I have been rethinking the idea of digital native vs digital immigrant. We commonly think that students today, having grown up with digital technology at their side, are better attuned, and so more comfortable, with technology. This has not necessarily been my experience.
Students are exceptionally good at sending text messages and looking at YouTube, but actual creative activity is really very low, and that which is created is no better than other generations have been able to muster. Students are fairly good at finding shortcuts to accomplish their work, and I am not completely against this, but the amount of knowledge that soaks in seems no greater than we have seen in the past, and often is less.
Finally, I think that game design is an excellent way to teach content, but generally speaking, the tools involved in game design have a steep learning curve, that only the most dedicated students are willing to climb.
I'm thinking about that Friedman piece, in the Times last week, where a researcher said that a major problem is student motivation. One response was to ask what if we made school engaging enough to generate that motivation?
And that is true, as far as it goes, but schools have other problems that force them in this direction or that. I'm thinking of this nonsense that the LA Times has pushing regarding ranking teachers by the test scores of their students. They talk about "value added" to suggest that the tests ranking only look at progress from one year to the next. It is a fantasy.
I started teaching in a middle school in Pacoima, where the average sixth grader read at a third grade level, if I was lucky. Now let's suppose I'm a fantastic sixth grade teacher, and I can move them two years in the space of one year, arguably a great job. Now they are reading at a fifth grade level, but they have to take the sixth grade test, which they fail miserably. Now my pay and my reputation are at stake, even though i've done a great job.
The solution--don't take chances, and don't work in a low performing school. That means no games or projects in class, only content that is sure to get my kids to score better on the test. Nothing else matters. Every time they come out with new ideas for teaching, but fail to change the way they test, teachers look at it and say "no, thank you".
My own research has shown that increasing technology in middle class schools has only a marginal benefit, but introducing or expanding technology at low socio-economic schools has a significant effect on learning, but has nothing to do with the tests. So who is going to do that if their job is at risk?
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
The reports of blogging's death have been greatly exaggerated
The latest from Cory Doctorow. http://bit.ly/a2IZBL
Monday, July 12, 2010
Google continues to democratize the web by letting everyone get in on the fun.
Google has released software that will enable regular people to create applications for their Android mobile device (phones for now, presumably tablets in the future). http://nyti.ms/9kWJ4X
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Walled Garden Proves Successful
Apple successfully guarded its "walled garden" by banning a malicious developer. http://nyti.ms/d8HRwM This validates Apple's policy, and should be a warning to those who would download carelessly, from an app store or anywhere else. Apple has protected its customers, even if they don't want the protection, but it has also protected its brand. While I think Android is very cool, it may be destined to be the Windows of mobile OSs--big, but vulnerable.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
iPhone vs Android
The whole iPhone vs Android debate is reminiscent of the Mac vs PC discussion, with the same types of issues. With iPhone (and I include iPad) you get the so-called walled garden, in which you can do anything you want as long as it is approved by Apple. This is is similar to the dearth of application available for the Mac compared to Windows. In recent times, that has changed some, but the overwhelming majority of new application are created for the PC. It will only be a matter of time before there are exponentially more Android phones than there are iPhones, so the two situations will be twins. It turns out that just like Windows being more likely to get a virus or to get hacked (not because of any design flaw, but it's a numbers game for hackers), Android devices are already seeing hacks and viruses propagate throughout their ecosystem.
If one were to advise a computer buyer about purchasing a laptop, one would usually ask if the computer was to be used at work or as a personal machine, whether it was for business (number crunching, correspondence, etc.) or for graphics, movie editing, photos, ease of sharing, etc., the advice would almost certainly be to buy a PC for business and a Mac for personal. This argument seems reasonable for the iPhone/iPad vs Android debate. Part of the reason, perhaps the main reason, that a Mac "just works", as opposed to a PC, is that Apple only has to design for a single platform, and they control all the variables in hardware and drivers. Whereas Windows must account for thousands of different hardware configurations, thus it requires more work on the part of the consumer to make it all work.
In the coming months I believe we are going to see an analogous situation between iPhone and Android. Those who like getting their hands dirty are going to opt for Android, while those who just want their device to work as advertised will opt for the iPhone. It comes down to what I have been saying for years--do you want the computer to work for you, or do you want to work for the computer?
If one were to advise a computer buyer about purchasing a laptop, one would usually ask if the computer was to be used at work or as a personal machine, whether it was for business (number crunching, correspondence, etc.) or for graphics, movie editing, photos, ease of sharing, etc., the advice would almost certainly be to buy a PC for business and a Mac for personal. This argument seems reasonable for the iPhone/iPad vs Android debate. Part of the reason, perhaps the main reason, that a Mac "just works", as opposed to a PC, is that Apple only has to design for a single platform, and they control all the variables in hardware and drivers. Whereas Windows must account for thousands of different hardware configurations, thus it requires more work on the part of the consumer to make it all work.
In the coming months I believe we are going to see an analogous situation between iPhone and Android. Those who like getting their hands dirty are going to opt for Android, while those who just want their device to work as advertised will opt for the iPhone. It comes down to what I have been saying for years--do you want the computer to work for you, or do you want to work for the computer?
Saturday, June 12, 2010
What People Want From Products
This article is a great metaphor for implementing technology into the classroom, the office, or the home. Follow the link for more from the authors.
Published: January 16, 2006. What Customers Want From Your Products
Authors: Clayton M. Christensen, Scott Cook, and Taddy Hall
Editor's Note: Marketers have lost the forest for the trees, focusing too much on creating products for narrow demographic segments rather than satisfying needs. Customers want to "hire" a product to do a job, or, as legendary Harvard Business School marketing professor Theodore Levitt put it, "People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!"
With Levitt's words as a rallying cry, a recent Harvard Business Review article, "Marketing Malpractice: The Cause and the Cure," argues that the marketer's task is to understand the job the customer wants to get done, and design products and brands that fill that need. In this excerpt, the authors look at designing products that do a job rather than fill a product segment.
With few exceptions, every job people need or want to do has a social, a functional, and an emotional dimension. If marketers understand each of these dimensions, then they can design a product that's precisely targeted to the job. In other words, the job, not the customer, is the fundamental unit of analysis for a marketer who hopes to develop products that customers will buy.
To see why, consider one fast-food restaurant's effort to improve sales of its milk shakes. (In this example, both the company and the product have been disguised.) Its marketers first defined the market segment by product—milk shakes—and then segmented it further by profiling the demographic and personality characteristics of those customers who frequently bought milk shakes. Next, they invited people who fit this profile to evaluate whether making the shakes thicker, more chocolaty, cheaper, or chunkier would satisfy them better. The panelists gave clear feedback, but the consequent improvements to the product had no impact on sales.
A new researcher then spent a long day in a restaurant seeking to understand the jobs that customers were trying to get done when they hired a milk shake. He chronicled when each milk shake was bought, what other products the customers purchased, whether these consumers were alone or with a group, whether they consumed the shake on the premises or drove off with it, and so on. He was surprised to find that 40 percent of all milk shakes were purchased in the early morning. Most often, these early-morning customers were alone; they did not buy anything else; and they consumed their shakes in their cars.
The researcher then returned to interview the morning customers as they left the restaurant, shake in hand, in an effort to understand what caused them to hire a milk shake. Most bought it to do a similar job: They faced a long, boring commute and needed something to make the drive more interesting. They weren't yet hungry but knew that they would be by 10 a.m.; they wanted to consume something now that would stave off hunger until noon. And they faced constraints: They were in a hurry, they were wearing work clothes, and they had (at most) one free hand.
The researcher inquired further: "Tell me about a time when you were in the same situation but you didn't buy a milk shake. What did you buy instead?" Sometimes, he learned, they bought a bagel. But bagels were too dry. Bagels with cream cheese or jam resulted in sticky fingers and gooey steering wheels. Sometimes these commuters bought a banana, but it didn't last long enough to solve the boring-commute problem. Doughnuts didn't carry people past the 10 a.m. hunger attack. The milk shake, it turned out, did the job better than any of these competitors. It took people twenty minutes to suck the viscous milk shake through the thin straw, addressing the boring-commute problem. They could consume it cleanly with one hand. By 10:00, they felt less hungry than when they tried the alternatives. It didn't matter much that it wasn't a healthy food, because becoming healthy wasn't essential to the job they were hiring the milk shake to do.
