Learning is Change

Question 195 of 365: How do we know what we are good for?

Vector image of two human figures with hands i...
Image via Wikipedia

There is a difference in knowing what you are good at and know what you are good for.

I once wrote a poem during a study hall in high school. At the time, I was proud of it and I thought that I was good at it too. It was about how I didn’t think I was capable of loving my girlfriend. I remember one line being “I’m almost certain.” I showed this poem to my girlfriend the next day. I thought it was beautiful. She started to cry. She didn’t want to know that I would never be able to love her, or that I had made a mistake, even if it was honest and poetic. I was good at writing it, but what was I good for? Really, what was I good for in that moment?

Other moments like that plague me. I once said to some friends of mine that I wouldn’t hug my parents if I was being given an award for which they were to join me on stage. I said this because I couldn’t see anything other than my selfish and childish perspective. I was good at compartmentalizing, and I still am. I’m just not sure what I was good for just then.

Then there was today. Today I said a lot of things about networked learning and about how to use a Learning Management Systems. I said them well. I was good at saying them. I also thoroughly confused nearly everyone I talked with at one point or another. I didn’t and couldn’t answer all of the questions that people had. I didn’t and couldn’t resolve every problem that others encountered. I said it was because I wanted to get them to their muddiest point because that was where learning happens. I think that’s true, but I’m also good at making up things that sound nice like that. The frustrated and tired looks by the end of the day did not give me a concrete idea of what I was good for.

And yet, that girlfriend and I still talk on occasion. We got over my being good for nothing because she knew that the things I was good at were enough for a friendship. My parents and I have gotten over that rough patch too. I would hug them without hesitation now. It took me understanding that the things I was good at, they are good at too, that we aren’t all that different after all. I may not have been good for much as their teenage son, but as an adult I provide something to them (not just grandchildren) that they can’t easily replicate. I’m good for crafting the new story of our family together.

I guess that is what I am good for in Professional Development too. I’m good at showing others how to start writing their own stories. I’m good for those stories getting off the ground. I’m good at presenting information and taking people through a process from one idea to the next. I’m good for those ideas growing and maturing into the repositories of knowledge that we all crave so deeply.

I know what I am good for only by seeing the ways in which people would like to use me. If I can see the role that I can fulfill for others, then I can see my use. And being useful is the only way that I can be good for others. Otherwise, I’m just good AT a few things. And that is when I write insensitive poems or make unfeeling statements or lead people off into the woods by themselves to die without a compass or map as to how to navigate.

Good for > Good at

Enhanced by Zemanta

Moodle For Learning Day 1

I have had no formal training in Moodle. Everything that I know has been gathered carefully from all of the amazing questions, projects and problems people have proposed to me. In this way, everything I know how to do has been learned in context and with a true purpose of helping someone else or myself. I propose that this course be constructed in as much the same way as we can possibly make it.

First, let’s establish the learning space a bit:

  1. An Online or Hybrid class meets wherever you can gather enough people together to learn something. Our class’ environment will be in our central moodle classroom, your individual classrooms, in our backchannel, and in our own personal writing/brainstorming space (mine is this blog). The reason why we keep multiple spaces is so that we can learn to accept the one truth of online learning (and especially of Moodle): Everything is the same, even if it looks different. Furthermore, everything is possible, even if you don’t know how right now.
  2. Our central Classroom is right here. I made a short link of it: http://bit.ly/moodle4learning. If you aren’t enrolled, enroll. If you don’t have an account, create one.
  3. Our backchannel for questions, comments, reflections, and general conversation is at http://twitter.com/moodle4learning. If you would like to post, you can do so by texting #4learning and your thoughts to 3037206269 or by simply logging in to twitter and posting with the hashtag of #4learning. We will keep this backchannel so that our course can have a real purpose and real audience outside of our district.
  4. You have two options for the class. You can go along with us a bit and work on the different facets of Moodle at the pace of the group, or you can go through the self-paced portion of the classwork and set up your own classroom. The benefit of hanging around with the rest of us, is that we will form a community to help one another out. The benefit of going at your own pace is that you can go at your own pace, whether that is ridiculously fast or unnervingly slow.
  5. You will get as much out of the environment as you want to. It is not my job to make sure that everyone accomplishes the same things or learns the same materials. It is my responsibility that everyone who attends and completes this course will be able to create a course of their own that they (and the community of learners involved within it) can be proud of.

