Tracking the internet into the 21st century

See videoclip of talk HERE.

Attended the Talk by Vinton G. Cerf, the vice-president and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google at the School of Computing, NUS Ah ha... what an interesting title, Internet Evangelist? An Internet "travelling preacher"? So creative! Did not exactly know what's expected from the talk... but definitely is a "What's next...", I thought, when I registered.

All in all, there wasn't a single minute went noticed... despite it was a 80-minute one-man show! No fancy slides, but it's the presentation that engaged the audience - the entire seminar room was fill-up!!! Why? Of course, I think the brand name "Google" is could be the first draw, for anybody who does not know who Vinton Cert was till today... but to sustain the interest of the audience, it's the belief and in-depth knowledge of the presenter that's translated through the talk that make the difference!

Found a similar set of slides in the internet (click HERE) probably used less than a year ago... but there are some differences. Also, to satisfy my curiosity, went to YouTube to do a search... and found a couple of his presentations there... mostly from 2007's 3rd quarter onwards. Though using the same title, but each time, there were updates... of course, yet found the one I saw at SoC (ok, there's probably the most updated version, I guess). This is another learning point for us: Despite of the tough and patience-testing QC process the team has to go through, we must keep ourselves abreast, progress together with the rest of the world... so, should continually be seeking new updates and integrate the relevant ones into our workshop materials! (of course, whoever put the rubber stamp on the materials earlier has to accept this idea, too!)

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Here are some points from the talk... (notice that it actually sets the background, context... before moving into the 'possibilities' (dreams???) to come in 2035. Er... why 2035? Don't know? Probably because it's far, yet near enough for us to see whether what's projected (anticipated?) will come to reality?

• It was amazing to hear that, Asia has ranked the top in terms of Internet population (with 510.5 million) against the world's 1, 320 million. However, in terms of internet penetration, it's only 13.7%, which is much below than the world's 20.0%. What does that say? It's so much potential in Asia!
• What happens to the world population in 2300? The patterns of population growth in the various continents - who's going to drive the behaviour patterns of internet users? (www.un.org/esa/population/publications/longrange2/WorldPop2300final.pdf)

Projections (Anticipations?) in 2035 include:

• IT to substitute and minimise transportation - ie. virtual meetings will become ubitquous, saving people from traveling to meet face-to-face physically, but to meet face-to-face virtually. CISCO has already come up with a video conferencing system that comes with screen projection of images of real-life size... and more amazingly, the sound system - the sound is heard at the direction where it 'should' come from. So, reality has moved into another dimension! Well, it'll take some time to make its way to the industry as it costs more than (US$300,000) (Website 1: http://www.cisco.com/web/solutions/telepresence/fox/index.html Website 2: http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/webdev/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=193401457 Website 3: http://news.cnet.com/Can-Cisco-be-a-video-star/2100-1037_3-6128204.html)
• IT will become a big consumer (energy production; consumption)
• Internet will turn to 52 (born 1983), with a population of 8.12 billion and internet penetration of 70% (world average, anticipating >100% in developed countries!). Device penetration is projected to be 60 billion (0-10 devices per person).

Information Ecology

• Wired & Wireless are here to stay...
• Online Business: Intra-& Inter-corporate; Cloud Computing; Collaboration in Virtual Environment; Seamless joining of real & virtual environments - an interesting one, when it's not just performing a virtual experiment with objects created in the virtual environment, but these 'virtual objects' are representations of real objects in real labs - The user carries out these laboratory experiments 'physically' while they're else where!
• Convergence of digital objects and processes - discovery & rendezvous
• State-wide database -Prediction of epidemic, based on the searches/queries entered into the search engines. It was reported that this could surfaced about 30 days before them epidemic. Wow! There's where data analysis can help to anticipate and prepare for certain crisis.