The researcher observed that at other times of the day parents often bought milk shakes, in addition to complete meals, for their children. What job were the parents trying to do? They were exhausted from repeatedly having to say "no" to their kids. They hired milk shakes as an innocuous way to placate their children and feel like loving parents. The researcher observed that the milk shakes didn't do this job very well, though. He saw parents waiting impatiently after they had finished their own meals while their children struggled to suck the thick shakes up through the thin straws.
Customers were hiring milk shakes for two very different jobs. But when marketers had originally asked individual customers who hired a milk shake for either or both jobs which of its attributes they should improve—and when these responses were averaged with those of other customers in the targeted demographic segment—it led to a one-size-fits-none product.
Once they understood the jobs the customers were trying to do, however, it became very clear which improvements to the milk shake would get those jobs done even better and which were irrelevant. How could they tackle the boring-commute job? Make the milk shake even thicker, so it would last longer. And swirl in tiny chunks of fruit, adding a dimension of unpredictability and anticipation to the monotonous morning routine. Just as important, the restaurant chain could deliver the product more effectively by moving the dispensing machine in front of the counter and selling customers a prepaid swipe card so they could dash in, "gas up," and go without getting stuck in the drive-through lane. Addressing the midday and evening job to be done would entail a very different product, of course.
By understanding the job and improving the product's social, functional, and emotional dimensions so that it did the job better, the company's milk shakes would gain share against the real competition—not just competing chains' milk shakes but bananas, boredom, and bagels. This would grow the category, which brings us to an important point: Job-defined markets are generally much larger than product category-defined markets. Marketers who are stuck in the mental trap that equates market size with product categories don't understand whom they are competing against from the customer's point of view.
Notice that knowing how to improve the product did not come from understanding the "typical" customer. It came from understanding the job. Need more evidence?
Pierre Omidyar did not design eBay for the "auction psychographic." He founded it to help people sell personal items. Google was designed for the job of finding information, not for a "search demographic." The unit of analysis in the work that led to Procter & Gamble's stunningly successful Swiffer was the job of cleaning floors, not a demographic or psychographic study of people who mop.
Why do so many marketers try to understand the consumer rather than the job? One reason may be purely historical: In some of the markets in which the tools of modern market research were formulated and tested, such as feminine hygiene or baby care, the job was so closely aligned with the customer demographic that if you understood the customer, you would also understand the job. This coincidence is rare, however. All too frequently, marketers' focus on the customer causes them to target phantom needs.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Published: January 16, 2006. What Customers Want From Your Products
Authors: Clayton M. Christensen, Scott Cook, and Taddy Hall
Editor's Note: Marketers have lost the forest for the trees, focusing too much on creating products for narrow demographic segments rather than satisfying needs. Customers want to "hire" a product to do a job, or, as legendary Harvard Business School marketing professor Theodore Levitt put it, "People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!"
With Levitt's words as a rallying cry, a recent Harvard Business Review article, "Marketing Malpractice: The Cause and the Cure," argues that the marketer's task is to understand the job the customer wants to get done, and design products and brands that fill that need. In this excerpt, the authors look at designing products that do a job rather than fill a product segment.
With few exceptions, every job people need or want to do has a social, a functional, and an emotional dimension. If marketers understand each of these dimensions, then they can design a product that's precisely targeted to the job. In other words, the job, not the customer, is the fundamental unit of analysis for a marketer who hopes to develop products that customers will buy.
To see why, consider one fast-food restaurant's effort to improve sales of its milk shakes. (In this example, both the company and the product have been disguised.) Its marketers first defined the market segment by product—milk shakes—and then segmented it further by profiling the demographic and personality characteristics of those customers who frequently bought milk shakes. Next, they invited people who fit this profile to evaluate whether making the shakes thicker, more chocolaty, cheaper, or chunkier would satisfy them better. The panelists gave clear feedback, but the consequent improvements to the product had no impact on sales.
A new researcher then spent a long day in a restaurant seeking to understand the jobs that customers were trying to get done when they hired a milk shake. He chronicled when each milk shake was bought, what other products the customers purchased, whether these consumers were alone or with a group, whether they consumed the shake on the premises or drove off with it, and so on. He was surprised to find that 40 percent of all milk shakes were purchased in the early morning. Most often, these early-morning customers were alone; they did not buy anything else; and they consumed their shakes in their cars.
The researcher then returned to interview the morning customers as they left the restaurant, shake in hand, in an effort to understand what caused them to hire a milk shake. Most bought it to do a similar job: They faced a long, boring commute and needed something to make the drive more interesting. They weren't yet hungry but knew that they would be by 10 a.m.; they wanted to consume something now that would stave off hunger until noon. And they faced constraints: They were in a hurry, they were wearing work clothes, and they had (at most) one free hand.
The researcher inquired further: "Tell me about a time when you were in the same situation but you didn't buy a milk shake. What did you buy instead?" Sometimes, he learned, they bought a bagel. But bagels were too dry. Bagels with cream cheese or jam resulted in sticky fingers and gooey steering wheels. Sometimes these commuters bought a banana, but it didn't last long enough to solve the boring-commute problem. Doughnuts didn't carry people past the 10 a.m. hunger attack. The milk shake, it turned out, did the job better than any of these competitors. It took people twenty minutes to suck the viscous milk shake through the thin straw, addressing the boring-commute problem. They could consume it cleanly with one hand. By 10:00, they felt less hungry than when they tried the alternatives. It didn't matter much that it wasn't a healthy food, because becoming healthy wasn't essential to the job they were hiring the milk shake to do.
The researcher observed that at other times of the day parents often bought milk shakes, in addition to complete meals, for their children. What job were the parents trying to do? They were exhausted from repeatedly having to say "no" to their kids. They hired milk shakes as an innocuous way to placate their children and feel like loving parents. The researcher observed that the milk shakes didn't do this job very well, though. He saw parents waiting impatiently after they had finished their own meals while their children struggled to suck the thick shakes up through the thin straws.
Customers were hiring milk shakes for two very different jobs. But when marketers had originally asked individual customers who hired a milk shake for either or both jobs which of its attributes they should improve—and when these responses were averaged with those of other customers in the targeted demographic segment—it led to a one-size-fits-none product.
Once they understood the jobs the customers were trying to do, however, it became very clear which improvements to the milk shake would get those jobs done even better and which were irrelevant. How could they tackle the boring-commute job? Make the milk shake even thicker, so it would last longer. And swirl in tiny chunks of fruit, adding a dimension of unpredictability and anticipation to the monotonous morning routine. Just as important, the restaurant chain could deliver the product more effectively by moving the dispensing machine in front of the counter and selling customers a prepaid swipe card so they could dash in, "gas up," and go without getting stuck in the drive-through lane. Addressing the midday and evening job to be done would entail a very different product, of course.
By understanding the job and improving the product's social, functional, and emotional dimensions so that it did the job better, the company's milk shakes would gain share against the real competition—not just competing chains' milk shakes but bananas, boredom, and bagels. This would grow the category, which brings us to an important point: Job-defined markets are generally much larger than product category-defined markets. Marketers who are stuck in the mental trap that equates market size with product categories don't understand whom they are competing against from the customer's point of view.
Notice that knowing how to improve the product did not come from understanding the "typical" customer. It came from understanding the job. Need more evidence?
Pierre Omidyar did not design eBay for the "auction psychographic." He founded it to help people sell personal items. Google was designed for the job of finding information, not for a "search demographic." The unit of analysis in the work that led to Procter & Gamble's stunningly successful Swiffer was the job of cleaning floors, not a demographic or psychographic study of people who mop.
Why do so many marketers try to understand the consumer rather than the job? One reason may be purely historical: In some of the markets in which the tools of modern market research were formulated and tested, such as feminine hygiene or baby care, the job was so closely aligned with the customer demographic that if you understood the customer, you would also understand the job. This coincidence is rare, however. All too frequently, marketers' focus on the customer causes them to target phantom needs.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Princeton Tests Kindle DX - Could the iPad Do Better? by doug_mclean@tidbits.com (Doug McLean) on Jun 6, 2010 6:28 AM
Between 2008 and 2009, Princeton University students and faculty printed 50 million sheets of paper. Depending on how you want to look at it, that equals about 100,000 reams of paper, 5,000 trees, or $5 million. Worse, that shocking amount of paper is merely the latest in a nearly decade-long trend of paper usage climbing 20 percent each year at Princeton.
