Technology in the urban, public school classroom centers around the teacher's ability to piece together lesson plans that engage kids long enough for them to learn and retain some knowledge. If the teacher does not know enough about computers then the lessons probably do not exist. If the teacher is eager to employ computers then there are attempts to incorporate something into the lesson plan. However, the lessons probably fail the first time and students end up wasting valuable instructional time. In this scenario, classroom technology <> student learning. So what type of technology incorporation improves student learning?

During my first year at the present school I was promised computers for every student in the classroom. This was a lie but I managed to find a "cart" of mobile PCs that could be shared. Some of the notebooks actually worked long enough for students to use them 1/2 of a class period. During select times, students used the notebooks to find information on different chemicals and create presentations on different topics. The process was slow and not well thought out. I was never comfortable with the notebooks. But it didn't matter because the cart was never available future years.

The root cause of poor technology incorporation lies in the basic troubles of public schools. First and foremost, teachers are not always sure which courses they are going to teach from year to year, and sometimes they are not aware of the course until a few days before the start of the school year.

For the past three years, I've been fortunate enough to be responsible for several class periods of chemistry. As I worked putting together resources, I slapped them into a 3 ring binder. Some of these resources were placed on TheChemBook last year and I've spent a little time organizing the course into units. But just putting the lesson together has taken 3 years.

Sadly, my lecture notes were scattered after the first year (PPTs, Journal, OneNote, MS-Word) and so last year my goal was to assemble them into one place (one electronic form). I chose MS-Word as the central file format for no particular reason and now have all of the lecture notes in one area (a directory called school/chemistry/school year/lecture notes/ ). Since putting them in the same area, I have now sequenced, numbered and titled them.

The goal this year is to clean up the lecture notes so they may be downloaded by the students, flow from one idea to the next, and tie to the labs and assessments. Finding real life examples to include in the lectures is another goal. The lectures, though, do not incorporate technology. Since, the challenge is presenting the lecture notes so I am using full use of the technology the kids use during their daily lives - I am beginning to explore options. The iPod, cell phone, and social sites are three target areas.

Last year, I attempted to record some of the lectures and make them available for the MP3 players. This failed because the visuals were just as important as the words. On a few lectures, I used MS Journal to draw cartoons with key concepts about nuclear chemistry. This worked well - and many kids still drew the cartoons at the end of the year.

This summer I am learning Camtasia Studio to try to present lectures. I'm not very good with this product yet and school is about ready to start. There must be an easy way to use Camtasia Studio and I am not able to figure that part out. I'll probably take a short cut this year and highlight certain concepts in 5-10 minute videos. I am eager to add animation and music to the lectures.

Luckily I am not failing at all of my attempts. Recently, the principal agreed I can use the cell phones during the first 10 minutes of class. The daily questions will be rearranged so students work in a team to figure out the answer to the daily question and will text message the answer. Teams will earn 5 points for text messaging, 5 more points for text messaging the correct answer, and as a bonus, the first team to answer correctly earns an extra 5 points. My "pitch" to the principal was that cell phones are so ubiquitous on campus that we should embrace them in the classroom - and not fight them. She agreed on the condition that the students understand the cell phones are only to be out the first 10 minutes and must immediately be put away. I am also to explain the chemistry class is the only place for the cell phones and they will be taken outside the 10 minute window. I'm sure the principal will visit the classroom and monitor the experiment.

As an extension of the cell phone use, I plan to use my phone to snap pictures of kids doing labs and put those pictures into the next day's lecture (when I'm trying to tie the lab concepts with the previous lectures). Hopefully these photos in the PowerPoints will earn a little focus from the students. My concern is the photos may get their attention but distract them from remembering what they were doing when the photo was taken.

So - here I sit - worrying about lecture notes, concerned about using cell phones, and uncertain about the best use of making my own videos for classroom learning. What do you do (or will you do) in the classroom to make sure technology supports student learning? What do you with technology as a student to help you learn? As a student, what would you want from the teacher? As a parent, what are your concerns about teachers trying to incorporate technology into the class?