Second, let’s figure out what an online class is all about.

I happen to believe that online learning is all about three things:

  1. The Content
  2. The Action, learning process, reflection, etc.
  3. The Submit

We need to spend some time brainstorming what is possible within those three things. And we need to keep coming back to this diagram as we start to expand our knowledge of what is possible. Post your own diagram in our Discussion Forum or in the Backchannel (or both).

Third, let’s figure out what problem you are trying to solve.

It isn’t enough to just know how to set up an online course. There is very little satisfaction in knowing how to create a course in Moodle just for the sake of it. There really has to be a basis for what it is that you are trying to do. So, we need to at least craft a problem or question that will be the one we are trying to go after throughout the next two days.

Good example questions are:

  • How can I create an engaging presentation for my students so as to cause them to act and get excited about creating their own?
  • What is the best activity for essay writing revision?
  • How can I upload all of my already created content and have those be interactive enough so that I don’t have to recreate everything?

Please put your question into the Backchannel so that everyone can share in the learning.


Thank you for joining in on this journey. Moodle is the primary tool, but better online courses is outcome we are after.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Question 194 of 365: What should we brandish?

 , , , , , , ,

I could have left the -ish off the question and had it be something completely different. I could have talked about all of the ways in which we need to frame our ideas and link to them and craft a language around them. I could have gone into what it takes to brand a concept from brainstorm to launch. But, that I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to talk about how to massage an idea into what will eventually become. I want to talk about the things we wield.

Our weapons of choice.

What is it that we use above all else to coerce others into doing what we want. We may not be proud of it, or carry it around without a sense of power and responsibility. But, we do it all the same. We pull it out when others question our authority or passion or motives. It becomes our signature and the threat behind which we can hide.

Most often, my weapon is that of obscure expertise. While having never been formally trained on much of anything to do with technology, it so happens that I can wield the most inane details about social networks, web applications, or learning management systems. People come to me believing that the problem they have is so intricate and difficult that they would not be able to parse it out themselves. When, in fact, there are very few things that I troubleshoot or tutorialize that could not be figured out with some simple trial and error. And yet, when I figure them out, there is a sense that I have brandished a fine tool and precisely killed off the beast that was plaguing them.

There is also, hidden within each request for help, a certain fear that everything could come crashing down at any moment with a flick of my wrist. It is a fear of unknown knowledge and unfathomable technologies. If the iPad is magical to people because they can’t understand how it works, then I am the biggest wizard around because everything starts from that singular lack of understanding.

I’m just not sure it is a good weapon to brandish. I’m not sure that being a wizard is what the world needs.

I feel like it might be better just to waive a flag, a rallying cry for everyone else that tells of my quest for the best insight and connections possible. Wouldn’t that allow for less coercion? Wouldn’t that allow for more stories and less commands?

I am under no illusion that people who do not have critical information at their fingertips are in need of some help. It just makes more sense to create the environment with flags instead of guns. That way, no one gets hurt and every time the wind shifts, we will know which way it is going. With a gun, you can only stand in the way of wind and see the everything pass you by as you try to point and shoot at nothing.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Question 192 of 365: Where is the crazy?

 , , , , , , , , , ,
Lyrical Time Wastr - Somewhere Down the Crazy ...
Image by jah~ off n on via Flickr

Crazy people are everywhere. Not just the run of the mill crazy, either. I’m talking about completely out of their head insane, unable to reason their way through modern daily life, wringing their hqnds of all connection to reality, playing the fool way too well for it to be considered acting.

The reason I mention this is simply because I don’t think I have been doing a good enough job of rooting out the crazy in my life. Not for years, in fact.

When I was about 14 or so, I realized that being bored was a choice. I realized that I didn’t have to sit through whatever someone was talking about without letting my mind wander on to more interesting and productive things. Whenever I was alone and had little to do, I would just start writing. Whenever I was in the presenence of a boring subject, I would read or doodle. People who kept on complaining of boredom just weren’t interesting to me. Whqt I realize now is that they are, in fact, crazy. Or, they are about to become crazy.