The cause of this increase in printing? For the past decade Princeton has digitized ever more of its required course readings, with 62 percent of all required texts now available in PDF format. With no charge for printing - though each student account does have a printing quota - it's no surprise that student print clusters account for more than 20 percent of all the printing. Also, since 38 percent of Princeton's library holdings have yet to be digitized, it's likely that the university's printing problems haven't even plateaued.
It hardly needs to be pointed out that like every other major business, non-profit, and government organization during this recession, university budgets are stretched thin from falling endowments. The combination of a belt-tightening financial climate, a larger cultural shift towards sustainability, and the explosion of the e-reader market led researchers at Princeton University to launch an experiment testing whether e-readers present a viable alternative to traditional print media in academia.
Princeton's Office of Information Technology was awarded $30,000 by the High Meadows Foundation to help with the costs of the pilot program, which entailed purchasing 54 Kindle DXs ($489 new) for 51 students and 3 faculty members. Researchers selected Amazon's Kindle DX largely due its 9.7-inch screen, which provided much greater legibility with regard to PDF files, charts, maps, and images, compared to its smaller brethren and pre-iPad competitors (the pilot program took place during the Fall 2009 semester)
The Pilot Program -- Three classes at Princeton were chosen for participation in the pilot program: two graduate level courses - one in classics, the other in political science - and an undergraduate course in public policy. The classes all shared the characteristics of having a heavy reading load and of making extensive use of "reserve readings" in digital format, what Princeton calls "e-reserves." Participating students (only one student opted out) committed to making a serious effort to refrain from printing for the pilot classes during the semester, and to do as many of their course readings as possible on the Kindle DX. For their effort and cooperation, they got to keep their Kindles when the semester was over - not a bad deal for just doing your homework!
The study had three stated goals: to determine whether the use of e-readers could reduce the amount of printing on campus; to determine if e-readers could replace traditional reading materials at no scholastic cost to the student; and to provide feedback to e-reader manufacturers regarding what features and strengths they wished to see in a device for an academic context.
The pilot program's first goal was easily achieved: on average, students using the Kindle DX for classroom readings printed just under 50 percent less material. However, before we attribute that number solely to students owning an e-reader, it's worth looking at the other reasons students said they cut back on printing. Some students cited a newfound awareness of paper waste (77 percent of the students said merely participating in the program increased their awareness of their own paper consumption), some noted that they felt pressure to follow the study's criteria, and many others said they were more apt to try the Kindle DX because their grasp of the readings which required the use of the device didn't weigh heavily on their final grade.
Additionally, in an end-of-term survey, 44 percent of students in the pilot said they would cut down on printing if they had to pay for it (though 31 percent said they would print whatever amount they needed to to succeed in class). In other words, the reduction in printing comes from a combination of factors, though using the Kindle DX was key in triggering some of the behavioral changes.
All this could be good news for the university's budget (especially if they could require students to purchase an e-reader, or roll it into tuition costs), since it could result in a $500,000 per-year savings (half of the student-driven 20 percent of the overall $5 million bill). With nearly 7,600 students, it would cost $3.7 million to outfit all students with Kindle DXs at retail prices, though volume discounts would be likely.
Harder to determine is exactly what the overall environmental impact would be if all students switched from printouts to e-readers. While printing at the university would decrease, the larger environmental effect of the manufacturing and shipping of these devices for the entire student body - and how that would stack up against heavy paper usage - is exceedingly complicated. Yet, the complexity of these broad environmental issues - which surpass the scope of both the Princeton study and this article - needn't keep us from asking how the adoption of the Kindle DX actually affected student learning, preparation, and class participation.
Regarding that goal, the Kindle DX proved to be a moderate success in engaging students with course readings. In responding to both mid-term and end-of-semester surveys, students said they were quite pleased by the Kindle DX's battery life, text resolution, internal memory, screen size, and physical weight. In particular, the device's E Ink technology impressed users across the board with many students saying they found the Kindle much easier to read than their laptops or computer screens. Students also made frequent use of the text-to-speech feature which enabled them to get "reading" done when in transit or fatigued.
Beyond the Kindle DX's specific attributes, most students said having an e-reader simplified their academic life - that packing for class was merely a matter of dropping the e-reader in their bag. Additionally, students appreciated the ease and lightness with which they could travel with all of their readings.
On the downside, there were plenty of issues and missing features that frustrated the study's participants. The lowest ranking attributes of the Kindle DX included the Web browser, navigation between books and documents, highlighting capabilities, the keyboard, and text annotation capabilities.
One of the most-beloved features initially, highlighting to "the cloud," soon became one of the most frustrating, as students realized that only 10 percent of any given book could be highlighted and exported. The realization came not by any obvious warning or indication, but by students eventually noticing that newly highlighted passages simply pushed out and replaced older selections! Thus, highlighting any serious quantity of text was tantamount to throwing away notes. Additionally, the actual method of highlighting on the Kindle DX was found to be frustratingly difficult.
While several students enjoyed the percentage-completed feature for gauging reading mileage, most bemoaned the vague methods of pagination in the Kindle DX. Students had a hard time adapting to the Kindle location numbers in lieu of traditional page numbers, both for citations and for quick navigation. In particular, students said location numbers became problematic in class seminars when many had trouble locating the sections being discussed. Overall, students wished for industry standard internal navigation controls, such as chapter divisions, and 69 percent of participants said they wanted pagination that was tied to the print edition of the book the e-book was based upon.
The problem of in-book navigation was further compounded by the variety of ways publishers of e-books handled it. Some books came without table of contents, while others provided ones that weren't interactive and failed to indicate the location numbers that corresponded to the page numbers where chapters began.
A final source of major complaints was the generally slow speed of the Kindle DX, in particular, the long load times when moving through the text. Students found they had a hard time maintaining focus through a dense text with such delays between pages. It also made flipping through the text, or skimming the text, nearly impossible - an action many of the students cited as being essential to successful academic reading.
While students were pleased with their Kindle DXs overall, they cited many areas that could stand improvement. Lucky for them, or future students toting e-readers, Apple's iPad might just fit the bill.
The iPad in Academia -- Where the Kindle DX failed students - navigation, internal organization, speed, and highlighting - the iPad is positioned to succeed. With its 9.7-inch color touchscreen, the iPad's viewable area is the same size as the Kindle DX, though it is noticeably heavier (24 ounces/680 grams versus the Kindle DX's 18.9 ounces/536 grams). In terms of price, Apple's Wi-Fi-only base model is similar to the Kindle DX ($499 versus $489), and the base model of the 3G iPad is $140 more expensive at $629 (plus at least a $15 per month data plan). For those slightly higher prices, iPad customers get quadruple the storage space (16 GB versus 4 GB), and vastly more power and functionality that goes far beyond reading.
Although the Kindle DX has a Web browser, it suffers from glacial load times and clumsy navigation, such that it doesn't even begin to compare with the iPad's version of Safari. Given the necessity of Web access in academia, coupled with the iPad's broad array of apps, it's hard to see students preferring the single-purpose Kindle to the far more capable iPad.
And though the Kindle's E Ink screen technology was one of the group's favorite features, many desired a touchscreen for easier navigation and highlighting. In particular students sought the ability to flip through a text easily and speedily, and as anyone who has picked up an iPad knows, Apple has nailed that kind of tactile interactivity.
Also, the iPad's color screen, while not mentioned by these particular Princeton students as a must-have feature, is key for many fields. The courses testing the Kindle DX at Princeton were in classics, political science, and public policy, none of which rely heavily on graphics. Courses in the sciences and other fields frequently utilize graphs, charts, and maps whose legibility greatly improves with the inclusion of color, and it's obvious that art history, architecture, and design classes rely on color materials as well.
Additionally, with its touchscreen technology, Apple makes highlighting and bookmarking sections in texts incredibly intuitive and easy. Between the slick navigation of iBooks, and the extensive PDF support and organizational capabilities in the popular app GoodReader many of the student wishes would are met. (For more on reading on the iPad see "Reading Books on the iPad: iBooks, Kindle, and GoodReader," 5 April 2010.) Some colleges have already seized upon the iPad's possibilities in academia. Reed College is planning a formal experiment to see how the iPad compares to its previous experiments with the Kindle DX, and the University of Maryland at College Park's Digital Cultures and Creativity program is going one step further, providing every incoming student with an iPad (PDF link).
