the emphasis of microcomputer
    from “How much RAM does it have?” to “What can it do for me?”.

    The Lisa also had a sleep feature, much like hibernate under Windows and
    how iOS on the iPhone and iPad react to sleeping and waking.

    … thing happens when you turn the Lisa “off” (actually, it’s never
    completely off; it just goes into a low-power mode). In any case, when
    you hit the Off button, system software automatically closes all open
    files, thus transferring the information in them to their respective
    floppy disks, and releses the disks from the Lisa disk drives. In
    addition, the software records the status of the “desktop” so that,
    when the computer is reactivated, Lisa automatically returns it to the
    appearance and state it was in when the Lisa was turned “off”.

    It seems that when people try to predict the future there are only two
    different scenerios. The more likely gradual changes, and the so far out
    there changes that the chance of them being right is slim and
    unbelievable. The Lisa shows that Apple was the latter, and it amazes me
    what they were thinking up in the years leading up to its release. Apple
    did get inspiration on the GUI from Xerox Parc, but their additions,
    such as pull-down menus, overlapping windows, are the excence of Apple,
    refinement of an idea.

    Xerox PARC’s innovation had been to replace the traditional computer
    command line with onscreen icons. But when you clicked on an icon you
    got a pop-up menu: this was the intermediary between the user’s
    intention and the computer’s response. Jobs’s software team took the
    graphical interface a giant step further. It emphasized “direct
    manipulation.” If you wanted to make a window bigger, you just pulled
    on its corner and made it bigger; if you wanted to move a window
    across the screen, you just grabbed it and moved it. The Apple
    designers also invented the menu bar, the pull-down menu, and the
    trash can—all features that radically simplified the original Xerox
    parc idea.

    The difference between direct and indirect manipulation—between three
    buttons and one button, three hundred dollars and fifteen dollars, and
    a roller ball supported by ball bearings and a free-rolling ball—is
    not trivial. It is the difference between something intended for
    experts, which is what Xerox PARC had in mind, and something that’s
    appropriate for a mass audience, which is what Apple had in mind. PARC
    was building a personal computer. Apple wanted to build a popular
    computer.

    Read more:

    So here we are, 30 years later. A half billion iOS devices have been
    sold, and more people than ever have more computing power in their
    pocket then what was used to put a man on the moon. Apple now generates
    almost as much revenue in a quarter than Microsoft does in a year. With
    $137 billion in the bank, what do they have planned for the future?

    For your students, Powerful technology is available for $25
    dollars    , what are they going to create over the next 30 years?

  • Thursday 3s for Jan. 24, 2013: Student tech skills, tablets vs. IWBs, and menu calendar

    5 technology skills every student needs before they leave high school

    Jeremy Kaiser writes about 5 technology skills every student needs
    before they leave high school    . Technology moves fast, but even this
    article which is almost 2 years old holds relevance today. What is
    missing is the mobile component, which in 2011 wouldn’t be as obvious as
    it is today. All of his skills can be done with the most basic of hand
    held devices today, but in your classrooms, how many of these skills are
    being used?

    Why AppleTV & iPad beats Interactive Whiteboard?.every time

    Why AppleTV & iPad beats Interactive Whiteboard?.every time. Pretty
    much sums up my thoughts on the subject. 🙂 Along the same lines is an
    article from Information Week on Why Tablets Will Kill Smart Boards In
    Classrooms    .

    DAY-O

    Running OS X and want to make that menu clock more useful? Check
    out Day-O. It replaces the menu bar clock that still shows the date
    and time, but when you click on it, Day-O gives you a monthly calendar.
    Quite handy when you want to look for a date quickly.

  • Your inbox is not an organizational tool

    Email
    is the technology that everyone loves to hate. They use it daily, and most hate
    every minute of it. I believe part of the problem
    is the difficulty in coming up with a workflow that allows you to
    efficiently use email. And by efficiently use email, I mean that whether
    you are on your computer, a tablet, or smartphone, you can organize your
    email and do work with the device you have with you.

