Browsing articles tagged with " busines"

SpeedGeek Learning Version .1

Nov 9, 2009   //   by Ben Wilkoff   //   Uncategorized  //  No Comments
I am pleased to announce the following features within the first prototype at http://speedgeeklearning.com:
I would love it if you would test out all of them and see what there is to see. I would also love any feedback that you can provide this prototype, either by simply e-mailing it to me or by leaving comments on the Planning site (if you don’t have access to that yet, let me know).

The other two things you can do to help the project at this point are as follows:
  1. Think of any way that you could use the SpeedGeek Learning platform within your own work. If there are any videos that you use and would like to collaborate upon, let’s set you up with an instance of your own. If there are certain big questions you would like to answer, let’s answer them with video and collaborative documents. Start to think about pushing the platform to be what you would like it to be. I am up any ideas you have. Just let me know.

  2. Spread the word that the prototype is available. I would love to get as many people answering these questions in the collaborative document and passing the link around as possible. If you feel the need to blog about it, do so. If you feel the urge to tweet, please do so. I pushed out the initial idea, but this is the first version that I can actually show off.

Thank you so much for your continued interest. I can’t wait to get to phase two, which will include:
  1. Recording your own videos within the interface.
  2. Analytics about individual video views
  3. Greater collaboration with the presenters of the sessions
  4. More ways to organize the sessions
  5. Further design work to flesh out the platform
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Condensation

Apr 6, 2009   //   by Ben Wilkoff   //   Uncategorized  //  1 Comment

I was at a restaurant this morning with my family and my wife’s
fingers were getting stickier and stickier from the leaky maple syrup
container. After a while she started looking for some water to wash
them off with. Her water cup was empty but the condensation on the
outside was still there so she used it to clean her hands.
 
I’m not sure why this sparked something in me, but the act of her
using only the water that was on the outside of the glass made me
think of what is happening in many school districts that I see around
me.
 
We can see the water, the life giving liquid inside, but we have to
settle for the small beads collecting around the outer edge.
 
We know that the bandwidth that is needed to fully share with one
another the media, ideas and resources of our district is available.
It exists for businesses and other entities out there, but in
education we are stuck with the runoff from those large high speed
pipes.
 
We need a straw, but we are stuck licking at the glass.
 
(The preceding metaphor is stretched pretty thin, but I did want to
get it out there just in case someone else found it useful.)

Posted via email from olco5′s posterous

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A question

Feb 12, 2009   //   by Ben Wilkoff   //   Uncategorized  //  No Comments

This is a really interesting question.

First, if you are looking for engaging videos to show for professional development, I would look here:
http://www.speedofcreativity.org/resources/videos-for-pd/

As for introducing the subject of engaging students with technology, I think that you would really have to find a good itch that you think all of the teachers want to scratch. What is the one thing that they can do with technology and students that they couldn't do before? Why should they care about technology?

Places like http://classroom20.com, or http://supportblogging.com, or even something as specific as http://voicethread4education.wikispaces.com/ would work well to figure out just how deep the topic goes with your teachers.

As for an article, I like http://blog.futurestreetconsulting.com/?p=94, many of the posts from http://weblogg-ed.com, or any of the presentations at slideshare about educational technology.

If you are really interested in starting this conversation, I would recommend that you start up a discussion group over at Google Groups or set up a wiki for this purpose. Or, simply get an e-mail group going if that is where your teachers are at. Creating an avenue for this kind of conversation is the only way to make it last. Let me know where you want to go from here. Creating change is not an easy business.

I am in need of your expertise:


I am preparing a session for teachers within my school district on engaging students with technology.  My emphasis is on 'ENGAGING' not on putting a child in front of a computer with headphones.  Some of our staff has forgotten that instruction still needs to take place even if your are using technology.

My question is…. How would introduce this subject… I would like to show a video to break the ice… Something like MR. BEAN or SEINFELD that would a lead into the subject.

Do you have any suggestions?

Also, I am looking for a professional article to share with teachers along the same subject.  

I would appreciate any help that you could give.  Thanks so much for inspiring me with your articles and presentations.


Posted via email from olco5′s posterous

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Create your own MobileMe (Sync Everything, at all times).

Nov 12, 2008   //   by Ben Wilkoff   //   Uncategorized  //  3 Comments

An aside: it is too bad that every post I write seems like an attempt to get back into the habit of posting, but I suppose until I start blogging consistently again, that is just how it is going to have to be. I have missed way too many things that I have been thinking about to ever fully catch up, but perhaps I can start anew. Anyway, here are my latest thoughts.

Before I go into the details of how to sync yourself completely, I want to tell you why I even undertook this idea. Well, our school system uses an extremely proprietary e-mail and calendaring system called firstclass. Every person that uses firstclass in our schools is locked in to using the firstclass calendar for appointments and things of that nature. But, because I have seen the light of using Google Calendar (open API, shared calendars, embedding, etc), I refuse. In fact, I was so obsessed with the idea of converging the two that I speant an entire weekend (when I wasn’t having fun with my family) on getting Firstclass to sync with Google Calendar, and then eventually my new blackberry that the school district provided for me.

So, this is how you sync everything:

Calendars:


Contacts:

Now, for the details…

(Update: I didn’t put this in the initial post, but I think it is worth mentioning that Firstclass does have a way to sync with both Palm Desktop Software and SyncML directly, but since my district hasn’t set either of these up, I thought it was important to try and find a better way of doing things… there are also third party services that do some of this, but I want a FREE workflow)

In order to get your first class calendar to talk to anything else, you will need to export it as a iCal file:

Now, you may look at this picture and ask, why I wouldn’t just export it as a blackberry file and skip all of the steps in the middle. Well, there are a few reasons. One, if I did this, all of the events would be duplicated every time I exported and imported. Two, because I am on a Mac I do not have any blackberry desktop software to make this sync work.

So, onward we go to iCal. First, you will need to set up your Google Calendar to sync with iCal, using this handy dandy tutorial from Life Hacker.

Now that you have your Google Calendar set up to sync, simply import into iCal your latest and greatest export from Firstclass:

Now, if this isn’t your first time doing this, you will end up with a lot of duplicates. If that is the case, just use the iCal Dupe Deleter. This is also a good tool for deleting duplicates from Google Calendar if you have ever found yourself with too many of one item.

Now, you have synced completely to your Google Calendar and you are ready to sync to your blackberry. Simply point your device to this address and download your over-the-air sync application.

You can now enter an event in Firstclass, iCal, Google Calendar, or on your blackberry and they will sync with one another. Pretty cool, right. But, we are not done. If you would like to have your calendar in an even more universal Format, you can put it on a SyncML server, like Funambol.

All you have to do is download their blackberry application and you can sync to your heart’s content there.

For Contacts:

If you are also looking to sync your contacts, you can simply use your Blackberry or iPod touch to talk to Funambol using their built in programs (search for funambol in the App store, or use the above link to download the blackberry funambol application).

Then you can sync your contacts with the funambol server.

As for your Mac, you can use the Preference Pane sync.

This will let you put your contacts on your mac, on the funambol server, or on your blackberry and they will all sync.

I understand that MobileMe does a lot more than this, but I believe that if we can create a FREE workflow for each one of our teachers, students, and administrators that syncs information to the place that they need it, we will be able to have the conversations that truly matter. We will no longer be stuck trying to find information, it will always be ours. Although you may not geek out at all that I am proposing, I think there are some pretty heavy implications for continuity in the systems that we are creating. If you have figured out any more syncing tricks, please leave a comment and add to the value of our collective research.

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