That's not to say Apple has the academic market completely figured out. There remain ways in which the iPad does not currently meet student needs. While it offers bookmarking - an improvement on mere highlighting because of the navigable list of bookmarked passages it creates - iBooks currently lacks any option for annotations. Better annotation capabilities was one of the highest features on the students' wish list, and iBooks currently comes up completely short.
Also, iBooks suffers from the same sort of page number correlation problems as the Kindle DX. The page count of a book changes substantially depending on whether you're holding the iPad in landscape or portrait orientation, and the user-chosen font size and font face. Furthermore, there's no connection between these page numbers and the original source, requiring either two sets of page references for every assignment or that everyone use the same electronic version.
The only thing that makes sense is to use paragraph numbers, a common approach in classics texts where students are often correlating a chunk of original text in Greek, for instance, with one or more translations of that chunk. It shouldn't be too difficult for Apple to enhance iBooks to enable users to navigate by paragraph numbers.
Finally, while various core apps (notably Safari and Mail) can view PDFs on the iPad, iBooks doesn't currently support them. This means users must rely on third-party apps such as our favorite GoodReader. Although GoodReader is inexpensive and easily purchased, having to do so presents a hurdle for academic adoption, given the prevalence of PDF for electronic reserve readings.
If Apple wants the iPad to succeed in the academic market, it needs to address these current oversights of annotations, page references, and native PDF support.
The Future of the Classroom? Academic reading is a unique genre in that a text is raw material - to be pulled apart, tossed around, chewed up, and reassembled in your brain. It's quite distinct from pleasure reading, demanding a different kind of engagement that is actually very physical. In order to remap the information laid out in a linear text, a kind of non-linear movement is required to flatten out the data and better understand the connections through returning to sections and gaining a broad overview.
The Kindle DX's greatest weaknesses, at least in the realm of academia, is its slow page-to-page load times, poor internal navigation, and lack of color. The iPad, with its mimicry of physical pagination, interactive bookmarks, and easy-to-use table of contents is a clear win in this department, though the current apps available for reading need enhancements to meet the needs of students and academics. That e-readers will replace traditional books and papers altogether in the near future is unlikely, but if I had to pick the device that was more likely to succeed in doing so, I'd pick the iPad hands down.
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- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
The cause of this increase in printing? For the past decade Princeton has digitized ever more of its required course readings, with 62 percent of all required texts now available in PDF format. With no charge for printing - though each student account does have a printing quota - it's no surprise that student print clusters account for more than 20 percent of all the printing. Also, since 38 percent of Princeton's library holdings have yet to be digitized, it's likely that the university's printing problems haven't even plateaued.
It hardly needs to be pointed out that like every other major business, non-profit, and government organization during this recession, university budgets are stretched thin from falling endowments. The combination of a belt-tightening financial climate, a larger cultural shift towards sustainability, and the explosion of the e-reader market led researchers at Princeton University to launch an experiment testing whether e-readers present a viable alternative to traditional print media in academia.
Princeton's Office of Information Technology was awarded $30,000 by the High Meadows Foundation to help with the costs of the pilot program, which entailed purchasing 54 Kindle DXs ($489 new) for 51 students and 3 faculty members. Researchers selected Amazon's Kindle DX largely due its 9.7-inch screen, which provided much greater legibility with regard to PDF files, charts, maps, and images, compared to its smaller brethren and pre-iPad competitors (the pilot program took place during the Fall 2009 semester)
The Pilot Program -- Three classes at Princeton were chosen for participation in the pilot program: two graduate level courses - one in classics, the other in political science - and an undergraduate course in public policy. The classes all shared the characteristics of having a heavy reading load and of making extensive use of "reserve readings" in digital format, what Princeton calls "e-reserves." Participating students (only one student opted out) committed to making a serious effort to refrain from printing for the pilot classes during the semester, and to do as many of their course readings as possible on the Kindle DX. For their effort and cooperation, they got to keep their Kindles when the semester was over - not a bad deal for just doing your homework!
The study had three stated goals: to determine whether the use of e-readers could reduce the amount of printing on campus; to determine if e-readers could replace traditional reading materials at no scholastic cost to the student; and to provide feedback to e-reader manufacturers regarding what features and strengths they wished to see in a device for an academic context.
The pilot program's first goal was easily achieved: on average, students using the Kindle DX for classroom readings printed just under 50 percent less material. However, before we attribute that number solely to students owning an e-reader, it's worth looking at the other reasons students said they cut back on printing. Some students cited a newfound awareness of paper waste (77 percent of the students said merely participating in the program increased their awareness of their own paper consumption), some noted that they felt pressure to follow the study's criteria, and many others said they were more apt to try the Kindle DX because their grasp of the readings which required the use of the device didn't weigh heavily on their final grade.
Additionally, in an end-of-term survey, 44 percent of students in the pilot said they would cut down on printing if they had to pay for it (though 31 percent said they would print whatever amount they needed to to succeed in class). In other words, the reduction in printing comes from a combination of factors, though using the Kindle DX was key in triggering some of the behavioral changes.
All this could be good news for the university's budget (especially if they could require students to purchase an e-reader, or roll it into tuition costs), since it could result in a $500,000 per-year savings (half of the student-driven 20 percent of the overall $5 million bill). With nearly 7,600 students, it would cost $3.7 million to outfit all students with Kindle DXs at retail prices, though volume discounts would be likely.
Harder to determine is exactly what the overall environmental impact would be if all students switched from printouts to e-readers. While printing at the university would decrease, the larger environmental effect of the manufacturing and shipping of these devices for the entire student body - and how that would stack up against heavy paper usage - is exceedingly complicated. Yet, the complexity of these broad environmental issues - which surpass the scope of both the Princeton study and this article - needn't keep us from asking how the adoption of the Kindle DX actually affected student learning, preparation, and class participation.
Regarding that goal, the Kindle DX proved to be a moderate success in engaging students with course readings. In responding to both mid-term and end-of-semester surveys, students said they were quite pleased by the Kindle DX's battery life, text resolution, internal memory, screen size, and physical weight. In particular, the device's E Ink technology impressed users across the board with many students saying they found the Kindle much easier to read than their laptops or computer screens. Students also made frequent use of the text-to-speech feature which enabled them to get "reading" done when in transit or fatigued.
Beyond the Kindle DX's specific attributes, most students said having an e-reader simplified their academic life - that packing for class was merely a matter of dropping the e-reader in their bag. Additionally, students appreciated the ease and lightness with which they could travel with all of their readings.
On the downside, there were plenty of issues and missing features that frustrated the study's participants. The lowest ranking attributes of the Kindle DX included the Web browser, navigation between books and documents, highlighting capabilities, the keyboard, and text annotation capabilities.
One of the most-beloved features initially, highlighting to "the cloud," soon became one of the most frustrating, as students realized that only 10 percent of any given book could be highlighted and exported. The realization came not by any obvious warning or indication, but by students eventually noticing that newly highlighted passages simply pushed out and replaced older selections! Thus, highlighting any serious quantity of text was tantamount to throwing away notes. Additionally, the actual method of highlighting on the Kindle DX was found to be frustratingly difficult.
While several students enjoyed the percentage-completed feature for gauging reading mileage, most bemoaned the vague methods of pagination in the Kindle DX. Students had a hard time adapting to the Kindle location numbers in lieu of traditional page numbers, both for citations and for quick navigation. In particular, students said location numbers became problematic in class seminars when many had trouble locating the sections being discussed. Overall, students wished for industry standard internal navigation controls, such as chapter divisions, and 69 percent of participants said they wanted pagination that was tied to the print edition of the book the e-book was based upon.
The problem of in-book navigation was further compounded by the variety of ways publishers of e-books handled it. Some books came without table of contents, while others provided ones that weren't interactive and failed to indicate the location numbers that corresponded to the page numbers where chapters began.
A final source of major complaints was the generally slow speed of the Kindle DX, in particular, the long load times when moving through the text. Students found they had a hard time maintaining focus through a dense text with such delays between pages. It also made flipping through the text, or skimming the text, nearly impossible - an action many of the students cited as being essential to successful academic reading.