    Over the past couple of years I’ve been refining how I use email. The
    problem is how to organize your email in such a way that allows you to
    not miss important emails or tasks that need to be completed, but to
    also provide quick responses to emails you are sent. The workflow I’ve
    come up with I call DART: Delete, Archive, Reply or To do. It’s a
    very GMail centric workflow, but can easily be adapted to whatever email
    system you use. The beauty of it is that your inbox is always empty, and
    any emails that need further action are in the folder To Do. DART
    refers to actions taken with new emails.

    Delete

    Pretty self explanatory, the trick is to know what to delete and what to
    not delete. I basically only delete SPAM messages that have gotten past
    the SPAM filter or sales messages of which pertains to things outside of
    my area. Deleting messages is in actuality a task that does not take
    very often because Archiving makes more sense.

    Archive

    When you archive a message in GMail, it takes the message out of your
    inbox and places it in All Mail. You can mimic this action with other
    email services, just create an All Mail folder and move messages into
    it. To locate messages a person will use search instead or organizing
    emails into folders or labels. Sometimes it makes sense to put things
    into folders instead of just All Mail, but in a majority of situations
    it takes more time to organize your email into folders instead of just
    putting them into All Mail and using search to locate your messages.
    GMail provides search tools such as from: and to: to help locate
    messages from or sent to particular people. Most of the email messages I
    receive are archived because they do not warrant a reply and are not
    something that is actionable by me.

    Reply

    If I receive a message that requires a short reply that will take me
    less than a minute to write, I will compose the message and send it as
    soon as possible.

    To do

    For messages that require a longer reply or ones that require me to
    complete a task, they are moved to my To Do folder. This folder then
    becomes my To Do list. I have one location where I can go and take
    care of all my tasks, without rummaging through my inbox.

    Conclusion

    By using DART, inbox 0 is achievable. Messages you need or want saved
    are in All Mail and messages that are actionable are in To Do.

    Addendum

    When using GMail from an iOS device, the default action is to archive
    any email that is deleted, so, in effect, it combines the Delete and
    Archive feature into just Archive. You can adjust this in your
    settings, but I’d recommend using the GMail app for most of your email
    needs (although you will still need your account added to your email
    accounts in settings for sending emails from apps). A nice feature of
    the GMail app is the Unread view.

    BTW, my assistant really wanted it called FART (Follow Up, Archive,
    Reply, Trash).

  • Use a GMail filter to organize emails from students

    GMail has a somewhat powerful filtering mechanism that you can
    apply to incoming email. Unfortunately, I say somewhat since there
    really isn’t an easy way to select student email and take it out of your
    inbox. It won’t match on part of an address, so you can’t just search
    for an email address that starts with a number.

    What I’ve done is configure Google Apps for Education to append a footer
    for all email from students with the tag:
    #studentofkcs. That also means that if you are now a Google Apps for
    Education user or cannot automatically add this tag to the footer of
    your student email messages you will have to have the students do it
    themselves. Most email packages allow the user to add a signature to
    their email messages, they just need to be sure to add a piece of text
    that will be unique.

    To filter email from students, go to GMail and in the search field at
    the top of the screen enter #studentofkcs and hit the triangle to the
    left of the blue button with the magnifying class.

    Then click Create filter with this search. It will have a list of
    things that can happen to the message when it matches the search. You
    will want to check Skip the inbox (Archive it), and Apply the
    label:    .

    Since you probably don’t already have a label (or folder, if you want to
    call it that) set up, you can click on the Choose label… and
    create a new label.

    I like to put an exclamation point in front of the label so when the
    list of labels are sorted alphabetically, the ones I’ve created are at
    the top.

    Click Create and then Create Filter. From now on, email from
    students will bypass your inbox and be in the your label created above.

  • Has Apple lost it?

    Apple announced the iPhone 5 today and updates to the iPod line. Most of
    the announcements were lackluster at best, but the event laid the
    groundwork for the rumored iPad mini event in October, which could be
    even more disastrous than the iPhone 5 event today.