Domain names are important. They provide the first clue to a visitor about the website. Years ago, I bought the domain name KillerTux.com because the name seemed clever. After some thought, the site name changed to Tux Reports. The Tux Reports named fit better. The site was about reporting on Linux and none of us involved with the site were interested in the idea of a penguin being a killer.

Sadly, good domain names are difficult to register. Most people end up buying long names, or inserting hyphens, or they attempt to be creative by respelling words or creating new words. Registrars have understood the challenge and have attempted to open up new top level domains by using country codes.

The use of country codes does not always go well. You may recall the .ws events of years ago. The hope was a rush of new names, however, people were not ready. The .tv names appear to be accepted but for months, many of us hoped the .me names would be valuable - a landrush if you will.

As of September 11,2007, the Government of Montenegro is responsible for the .me names. On January 18, 2008, GoDaddy announced an alliance plan with Montenegro.

The new registry alliance plans to invite all registrars, country code (CC) and top level domain (TLD) resellers to add .ME to their own list of offerings. However, the new .ME can be used by anyone – an affiliation with the country of Montenegro is not required.

If this alone didn't excite you, the GoDaddy site suggests:

Individuals:

• Carve out a place on the Internet that’s all your own (includes FREE email address with your .ME domain name in it)!
• Perfect for blogs, resumes, and personal pages.

Businesses:

• Personalize your product or service for Internet-savvy younger visitors by launching a .ME Web site with your product name in it.
• Protect your brand from competitors who might wish to take advantage of the name recognition generated by your popular .COM.

GoDaddy opened sales of the. me name yesterday but sales did not go well for everyone. People were reporting on FriendFeed, Twitter, as well as blogging that they thought they owned excellent names only to receive a notice an hour later that someone else already bought the name. The bad news even broke on TechCrunch. The stories in the comments show how popular the. me name is but also tells the depth of the GoDaddy errors.

Godaddy was issuing apologies today and explained the system was overwhelmed. What wasn't being said, though, was 2500 of the best names were held back for auction. Most likely, the good names were already taken.

Is there a lesson? Just like the Gold Rush days, the seller of the tools makes the profit and not the digger.

Dell was slow to enter the Tablet PC market but is quickly learning to add features people want to have on a Convertible PC. The multitouch gesture upgrade is an excellent addition for the Latitude XT owners. The two finger operation is a welcome addition.

Readers may recall that the Latitude XT was used by Bill Gates to show off future features in Windows 7.

But, Latitude XT customers don't have to wait for Windows 7 to use multi-touch. Tomorrow we will introduce a software update globally via support.dell.com for the Dell tablet that will bring multi-touch to both Windows XP and Vista.

Three major features include scroll, zoom, and double tap. Each feature is shown in the video.

• Scroll – by placing two fingers on the screen and moving them horizontally or vertically customers can easily navigate in web browsers and productivity applications.
• Zoom – by touching the screen with two fingers and moving them together customers can zoom various content in and out, such as pictures or Web pages.
• Programmable double-tap – customers can program a command, such as launching a Web browser or turning the screen off to save power, that will respond to two taps with two fingers.

The multitouch gesture upgrade is available on Dell's site as well as installation instructions. The update is called N-Trig - Application in under the Input Device Drivers section

Sources: Dell Press Release, Direct2Dell, and InformationWeek

Download Links:

• Vista 32 Bit
• Vista 64 Bit
• Windows XP Tablet

Robert Scoble:

Today I visited two iPhone developers to see how things went. First we visited Evernote, which makes a great note-taking app. This is the most useful app I’ve loaded on my iPhone so far (which has more than 30 apps loaded on it). Really killer thing? Take a picture of something with text in it. Say a sign, or a business card. Or a newspaper ad. Or a bill you received. Save it. Then, search for something on that bill. Wow. It turned all the text in the picture into something you could search for. This is the coolest thing.

KB950582 refuses to install on my Tablet PC. On a reboot, the system crashes and I must do a system repair.

Apparently I am not the only one with trouble on this update. Are you having trouble, too?

Reveal the words you use on blog posts or articles. Jonathan Feinberg from IBM wrote code just for that purpose. Visit Wordle, enter words directly to the site or provide a URL. You will be amazed.

Wordle is a toy for generating ‘word clouds’ from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.

