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...
]]>Theme for the SSAT conference in Birmingham is expressed as three questions
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?
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.
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.
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A new space is opened, a new process begins.
This is the last time. Promise. At least until iOS4.2 is released...
If Apple really want to crush it in the education space (and other spaces for that matter) the proxy issue needs to be sorted out. By my investigations proxy support is available but far from perfect. Safari for example can access the system network settings however podcast downloads with iTunes in iOS4 experiences difficulty (works with iOS3 though - something is changing!) If this is happening for "native" apps it is understandable why developers may be coy. PingChat! and Omnifocus try (please hang in there guys!) Android v2.1 (Eclair) has proxy support, this may be further improved with v2.2 (FroYo) and v3.0 (Gingerbread) is around the corner. If Apple get beaten to the punch on this the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad especially will lose some of its lustre.
This is where Apple's "up tightness" in the App Store could actually be useful. Fix the proxy support library and mandate it for all applications.
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A few years ago if technology was being discussed at a conference you would invariably hear, "It's not about the technology it's the pedagogy. The technology is just a tool." It doesn't happen as often at conferences anymore but in school workshops and discussions with individual educators it often pops up. I'm not convinced. I think it's the lizard brain talking. I sit a bit more in the Gary Stager camp on this one. It is about the technology people, and history has been teaching us this lesson for thousands of years.
At the moment the iPhone has one major advantage over any android handset for the education community and that is the ability to define proxy settings for a wireless connection. Without this feature any handset will be a second class citizen because users won't be able to take advantage of the organisations high speed Wi-Fi connection. In an earlier article I lamented how Ping!Chat Is the only application I have found in the iTunes App Store which negotiates a proxy server. It pops up a dialogue box asking for a username and password. It would be even better if it could pick these up from the system settings but it's better than not asking at all. (Latest version of Ping!Chat on iOS4 is not without its issues though)
Smart organisations will recommend the personal digital devices that work best on their networks and brand loyalty is a big thing (not to mention telco contracts!). One thing that Apple backs itself to the hilt on (for better or worse) is it's ability to keep you in the ecosystem.