It is my belief that crazy is a result of not thinking enough or not being able to find something engaging to occupy your time. Not having passion is just plain crazy. And it leads people to do the worst things imaginable.

Like blaming folks for how they try to experience the world around them. Like shaming others for grieving or for feeling or for thinking about much of anything at all. Passionless people are incapable of perspective, and that is what makes them crazy. It is also how you can pick them out of a lineup.

Sitting in a meeting or even in talking to a relative, if you get the sense that someone else can’t consider another point of view, you may want to check their crazy level.

We used to play this game called colored eggs on thenplayground in elementary school. It was a type of tag, where everyone would line up and think of a color out of a typical crayon box (64 crayons being the max that we thought was okay to try for) and then one person would stand opposite of the line and start to guess all of the colors. If the person guessed one of the person’s colors that was standing on the line, the person whose color was guessed would have to run to the other side of the playground without getting tagged. If the person was caught, they would become one of the taggers until there wasn’t anyone left on the line.

There was one boy who never chose any different colors. He always picked the same one: goldenrod. He thought that he was so brilliant in his choice that he would brag to everyone else at lunch about it. He would say, “you are never going to guess what I’m going to be today.” and then when we got out on the playground, the guesser would inevitably go through the more common colors first to try and get as many people off the line as possible. And there this boy would stand, completely confident that he was going to outlast everyone.

He never did, by the way. To my knowledge he never technically won the game. More of the time, he would claim victory because we had to go in from recess and he would still be on the line. We never guessed goldenrod because we didn’t much care about capturing him. We didn’t understand why he didn’t pick a different color so that he could play the tag part of the game. That was the fun part. Thqt was the part that got your heart pumping, that actually helped you to make friends.

When I look back on it now, I can tell that the boy was crazy for choosing goldenrod every day. He was crazy because he had to have his way rather than to join in. He had to have the obscure color rather than learn what the game was about.

The crazy is in each of us, when we find we are in a rut. It is in us when we are stubborn. It is in us when we stop looking around and seeing the differences between us that make us interesting enough to want to sit down and talk to. It is us when we allow ourselves to be bored.

I need to do a better job of rooting out my crazy, whether that is within myself or in the people around me. Otherwise, I might as well be choosing the same color for every day of my life.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Question 191 of 365: What is the skeptic's option?

 , , , , , , , , , ,
Skeptics
Image by wburris via Flickr

Everyone who asks questions is a skeptic in one way or another, which is to say that everyone is a skeptic.

I once found my bicycle up in a tree in the woods. It had been placed there by some naughty older kids. They wanted to play a trick on me, although I am quite sure that they had no idea who I was. They just saw my bike in the woods behind my friend’s house and decided that it belonged in a tree. They carefully perched the handle bars on one branch and the back wheel on another. It hung about 8 feet up in the air, which was pretty far out of my 5 foot height at the time. So, I walked home.

I was skeptical about whether or not I would be able to convince my mother that this wasn’t my fault, that I hadn’t been careless about leaving the bike in the woods in the first place. I asked myself questions about who could have done such a thing, all the while cursing both the people who had done it and myself for being so trusting of an obviously hostile world.

If Twitter and smart phones and Fail would have exited back then, you can bet that the entire escapade would have been chronicled first by the older kids as a viral video contender and then by me so that I might chronicle the improbability of my bicycle in the tree. I would have tweeted something like “So, my bike decided that the beaten path (or any path) wasn’t good enough for it.” I would have put the twitpic in there too, just for good measure. There would not be much skepticism just then about what had happened or disbelief by my mother. We could have looked up the whole thing and probably gotten a geotagged play by play, complete with facebook profiles on each of the perpetrators because their faces would be tagged.

I tell this story not so that you can pity my former self, but rather so that I can outline just how little skepticism there is for the things that we can see, and how this is bleeding into ideas well.

Right now, it is very easy to like something on the Internet. It is easy to share it and to link to it. It is easy to do pretty much anything except for be skeptical. Sure, there are contrary opinions and lots of snarky comments on Twitter, but don’t really found those and true skepticism. Skepticism is looking something directly in the eye and stating for everyone to hear that you don’t believe it.

