blogging through grad school
I’m set to defend my dissertation this winter. Given administrative routing, bureaucratic wait-times, and committee member scheduling, I’d guess that mid-January, before the Spring semester starts, will be the time. I’ve diagrammed the outline for the dissertation here. All of the papers that constitute it have either been presented at refereed conferences.
Last week was the College and University Faculty Assembly (CUFA) and National Council for Social Studies (NCSS) in Houston, TX (link). Proposed by Steve Camicia of Utah State, the symposium I was on included Simone Schweberof UW-Madison, Jeremy Stoddard from the College of William and Mary. The Discussant was Diana Hess of UW-Madison.This is a video of the slides I presented. Someday when I’m not working on finishing my final dissertation chapters, I’d like to do a proper “voice-over” version of my presentations, but until then Count Basie and others will have to provide backup to the visuals.
The following text is the accepted symposium proposal, and paper descriptions. Mine’s #3. Ideological struggles often find their way into the curriculum because the curriculum contains assumptions about what interpretation of reality is ‘legitimate’, ‘ good’, ‘true’, ‘neutral’, and ‘official’ (Apple, 2000). Theorists point to the connection between ideology and the curriculum in areas such as family (Turner-Vorbeck, 2006), community (Katriel & Nesher, 1986), nationalism (Anderson, 1991), patriotism (Westheimer, 2006), identity (Baxter, 2002), terrorism (XXX [blind], 2007), religion (XXX [blind], 2006), human migration (XXX [blind], 2007), and capitalism. Theorists have also described how curriculum promotes knowledge construction of concepts such as race (Foster, 2006; King, 2004), gender (Tetreault, 1986), and imperialism (Willinsky, 1998). It is no wonder that the curriculum is a tinderbox of controversy.
The public school curriculum is a political statement that defines the public interest (Pinar, 2003). The public interest is expressed by what perspectives and ideologies are included in the curriculum. What is or is not included in the social studies curriculum has been a perennial source of contention. Inclusion signals what is valued or in the public interest and exclusion signals what is not (Eisner, 2002). In sum, curriculum disputes are competitions between different ideologies concerning what is in the public interest. What should we include, or not, in the social studies curriculum in order to best serve our students and society? Nowhere is this question more contentious than in the teaching of controversial issues because educators decide whether and how controversial perspectives are included in curriculum.
Because the public school curriculum is embedded in the ebbs and flows of the ideological struggles of society at large, the degree to which an issue in the curriculum is considered controversial also ebbs and flows. For example, the issue of the Japanese American Internment was once taught as a controversial issue, but now it is generally considered as a non-controversial issue. Gladwell (2000) describes large shifts in the political and ideological terrain of society as the ‘tipping’ of a scale. When a critical mass of society adopts a new ideology or the political landscape shifts, the scale tips toward change. Hess (2007) describes the categorization of an issue in the curriculum as controversial or non-controversial in a similar way. When a tip occurs in society, a controversial issue in the curriculum often follows suit. The curriculum reflects these tips by the degree to which students are encouraged to express varying perspectives. Issues that are tipped toward being non-controversial are ‘closed’ to more than one perspective, and issues that are tipped toward being controversial are ‘open’ to multiple perspectives. Disagreements over whether an issue is open or closed are central to many curriculum controversies.
The proposed symposium will stimulate conversation about the contemporary borderland where tips occur in the social studies curriculum. How do contexts such as shifting political and ideological landscapes tip the social studies curriculum toward being open or closed? How do educators and curriculum developers decide what is and is not a controversial issue, or in other words, how can we know if a tip has occurred? Can we know when a tip occurs? What is included in or excluded from the curriculum as a result of these tips? What influences do teachers have upon tips? Should teachers as gatekeepers (Thornton, 2005) always accommodate these tips? How do new technologies or social phenomenon influence these tips? How does local context influence whether an issue is considered opened or closed? Finally, what do these tips tell us about social studies education in a pluralistic democracy?