After playing with the site for a few days, I am convinced any visitor to Wordle is able to produce spectacularly beautiful representations of the words on a site. Maybe you don't like the initial representation then choose different layouts, including the overall shape of the Wordle cloud: straight(er) or round(er) edges.

Some people may find the site to be a great tool for discovering a site's emphasis. Others will just want to play. Regardless of how you use the site, check out the image gallery and don't forget to share your Wordle.

If you want the image on your blog, you cannot save the image because Wordle is a Java applet but you can capture screenshots.

Wordle features continue to expand; as of July 8, “You may now "pop out" the Wordle applet into its own resizable window.”

Have you used Wordle ?

This is a call for a public discussion about forming a National Association for Public School Learning (NAPSL), an independent body to advocate for public policies to make public school learning more competitive with private schools and with other efforts for students to meet global demands.

While touring private boarding schools and colleges with grand daughters, I've wondered how public school students can compete with their graduates. These independent organizations offer focused academic based intellectual and life skill development intended to promote informed personal initiative in competitive national and international settings. Various market forces appear to hold them accountable for maintaining superior performing student bodies and alumni. Several associations of independent schools and colleges provide analyses and other supports to assist them to maintain their focus.

What forces beyond political discussions hold public schools accountable so that their students can compete with its independent competitors? Many special interest groups and examples of government legislation have asserted slices of accountability, but no single entity speaks for only for public school learning. Each of the existing advocates for public schools has a vested interest that competes directly with giving priority to improving public school learning.

For example, board of education members must consider the affects each board agenda item vote has on reelection irrespective of impacts on student learning rates. Each teacher union bargain with a school board results from compromises about budget distribution that arguably also compromises student learning.

A National Association for Public Schools could serve as an authoritative voice for public school learning the way a defense attorney advocates for a client in a legal contest.

NAPSL staff could assemble specialists who provide independent assessments about existing and pending public school practices and policies, including impacts of board of education member vote on reelection and union contracts on public school student learning rates.

Does anyone else have interest in exploring the idea of creating a National Association of Public School Learning as a voice for student learning?

What influence do you think a NAPSL could have on public school learning rates, including on teaching-learning processes and outcomes?

What about also forming a National Association of Public School Learners as a self advocacy unit of public schools students to address their interests with boards of education, much as teachers have unions to speak for themselves?

Harvard Business School assistant professor Anat Keinan and Columbia marketing professor Ran Kivetz write about their new study, When Virtue is a Vice.

“Our findings suggest that marketers of luxury products and leisure services could benefit from prompting consumers to predict their feelings in the future if they forgo the indulgent choice. (Bold added.) For instance, a travel company might ask customers to consider how they’ll feel about having passed up a family vacation package once the nest is empty.”

And a teacher might ask students to consider how they'll feel about having passed up a chance to learn to read, to earn more money without violating a law, to have people they don't know considerable them honorable, upright citizens, ....

And that's a reason for playing up the regret angle when promoting an intense, high-ticket lesson, at least to the extent to which selling and buying merchandise corresponds to making a commitment to learning something.

Highlight what they will miss, if they don't learn X, Y and Z. Let them choose if they want to live the life of Sex in the City, Our Town, or a victim on CSI. Then, you will be doing your students a favor by convincing them to indulge.

Thanks, Sean Silverthorne for pointing to this article. It has potential interest for classroom teachers as well as for merchandisers.

Using SearchMe's new stacks feature, a list of the top 15 Tablet PC videos were chosen from 864 videos available on YouTube.

The process
SearchMe allows viewing of videos in a unique way. Instead of picking through text, the user slides from one video to another. Searching among the YouTube videos landed 864 results. After viewing all of the videos, 88 favorites were placed into a new stack called Tablet PC Videos. These were viewed a few times and the top 15 were chosen. Actually, you will find 2 bonus videos included in the list. Why? Because I couldn't chose between my two favorites from Hugo. Plus, I just had to include Peter Laforte's interview.

Here they are for your viewing pleasure.

The list is placed in the order of my interests. Did you enjoy this list? Feel free to use SearchMe and develop your own stacks. I'd love to know what you decided to group together.