I want the ability to not believe again.

Now, all of my choices are to either support or not support (and most of the nonsupporting options are burried in comments). I want the ability to not believe as well. I want to be able to stare wide eyed at the things that hold untruth and disbelieve them. Imwant q universal skeptic button.

This button will be the equivalent of the Facebook “like” button, but instead of converting to page promotion or demotion, it will have the effect of allowing me to highlight the most offensive portion of whatever I am looking at and call it to account. Any time that someone hovers over that text in the future, it will have my record of disbelief and whatever comment I cared to make on why it was untrue. The button will be in ebooks and blog posts, on videos and podcasts too.

The skeptic button will finally make the process of making a case against an idea easier because it will cobble together each and every comment offered and aggregate it for a common purpose.

In the end, I dint want to like/dislike things or even merely comment on them. I want to believe them or disbelieve them. The things that I believe in should be shared in all of the spaces that I inhabit and the things that I do not believe in deserve to connect me with all other nonbelievers. I feel as though we would have a common bond, a network of skeptics.

Right now we are scattered. Someday soon, though, we will rise up and state our intentions for making belief a part of our metadata. We will make asking questions a part of every online interaction.

We will look up at the bicycles in the trees around us and we will start to walk home together to tell someone else the story from memory.

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta

Question 190 of 365: Should we be after pure research?

 , , , , , , , ,
Kurt Vonnegut speaking at Case Western Reserve...
Image via Wikipedia

I’ve been rereading Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. recently. I always forget how good that book is until I take another look at it. While the idea that I am most drawn to in the book is that of the false religion (self-proclaimed by the creator itself.), the one that seems to keep on haunting me is the idea that one of the characters was a pure research man. He was someone who didn’t bend to the wants of the people around him for fulfillment of a job. Rather, he studied only what he was interested in studying. Sure, he created the atom bomb and a new way for ice to form, but he didn’t do those things necessarily on purpose. He did them just because he got interested in them. At least for a while.

He was a pure researcher in the sense that he wasn’t required to produce anything of use. He was just paid to think and create.

I sometimes wish for such a job, free from the constraints of a requirements document or a meeting schedule. Pure research sounds like heaven, but then I realize what I would be giving up.

If I never bent my will to those of other people, I would never get anything done. It is only through other people asking me to do things and putting up fictitious deadlines in my way that I have a sense of worth.

I am not one who can toil away and never come up with something great. I have to convince myself that the things I create are great, and then I must convince other people too. Pure research gets in the way of two people having a conversation about where to go from here.

I feel as though we may be setting one another up to lust after pure research, always reaching further into the isolated extreme in order to attain it. We may be so much after the sense of freedom that comes from not answering to anyone or anything for your thoughts and whims that we make believe we have already attained it from time to time. What I mean by that is that we get lazy because there is only so much passion that people can devote to the next big thing. We become entrenched in the drama of offering solutions to other people’s problems. So entrenched that we become complacent in getting ourselves out of bed. We believe that just by thinking after something and experimenting within ourselves that we have created something of value.

But we haven’t.

Pure research creates some of the most interesting and useful products and projects, but on the whole it is a mirage. The beauty of creation is in making it useful and relevant. The conversations and implications of what we create are often more important than the things themselves. If we ever forget that, we will slip into the position of head quack of our organization.

We can’t become what we can become if we only want to follow our own interests. It takes two to tango, you know.

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta

Question 189 of 365: How can other's words say what I mean?