Paper #1: Controversies surrounding the teaching of religion within the elementary public school curriculum.This paper discusses current controversies surrounding the teaching of religion within the elementary public school curriculum. Though widely viewed as fundamental to multiculturalism and important to understand in today’s world, religion, as a subject matter, is fraught with teaching dilemmas. Should teachers disclose their religious views? (And, is this kind of disclosure akin to or different from political disclosure, a topic which is much better documented in the research literature? See, for example, Hess, forthcoming.) Is teaching about Christianity equivalent to teaching about Judaism, Islam, Buddhism or Atheism–if so, why and if not, when? What social conditions ‘tip’ the contexts for controversies about the teaching of religion? Which contexts even matter? This paper uses the case of a Kindergarten teacher who taught a robust unit on religion–and not only the religions represented among her students–as the basis for discussing some of the thorny theoretical issues that plague pluralistic democracies.
Paper #2: Teaching in the tip: Using “educational” film to teach controversial historical events
This paper presents findings from a collective case study of two teachers’ use of documentary film to teach about controversial historical events: 1) the use of atomic weapons by the U.S. on Japan at the end of World War II using Hiroshima (1995), and 2) the role of the U.S. in Vietnam using Letters Home from Vietnam (1987). The teachers’ practice with these films revealed a tension between their personal views about the “right” answer regarding the events and their goals for students and to engage openly with controversial events and issues, or what Hess (2007) refers to as “teaching in the tip.” Both teachers ask students to openly examine multiple perspectives on each event and take a position using evidence to support his/her stance. The activities the teachers construct and films they select, however, show that they are privileging (Hess, 2005) their own perspectives on the events. For example, one of the teachers asks students to take a position on the role of the U.S. in Vietnam, but during the viewing asks students to identify at least three compelling reasons why the U.S. was doomed to fail in Vietnam, thus establishing students “reading” of the event through the film, which served as the major source of evidence. The selection of the film was also used to privilege the teachers’ perspective. For example, the film Hiroshima includes reasons for and against the use of atomic weapons, but favors an anti-bomb message through the use of a powerful film of the destruction and interviews with Japanese survivors. The impact on students varied, but the teachers’ pedagogy and the films’ representations had a strong influence on the beliefs of students who didn’t have a position or who had little knowledge of the events prior to the activities. Students also struggled in identifying the perspectives of the films and of their teachers. The author utilizes and expands upon the concept of the “tip” to better understand what it looks like in terms of teacher practice, the role of teacher ideology in the selection and use of classroom media, and the impact on students’ beliefs about the events.
Paper #3: Into the Woods: Fear, Masculinity, and Video Games Hit the Trail
This paper discusses the introduction of a location-based handheld video game in the curriculum of a primitive deep woods summer camp for boys. Controversies simmer over this geography and outdoor curriculum. Stakeholders on both sides of the issue struggle over ideologies over human connections to the environment. This paper examines the game and the battle over a ‘tip’ toward technology in the social studies curriculum.
Played throughout a 4-day hiking trip, the Augmented Reality (AR) game triggered the display of place-specific just-in-time information leading campers through a game narrative “to save the camp” while directing them to explore areas on and off established trails. Findings indicate that the game narrative motivated deeper participation in the trip, and navigational assistance from the game’s Global Positioning System (GPS) eased players’ fears, reassuring them as they ventured beyond their comfort zone.
The study also raises issues regarding masculinity, environmentalism, and tradition, as embedded in the camp community culture. Foremost, as a video game at a “primitive” deep woods camp for boys that has no electricity and telephone, it bucks a culture that is sometimes disdainful of certain manifestations of technology (e.g. LED flashlights and high-tech garments are good, but iPods are bad). Additionally, in encouraging players to go off main trails in order to avoid enemy scouts, the game narrative contradicts a basic tenet of environmental Leave-No-Trace guidelines — to stay on trails.
Furthermore, while some boys attributed the addition of GPS and games to opening up the possibility of “more hard-core” trip, some felt the high-tech navigational aids (v.s map and compass on a typical trip) emasculated them. Finally, framing the hiking trip through a “silly” game narrative trivialized their experience.Beyond the culture of the camp, the video game-based curriculum broaches larger contentious questions. For example, do the ecological costs of the extra traffic off trail in the local mountains outweigh the pollution and gas costs to van the trip to a state park? Is this type of woods-based informal education safe enough in the nation’s current culture of fear where parents are reluctant to be disconnected from their children, even beyond the tether of the mobile phone, for 2-7 weeks? If this sort of place-based AR game makes for good learning, then where is the equity for families who cannot afford to send their kids to camps where it occurs?