While students were pleased with their Kindle DXs overall, they cited many areas that could stand improvement. Lucky for them, or future students toting e-readers, Apple's iPad might just fit the bill.
The iPad in Academia -- Where the Kindle DX failed students - navigation, internal organization, speed, and highlighting - the iPad is positioned to succeed. With its 9.7-inch color touchscreen, the iPad's viewable area is the same size as the Kindle DX, though it is noticeably heavier (24 ounces/680 grams versus the Kindle DX's 18.9 ounces/536 grams). In terms of price, Apple's Wi-Fi-only base model is similar to the Kindle DX ($499 versus $489), and the base model of the 3G iPad is $140 more expensive at $629 (plus at least a $15 per month data plan). For those slightly higher prices, iPad customers get quadruple the storage space (16 GB versus 4 GB), and vastly more power and functionality that goes far beyond reading.
Although the Kindle DX has a Web browser, it suffers from glacial load times and clumsy navigation, such that it doesn't even begin to compare with the iPad's version of Safari. Given the necessity of Web access in academia, coupled with the iPad's broad array of apps, it's hard to see students preferring the single-purpose Kindle to the far more capable iPad.
And though the Kindle's E Ink screen technology was one of the group's favorite features, many desired a touchscreen for easier navigation and highlighting. In particular students sought the ability to flip through a text easily and speedily, and as anyone who has picked up an iPad knows, Apple has nailed that kind of tactile interactivity.
Also, the iPad's color screen, while not mentioned by these particular Princeton students as a must-have feature, is key for many fields. The courses testing the Kindle DX at Princeton were in classics, political science, and public policy, none of which rely heavily on graphics. Courses in the sciences and other fields frequently utilize graphs, charts, and maps whose legibility greatly improves with the inclusion of color, and it's obvious that art history, architecture, and design classes rely on color materials as well.
Additionally, with its touchscreen technology, Apple makes highlighting and bookmarking sections in texts incredibly intuitive and easy. Between the slick navigation of iBooks, and the extensive PDF support and organizational capabilities in the popular app GoodReader many of the student wishes would are met. (For more on reading on the iPad see "Reading Books on the iPad: iBooks, Kindle, and GoodReader," 5 April 2010.) Some colleges have already seized upon the iPad's possibilities in academia. Reed College is planning a formal experiment to see how the iPad compares to its previous experiments with the Kindle DX, and the University of Maryland at College Park's Digital Cultures and Creativity program is going one step further, providing every incoming student with an iPad (PDF link).
That's not to say Apple has the academic market completely figured out. There remain ways in which the iPad does not currently meet student needs. While it offers bookmarking - an improvement on mere highlighting because of the navigable list of bookmarked passages it creates - iBooks currently lacks any option for annotations. Better annotation capabilities was one of the highest features on the students' wish list, and iBooks currently comes up completely short.
Also, iBooks suffers from the same sort of page number correlation problems as the Kindle DX. The page count of a book changes substantially depending on whether you're holding the iPad in landscape or portrait orientation, and the user-chosen font size and font face. Furthermore, there's no connection between these page numbers and the original source, requiring either two sets of page references for every assignment or that everyone use the same electronic version.
The only thing that makes sense is to use paragraph numbers, a common approach in classics texts where students are often correlating a chunk of original text in Greek, for instance, with one or more translations of that chunk. It shouldn't be too difficult for Apple to enhance iBooks to enable users to navigate by paragraph numbers.
Finally, while various core apps (notably Safari and Mail) can view PDFs on the iPad, iBooks doesn't currently support them. This means users must rely on third-party apps such as our favorite GoodReader. Although GoodReader is inexpensive and easily purchased, having to do so presents a hurdle for academic adoption, given the prevalence of PDF for electronic reserve readings.
If Apple wants the iPad to succeed in the academic market, it needs to address these current oversights of annotations, page references, and native PDF support.
The Future of the Classroom? Academic reading is a unique genre in that a text is raw material - to be pulled apart, tossed around, chewed up, and reassembled in your brain. It's quite distinct from pleasure reading, demanding a different kind of engagement that is actually very physical. In order to remap the information laid out in a linear text, a kind of non-linear movement is required to flatten out the data and better understand the connections through returning to sections and gaining a broad overview.
The Kindle DX's greatest weaknesses, at least in the realm of academia, is its slow page-to-page load times, poor internal navigation, and lack of color. The iPad, with its mimicry of physical pagination, interactive bookmarks, and easy-to-use table of contents is a clear win in this department, though the current apps available for reading need enhancements to meet the needs of students and academics. That e-readers will replace traditional books and papers altogether in the near future is unlikely, but if I had to pick the device that was more likely to succeed in doing so, I'd pick the iPad hands down.
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Friday, May 21, 2010
Walled Gardens?
We've heard a lot lately about walled gardens, those digital places where the content is controlled by a device manufacturer, a content creator, a content distributor, or Web tool. Examples are plenty-- Apple has all iPhone and iPad content funneled through the App Store, Facebook controls what user information that it sells, Amazon and Apple both apply digitals locks (DRM) on content that they sell. The list could go on, but suffice to say that there are a lot of people trying to exert some control over what you can do or see on a digital device.
There are those, such as Cory Doctorow, who make a compelling case that no outside controls should be implemented, that users should be the ultimate decision maker about how to use devices or content that they buy. It is always nice to have choices, and Doctorow wants to have them all. To that end, he publishes his books without any DRM and refuses to participate with outlets that insist upon it. He uses an open source operating system on his computer, and has made an impassioned plea for people to boycott the iPad.
Then are those like Leo Laporte, who agrees in large part with Doctorow, but sees utility in using some locked devices. He loves his iPad and Audible books, even though both are to some degree locked.
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, says that the controls on the iPad and the iPhone are there to enhance the user experience, and that applications like Flash use too much power and cause devices to crash. Besides, he notes, nobody has to buy an iPad. He has famously said that "if you want porn, use Android".
In a scene from the TV show West Wing, one of the characters says, "I agree with you, and (pointing to someone else) I agree with you, and (again pointing to someone else) I agree with you, and you know that makes me crazy!" That's how I feel. Both camps have good, logical arguments. They are well reasoned and supported by good data.
I am afraid that too much control by others will ultimately limit my user experience, but too little control has the same result. I am an avid Linux user. I love to be able to tinker with how things work, download whatever I like, configuring my computer exactly as I would like it. The downside is that I HAVE to tinker with it to make it work right. Unlike Windows or the Mac OS, which work right out the box, Linux is for those who really want to mess with it. I recently reformatted my Linux net book. It took about 45 minutes to reformat, and about 4 hours to get it to work. I had to find and install drivers, and additional code to allow it play music, or Flash, or movies, etc. Because I like to do that, it was ok, but it wasn't how I had planned to spend an evening.
Some have challenged Doctorow by saying that they can't hack their toaster or their washing machine. He retorts that nobody tells you what you can put into those devices, like Apple tries to do with the i devices. He's right, of course, but why would anyone WANT to put anything but bread in a toaster? I liken it to the difference between an automatic transmission and a manual transmission in a car. The manual driver wants to feel that he is in control. He'll decide which gear the car needs to be in, and when. The automatic driver just wants to get from here to there, and doesn't care how it happens, as long as it does. With Linux you have a lot of control, but with Windows or Mac, it just works.
These are equally valid positions, so it seems silly to militantly swear off anything Apple because they exert some control, or militantly fawn over Apple because it works so well. When I want to try something, experiment a little, I turn to my Linux box. I've screwed it up a hundred times, and reformatted almost that many times, but it let's me do things that nothing else does. On the other hand, when I have serious work to do, I gravitate to a proven operating system that let's me get it done as quickly and efficiently as possible. I see no contradiction in this. Even the editors of a Linux magazine that read have admitted that when they need to do serious photo or video editing, they do it on a Mac.
Likewise, I have deleted my Facebook account because I don't like the way they handle privacy. Now, I don't really have anything to hide, and if you Google me, you can find my address and phone number, and just about anything else about me. But what Facebook did was to obfuscate and divert attention from it's real agenda. It seemed slimy, and I didn't want to be a part of it. On the other hand, my wife loves it, especially it's ability to connect her with old friends and family.
I guess the point is that extremism is a bad thing. Those on the outer fringes of the norm are rarely taken seriously because their ideas are, well, crazy. Mac lover or Mac hater, all really the same thing. What I want from a digital tool is for it to work for me instead of the other way around. That is the definition of a useful device.