 , , , , , , , , , , , ,
American writer Andy Greenwald
Image via Wikipedia
I found this book, Nothing Feels good by Andy Greenwald. And along with being beautifully written, it describes so well what it is that I am desperate for (note: I pulled the text from the Google Book by taking screenshots and then feeding it into the Google Docs OCR. While I am well within my fair use rights, I do apologize for any butchering I do of punctuation or paragraphing):

On a warm fall night in Manhattan. kids are buzzing around CBGB. From across the Bowery. it could be any night, any fall from the last twenty years-young discontents and their older. slightly mellowed fore-bearers jacked up on caffeine/nicotine/alcohol/other waiting to get their collective rocks off at the seediest, oldest, and best punk club in New York City. But there’s something different about this night, noticeable from the median and then rapidly more so as one approaches the entrance. These aren’t the violently pierced. mohawked. leathered. pleathered, and glassy­eyed punks of yesteryear. There isn’t a single Ramones jacket or safety pin in sight. Nor are they the dirty-jeaned, big-booted collection of indie-rockers. diehards. and straight­edgers of punk’s more recent milieu. The kids here are different. Shockingly. bizarrely so. The kids. it appears. are all right. There are young girls in powder blue, midriff-baring tank tops emblazoned with the word “rockstar” emerging from idling SUVs. waving goodbye to their parents behind the wheel with a dismissive nod. There are clean-cut high school boys wearing baseball hats and overly long shorts and khakis. Serious looking fifteen-year-olds smile awkwardly and switch off their cell phones. There is backslapping. There are high-pitched giggles.

It’s a young and different crowd. in from the suburbs and out in the big city tonight for a concert. Here to watch their version of punk ascend triumphantly and not notice the differences. To sing along wide-eyed and happy. To feel better at the end of the night instead of bruised. It’s November 2001 and I’m attending my very Dashboard Confessional concert. The city is unseasonably warm and wary-what happened two months before still hangs heavy, but not heavy enough to weigh down the enormous anticipation that’s building inside CBGB’s scarred innards. Before the show. I run into a friend who attends NYU. She laughs when she sees me. “l never figured you for an emo kid,” she says. “I didn’t either.” I answer. just there to keep her friend company-her friend who, at is a good three years above the room’s median age. She seems embarrassed to be there-or at the very least to be asked about it. “Are you a big fan?” I ask the friend. “l think he’s really good,” she says.

Just then. the lights dim and the girls recede into the crowd. Some fellows in white T-shirts to my left climb on the back of chairs and start hooting. I catch a glimpse of a small Asian-American teen in glasses standing just below the stage furiously scribbling in her journal. oblivious to the diminishing light. Nervous applause ripples through the crowd. lt’s the awkward hum of a classroom when the teacher leaves to get help resetting the fraying reel. Just before the juvenile boiling point is reached, a surprisingly short and compact dark~haired man walks out onto the stage alone. He musses with his collapsed black pompadour hairdo. swings his acoustic guitar to the front. squints into the expectant crowd. and flashes a rabbity, nervous smile.

“OK.” Chris Carrabba says. “arc you guys ready to try one? The crowd erupts. and, as the first few notes are plucked. what was once a disparate collection of homework-dodgers is transformed into a head-nodding choir. Carrabba’s voice is a bit yelpy in spots, chasing the high notes like an affection-starved pet nipping at the heels of its owner. He has two full sleeves of tattoos on his arms. one of which strums out chunky acoustic chords. “You look cute in your blue jeans / but you’re plastic just like the rest . . . dying to look smooth with your tattoos / but you’re searching just like everyone.” And the audience sings with him. Every single word. with some lingering behind and some charging forward. lt’s like an extremely successful bout of responsive reading. except the hypercharged and ecstatic look on the kids’ faces says they’re not just echoing-they’re emoting.

When the song ends, everyone screams, as much for themselves as for the shy-looking fellow on stage. The guys next to me are practically falling all over themselves. One of them, baseball hat perfectly molded to his head, arms thrown around his friends’ shoulders, screams oul. “We love you, Chris!” The songs go on and on-and the crowd’s voices never diminish. Halfway through, some of the guys are doing harmonies. lt’s hard to tell whether it’s CB’s notoriously low stage or Carrabba`s small stature, but with each successive number the crowd seems to surge up higher and higher-both in volume and mass-until by the end the two sides are meeting each other from the start of each song. Occasionally. Carrabba builds to at refrain and then merely steps away from the mic. letting the devotees in the blank. Someone walks past me towards the back, retreating from the stage, crying. But there is no moshing. no physical injuries. I’ve never seen such well­behaved teenagers in a rock club. Song after song with titles like “Again I Go Unnoticed” and “This Ruined Puzzle” have the kids around me glassy­eyed with glee and reverence.