Paper #4: Teaching the Japanese American Internment: A case of curriculum controversy
This paper examines the case study of a 2004 curriculum controversy over Leaving Our Homes, a sixth grade U.S. history curriculum. The curriculum claimed that the WWII internment of Japanese Americans was a grave mistake. This was the dominant interpretation in the community where the curriculum was taught, but the “wrongfulness claim” was challenged by a small group of parents who claimed that the internment was done out of military necessity and not a mistake. They pointed to a school district policy on controversial issues, which stated that all sides of a controversial issue must be included in the social studies curriculum. According to the challengers of the Leaving Our Homes curriculum, the issue of the wrongfulness of government actions against the Japanese American community was still controversial, and students should have been given information supporting a “military necessity” claim. To these parents, a tip toward excluding the ‘military necessity’ claim had not occurred. They cited government reactions after the attacks of September 11 and a New York Times bestselling book (Malkin, 2004) as an indication that society had not tipped, or in other words, the Japanese American Internment was still controversial. They demanded that the curriculum be revised to include their views. Although parents were not able to convince the school to change the “wrongfulness claim”, the curriculum was changed in substantial ways. Critical discourse analysis was used to interpret interviews with stakeholders on both sides of the controversy. Findings shed light on how a group with an unpopular ideology was able to make changes in the social studies curriculum. How do public schools in a liberal democracy react when some community members dispute whether a tip has occurred? How are competing ideologies concerning what is and is not a controversial issue negotiated? What claims can stakeholders such as students, parents, and educators make on deciding whether an issue in the social studies curriculum should be considered controversial?
I hate air travel.
and on Monday (after an all-to-brief Northern CA vacation)
Yes, I’d hate driving more. And, yes, it’s important enough to go to theses places that I put up with air travel, but honestly, I wish I’d checked out AmTrak fares…
On Friday, November 7, at the Green Charter Schools Conference, I was invited to present on my research on place-based games in the “Outta-The-Box” Schools & Anywhere, Anytime Learning section.
Technological innovations are changing the ways young people learn. In innovative new environment-focused schools, students can attain knowledge and skills through mobile and wireless technology no matter where they are — in the classroom, in the field, or online. Through educational programs that utilize real-world situations, epistemic and augmented reality games, and place-based learning, students can connect with their community, gain an understanding of the local ecology, and engage in environmental planning simulations and significant projects. Green charter schools with student-centric learning are redefining what it means to be an educated person.
My presentation was on “New Technologies for Local Learning.” This is the gist of it:
I have no secret sources to back this up — it’s pure speculation. But at the last Apple press conference (iPod), Steve Jobs allowed that there were some unkept secrets that had been leaked. So I wonder if Apple’s planted a red herring with all these “leaked” pics and video of the notebooks that will be released tomorrow.
What if the a model was made that went in a different direction than what will be announced tomorrow, or an old rejected prototype was photographed and fed to the rumor mills?
What if tomorrow’s spotlight on notebooks brings products that look nothing at all like the “leaked” items?
Then Jobs would be able to stand on stage, and smile, because his audience thinks he’s going to announce what looks like a pretty boring upgrade, and he can announce something totally different, and deal a friendly blow to the rumor sites.
That would please him tremendously I think.
But as I heard her explain her research — she wants to help landowners learn to be better stewards of their woodlands — I realized it hit the crux of my research, which is PBI (Place-Based Inquiry). The fact that I use Augmented Reality in PBI, is sort of happenstance, and secondary.Landowners (often) love their land. They have a Keatsian Romantic attachment to it (as I expect I would). Mary talked about going on tours of their land with them, and how proudly the landowners would recount the number of frog species, or point out the significance of various locations — “where my son shot his first buck” (or “fell out of a tree trying”).
…that’s the field-based inquiry work, next comes the research:
They’d at least–
Throughout the process, they’d be engaging in first-rate Place-Based Inquiry, and building their own stories/narratives connecting themselves to the land via one more interaction/experience with the land. This makes them better environmentalists (albeit through capitalistic/selfish means — their legacy). So this is yet another idea for this Geo-tagging form of PBI.
The other day I met with Mary Sisock, a doctoral student in Forestry here at UW-Madison. She’d been told to track me down and ask about using AR in her research. My initial thoughts were “how can AR be used in Forestry? — I don’t know…” and I wondered how fictional stories about real land motivating campers to hike could be applied there. It’s a big stretch.