    The iPhone 5 is a nice upgrade, thinner and lighter, but at the same
    time, it doesn’t have any feature that makes it a must upgrade for me
    and my iPhone 4. This is probably more of a testimonial on how good a
    phone the 4 is than what the 5 brings to the table. There are features
    in the next version of iOS that I won’t be able to use, such as
    turn-by-turn navigation, and, I’m assuming, Facetime over cellular, but
    since there are apps I can use to replace these missing features I’m not
    that worried about upgrading.

    What’s more disturbing about todays event was the iPod line refresh.
    Apple now sells the iPod shuffle, iPod nano, and iPod touch (the Classic
    is still available, but it hasn’t seen an update in 3 years). The iPod
    shuffle makes sense as an entry level music player, and at \$49, makes
    it pretty affordable. After the shuffle comes the nano, which doesn’t
    make sense at all. At least the 6th generation nano had a cool look and
    could be used as a watch, this 7th generation looks like an iPod touch,
    works like an iPod touch, but isn’t an iPod touch. Why would Apple waste
    engineering sources on the nano? They priced it at \$149, only \$50 less
    than the entry level iPod touch that includes the same amount of
    storage. I just can’t think of a use case where the nano makes a better
    purchase than the iPod touch.

    Then there’s the iPod touch. At the \$199 price point, they’re now
    selling the 4th generation iPod touch with 16Gb instead of just 8GB. No
    other changes in the now two year old device. If you want the new iPod
    touch which has several of the goodies of the iPhone 5, be prepared to
    shell out \$299. You do get 32Gb at this price but is it worth a third
    more than the iPod touch 4th generation.

    It’s the pricing of the iPod touch which is the most worrisome. Making a
    guess about the iPad mini launch next month, I bet that Apple will drop
    the iPad 2 and put the iPad mini in at the \$399 price. This would hand
    the Christmas shopping season to Amazon, Google, and possibly Barnes and
    Noble. The software for iOS is heads and shoulders above what is
    available for Android, but when a parent can pick up two Kindle Fire HDs
    for the price of one iPad mini, what choice do you think they’re going
    to make? I really doubt they’d price the iPad mini at the same price as
    the new iPod touch, but let’s say they do. It would still be a third
    higher than the Kindle Fire HD, although closer in price to the Nexus 7
    32GB.

    Apple has solid devices, well built, but their pricing expectations are
    all over the place. To me, it makes sense to:

    • keep the shuffle at \$49
    • place the old nano form factor (but with bluetooth) with 8GB at \$99
    • iPod touch 4th gen (8GB) (add bluetooth 4.0 and IPS screen) at \$149
    • iPod touch 5th gen (16GB) at \$199
    • iPad mini (16GB) at \$299
    • iPad 2 (16GB) at \$399
    • iPad 3 (16GB) at \$499

    I see more and more kids getting Kindle Fires, which is now at \$159.
    Apple has dominated the tablet space (and the mobile phone space in
    profits), but if they don’t price their products more aggressively, they
    will lose that dominance. Right now, a \$299 iPad mini would be a tough
    sell in my school district when I get get a Nexus 7 (which has better
    integration with Google Drive) for \$199. Forget about a \$399 iPad
    mini.

    p.s. Signs that Steve Jobs is gone: he would never have added that hand
    strap to the iPod touch.

  • Impressions of the Nexus 7 Tablet

    For those that know me, ordering a Google Nexus 7 Tablet when it was
    released isn’t much of a surprise. I did wait a day though. 🙂 The
    Nexus 7 Tablet joins the stable of portable devices at home, which
    include a couple of iPad 1s, and iPad 3, a couple of cheap Android
    tablets imported from China, an iPhone, and an HP Tablet running both
    WebOS and Android Ice Cream Sandwich. My first impressions will be
    mainly what I see are the pros and cons of the Nexus 7. I’m not much of
    a reviewer, you can find tons of other reviews around the web.