After a few more rousing choruses. It’s over.

This to me is a kind of sincerity revolution. An experience without snark or sarcasm. It represents what it is that I believe is right about coming together and creating a community within a moment. It is a reset of the disillusionment that came before, and it is better than I could have ever said it.

I have been to a Dashboard Confessional concert, on the very same tour that this exerpt was referring to. It was every bit as sincere and hopeful as these words portray. I didn’t get why that was important until now.

We need some words to all sing together. Not comment on the words and stand back, aloof. We need to all speak in one voice and be carried away by the possibilities of the moment, rather than chase away any possiblity of knowing one another intimately. It isn’t a religion or following a single figurehead. It is a movement away from ego and toward consensus. It is a movement toward belonging and away from being obsessively right.

It is for emotion and connection.

It is against skepticism and stalling.

At some point the things I am passionate about in education, technology and business will have their watershed moments. I just hope they are more like the vignette above and less like the selfish present that seems to deepen within every moment.

You see:

I don’t want to be guarded. I want to sing. With you. About things that allow us to be together. Without parenthesis or ironic twitpics.

Enhanced by Zemanta

25 Killer (iPad) Apps

The brushed aluminum back of the iPad Wi-Fi
Image via Wikipedia

I have been putting this post off for a while now, but I am finally compelled to write about all of the apps that I am using  on a regular basis on my iPad. I am compelled by just how many conversations I have had about doing more than just consumption with the device. The following list of Apps are what make the iPad essential to me. They are what make it more than just a toy:

Before I go too deep, here are the apps that I have on my iPad right now (While there are a great many Jailbroken apps that I would recommend, I think that it would be somewhat counterproductive to highlight those in this blog post because the vast majority of users are never going to open up their device as I have.):