Socio-economic Effects of Internet 2035

• Internet transport & display units
• Internet group interactions - political actions, polling, marketplaces
• Information consumers are the producers (eg. blogging, Youtube - 10h amount of video every minute)
• Innovation at the edge (eg. wikipedia) - data mining, mass information
• Social networking (eg. facebook) - How about a Robotic representative?
• Gameplaying (eg. Second life) - Holographics
• New Business model (eg. eBay, Amazon, Google) - Paper pubication limited to special editions; online is the norm.
• Mobility & Mobiles 2035
• 10 billion mobiles (with 85% internet enabled)
• text-web access
• remote control of services and devices
• innovative interfaces (haptics - multi-touch screen)
• navigation systems (Geo location-based services)
• Internet-enabled socks (clothing) (http://news.zdnet.co.uk/emergingtech/0,1000000183,2089570,00.htm)
• Internet-enabled surf board (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3812357.stm)
• Universal Remote Controls

Click HERE to see recorded lecture

International Year of Potato... some ideas generated

Source: http://www.potato2008.org/en/index.html (embedded on 2008, April 26)




First heard about the "International Year of Potato" while reading Mind & Body earlier this year. Till today went to the UN website and take a look... Wah! A website solely devoted to this.

Thought the video gives a good and a easy-to-understand overview. Ideas generated for lessons. The commentary touches on several aspects:

• Migration to all over the years and its economic value
• Potential in alleviating the world poverty and hunger
• It's role in agriculture sector and impact on the economic growth
• Farming - science and technology use to become widespread
• Conservation efforts
• Science and Research

A look at the website... There are lots more to offer... that subjects like Science, Humanities, and Food & Nutrition can tap on... of course, not forgetting English! Also, there's a photography competition, which can be a by-the-way submission by pupils as they attempt the related task/project.

An Attempt: Online Whiteboard - Scriblink

Here's another one... slightly different from the previous one...
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Attempt 1

Thanks for using Scriblink. To access your saved board click on the link below. If you need a hard copy, Scriblink allows users to print the board under the file button.

http://www.scriblink.com/index.jsp?act=phome&ld=1&rid=448&cid=544

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Attempt 2

Thanks for using Scriblink. To access your saved board click on the link below. If you need a hard copy, Scriblink allows users to print the board under the file button.

http://www.scriblink.com/index.jsp?act=phome&ld=1&rid=448&cid=544

An attempt: Online Interactive Whiteboard - Imagination Cubed

1st attempt
Have just tried this online 'interactive whiteboard'... looks interesting... it allows one to draw easily with the mouse (well, the entire web browser turns into a drawing area).

The only disadvantage is, it could not be 'saved online'. Each time a piece of work is completed, one will be prompted to save and email to the user.

Below is a sample of 'sent' work - it comes in the form of hyperlink.
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lohky (sent via imaginationcubed.com) has sent you a drawing from Imagination Cubed with this message:

Click this link to see a drawing come to life at Imagination Cubed

This message was sent to you by a user of the Imagination Cubed website operated by General Electric Company (GE), but may be considered an advertisement or solicitation under US law. The names and addresses that the sender entered for themselves and for you were accepted as is and have not been validated by GE. They were also free to enter content into the message above, which GE does not control. You cannot respond directly to the sender. However, you can:
(a) click on the link in the message above to join the sender in a Drawing and use the e-mail tools there to communicate; or
(b) simply delete the message if you do not want to participate; or
(c) if you want to opt out of receiving further invitations to draw from the imaginationcubed.com site, click here to opt out, or write to GE Global Advertising at 3135 Easton Turnpike, Fairfield, CT 06431.

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2nd attempt:
Have made this attempt after retrieving the file and scribbling on it. Notice that a new URL is emailed over.

It comes with the 'animation' on the sequence the object is drawn... then allows the user to continue to draw. So, it serves like a recorder of the event (from beginning till where it stops), while the old drawing still remain in the server. The original piece of work will not be overwritten.