There are those, such as Cory Doctorow, who make a compelling case that no outside controls should be implemented, that users should be the ultimate decision maker about how to use devices or content that they buy. It is always nice to have choices, and Doctorow wants to have them all. To that end, he publishes his books without any DRM and refuses to participate with outlets that insist upon it. He uses an open source operating system on his computer, and has made an impassioned plea for people to boycott the iPad.
Then are those like Leo Laporte, who agrees in large part with Doctorow, but sees utility in using some locked devices. He loves his iPad and Audible books, even though both are to some degree locked.
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, says that the controls on the iPad and the iPhone are there to enhance the user experience, and that applications like Flash use too much power and cause devices to crash. Besides, he notes, nobody has to buy an iPad. He has famously said that "if you want porn, use Android".
In a scene from the TV show West Wing, one of the characters says, "I agree with you, and (pointing to someone else) I agree with you, and (again pointing to someone else) I agree with you, and you know that makes me crazy!" That's how I feel. Both camps have good, logical arguments. They are well reasoned and supported by good data.
I am afraid that too much control by others will ultimately limit my user experience, but too little control has the same result. I am an avid Linux user. I love to be able to tinker with how things work, download whatever I like, configuring my computer exactly as I would like it. The downside is that I HAVE to tinker with it to make it work right. Unlike Windows or the Mac OS, which work right out the box, Linux is for those who really want to mess with it. I recently reformatted my Linux net book. It took about 45 minutes to reformat, and about 4 hours to get it to work. I had to find and install drivers, and additional code to allow it play music, or Flash, or movies, etc. Because I like to do that, it was ok, but it wasn't how I had planned to spend an evening.
Some have challenged Doctorow by saying that they can't hack their toaster or their washing machine. He retorts that nobody tells you what you can put into those devices, like Apple tries to do with the i devices. He's right, of course, but why would anyone WANT to put anything but bread in a toaster? I liken it to the difference between an automatic transmission and a manual transmission in a car. The manual driver wants to feel that he is in control. He'll decide which gear the car needs to be in, and when. The automatic driver just wants to get from here to there, and doesn't care how it happens, as long as it does. With Linux you have a lot of control, but with Windows or Mac, it just works.
These are equally valid positions, so it seems silly to militantly swear off anything Apple because they exert some control, or militantly fawn over Apple because it works so well. When I want to try something, experiment a little, I turn to my Linux box. I've screwed it up a hundred times, and reformatted almost that many times, but it let's me do things that nothing else does. On the other hand, when I have serious work to do, I gravitate to a proven operating system that let's me get it done as quickly and efficiently as possible. I see no contradiction in this. Even the editors of a Linux magazine that read have admitted that when they need to do serious photo or video editing, they do it on a Mac.
Likewise, I have deleted my Facebook account because I don't like the way they handle privacy. Now, I don't really have anything to hide, and if you Google me, you can find my address and phone number, and just about anything else about me. But what Facebook did was to obfuscate and divert attention from it's real agenda. It seemed slimy, and I didn't want to be a part of it. On the other hand, my wife loves it, especially it's ability to connect her with old friends and family.
I guess the point is that extremism is a bad thing. Those on the outer fringes of the norm are rarely taken seriously because their ideas are, well, crazy. Mac lover or Mac hater, all really the same thing. What I want from a digital tool is for it to work for me instead of the other way around. That is the definition of a useful device.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Facebook privacy?
I have been hearing a lot about Facebook's new privacy settings, or lack of privacy settings. It seems that if you type it into Facebook, it's public, and it's forever. They make it terribly complicated to control your settings, and even if you unlike something or someone, they still have access to your personal data. Check out this rant from Boing Boing-- http://bit.ly/bqMQpM
This is all well and good, as I don't post things that I assume are private, but it occurred to me that by being on Facebook, I am condoning their activities. Everyone who knows me, wants to know me, or who I want to know, already knows how to get in touch with me. I'll leave it to them to do that when they need to. I think that the only meaningful and self-interested decision I can make is to delete my Facebook account. Here's how to do that--
https://ssl.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account
I don't want anyone to think that because I have an account, that makes it ok. I don't mind if others keep their accounts, that's up to them, but at least know what you are getting into.
There are alternatives. One is called Diaspora. It's only in the planning stages now, but look for it to emerge later this year. Here are a couple of stories about it--
http://nyti.ms/bf9UgG http://nyti.ms/8YwF3P
It's not ok for one corporation to control so much of the Internet, and although Facebook has 400,000,000 users and they probably won't miss me, it's a start. Big things have small beginnings.
This is all well and good, as I don't post things that I assume are private, but it occurred to me that by being on Facebook, I am condoning their activities. Everyone who knows me, wants to know me, or who I want to know, already knows how to get in touch with me. I'll leave it to them to do that when they need to. I think that the only meaningful and self-interested decision I can make is to delete my Facebook account. Here's how to do that--
https://ssl.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account
I don't want anyone to think that because I have an account, that makes it ok. I don't mind if others keep their accounts, that's up to them, but at least know what you are getting into.
There are alternatives. One is called Diaspora. It's only in the planning stages now, but look for it to emerge later this year. Here are a couple of stories about it--
http://nyti.ms/bf9UgG http://nyti.ms/8YwF3P
It's not ok for one corporation to control so much of the Internet, and although Facebook has 400,000,000 users and they probably won't miss me, it's a start. Big things have small beginnings.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Voices on your GPS device
TomTom is now offering custom voices for their GPS devices. Some of the recording sessions went better than others.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Two Billion Laptops? It May Not Be Enough
By RANDALL STROSS
ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD is a nonprofit group that thinks big. Since 2007, it has sold inexpensive but rugged laptop computers to the governments of less-developed countries. The goal is to equip each of the two billion children in the developing world with his or her own computer.
It’s been slow going. About 1.6 million of the group’s laptops have been distributed to date, said Matt Keller, vice president for global advocacy at the O.L.P.C. Foundation, based in Cambridge, Mass. Today, the largest concentrations are in Uruguay, at around 400,000, and Peru, at 280,000, followed by Rwanda (110,000) and Haiti and Mongolia (15,000 each).
In 2006, the O.L.P.C. Web site pitched its laptop as a technology that “could revolutionize how we educate the world’s children.” Today, the “R” word is gone. Now the site speaks in more muted language of “developing an essential resource — educated, empowered children.”
“The biggest obstacle to our spreading the dream is cost,” Mr. Keller said.
Ninety percent of the machines have been paid for by the recipient countries’ governments, whose resources are extremely limited. I asked Mr. Keller if project leaders had reconsidered the “per child” part of the program. “One Laptop Per Classroom” certainly doesn’t have the same ring, to be sure, but it would better diffuse the benefits in the short term, helping a greater share of those almost two billion children who have not been reached.
He said that such a change was out of the question.
“One-on-one, child-to-laptop — the interactive nature of that experience is the heart of what we do,” he said.
When a child owns a laptop, he added, the school day is effectively extended from a few hours to 12 to 14 hours — however long the child is awake, and wherever he or she happens to be.
Some Microsoft researchers in India have investigated how to give those same children better use of PCs that are already in place, even though one machine is shared by many. In one project, Microsoft’s programmers developed software that added multiple cursors on the screen, each controlled by a separate mouse. Software written for the paradigm allows students to compete or collaborate on multiple-choice questions. It was well received in schools, and Microsoft turned it into a free product called MultiPoint.
“We jokingly call it ‘One Mouse Per Child,’ ” said Kentaro Toyama, who led the project while he spent five years in the Technology for Emerging Markets group at Microsoft Research India.
Mr. Toyama, who received a computer-science doctorate at Yale, left Microsoft last December and is now a research fellow at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. He has been giving talks at American universities about the “technological utopianism” that he sees in initiatives like One Laptop Per Child, Intel’s Classmate PC, and even MultiPoint. He says such initiatives rest upon a myth that “technology is the bottleneck in developing countries.”
Lots of other things are bottlenecks, too, he says — including institutional limitations, economics, the basic service infrastructure and politics. Nor is technology synonymous with education.
“Initially, we had the idea that PCs could make up for teacher absenteeism or poor training,” he said. “But studies of PCs in schools are mixed, at best. Most show that a good school with good teachers can do positive things with PCs, but that PCs don’t fix bad schools.”