This is what we figured she could do:
Last Spring, Gwen Drury contacted me about incorporating AR in the planning for a new Union South at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Problem: The UW is redoing Union South to the tune of a couple million bucks, and she wanted to know if AR could help them figure out how best to do that. 
Solution: Was not available then (Jan. 2008) but is now. A PBI experience using a Remote Editor (or GPS) to mark and photograph “the best places of the UW” and indicate why the user thinks that. Consider a variation of some of the location-aware iPhone applications that are coming out these days. What if there were one by the UW (and every other campus) that featured a map of the campus, and the opportunity to survey the campus (place-specific questions) for a $5 gift certificate to the Union or some such incentive.The university could get great place-specific information to help them identify (and get rich qualitative and quantitative data) on what works and what doesn’t for the members of the campus community. This data can then be incorporated into their campus planning. It also gives the participants an opportunity to experience the campus in a much deeper way than typical.(Also a good way to give an independent campus tour).
Just finished reading BIY, Bike-It-Yourself: Parking on the dane101 blog, and it referred to “duck-bill” bike racks as an economical and efficient style of rack made in-house at the UW-Madison. I hope that “duck-bill” refers to the style of rack in the photo here. If so, major kudos to the folks who came up with it! It’s a fabulous rack!Why is it fabulous?
It is not as “pretty” of a rack as the inverted U-style racks that litter the space around the newly renovated Grainger Hall, but those inverted U-style racks don’t hold the bikes up well, so the bikes fall down and the place looks crappy — a perfect example of a committee design where no one was a biker. They look great when they’re empty. It is a design that looks and works much better than the angle racks where only bike wheels are held (unless the bike has fenders — those don’t fit and fall over). Hopefully, we’ll see more of these “duck-bill” (if that is what they’re called) racks around campus (and the world!).
So much fun following predictions for Apple’s “Let’s Rock!” event today. My pick is Job’s retirement. Here’s why: “In the phrase “Let’s Rock,” the rock symbolizes Job’s gravestone (we all should have clearly realized this when his obituary was released). It also hints at the iXcaliber sword in the stone that Arthur (aka Ives?) needs to pull out. It also explains the mysterious comment that “our stocks will temporarily drop this fall while we undergo a major product transition…” from the shareholders’ meeting this summer.
Arguably, Apple’s most major product is Jobs (Reality Distortion Field), and the transition to Ives and his toilet-smooth product design will cause investors to be wary temporarily, until they see how well it all flushes out.
It’s all very brilliant, and humorously understated in typical Apple fashion. And framed positively as a party — “Let’s rock!” Hopefully there will be new laptops unveiled (shipping immediately) as well because I really need one. Also on my wish list is an iPod Touch (phoneless) with GPS and camera that we can use to create our Augmented Reality Games for schools (so they don’t have to buy iPhones and 2-year phone contracts).
Apologies to myself and anyone else for the delay in updating this. Facebook now gets the daily status updates, and I’ve been knee-deep at camp all summer.Fall is quickly approaching, and I’m writing up the last bits of my dissertation, tightening up what I’ve already written and prepping a bunch of articles to submit to journals. I’m pretty sure I’m not doing it as effectively as I might be, but that’s all in the spirit of “good learning” (ie. from mistakes), right? I’ll get through it all.The big news, as far as my research interests are concerned, is that the iPhone has a dozen or so Apps for place-based, or location-contextualized reporting. This means that people can start making notes on specific places (geo-annotation). Time flies when you’re having fun, and when you’re ABD. Maybe I’ll be finished just as the whole iPhone craze fizzles (ha! no way, I’m finishing this year!).
I’ve been working on my AERA presentations and actually touching up the papers that have been submitted. I’m not sure I can adjust the official versions, but I’ll try…In the meantime, there are copies available here: regardingjohn.com/papers.
Wifi Army is recently-developed FPS AR game that is reportedly going to work on the Google Android platform. Now, a First-Person-Shooter isn’t my dream Augmented Reality game, but having played laser tag last week, I have to admit that it might be fun.
It was the WYSI-WordPress plug-in. I disabled it and can now post. SO, an interesting thing with WordPrress i sthat it only gives me about ten seconds of posting time before it freezes up an and doenslt let me type anymore. Ok, so this time it’s giving meThe trick, it seems, is to adjust the size of t
The biggest announcement at Macworld San Francisco Keynote was not the MacBook Air. It was that the Google Maps “App” on the iPhone is now location-sensitive.