KY (sent via imaginationcubed.com) has sent you a drawing from Imagination Cubed with this message:

Click this link to see a drawing come to life at Imagination Cubed



This message was sent to you by a user of the Imagination Cubed website operated by General Electric Company (GE), but may be considered an advertisement or solicitation under US law. The names and addresses that the sender entered for themselves and for you were accepted as is and have not been validated by GE. They were also free to enter content into the message above, which GE does not control. You cannot respond directly to the sender. However, you can:
(a) click on the link in the message above to join the sender in a Drawing and use the e-mail tools there to communicate; or
(b) simply delete the message if you do not want to participate; or
(c) if you want to opt out of receiving further invitations to draw from the imaginationcubed.com site, click here to opt out, or write to GE Global Advertising at 3135 Easton Turnpike, Fairfield, CT 06431.

21st Century Skills

Recently, there's this talk about the 21st century skills in the section/branch... esp after the mp2 IPR... yes, but to-date, there's no "concrete" on what 21st century skills we are talking about - so many versions - each has their own merits and focus.

Here are some...

• Ideas from Daniel Pink: A Whole New Mind
• Leading with a Whole New Mind: Daniel Pink's Memo for Tomorrow's Leaders

more to be added along the way...

Game for learning in an Immersive Virtual Environment?

This afternoon attended the 1st session of the IVE workshop. Though have little idea what IVEs are and what it really offers (in the educational context), am somewhat excited - before and during the workshop :D Hm... not so much of a fear factor anyway... unlike the eLearning session.

Spend a fair bit of playing the game... perhaps I started with the right footing - the easiest one first - Food Force. (http://www.food-force.com/)
- For a start, it's not easy to play - because there wasn't any background or 'objective' mentioned in the handout.
- OK, one 'guy' was talking to give the background - but, not patient enough to listen through before jumping into the game!
- There are 6 missions - seem to be sequential, though at the end of each mission, the links to the 6 missions are displayed together with the 'results' of that mission.
- Again, curriculum link from each activity was not clear.
- Teaching Idea that I could think of is, National Education and Character Education - in particular, I think the NE message, "No one owes Singapore a living". In the last mission (#6), the player will start to build a village, having to take into consideration which sector (eg. farming, education, health care) will receive more support (some kind of balancing act) such that by the end of 10 years, the village would be able to survive on its own, and not to depend on the help rendered by UN. Of course, there are other things and learning points that would be valuable to our students - when they compare and reflect on the 2 different 'worlds'.

The other game introduced is "Darfur is Dying" (http://www.darfurisdying.com/) - which is a springoff from Food Force. This online game is a "Refugee Game".
- Did not play this during the workshop, but spent about 20 minutes
- The website provides some background info of this region call Darfur (well, it's something new to me!) though I have heard of Sudan!
- It started off with identifying someone to get water and this person has to avoid the militiamen. Notice that it's really an 'action' activity - run and run and run! Doubt can link to any subject learning outcome directly (Oops! it requires a fair bit of creativity!).
- More info can be found at http://www.food-force.com/index.php/blog/students-new-game; http://www.darfurisdying.com/background.html

Reflection: Workshop for HOD/Maths (3rd Run)

on 26 March 2008 @ Commonwealth Secondary (workshop blog)

Things that went well...

• For the 1st run, we started quite punctually.
• Once again, most participants expressed the ICT tools in Education component was useful.
• We managed the time of the activities pretty well - time spent on the activities were close to what's allocated.
• Participants had some fun with the grouping activity, using the strings.
• Participants managed to find something appropriate to address the learning gap - some brought in their own resources, one group had suggested a spreadsheet resource to learn quadratic inequalities - thought that's something we can work on :D
• Able to answer to the queries from participants pertaining to baseline - (i) eLearning - activities that incorporate baseline skills (ii) BY(i)TES in relation to Baseline (iii) Graphmatical use - yes & no for baseline
• Pointing out to participants another way to identify learning gaps, apart from approaching by topics; but also make reference to the Mathematics Framework

Things that could be better...