  1. Accuradio – This is the one and only radio service (other than the amazing NPR of course, which has been downloaded so many times for iPhone and iPad that it hardly needs mentioning in this list) that I have found which I do not find myself skipping through songs I have already heard or artists that I could care less about. I think it is because it is being curated by real people rather than by an algorithm. The stations vary widely, but my favorite is Future Perfect Radio.
  2. IM+ Lite – This is the best way to chat on the iPad (Multiple sessions at any given time, push notification, etc) I use Google Talk all of the time on my laptop, but this was the only reliable way to continue to do so on my iPad. And with backgrounding (either on a jailbroken iPad or in the iOS 4 which is forthcoming), you will never again miss out on a  conversation that you could have taken part in.
  3. Atomic Browser – This is one of the only apps I actually paid for (99 cents). I love the ability to choose tabs over Safari’s odd pagination system. I also love that I can change what the user agent is (this means that I make a website believe I’m running Internet Explorer or another desktop browser). This gives me the opportunity to see the desktop version of every website if I wish to do so, rather than the more limited versions of mobile sites.
  4. Air Sketch Free – Killer. This app allows me to draw on the iPad and have it display on any computer (or projector) that is on the same wifi network. This means that I can present without cords as well as I can allow everyone in a room to see the same thing that I see. Just awesome.
  5. DejaPlay – I have written about this app previously because I think that it is wonderful. It is the best way for me to view videos that my friends and colleagues are sharing on twitter and facebook. It compiles every link that is shared and puts them into an elegant video display. Rather than wasting time down the rabit hole that is YouTube, I can watch my network curate my video library in real time.
  6. GoodReader – Another pay app (also 99 cents) makes the iPad into an uploading and downloading machine. While the app was created for the purposes of viewing big documents, I pretty much exclusively use it for downloading files uploading them to other sites. Here is my favorite use case: I open up GoodReader and pull a file from my e-mail and put it up on Dropbox and then share it out with everyone I wish to. Another thing I do a lot is upload things to FTP sites and web servers that I maintain. This means that I don’t have to wait to get to my laptop to update a file. I also can get access to all of the files on my iPad from my computers without having to use a USB cord. (In fact, I haven’t synced my iPad, ever. I activated it once and that was it. I haven’t seen the need.)
  7. CloudBrowse – Although this is becoming less valuable to me as I find other interesting workarounds, this is still the only way to really get flash or Google Docs to play nicely on the iPad. Useful, if a bit crippled without a paid account.
  8. Dropbox – I have become more and more dependent upon this product to sync everything I need. Whenever I need to look at a file or send a link to someone, I just jump into the app and grab it. What else can I say… it just works.
  9. Sundry Notes – Best App. Seriously. It’s uses are incredibly far reaching. The only thing I can compare it to is Keynote, Smart Notebook, Word, and Skitch all rolled into one. From this app, I can take handwritten notes, typed notes, screenshots from any webpage, insert equations, and do voice recordings of what is going on. This app is ridiculously useful for meetings, brainstorming, presenting, and everything in-between. The export to PDF works great and you can even view your notes online if you want to sync with their service. Oh, and you can annotate PDF’s from your computer if you wanted to do that by syncing them in iTunes. Crazy awesome.
  10. Idea Sketch – A free and well laid out mind mapping software. Brainstorming in here is a pleasure. Export works great and you can even let other people edit your brainstorms if you e-mail them along.
  11. Adobe Ideas – The drawings and writing that you can do in this app are incredible compared to pretty much everything else out there. This is mostly because the app translates your jagged strokes into smooth vector graphics. My favorite part, though, is the enormous drawing area that you can zoom in and out of to draw and write in detail. I guess I would most compare it to an iPad version of the Prezi interface. Slick.
  12. Google Earth – I thought about not including this in the list because of how used it already is, but I think that if you have only used Google Earth on a laptop you are missing out on some of the best interactive learning that is available anywhere. I have spent hours just observing the differences between cities by zooming in and out on Denver and Kansas City. Feeling as though you can control the entire world is just cool.
  13. Web Projector – One more 99 cent app, here. Although I use my jailbroken capability to project anything on the iPad from the VGA cord, this is the cheapest way I have found to project anything that you can access from a webpage. It works very well and gets updated frequently.
  14. FeedlerRSS – Other than the web interface for Google Reader, this is my favorite (free) way to read the blogs I follow. It works well and lets you get through quite a number of posts in short order. My favorite thing about it is that I can actually see the blog posts in their original context, which is missing a lot of times when I just read it on Google’s site.
  15. Caster Free – I can’t tell you how cool this app is. You may just have to see it for yourself. It is a single stop for creating podcasts from multiple recordings, mixing them, processing them and then posting them to either an FTP site, a blog, or even Dropbox. I can’t believe that this one is free, actually. This is content creation at its finest on the iPad. (I know that AudioBoo and other services do this well, but you don’t own the files like you can here.)
  16. Story Kit – While this isn’t the most polished app in the list, it is one of the most interesting ways to create a book. It would work well with younger folks as well as with very simple content.
  17. Gooey – I use Google Docs to take notes quite often, or to leave myself reminders. This is a great way to add a Google Doc that is a quick note. There really aren’t a lot of features other than a pretty interface with this one, but I really like being able to save a quick note that syncs directly to Google Docs. I also like that it is free. Watch out, though, some versions of this app do crash. Good thing I only need it for a few minutes at a time.
  18. Granimator – Possibly the easiest, most creative art app. Basically, you paint with great drawings. It is meant to create backgrounds, but I think that it makes for a great backdrop for note taking or brainstorming. It also definitely gets my creative juices flowing to see someone else’s creation. Just cool.
  19. PaperDesk LT – If you just happen to have a VGA cord lying around for your iPad and are interested in projecting some drawing, text creation, or other brainstorming activities this is the perfect free app. I really like the way that you can save sessions for later to keep on projecting what you were working on even after you leave the app.
  20. Photopad – The best free image editor. All of the editing features that you would expect from a desktop editor with the ability to save right back to your Camera Roll. I can’t tell you how many screenshots I have rotated and cropped in here.
  21. uStream Viewer – Although we can’t record or stream from the iPad with the current version (although I swear you can see where the camera is supposed to go), I absolutely love being able to attend events in real time with chat. This is the only non-native iPad app in the list, but I think that it really works well in pixel doubled mode.
  22. iDraft – Adobe Ideas does pretty much everything I need from a drawing program and Sundry Notes does pretty much everything I need from a note taking application. So, what do I use iDraft for? Well, to make pretty diagrams and pdf notes with multiple pages. The simple pencil in this app makes it look like I am using a calligraphy pen, with the ability to make thin and thick marks by changing the speed of my gesture. The words I make in this app are nothing short of beautiful.
  23. JabberPad – Possibly the coolest concept for any app on the list. This app uses open protocols (including a jabber server) to create a collaborative whiteboard with any iPad on the same wifi network. Not only that, but you can chat with the other people in the same whiteboard. I can’t wait until you can contribute using your computer on the same network as well. Brilliant.
  24. Analytics (It looks like this is no longer free. I wouldn’t pay 6.99 for it, but it is pretty cool.) – While this isn’t really creating or consuming, it is really nice. This allows me to see my Google Analytics account (or at least the most important info to me) on the iPad. I love just taking a quick glance at how the different websites and blogs I maintain are doing and what I might need to change or highlight.
  25. Desktop Connect (pricey at 11.99, but worth it) – There are many free versions of VNC viewers (log into your desktop or laptop from the iPad) for the iPad, but this is the only one I have found that lets me login to a Mac from anywhere (at least for this cheap). This is because they have a desktop software called Easy Connect that actually authenticates using your Google Account. This means that not only can you see your desktop computer from your iPad no matter where you are in the world, but you can also see any of your friend’s (according to your Google Talk account) computers if they are online. They will have to give you access, but I think that the idea of actually seeing the network of your friend’s computers is stunning.