FireFox is an excellent browser. However 3.0 running on a Tablet PC has been rough, with crashes happening at the worst times.

In a posting a few days ago, I mentioned FireFox 3.0 crashing. This started in Beta 5 and continued through the public release. I thought this was due to the Tablet PC because the desktops were fine. Luckily Kevin was told about bug 432467. Immediately after reading Kevin's post, I downloaded the latest nightly build and installed it.

Happily, there have been no crashes.  Let's hope this fixes the problem.

Drupal released security updates and immediately vbDrupal 5.8.0 was available for download. There are no new features. This site was updated a few minutes ago. Updating is easy, simply overwriting files.

According to Drupal, Drupal 6.3 and Drupal 5.8, maintenance releases fixing problems reported using the bug tracking system, as well as security vulnerabilities, are now available for download.

Change log
vbDrupal 5.8.0, 2008-07-10
--------------------------
- added the securitytoken field to the vbpoll module (t:1595)
- merged changes from Drupal 5.8
Drupal 5.8, 2008-07-09
----------------------
- fixed a variety of small bugs.
- fixed security issues, (Cross site scripting, cross site request forgery, and session fixation), see SA-2008-044

Download vbDrupal 5.8

Update: If you've been watching the last 15 minutes, you may have seen a few errors. These were due to a misconfiguration in pathauto. This was my mistake and not the update.

Bloggers may spend hours designing their initial blog pages, but imagine doing a magazine layout. Imagine no more.

What would blogs look like if everyone spent this much effort?

The initial definition of the UMPC promised low cost full functional PC environments. While initial products were okay, the newer gestations look more exciting. Is this the perfect one for you?

As seen on: UMPC Portal

what do you think? Does the hinge look strong? Will it be fast enough? is the weight okay?

ifixit tore apart the Apple iPhone.

We performed this disassembly immediately following the iPhone launch at 12:01 July 11, 2008, New Zealand time. That's 5:01 AM, July 10, Pacific time for those of us who aren't islanders.

Kindle sales have not been released by Amazon but discussions are happening in the blogosphere.

• Time.com reported Kindle sales reached 12%.
• Some analysts estimate Kindle sales at around 55,000 a month.

Source: ryanspoon.com

Liquid Cola has crashed twice today. Both times happened after a Windows Update (July 8 files). The system fails to reboot with an error, “ntoskrnl.exe status: 0xc0000098 , required file missing or corrupt.”

The solution for repairing the system was to boot from a Vista CD and try a repair. I ended up doing a system restore because the repair didn't work. After snooping around, I found over 1,000 events on handwriting recognition:

Handwriting recognition personalization: The data files that were used to personalize handwriting  recognition cannot be found or are unreadable. 
%The only possible consequence is that the effect of handwriting recognition personalization is reduced. 

Possible user action: Choose "Update the recognizer" from the Handwriting recognition personalization tool  (the user does not have to provide handwriting samples again). If you continue to receive this message then  restart automatic learning by turning it off and then turning it on again on the Handwriting  Recognition tab in Tablet PC Settings in Control Panel.

After thinking about an earlier conversation, the personalization feature of the handwriting is probably the culprit. While at Tabletkiosk today someone else who uses the TIP was there because of the same error.

Check your event viewer, Are you getting these errors too?

Liquid Cola has become stronger, more powerful, and eager to show off. A trip to TabletKiosk today ended with my purchasing an extended battery for my Tablet PC (Liquid Cola). However, I didn't just buy any ole battery. No. No. I bought the best.

Tabletkiosk is shipping extended batteries with added features:

1)  High capacity Lithium Ion battery provides up to 8 hours of battery life when used in conjunction with existing tablet battery.  Note that the actual battery results are dependent upon how the tablet is used.).

2)  Offers additional USB and IEE1394a (FireWire) Ports.  Both of these ports are located on the back of the tablet facing down so that peripherals can be attached without having cables coming out of the sides of the tablet

3)  The pass-thru DC power port allows you to charge the SELB without having to remove it. 

4)  Comes with a detachable, 3-way adjustable legs to hold the unit upright while maximizing viewing angles.   The legs can be easily removed for flat-down desktop use.