Press the “Location button” to the left of the Search button in the pic, and the map shows you where you are. It’s based on the triangulation of signals (cell phone towers and wireless hotspots), so if you’re in a wifi-heavy city, it should be somewhat accurate.
This is one step away from having a Location button in Google that lets you do a proximity search for, say, nearby coffee shops, restaurants, etc. — or…
In other words, this is what I was talking about 2 years (and 3 days) ago here.
My prediction? Less than one year day from now yesterday (ie. I missed it when I wrote this post because I hadn’t updated my own iPhone, but it’s already there on the iPhone’s version of Google. See pic on left!) Google will add that Location button to their Search engine (based on wifi signals). In less than 2 years, it will be standard on all new mobile phones. By then we’ll also be adding local content via mobile devices. Imagine webquests that are also physical scavenger hunts, where you collect pictures of things on your mobile device — I bet it can be done now.
We need to continue developing games that take advantage of the Place-Based Inquiry (PBI) that this technology affords.
Google’s word on Maps is here.
I was sad to have lots of SPAM comments. I installed Bad Behavior.
Q: I have been blocked by Bad Behavior! What do I do?
A: In extremely rare circumstances, Bad Behavior may block actual human visitors. Bad Behavior was designed to target robots, not people.
These “extremely rare circumstances” apparently hit a lot of folks (like me) just after my last post. And I’ve finally gotten around to dealing with it.
New posts coming…
For Rufus, really. Well, for our runs.
So far, I haven’t been able to find a leash that has all these features (oh, and of course, I want a well-made, quality leash).
I have a few different instruments now, but no stands for them. I think I’d like 2 of these (Musicians Gear Tubular Guitar Stand). On sale now for $7.99. Of course, there are others out there that would be just as good and lovely,and although it’s been said that I’m picky, I rarely look a gift horse in the mouth.
There’s still time to give one and get one. I’d love to see one in person, and half expect to run into one at some coffeeshop some day (I’m in Madison after all, you’d think that the area around MIT would be the only other place to have more around).
I, of course, cannot afford one two (not after getting my iPhone at least), or I’d get some to give as christmas presents. Actually, if I had one I could see in person and take for a test drive, maybe I’d find the cash somewhere.
Running: I hadn’t mentioned it before, but I’ve been running for the past two months. I’m currently doing 30-45 minute runs every other day with Rufus at the dog park. One of these days I’ll bring a GPS unit and see what that is in miles.
Biking: I found a possible replacement frame for my 54cm Peugeot Bordeaux in the shape of 56cm Peugeot UO8. The bottom bracket on the Bordeaux is chewed up and probably not worth trying to find parts for/replace. And the headset is dished, so it’s given me a good life, but it might be time to recycle it on Craigslist. I haven’t taken the components off the UO8 yet, and am currently enjoying it as a geared bike, but I *do* miss the fixie ride, so it won’t be long before I convert it to a fixed gear.
Scholarship: (that’s an odd word for me to use. It feels pretentious).
School: different than Scholarship because it’s my Embodied Cognition class, that I was a bit unimpressed with at first, but am now loving because all the Psyc field we’ve done are affirming my Education-based theories. (See my PBI posts).
Rufus: He and Suki have started chewing up pillows, plastic bags, cardboard, etc. We’re wondering why. Theory: last year I bought him stuffed animals from the thrift store to destroy, but this year he just has bone. He’s a killer and needs to rip guts out. That’s our theory. So we bought a bagload of stuffed varmits yesterday. We’ll see.
House: Bought 2 face cord of split red oak (split into pretty big chunks, methinks). So we’re having fires in the fireplace 2-3 times a week. That cozifies the whole house. Speaking of cozy, I also found a big lovesac-style bag love seat that I’m afraid to leave on the floor now that the dogs have gotten chewy…
Video Games: To my amazing surprise, I’ve learned to really like two driving games. Well, one is really a crashing game (Burnout 2, which I’ve become pretty good at because, perhaps, it’s like pool in a way), and the other is sort of a crashing/jumping game too (ATV Offroad Fury). I still find Grand Turismo 3 and 4 to be tedious and boring, but maybe that’s because I still stink at them. Also Simpsons Road Rage (as Homer would say “BO-ring!), and Spyhunter (dumb). Still can’t afford/justify a Wii, even though I recognize that it’s the epitome of a social and active game, and that’s the kind of game that I’m most interested in.
