My Random Keys

Still making the effort to combat blog fade, I opened the door on FaceBook for suggested topics for this evening's post. Thanks to Steve for the highly motivating, "Do the benefits of pollen exceed its suckiness?" Let's just see if I can do that justice.

Well, to be scientific about it, I started with a Wikipedia search on what exactly is pollen. "Pollen is a fine to coarse powder containing the microgametophytes of seed plants, which produce the male gametes (sperm cells). ..When pollen lands on a compatible pistil of flowering plants, it germinates and produces a pollen tube that transfers the sperm to the ovule of a receptive ovary." Wikipedia is probably the best known example of a multi-user-collaboratively-edited website called a wiki. It's amazing that anyone can login in to a wikipedia account and freely edit the content.  During the London subway bombing some years back, wikipedia had a constantly updated story, including photos, within minutes.

However, sometimes, you don't quite understand what the pollen article in Wikipedia means when it shares, "In a process called microsporogenesis, four haploid microspores are produced from each diploid sporogenous cell (microsporocyte), after meiotic division." Honestly, I had to copy and paste since my ADD wouldn't let me past microsporoguinessbeer.  One site that helps with that is againbutslower.com . Paste any wikipedia article's URL into their site and it will reduce the article down to a much simpler to understand version. Great for elementary kids wanting to just get a basic concept.

You may find yourself jogging around Ladybird Lake or Camp Gesundheit and your jogging partner is sneezing up a storm. Sure, we need pollination to further grow our vegetation, feed our insects, regulate evolutionary plasticity (thanks again Wikipedia!), and keep allergy clinics in the black. But sharing that with your sneezing blister-mate may not be what he wants to hear. Perhaps quickly using your phone to email snapask.com could provide a distracting relief by requesting more facts from Wikipedia to be sent directly to your phone. Snapask.com lets you shoot keyword requests to them in an email, getting you an answer back in 30 seconds. Great for bar room bets!

Joggers can also rejoice, knowing pediaphon.org can provide an audible version of any Wikipedia article directly to your phone or iPad/Android device. Who wouldn't want the melodic tones of a Stephen Hawking-esq voice reading, "Dependence of the secondary sex ratio on the amount of fertilizing pollen was confirmed on four dioecious plant species from three families — Rumex acetosa (Polygonaceae), Melandrium album (Cariophyllaceae), Cannabis sativa and Humulus japonicus (Cannabinaceae)," from Wikipedia?

Well Steve and Shannon, to answer your question, Yes.  To learn more about why, you may just find a little website called Wikipedia helpful.  I know I did!

I'd like to think I know my geography pretty well. I know El Paso, Texas is closer to Los Angeles, CA that it is Orange, Texas.  I know that it takes over 9 hours to fly to Paris, France and just over 5 hours to drive to Paris, Texas. So, when I fly over the Earth, it bothers me that I don't know exactly where I am or what I'm looking at when I look out the window. 

In walks Google Earth.  I tried it before on the plane with my iPad, but without connectivity, the iPad wouldn't show me anything.  It wasn't until today before I found the secret to traveling with Google Earth. The answer is that one needs to understand caching on their computers.

Geocaching is a fun hobby where one goes out to find temporarily stored bits of treasure. (It's a pretty fun Saturday activity!)  A web cache is also a hidden storage, but inside your computer. The computer stores information that you have downloaded so that the next time you need that information again, it doesn't have to go download it again. It's already on the computer.

Google Earth uses a web cache to store maps and information so that your map-browsing experience can be a little faster. Managing that cache means you can use that stored information even when you are not connected to the internet.

If you are planning on using Google Earth away from the internet, plan ahead to capture the maps you need.  Simply open Google Earth and view the parts of the Earth that you wish to capture. Don't forget that zooming in gives you different maps that you may want to capture. Every time Google Earth focuses on the map, it is writing it to the cache and storing it for you.