    (more…)

  • Something about iPads

    [![][]][]

    I’ve been thinking a lot lately about iPads, Chromebooks, Android
    Tablets, and Linux laptops. In planning the next 5 years of technology
    in my school district, I know it will be mobile, but what device should
    I be thinking about? And then I noticed something very curious about the
    iPad and how people interact with it.

    In the past, when I’ve done professional development, there would always
    be some participants that would question the complexity. “Why are there
    so many steps?” “I’ll never remember all these!” Now with iPad training,
    I very seldom hear these comments. In fact, with all the hoops one must
    jump through on the iPad to do some tasks, people almost seem to enjoy
    it. These are the same people that would be overwhelmed with the
    complexity of doing the same task under desktop operating systems.

    Is this the epiphany that techies are missing? A device that defies
    our expectations of technology? The iPad with its touch and non-window
    interface turns the last 20 years of technology use on its head. For the
    first time in 15 years, people are realizing that they can use a
    computing platform that doesn’t have Microsoft Office on it.

    I’m reminded of a situation when I first bought the Nintendo Wii. At the
    time, motion control was brand new, and I was playing my brother in a
    first person shooter. He couldn’t quite get the hang of using the
    controller, preferring wild swings instead of using the controller with
    style and finesse. It was the first new gaming interface he had used
    since the analog stick was added to the Nintendo 64 and he was
    struggling. It seems we get too comfortable with what we know, instead
    of pushing through to see what we can do.

    These same discussions are taking place with the new interface of
    Windows 8. People are lamenting the loss of the desktop, even as
    Microsoft assures them that the desktop will still be there when using
    Windows 8 on a desktop or laptop computer. It’s funny in a way, I
    remember these same arguments when the switch from Microsoft DOS to
    Microsoft Windows was taking place. The writing is on the wall for the
    desktop metaphor. People don’t want to manually manage their
    documents anymore. Or the apps. And most importantly, their
    computer. They want to use it to get stuff done, and they’ve found that
    the iPad allows them to do it.

    As districts buy more and more iPads will the new paradigm of touch
    computing with a tablet be the future?

     

  • First impressions of the new iPad (from an iPad 1 user)

    [![][]][]

    I’ve had the new iPad for 24 hours, and it has already ruined me for all
    other displays. I noticed it yesterday, as I was working on my 24″
    1920×1080 monitor at school. It just looks bad after using the new iPad.

    As an upgrade to the iPad 1, the new iPad is a no brainer upgrade. The
    speed is amazing, but it’s the display that is the future. I don’t even
    want to use my 11″ Air anymore.

    You can read more in-depth reviews from around the web, so I’m going to
    try to pull out the little bits that may not be covered but I feel are
    important:

    • The #1 feature is the display, 2058×1536 in a 9.7″ package is just
      amazing. This is the highest resolution screen I’ve ever used, and
      text looks as good as e-ink on it.
    • Speed of the device is a substantial improvement over the iPad 1 or
      iPhone 4. I haven’t used the iPad 2 or the iPhone 4S enough to
      compare the two.
    • iPhone/iPod Touch apps at 2x use retina resolutions for the devices,
      giving the apps a more pleasant display. If you are running an iPad
      that is already jailbroke, there are apps to allow you to do this
      with the older devices.
    • I’m using my ZAGG/mate bluetooth keyboard from my iPad 1 on it. The
      new iPad is very loose in the keyboard case, but it’s useable.

    If you’re still rocking an iPad 1, it’s pretty much a no brainer to
    upgrade. The decision from an iPad 2 is better left for others to help
    you decide.

    By the way, the Apple Store online has refurbished iPad 1s for \$299
    right now.

     

  • Beyond Paperless

    [][]

    Slides: Beyond Paperless – eTech 2012(pdf)

    Audio: Beyond Paperless – eTech 2012

    []: https://ryancollins.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/2012-02-13-at-10.19.33.jpg