Describing technological utopianism, he said, “What it comes down to is this: Everybody is looking for a shortcut.”
Mr. Keller said of Mr. Toyama’s remarks: “There is no silver bullet, he’s right.” But Mr. Keller argued that literacy skills and access to information were prerequisites for economic and political growth and that “technology can help foster these things.”
Among the infrastructure problems that the Microsoft research team saw in rural India was unreliable electrical power. It spurred another Microsoft research project that provided farmers in one district with cellphones that supplied the same information via text messaging that the farmers had obtained from PC centers.
Many O.L.P.C. laptops are equipped with solar panels that can recharge the machine in three hours, providing four to six hours of use. Mr. Keller said a new model would be introduced early next year that would demand much less power. The new machines will have cranks and charge quickly: a minute of cranking will yield 10 minutes of use.
MR. KELLER has some moving stories to tell about his visits to villages that have received laptops — and about the natural facility with computers of children everywhere.
“I’ve been in Rwanda where the laptop was introduced into an environment where previously there had been no electronic devices,” he said, “and within three to four days you have 10-year-old girls and 8-year-old boys who are using the laptop as efficiently and effectively and creatively as I can.”
He is now lobbying to secure funding from the United States government to provide an Internet-connected laptop for every child in Afghanistan. At a cost of $250 a laptop, the project would cost about $750 million.
In Kabul, Mr. Keller said, Afghanistan’s education minister told him that the project “would allow girls to study and connect within the safety of their own homes.”
It’s an almost irresistible vision. But a skeptic would point to the lessons of history and say that technology never works in isolation.
Randall Stross is an author based in Silicon Valley and a professor of business at San Jose State University. E-mail: stross@nytimes.com.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
GoogleVoice
I've been wanting to write about GoogleVoice for some time. Imagine Lord of the Rings..One ring to rule them all.. and you get an idea of what GoogleVoice is capable of. You can call from any phone in the world, have your calls ring any phone in the world. It's truly amazing!
I have all of my contacts in my Google account, and I can access them using the Google Voice website. You can also access them from a smart phone, such as an iPhone or a Nexus One (I don't have one yet--haven't decided which is best), using a simple downloadable app from the Google site http://www.google.com/mobile/voice/. It really works well!
The icon above allows you to call me, for free. Give it a try. I'd love to say hello!
I have all of my contacts in my Google account, and I can access them using the Google Voice website. You can also access them from a smart phone, such as an iPhone or a Nexus One (I don't have one yet--haven't decided which is best), using a simple downloadable app from the Google site http://www.google.com/mobile/voice/. It really works well!
The icon above allows you to call me, for free. Give it a try. I'd love to say hello!
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Computers in schools
I find it alarming that people who use computers in their everyday life somehow think that computers in the hands of high school students are simply the "latest gee-whiz" toy to hit education. My challenge is, as it has been for some time, let those who question the value of computing in schools forgo the use of their computer, or at least match the percentage of computers in their office with the percentage of computers in their child's school. Let every school district have the same percentage of computers in their offices as they have in their schools. We will then see if computers have value.
Case in point--A story on The Philadelphia Enquirer http://bit.ly/cTilRV, written by a university professor, laments the fact that his teenage daughter was given a computer, and that she finds it more interesting than she finds him. He says, "Laptop programs reflect a long tradition of gee-whiz technological enthusiasm in American education. To fix the schools, the argument goes, find a new gadget. This notion's most famous proponent was Thomas Edison, who helped invent motion pictures and also started a company to market them in the schools." Well, in fact, movies in schools DID revolutionize the classroom experience, even more so when teachers could show VHS tapes of DVDs right in their rooms, without having to coordinate with the school's AV department.
It is ironic that this story was probably written on a computer, and that the naysayers all answered online, with a computer. Part of the reason that students do not believe adults is because they hypocritically deny them things that they themselves use. You want buy in from students, get honest and and get real with them.
Computers are used in every aspect of our lives. They are in our cars, cameras, cell phones, and televisions. Even new refrigerators have a computer in them. McDonalds uses a computer to take your order, traffic lights are controlled by computers to help regulate traffic flow, and computers are used to fly commercial aircraft.
This is a silly argument, one based on fear and a lack of understanding. As I said, let those who think that computers do not belong in the hands of students go without one themselves. Then we will see if computers are necessary.
Case in point--A story on The Philadelphia Enquirer http://bit.ly/cTilRV, written by a university professor, laments the fact that his teenage daughter was given a computer, and that she finds it more interesting than she finds him. He says, "Laptop programs reflect a long tradition of gee-whiz technological enthusiasm in American education. To fix the schools, the argument goes, find a new gadget. This notion's most famous proponent was Thomas Edison, who helped invent motion pictures and also started a company to market them in the schools." Well, in fact, movies in schools DID revolutionize the classroom experience, even more so when teachers could show VHS tapes of DVDs right in their rooms, without having to coordinate with the school's AV department.
It is ironic that this story was probably written on a computer, and that the naysayers all answered online, with a computer. Part of the reason that students do not believe adults is because they hypocritically deny them things that they themselves use. You want buy in from students, get honest and and get real with them.
Computers are used in every aspect of our lives. They are in our cars, cameras, cell phones, and televisions. Even new refrigerators have a computer in them. McDonalds uses a computer to take your order, traffic lights are controlled by computers to help regulate traffic flow, and computers are used to fly commercial aircraft.
This is a silly argument, one based on fear and a lack of understanding. As I said, let those who think that computers do not belong in the hands of students go without one themselves. Then we will see if computers are necessary.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
More on Cell Phones
When I started experimenting with text messaging, I would text this student or that student, usually one or two at a time. Once I got all of my seniors' numbers, I decided to try a broadcast. During my class, second period, I talked with the seniors about a variety of topics, so I thought I would follow up on one of them in text message to all of them.
During third period, I thought of some points that I wanted to make, so I gave them a blast. It turns out that the coordinator of our academy had all the seniors during third period. Around the midway point of her class, every students' cell phone went off, almost simultaneously! She said, "The ringing! The ringing!"
After she climbed down from the ceiling, she called my classroom and gave me a dressing down. By the end of the period, when she came over to her office, which is in my classroom, she had been thinking about the potential of being able to contact all of the students at once. To her credit, instead of chewing me out, she walked in with lots of questions about how it worked.
Now I regularly "ping" our students with updates to schedules, assignment reminders, even wake-up calls. They answer with questions of their own. They even "ping" me regularly to let me know what they are up to. My phone vibrates, though, so I never get "the ringing!"
Cell phones are so powerful, I think it's a shame to keep them away from students. Sure, there will be abuses, just like every other aspect of high school, but by leveraging their phones instead of banning them, we coop their technology into an educational tool, instead of a nuisance.
Every new tool has met with resistance. Even paper and pencil was resisted by teachers who up until that time had their students using slate and chalk. Not that long ago, teachers were resisting the use of projectors that showed images from their computers. When I first started teaching in 2000, I taught in a middle school where there were only three projectors available for teachers to use. I went to the tech coordinator (remember when we had those?) and asked for one. He sternly told me that I could use it until another teacher asked for it, then I would have to share. I was at the school for two years, nobody ever asked.
When the school I am at now opened two years ago, I told the teachers in my small learning community that I could show them how to get class notes onto their students' iPods, as a .txt file. That way they could review the notes on a tool that they carried around with them all the time. My suggestion was met with universal disdain and dismissal.
I only want to fight the battles I know, or least think, that I can win. Nobody is going to stop students from bringing their cell phones to school, so why not turn the tables on them and use their own strength to make them learn? It's very judo-like, and just like in judo, it works.
During third period, I thought of some points that I wanted to make, so I gave them a blast. It turns out that the coordinator of our academy had all the seniors during third period. Around the midway point of her class, every students' cell phone went off, almost simultaneously! She said, "The ringing! The ringing!"
After she climbed down from the ceiling, she called my classroom and gave me a dressing down. By the end of the period, when she came over to her office, which is in my classroom, she had been thinking about the potential of being able to contact all of the students at once. To her credit, instead of chewing me out, she walked in with lots of questions about how it worked.
Now I regularly "ping" our students with updates to schedules, assignment reminders, even wake-up calls. They answer with questions of their own. They even "ping" me regularly to let me know what they are up to. My phone vibrates, though, so I never get "the ringing!"