Does anyone else wonder why Google chose to upgrade their email to IMAP the day before Apple released Leopard?
Hmm…
Ah, those MIT folks! In eLens they’ve done (and/or “are doing”) what I’ve been pushing for since this October 2005 post. Almost.
Based on visual tag recognition, the ELens application allows to read visual tags, locate them on a map, record and name information, browse and access content, reply to messages, set up groups, and configure the settings for personal use.
The difference, and one that I feel may be a significant barrier to widespread usage, is that this appears to rely on already-installed signs, like the [murmur] project. No sign? No content.
What I envisioned is a sort of mobile version of Panaramio/Wikipedia that allows *any* geographic location (except probably Dick Cheney’s house) to be fair game for information. This is currently doable in Google Earth via overlays, but unless one has a GPS-enabled computer capable of running Google Earth, it’s not really very doable. (I suspect that in a few more revisions of the iPhone — or Google Phone — people will start to have that power. But we’ll see).
The Globe and Mail offer this article: Behold, the trends that will unchain us from the office. The author speaks of a crazy future only 10 years from now:
By 2017, knowledge-based jobs will be free to move anyplace. “We’ll take it for granted that you can go anywhere and get wireless Internet access,” Mr. Cooper adds. Most people will carry mobile Internet devices (”the iPhone on steroids”) with instant messaging, e-mail, a phone, GPS functions and productivity applications, he says.
…come 2017, “context-aware” mobile services will allow people to control and manage the kind of information they receive, and when and where they receive it, Mr. McDevitt says. For example, a mobile user might choose to receive messages or calls based on who they are from, or what kind of information they contain; calls and messages from clients and business prospects might be given greater priority than administrative e-mail from the office. And of course, the device will know where the user is at all times.
… “In addition, with the move to ecological sensitivity, we will see increased pressure to keep people from commuting,” Mr. Cooper says. “Wireless will be the foundation. People will demand it. There will be no computers in fixed locations.”
My own thoughts on this are that ten years is a long time to wait. I might, however, be riding on a high tech high, fueled by my recent iPhone purchase (love it), but if I have to wait ten years for this stuff, there’s a serious problem.
Okay, so there *is* already a serious problem: our nation has goofy priorities and seems to have largely given up on itself and its people. We aren’t spending the money we should be spending on a public technological infrastructure, universal health care, sustainability, or public education. Instead we’re exhausting our resources fighting a preemptive war against a country that was never a threat, defending the rights of corporations to plunder a poorly-educated populace that “should know better how to manage their money,” while at the same time cutting the money meant to educate that populace, or diverting it to the private corporations that make standardized tests designed to measure failure more than success.
But I guess I’m optimistic, and hope that we’ll be over that soon (hopefully far less than ten years!), and well on our way to having an intelligent infrastructure to support an intelligent populace, because I believe strongly that with the right tools, we can learn and do amazing things.
I’ll try not to gush. It’s only been a day. There is, however, a very strong tickle I get when I encounter great design (ROTFL).
Phone: sure, whatever. I’m not a big user of minutes, but the iPhone does this mundane task beautifully. Just being able to separate my most frequent calls into “favorites” while still having quick access to my entire address book is almost worth the price of admission (yes, it’s still steep).
Visual Voice Mail: Are you kidding? I couldn’t wait to answer all my calls today, so there’s no voicemails to look at.
Email: I wish I could see all my accounts together, as way I can in Apple Mail, but that would be icing on an already delicious cake.
Safari: Kind of wonderful, but I miss Homestarrunner.com (even though Flash sucks, it *is* pervasive, and semi-required for web browsing).
Notes: Let me address the user-input here. There’s no copy-paste??!! I am learning to type fairly quickly with the touch screen solution though. I *really* want a better ability to edit things.
Calendar: This is why I bought the iPhone. I needed a better calendar solution than my Sony Ericsson w600i gave me. This does it. I can access my Google calendar through Safari, and add with “Quick Add” — but I can’t edit them after the fact.
Apple’s iCal is pretty good for input, and because I set up my iCal (on the Mac) to subscribe to my Google calendars, they sync to iCal on the iPhone. But I can’t make changes to the Google calendar events — only the events that I created on the iPhone, or in iCal. This is a bother.
Still, it’s much better than what I was dealing with, and since scheduling has become incredibly important for me in the last few years, it’s nice to have a tool that helps.
YouTube: Only the YouTube videos that have undergone a special Google-Apple-process are viewable (because standard YouTube is Flash-dependent), but there are a lot of them. None of mine are, of course. I think Apple and Adobe are having another tif. But seriously, YouTube is not a feature that I need; it’s fun for small parties, but that’s about it.
Maps: This knocked me out. The step by step directions are wonderful. The interface and resolution are outstanding. Now Apple just needs to add GPS, and Google’s MyMaps.
Camera: Image quality is noticably better than my Sony Ericcson w600i’s 1.3mp camera, but it’s even more evident because of the amazing screen. No flash here either. But it’s enough of a camera that I’m going to stop carrying my trusty Pentax WPi with me everywhere I go. This may not last long if I find the resolution too limiting, or want video capture. We’ll see if I can stand it.
Stocks: Hmm… glad I’m not in that world.
Weather: I may look at this — oh, 69F and storming, that seems about right — it *does* look pretty, but I’ve never made much use of the widget, or been a Weather channel addict, so I don’t see it being a big draw.
iPod: I forget that this has an iPod. I bought a 2nd generation iPod, and hated it because I don’t like to isolate myself. I’d rather be in the world with all my senses. So I’m not sure about this one. I’ve started running, so I envision putting my research interviews on it to listen to while I run, or maybe NPR Podcasts like “This American Life” — we’ll see. I *do* have most of the videos of last year’s research interviews on it. They are not very entertaining.
Misc.: The web versions of Google Mail, Google Calendar, Google Reader, etc. are nice. I expect that they will get even better once Apple gets used to their success here, and ease up on their currently iron-fisted control over the iPhone.
Overall, I’m a fan.
The folks at PARC have got it right, as evidenced in this CNET article, From PARC, the mobile phone as tour guide
Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC–the Xerox subsidiary that was the birthplace of the computer mouse, the graphical user interface and Ethernet–has developed a mobile application that offers up information that would be useful to a wanderer–things like shops, restaurants and event listings based on your location (via the GPS device in the phone) and the time of day, as well as your preferences and past behavior.
This is the commercial realization of my AR-on-mobile post of January 2006. But it still needs user input, like a Wikipedia for place, as I wrote about in October 2005. When the software reaches that point (and a simple, accessible web browser, which we have, and a good input method, which we don’t quite have despite the iPhone’s attempt at it), and we’ll have a fairly comprehensive place-based learning system.
Are you listening PARC? Let the user produce content. Tap into their local expertise. Restaurant reviews, shortcuts, late-breaking news. All that stuff.
I missed this June 28, 2007 BusinessWeek article — CEOs Must Be Designers, Not Just Hire Them. Think Steve Jobs And iPhone — over the summer, when I was in Maine, but thanks to Internet technology (and research, and a love for good design), I found it again. It’s Bruce Nussbaum’s (NussbaumOnDesign) essentially arguing the need for a deep understanding of design at the top levels of business.
There are a number of bottom lines in it but perhaps the most important is that I now believe that CEOs and managers must know Design Thinking to do their jobs. CEOs must be designers and use their methodologies to actually run companies. Let me be even more precise. Design Thinking is the new Management Methodology. There are a growing number of insightful folks with great blogs who are saying the same thing and I’ll be linking to them and having a deep conversation with them in the future.
He is, essentially, buttressing my pedagogical stance. Design is where it’s at. But we’re not talking about the guy alone in the studio; we’re talking about people who have their fingers on the pulse of their communities, who can collect and translate the often-ambiguous, seemingly conflicting murmurs of community problems and needs into elegant solutions, and have the communication skills necessary to relate the design back to the community as a unifying solution.
My take, again, is that our current system of formal education cannot do that. It needs to change. I propose that it needs to start with an understanding of place, that it be fun (games), include powerful tools of simulation and design (computers), and social collaboration (online spaces).
Bought a new Jay Turser JT-133 semi hollow-body guitar this morning, on eBay. Walnut. Should be good. At least a lot of people like the model.
Walked into the local St. Vinny “Dig’n'Save” looking for a cheap patio table. Saw a very cool, low-slung, retro, light oak bed frame for $10, and walked out with it. It’s very cool, and I’m thinking it will make a great head/footboard for the platform “trunk” bed I’m planning to make as soon as I find a cheap Hilti 267 circular saw, and get an EZ-Guide system for it (hahaha!).
And I walked out with some Rubbermaid plastic shelves for the (still too wet for wood or metal) basement.
Then I reinstalled the anti-SPAM plugins for this blog because the SPAM-bots have been leaving me lots of oh-so-helpful advice on how to improve my body/finances/sexlife. Which, thanks, but I’m pretty okay with where I’m at as far as those are all concerned.
That was the morning. The afternoon was spent in the Local Games Lab, setting up PDAs for Monday’s game. We’re not at plug-n-play yet. Stayed there until 6. Went home and set up the bed, cleaned/rearranged my room, etc. Needful things.
Today, instead of working on my AR research, I went to the Star Schools weekly meeting, but was told that they didn’t need me there because they were discussing control groups (nothing I’m interested in). So I worked on the curriculum documentation for the Wingra AR game instead — 122 pages and counting.
Then lunch.
Then off to the computer lab to work on my Flash class assignment, and –*BOOM!*– it’s 4pm already.
Obviously, I cannot sustain this and get my research writing done, so I’m dropping Flash class. Immediately. I know, it’s sad, but it’s 6 hours a week, plus homework, plus driving to the north end of town — maybe 15 hours total. That’s significant. But then, so is quality time with my dog, and well, research.
[Update, Sep 30th: In retrospect, this is a good idea if the goal is to waste time, because it takes time just to post something. So, I’m not doing it. I am, of course, still wasting time every day.]
As a goal for the semester’s worth of writing that I must do, I promised myself that I’d post something about my AR research each day. It’s a way to do some cumulative writing that will, hopefully all someday merge into a mass of research and eventually a dissertation. So, today’s post is about the video interviews I conducted of the kids who participated in my Augmented Reality Game research this summer at Flying Moose Lodge.
There were two 4-day implementations. On the first one, there were three people, and the game hardware broke after the first day (battery life), but they actually (amazingly) built that shortcoming into the game (Oh no! The communicator died!) and continued on with the game narrative with the standard GPS unit. I had a chance to do extended video interviews with two of the three participants.
On the second implementation, we sent out five people and three PDAs, directing them to use one at a time, and showing them how to navigate the hardware to start the next one, if the first should fail/die. They did just that: the first died, the second froze, and the third made it through to the end of the game!
This weekend and yesterday, I transferred all the DV tapes to iMovie. And this morning I’ve created “small” versions of them (file size) that I can begin to transcribe.
This is just to say that I’m not just sitting on my butt.
On WPR this morning, Joy Cardin interviewed Patricia Martin (audio here), and they discussed what Martin, a marketing consultant from Chicago terms the RenGen (Renaissance Generation) –
a cultural movement created by the confluence of art, education, entertainment and business. A powerful new player is at its center: the cultural consumer.
Cultural consumers thrive on information and ideas to fuel their creative self-expression. As the RenGen gathers force in our civilization, it will change how we live and work.
While there was a strong air of marketing and promotion for her book in the guest’s answers, she made some points made that bear serious consideration:
I’d suggest that the internet makes possible all sorts of connections never possible before, and exposes people to ideas that they’d probably not have been exposed to before (not all good, but not all bad either). Additionally, computers offer creative tools of expression that were not available in the near past, and the internet allows them to post and share them.
This is to say that it’s not the people who are instigating the change, it’s the structures that are allowing them to realize their pre-existing creative urges. I’d suggest that the primary reason that collage is the defining form of art is because the tools for making collage (cut and paste) are the most developed and common. If tools for animation (Flash, or the one I dream about, an Apple/Pixar collaboration, iAnimate) becomes developed enough to be accessible or intuitive, then animation might be the defining form. As is, all people can easily do is throw together awful collages to make their MySpace page fit their personality (and make my browser grind to a halt — very unattractive, btw).
She cited Constance Steinkuehler (”quite a visionary at the university in Madison”) and the story of one of C’s research participants who reached a goal in an MMOPRG and said he was going to celebrate by writing fan fiction about it. It’s a good example, but pretty anecdotal.
And fun to think about.
Yay, it’s back to looking like what it’s supposed to look like (mostly). I could spend some time making a few more tweaks (e.g. Search box is positioned wrong), or I could just let it go as “good enough” and focus on more important things. While I’m typically not one to let these things go, this time I will.
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