Google Wave

...Bill Gates likes to say that at Microsoft they know only one thing: In four years, every product they make will be obsolete. The only question is whether Microsoft makes it obsolete or one of its competitors will.

-The Lexus & the Olive Tree (T. Friedman, p. 213)

Google Wave is a new "thing" out there that has generated quite a bit of conversation. Like anything new, it takes time for people to adopt it and generate the critical mass to make it successful. That said, I have had little experience with Google Wave although someone was kind of enough to invite me for an account. I am looking forward to checking it out. I think it makes a lot of sense and has loads of potential. I ran across this short video that explains Google Wave in a pretty simple, straightforward way. It might be worth checking out.

Automatic Captions

I recently saw this new feature discussed on the Google blog. It takes Youtube videos and automatically adds captions to them. The obvious application is the assistance to the hearing impaired. However, I think the potential of this type of technology is pretty cool, especially when applied to searching content without user effort to tag media.

Google also claims the captions can be downloaded into text. If you want to quote someone from a video, this makes it significantly easier. The use of captions can also be tied to certain cues in the video so you can skip to particular sections with ease.

Google translation tools can also translate video captions to other languages. Talk about crossing languages and making videos global...

A small blurb on the news but I see huge potential impacts and uses.

Screencasting

Screencasting is a great tool for a number of reasons. Whether you want to show a route on a Google map, have students explain their work, or demo a new web tool with instructions for other staff or students, screencasting can be really quick and easy. A newer tool that is great because you don't have to download anything is Screenr. I also like Jing.

Both of these tools allow easy posting to a website or Youtube. Both are free and easy to use. See my last post on Math tools for an example. I used Jing on that one.

Extending Math with Technology Tools

Math continues to increase its presence on the web, particularly for educational purposes. The advantage of many of these tools allow students to access differentiated skill practice and improve at their own rate. It also allows students to make some of the more abstract manipulations and concepts more real.

One such site I recently ran across was GeoGebra. It has an entire wiki devoted to educational uses. The website claims it seeks to go beyond some of the geometry manipulations and directly link algebra to some geometry concepts. It seems to have an array of options and ways for students to manipulate objects. In just a couple minutes I was able to take a screencast of this example:

Reuters reports on an Oxford professor who has developed a subscription service of video games that engage students in real world problem solving and fun. He calls his site Manga High. I checked out some samples and the site definitely looked pretty good at challenging students in engaging ways.

One of our elementary schools uses Mathletics.

The point is this: tools available if you want to look for them. And the quality and benefit of these tools is increasing. Regardless of subscription services or free tools, accessing some of these resources can be a great asset to students.

Wordle

I have digressed into more philosophical topics lately and I want to take a few posts and get back to some tools that some might find useful. Wordle (http://www.wordle.net) has been around for a while. One of its greatest strengths is its simplicity. Copy and paste some text in and let it generate a word collage for you. You can also put in websites. I put in this blog and got the following collage.

You can manually emphasize certain words (with a ~). You can also paste in a list and it will automatically resize words based on their frequency. This is a nice feature if you want to see results of feedback or adjectives from a group. For the next sample, I just copy and pasted in the mission statement from one of our schools.

You can also edit the colors and direction of words. I made this last Wordle from our school ESLRs.

Whether it is decorated your blog or classroom walls or measuring the frequency of responses, Wordle provides a nice graphical way to share text.

Twitter Followup

At the beginning of May this year, I posted about Twitter. At the time, I was debating whether or not to sign up. Over the summer, I decided to sign up for both Facebook and Twitter. If you really want to evaluate something, you have to give it a try. I have very few followers, barely double digits and I follow about 20 people.

After using it for nearly 2 months, I have found it useful for getting links to other resources. I follow key people and have gotten some great tips for good links and resources. After a month or so of use, I found that I didn't like following people that post too much. It becomes too much to filter through for the casual user. So I edited who I was following as a result. I also protected my profile. Although being a fan of open use and transparency, I had a few sketchy people start following me. I will say that Twitter quickly disabled some of these questionable accounts before I could even view who they were.

I'm still not an avid Twitter user but I check it a few times a week and post blog updates and an occasional thought to share there. Overall, the jury is still out for me but I do see some definite benefits of Twitter for professional growth and links. I also see how it can be a grand waste of time if you don't filter your lists and keep its uses intentional and focused.

It is similar to many of the tools that our students use. It's not about the tool, but how it can be leveraged to benefit our learning.

The Void of Digital Communication

Shane Hipps, in his book Flickering Pixels, talks about anonymous intimacy in regard to electronic communication. He says,

This anonymous intimacy has a strange effect. It provides just enough connection to keep us from pursuing real intimacy. In a virtual community, our contacts involve very little real risk and demand even less of us personally. Vulnerability is optional. A community that promises freedom from rejection and makes authentic emotional investment optional can be extremely appealing, remarkably efficient, and a lot more convenient (p. 113-114).

Hipps points out that social networking and electronic communication can be attractive for many reasons. However, authentic investment on a social and emotional scale is needed for genuine relationships. We need to embrace the technological opportunities in front of us but we cannot get into the trap of having it as our only means of communication. In many instances, email and chatting might be very effective. However, in others, it lacks the richness that embodies the totality of human communication and therefore impacts the messages sent and received.

Hipps goes on to say...

Given the limitations of email, the chances of miscommunication are near certain...Using email to mediate conflict is like baking a cake without a mixing bowl or an oven. The very ingredients that make reconciliation possible are absent. Reconciliation comes in the context of clear communication, meaningful listening, shared understandings, civility, openness, and a lot of patience. The medium of email inevitably removes these delicate ingredients...Electronic text as a medium stunts our best efforts to resolve conflict (p. 118-119).

Whether it is conflict or just daily communication, I think Hipps articulates an important value of not getting sucked into a shallow world. As in so many areas of our life, balance is not just desired, but desperately needed. Embrace electronic communication and tools in certain areas but be intentional to retain, promote, and sustain the vibrancy of authentic intimacy in our communication and relationships. Don't settle for something that ultimately leave you empty.