Cell phones are so powerful, I think it's a shame to keep them away from students. Sure, there will be abuses, just like every other aspect of high school, but by leveraging their phones instead of banning them, we coop their technology into an educational tool, instead of a nuisance.
Every new tool has met with resistance. Even paper and pencil was resisted by teachers who up until that time had their students using slate and chalk. Not that long ago, teachers were resisting the use of projectors that showed images from their computers. When I first started teaching in 2000, I taught in a middle school where there were only three projectors available for teachers to use. I went to the tech coordinator (remember when we had those?) and asked for one. He sternly told me that I could use it until another teacher asked for it, then I would have to share. I was at the school for two years, nobody ever asked.
When the school I am at now opened two years ago, I told the teachers in my small learning community that I could show them how to get class notes onto their students' iPods, as a .txt file. That way they could review the notes on a tool that they carried around with them all the time. My suggestion was met with universal disdain and dismissal.
I only want to fight the battles I know, or least think, that I can win. Nobody is going to stop students from bringing their cell phones to school, so why not turn the tables on them and use their own strength to make them learn? It's very judo-like, and just like in judo, it works.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Send in the Clouds
Cloud computing is a natural step in the evolution of the digital workspace. As server space and Internet connections get cheaper, it makes sense to move work off the desktop and into the cloud. And with the proliferation of free services, most notably the Google suite of office apps, it doesn't even have to cost to go all cumulonimbus.
As recently as 2007, a story in the NY Times (http://nyti.ms/dD6ZYz) asked "Why Can’t We Compute in the Cloud?" But from another piece published later that year, Google was already explaining the cloud in terms we could all understand. "'Cloud computing' — essentially software hosted on the server instead of on the desktop — is a natural outgrowth of Google’s model and network of datacenters around the globe." (http://nyti.ms/bXaY4y). And in an NPR story from last year, "Cloud computing has also been likened to utility computing, whereby individuals and companies purchase additional network bandwidth, storage and computation capacity as on-demand services — the same way people buy more electricity to fuel their power needs. Historically, different companies have handled these elements" (http://bit.ly/cLePL7).
With the advent of the netbook, a laptop with a little memory and not much storage, the cloud makes a lot of sense. I'm posting this on a Dell netbook with 8gb of storage, It's too small to store anything, so almost all of my docs are on Google. I got 1gb of storage for free, but paid $5 to get 20gb!
"Cloud computing is a vehicle for using that technology. It enables users to work and collaborate completely online, without the need for special software, and independent of platform. Not only does distributed learning occur anywhere and at any time, but these conditions can be modified along a number of dimensions" (Oblinger, Barone, & Hawkins, 2001)
Needless to say, I'm a believer!
As recently as 2007, a story in the NY Times (http://nyti.ms/dD6ZYz) asked "Why Can’t We Compute in the Cloud?" But from another piece published later that year, Google was already explaining the cloud in terms we could all understand. "'Cloud computing' — essentially software hosted on the server instead of on the desktop — is a natural outgrowth of Google’s model and network of datacenters around the globe." (http://nyti.ms/bXaY4y). And in an NPR story from last year, "Cloud computing has also been likened to utility computing, whereby individuals and companies purchase additional network bandwidth, storage and computation capacity as on-demand services — the same way people buy more electricity to fuel their power needs. Historically, different companies have handled these elements" (http://bit.ly/cLePL7).
With the advent of the netbook, a laptop with a little memory and not much storage, the cloud makes a lot of sense. I'm posting this on a Dell netbook with 8gb of storage, It's too small to store anything, so almost all of my docs are on Google. I got 1gb of storage for free, but paid $5 to get 20gb!
"Cloud computing is a vehicle for using that technology. It enables users to work and collaborate completely online, without the need for special software, and independent of platform. Not only does distributed learning occur anywhere and at any time, but these conditions can be modified along a number of dimensions" (Oblinger, Barone, & Hawkins, 2001)
Needless to say, I'm a believer!
Sunday, February 21, 2010
iPad vs Netbooks
I've been thinking a lot about what Steve Jobs said during the roll out of the iPad. He said, "Everybody uses a laptop and/or a smart phone. And the question has arisen, lately, is there room for a device in the middle? We've questioned this for years ourselves, but the bar is pretty high. Some thought it would be the netbook. The problem is, netbooks aren't better at anything. They're slow, they're clunky. They're just cheap laptops." He then went on to extol the virtues of the iPad, saying that it is "way better than a laptop, way better than a smart phone".
I must admit that the iPad looks terrific, and I can't wait to get my hands on one, but after listening to Jobs et al for more than an hour, it occurred to me that there is very little that my netbook does that isn't better than the iPad. It's got a faster processor, it displays Flash on websites, it has a real keyboard, it can run any of the thousands of open-source applications available free from the Internet, it can attach to a printer, I can (and have) change the operating system, and so on. In fact, the only things that my netbook can't do as well as the iPad are battery life (Jobs claims ten hours for the iPad, my netbook only gets four), ability to show movies (my Linux netbook doesn't do that very well at all), and its weight (the iPad weighs eight ounces less than my netbook). The iPad can also connect wirelessly using 3G, and while my netbook doesn't do that, many do.
Any talk of the iPad is speculation, of course, since we won't get to try one for another month or two, but it does beg the question, is the iPad worth getting? It is drool-worthy, and very cool, in an Apple sort of way. Time will tell if the iPad is the game changer that Jobs claims it is, or just an iPod that nobody has a pocket big enough to fit it into. We'll know when (if) we see iPads popping out on street corners, in restaurants, on subways, and maybe even in schools.
But what if the iPad was so cool that students would never leave home without it? What if we could put every textbook a student would need in their high school career on it? What if students could use it to communicate with each other, and the teacher? What if it made students work harder, by encouraging them to turn it on and play around with it? What if lunch time found hundreds of students huddled into groups around campus collaborating wirelessly? What if it actually made students want to come to school?
It might be a game changer after all!
A pencil is a word processor
Suppose I were to offer you a fantastic word processor, capable of operating in any language, readily available, that people from 1 to 100 could easily use, that is small, portable, and needs no batteries. There is such a word processor. It is called a pencil.
Now suppose I were to offer you a personal computer, so powerful that it could be used for any number of tasks, is portable, and user friendly. And nearly every one of your students already has one, so you don't even have to supply them. It's the cell phone! It is the most pervasive computer in the world.
Most teachers are well aware of cell phones, mostly as a nuisance in class, where they spend a lot of time taking them away from students. Well, you wouldn't take away their pencil, so why take away the cell phone?
The cell phone may be used as a computation device, a camera, a text messaging device, portable storage, a music player, a word processor, and probably more. Why on earth would I take that away from my student? Besides, as you probably already know, it's a losing battle, so why fight it?
Of my 150 students, about two-thirds have a cell phone. I have their numbers, and they have mine. If a student is habitually late to school, I give them a call to wake them up. If a student is absent, I send a text message to ask where they are. If a student has a problem that they need help with, they get in touch with me directly. I remind them of upcoming assignments. Other teachers, who know what I am doing, ask me to get in touch with students for various reasons.
The obvious objection from teachers is that phones are a distraction in class. In my day, I doodled, with a pencil. You know, that other word processor.
Now suppose I were to offer you a personal computer, so powerful that it could be used for any number of tasks, is portable, and user friendly. And nearly every one of your students already has one, so you don't even have to supply them. It's the cell phone! It is the most pervasive computer in the world.
Most teachers are well aware of cell phones, mostly as a nuisance in class, where they spend a lot of time taking them away from students. Well, you wouldn't take away their pencil, so why take away the cell phone?
The cell phone may be used as a computation device, a camera, a text messaging device, portable storage, a music player, a word processor, and probably more. Why on earth would I take that away from my student? Besides, as you probably already know, it's a losing battle, so why fight it?
Of my 150 students, about two-thirds have a cell phone. I have their numbers, and they have mine. If a student is habitually late to school, I give them a call to wake them up. If a student is absent, I send a text message to ask where they are. If a student has a problem that they need help with, they get in touch with me directly. I remind them of upcoming assignments. Other teachers, who know what I am doing, ask me to get in touch with students for various reasons.
The obvious objection from teachers is that phones are a distraction in class. In my day, I doodled, with a pencil. You know, that other word processor.
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