Well, that is it. That is my list of why the iPad matters right now. Again, there are some missing things that I need to Jailbreak my iPad for, but the ones I mentioned above are reason enough to buy and use an iPad and never look back. The iPad is not a device for mass consumption. It is a device like any other, completely dependent upon what you actually want to do with it. I want to create with it, so that is what I do. While not all of the apps above speak specifically to this need to create, they all inspire me to create more and better. Call me a fan boy if you must, but I believe in creating with whatever is available and it just so happens that I have an iPad.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Question 188 of 365: What did we buy?

 , , , , , , , , , ,
First 4 digits of a credit card
Image via Wikipedia

Credit card companies are stupid. Not for any of the crazy backwards pricing structures or 0% percent nonsense that they send out 100 times a year in the mail. Not for the hope of fre money or the predatory lending that happens every day.

They are stupid because they haven’t turned spending money into a game, at least not any more than playing with a piece of plastic and getting people to give you objects for swiping it into a machine.

If credit card companies were smart, they would create a virtual representation of everything that is purchased and put it into a virtual house for you. If they really had everything together, they would make The Sims into a carbon copy of everything that we buy.

On the one hand it would make people realize everything that they are consuming because they would have to lug it around their virtual world. On the other, it would allow us to start setting up an economy that is a direct copy of everything our real economy values. It would allow us to trade what we cant trade in real life, to own what we have always owned and what we will own in the future.

Rather than bogus rewards systems, we could be rewarded with the game of life. The real one, the one we pay for every day.

Think of this:

The gas that we buy for our real cars will make the virtual cars go. The fast food that we purchase will show up in our guts in the online game. The electronic devices that we purchase are forever in existence, long after their usefulness is gone. We could see the entertainment costs and the costs of not entertaining ourselves at all. We could see how happy our virtual counterparts are and reflect on the way our real selves feel. We could actually see what our debt gets us and the real affects of our consumption have on the world around us.

Most people still find the idea of purchasing virtual goods to be ludicrous, but purchasing real goods that have virtual counterparts just makes sense. We do this when we buy cd’s and get mp3 files as well. We do this when we buy neopets and farmville slushies. W just need to do this for everything. We need to have a way to publish all of our purchases for the purpose of creating a more intimate relationship with out goods and services.

The way I see it, the first bank to do this will be the one that gets to dictate the price of goods and services from that point forward. Because once everything is both virtual and physical, the virtual economy will become just as important as the one that provides us with sustenance and substance. Once a single bank doubles our buying power by duplicating every line item on a receipt, they will literally be printing their own money. They will own the game and every transaction could me monitized.

The only question I still have, is why aren’t the credit card companies so stupid as to not see this?

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta