A Qwiki could change everything

Search for a topic in Qwiki and it will give you a thirty second explanation with an accompanying slide-show of relevant images. So why is this newsworthy? As someone who possesses (at least for the moment) a well functioning brain and all five of my senses it's easy to forget what browsing the web and the process of learning can be like if you don't. The voice over with scrolling text and images makes the content easy to digest for me. Hearing or visually impaired? Reading or other associated learning difficulties? It would have to be downright fantastic. And it's in alpha. How good will it be as a mobile app with voice recognition? Wikipedia is SO 5 years ago...

Chicken or the egg?

Photo credit: TatankaIyotanka from morguefile.com

Theme for the SSAT conference in Birmingham is expressed as three questions

1. How should students learn?
2. What should students learn?
3. How can we remove the barriers to learning?

I am adding a fourth to the pile for my showcase session..
What should students produce?
And I'm posing it along with questions 1 and 2 as a three way chicken and egg problem (if that's possible!) Which one do you think should be addressed first?

And with one gulp, it was gone

An important update on the future of drop.io | Drop.io Blog

Today, we're proud to announce that we've struck a deal with Facebook. What this means is that Facebook has bought most of drop.io's technology and assets, and Sam Lessin is moving to Facebook.

I mean no frickin' way!
Drop.io was a favourite service of mine. I had been exploring different ways I could use it over the last twelve months with the intention of subscribing in the New Year. So much for that idea.
Now don't get Drop.io confused with Dropbox. I have a Dropbox account as well (shameless plug - sign up with my referral and we both get 250MB bonus!) which is super convenient for automatic online synchronisation of files or folders. You can share folders with other Dropbox users and even have a public Dropbox but it's personal first and collaborative second. Drop.io is the opposite. It doesn't synchronise but is a great tool for sharing files of all types. You could upload via web, email, Firefox extension, Facebook (Grrr!) and output through a webpage, RSS, iTunes or even fax. Super useful for hosting and distributing your own media files (bugger iTunesU!), collaborating with small groups or working with a class.
It's disappointing but what would have really sucked is if it had happened this time next year. I wonder how many people Drop.io have been "dropped in it" by the acquisition? I guess that's why they charge by the month.
Roll on Plan B.

Holy Galaxy Batman!

So I got a look at a Samsung Galaxy S the other day running Eclair (Android v2.1). To be truthful, I saw a student with one and pinched it to see if proxy support had been added. There was mutual benefit in this. For the phone to be effective on our network it had to support proxies so when we found out that it did we were both happy. Set up was straightforward. Web browser worked well but I did not get an opportunity to test any applications. ("Can I have my phone back now, please?" - Kids these days!)

It was only a matter of time until proxy support was added to the Android operating system. The annoying part is waiting for phones to be released with the later versions. This is perhaps not quite as annoying as if you have a handset with an older version but for various reasons can't upgrade. Small concession to Apple iOS in that department. I have bitten the budgetary bullet and ordered in some test units, HTC Desire, Samsung Galaxy S and Apple iPhone 4, in an effort to review the education environment aspects that are often overlooked.

Stay tuned.

An opening

A new space is opened, a new process begins.
Next step is working with the people.
That's the hard part.