5) Features LED Indicator lights on the back which show the unit's charging status as well as the remaining power level (in 25% increments)

6)  Includes an AC Adapter for on-the-go charging

7)  Weighs 2.2 lbs.  Depth = 14 mm 

8)  For quick changes, the SELB attaches to the back of the unit with oversized, easily removable thumb screws.

9)  SELB fits flush to back of the tablet which leaves all functions keys, power switches and I/O ports unobstructed and available for use.

10)  Features built- in MIS-D 100mm VESA mount holes

11)  Price $369

Why buy a SELB?
I didn't buy the SELB for the looks. Liquid Cola is a work horse and needed the extra time on battery to free him from the power plug. The local Barnes and Noble covered all the power outlets and so I could only stay as long as Cola lasted. Now, I can relax and spend my time taking in the atmosphere and not worry about the battery life.

Additionally, the stand is working well. I have a lap table over my lap as I write this post, and Cola and friend are sitting on top - no heat - no fuss.

Doesn't 7-8 hours of battery life sound good? What are you waiting for?

Component shortages are nothing new in the computer industry. I remember Intel having trouble shipping Pentium Pro processors, and the price on the boxed products sky rocketed as people tried to complete transactions. Product that sold for $400 quickly sold for $900. During that chaotic time, Tom Pabst (Tom's Hardware) purchased two boxed processors from us. Only one made it to Germany. The other one got through customs as an empty box. He was so angry because he had to drive to customs to get the product. Ah, the good ole days of the Internet and shipping overseas. In fact, I am working this week on restoring stories from 1996 onto the What Is New website so others can go back in time and laugh about the happenings of what seems like years ago. But I digress. Live in the moment is what my dog tells me ...

And in this moment, the latest shortage of components is once again from Intel; the Atom processor shipments are not keeping up with demand. According to Digitimes, ASUS faced these shortages in their sales of netbooks and sales for the first half of 2008 fell shy of expectations.

Asustek announced that it shipped 1.7 million of Eee PCs in the first half of 2008, 300,000 less than its original forecast. Some industry watchers explained the shortfall to delayed shipments due to the shortage of Intel Atom processors. Despite the present component shortages and gloomy economy, Asustek still aims to ship five million Eee PCs in 2008, according to company sources.

I hope they are able to meet their sales goals. Interestingly, Acer seems confident in reaching their goals because of an agreement between Acer and Intel. 15,000 units a day is nothing to sneeze over.

What stories of old do you recall? Maybe your story is just from last week, while waiting for the MSI Wind or you recall some of the great SDRAM shortages in the 90's.

To be at home in all lands and all ages;
To count Nature a familiar acquaintance,
And Art an intimate friend;
To gain a standard for the appreciation of others's work
And the criticism of your own;
To carry the keys of the world's library in your pocket,
And feel its resources behind you in whatever task you undertake;
To make hosts of firens...
Who are to be leaders in all walks of life;
To lose yourself in generous enthusiasms
And cooperate with others for common ends -
This is the offer of the college for the best four year of your life.

Adapted from the original "Offer of the College"
by William DeWitt Hyde
President of Bowdoin College 1885-1917

Bowdoin Prospectus 2008-2009, Bowdoin College, p. 2 and Bowdoin College online, p. 1.

Read more about liberal arts and the common good.

Dian Schaffhauser reports that Stanford University School of Education and Innovations for Learning have entered into an agreement to bring the $50 Teachermate Handheld Computer to children in Latin America.

"Mobile learning technology loaded with innovative educational content for basic literacy and numeracy seems to be in a dire need in many regions of the global community today," said Paul Kim, CTO for Stanford's School of Education.

Jon Van reports that Teachermate assists Chicago students reading and math and lets teachers program tools, track their progress.

ILF has assembled an impressive set of partners.

In 2008, IFL is launching pilot sites in New York City, New Orleans, Detroit, San Anonio, Phoenix, Denver, and Phoenix, Dallas and suburban Denver.

While not a PC, the Teachermate demonstrates an inexpensive and admittedly incomplete step toward school related mobile learning on-demand.

Kudos, IFL for your development and Stanford for entering into an agreement to work with them for the development of mobile learning content.