On a laptop, Mac or pc, the cache for Google Earth can be increased to you can capture many more maps to use away from the internet.  The Google Earth Blog has more directions on how to do that.

The iPad is a bit different. It does use a cache *yea!* but you can't increase the size of the cache space *boo!*  Still, I browsed the path of my next flight, and at different altitudes, and then turned off the wifi. Google Earth displayed all the maps a viewed.

So on your next travel adventure, pre-view your trek with Google Earth and then take the maps with you.

I'm back at the ISTE conference this year and have high expectations, again. There are a ton of new technologies that will soon play a role in classrooms across the country and I'll get to look at a bunch of them.  There are some great speakers that will be presenting again and I'm hoping to get some good stuff from them, again.  Come one everyone, sing along:  I've got hiiigh hopes. I've got hiiiigh hopes...

My short list this year includes:

1) No matter how much you know about Web 2.0, Discovery's Hall Davidson and Steve Dembo always have something new that can positively affect the way you use tech in the classroom.

2) I have learned to like my iPad and am hopeful that I will be presenting a great iPad program at a conference next year.  However, I still think it's overrated and I want to sit in on some iPad sessions to gather more hype. Know the negatives to work the kinks into positives.

3) How are High Schools improving general ed use of tech in the classroom? Out of four workshops I did this summer, only 1 high school teacher showed. What is the magic dust needed to make even small changes with that level?

4) I've learned more about hardware this year than I ever wanted to know. Yet, is the new Epson projector/white board holding it's steam? What are the new iPad wannabees looking like?

5) For a couple of principals, I have to find microscope advancements and manipulative tools.

It's going to be a busy week, but the boots are shined and ready to make tracks.

(Article written by Future Howard after summer has ended. By some fluke, it was sent back in time, so I thought I’d publish it. ;)

My first full day's reflection on the iPad is not a glowing report. So far, one day into it, and I'm giving it 5 out of 10 on the "I love it and can't live without it" scale.

1- Setup:  Set up was incredibly easy.  Plug it into the laptop and let it sync into iTunes. I asked to copy the iTouch's profile and apps and it zoomed through it easily.  Yea!  The apps synced in, but in alpha order, not in the order I painstakingly setup by type or usability. I was warned that some wouldn't work and not be installed. I'm still finding others that were installed and still don't work. Even though it copied iTouch's apps, it didn't keep settings like remembered wifi connections. And be careful to use the cable that came with the iPad since older cables will not totally function with the iPad.

2- Apps: I didn't realize previously that the apps that worked on my iTouch would work in a smaller, diminished portion of the iPad screen.  You can hit the '2x' button to enlarge it, but it will pixelate. After downloading from the iPad section of apps in the Apps Store, I found iPad compatible apps that use the full screen in a big and beautiful way.  Netflix was a nice example. It is slow to startup, but when the movie is running, it's a real nice app to watch.

3- Keyboard control: I didn't get any manuals (do we anymore?) or see specific directions for things like bringing up the keyboard. I tried to write this blog on blogger via Safari and was not able to bring up the keyboard in this section of the editor. I could type the title, but the keyboard could not be encouraged to show up so I could type in the body. I'd like a force keyboard icon somewhere.

4- Movies: I can see that plane travel will be nice with this iPad. I don't have to have a full laptop out to view a movie and don't have to squint at the iTouch anymore either. The picture is nice and easily controllable. This can't be the sole reason for spending this kind of money on a personal tech device, but it is a big plus as a part of the system.

5- Easy to use: The 7 yr old Mancub2 was the second person to use this. I handed it to her in the back seat of the truck after school. She was able to start it up, cruise through the pages, browse the movie listings, start a move and control the volume without any help from 'the expert'. This is pretty much child's play for her.

I like my iPad and will continue to learn how to use it best. Right now, it's mostly fluff that my smart phone could do, but it's faster, more easy to view, and easier to use. So don't ask for it, I'm not done yet! We'll see if it stays easy to use.