• Remembering to refer participants to handouts - especially Handout 1 (the Cycle)
• Helping participants to interpret the learning gaps correctly and being able to explain beyond the words already printed there.
• Clarify/elaborate the examples came up by the participants and help to sharpen it so that it illustrates the gap better.
• Notice the discussion on the ICT Tools in Education was less rigor than that of the 2nd run. Hm... Why??? Just wonder - the liveliness somehow was not there. What caused the dip?
• The activities in 2nd session did not seem solid enough...
• Some participants did not bring their scheme of work though they had been informed... looks like it works better when they were reminded via email - the emphasis on the need to use.

Anyway, am glad that it's the last run of the full series of the Baseline Workshop for HODs/Maths (Secondary).

2 more things to follow-up: Post participants' work - Learning Gaps and findings into the wiki (for both 2nd & 3rd runs)... have to keep in mind... must work on this...

Eat That Frog! (1st thoughts)

This reminded me about Frog Porridge!!! Hahaha... yes, it's a delicacy! But my Bhutanese friends, to-date, still can't believe we eat Frog Porridge! :P

No, no... this book is not about eating REAL frogs! It's a metaphor.

It's about fighting "Procrastinating" by reframing the "problem" positively... have just started reading... hahaha... wondering if I would finish the book... OK, it's self-fulfilling prophecy in play again, "I don't like to read"... Sign... looking at the shelf - hm... they are not impulsive buys... I'm very sure ('cos I know I usually won't finish the book), but it's really... Argrrrrrrrrrrr....

Anyway, started reading the first few chapters... along the way jotted down some thoughts and questions... after setting level 14 as the background...

What's the "frog"? Hm... like the "monkey" (in the one-minute manager), it's a piece of work to complete - but it's more than that, it comes with a perception casted on it, the doer's emotion and psyche towards the task! Ah... very difficult to put it across in black and white, but as you read the book, you can connect to it pretty easily.

There are a few "Rules" at the beginning chapter - again, it's a "Who don't know?" but it's really "How often it's practise?!"

The 1st rule of frog eating is: If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest first.
That is to practise 先苦后甜nothing more worse off will come...

The 2nd rule of frog eating is: If you have to eat a live frog at all, it doesn't pay to sit and look at it for very long.
So, it's a matter of time, isn't it? Don't prolong suffering - the longer you wait, the more fear, the more worry will be generated... 速战速决，长痛不如短痛 cut short the pain.

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• Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy : Book Reviews by eConsultant
• Eat That Frog Book
• Matt's Idea Blog: Some thoughts on "Eat that frog!" by Brian Tracy

Voicethread

Something new, introduced by BY two days ago... interesting... it's called voicethread (http://voicethread.com/#home).

First impression: It produces a multimedia presentation that allows once to add commentary - in the form of voice, text or even 'freehand' sketching - be it by the author or the viewer.

Hm... would say, it's slideshow that comes alive?!

Saw one interesting production by a 10-year old boy on his trip to Washington DC this March.
http://voicethread.com/share/80590/

This gives me some ideas for this web application to be used:
1. Language - get pupils narrate an experience/story? (eg. http://voicethread.com/share/87609/)
2. Get pupils to describe a process - this could be science? maths?
3. Fieldtrip - as shown in the example
4. Combining the above, it could be interdisciplinary, too...

Venturing into 'new' tools?

Am on leave today... but that created the opportunity to 'play' with an online tool - "Chat". Haha... In fact, it was a very imprompt to (on Thursday) to ask everyone in the subject cluster to go into the chat on the following day - it was an appointment, and there's a mission to accomplish... hahaha...

Don't be surprise... Am really new to chat, although such a tool exists for ages. Well, different people have different strengths - that's where we could embrace diversity and one's strength(s) to complement each other, right??? :P

Chat has exists for ages but I have not been bothered how to use it... despite the fact everyone - colleagues, students had talked about it.

The motivation...

• The Fear factor. No, no, no... I'm not joking. Yes, I was worry after attending Monday's eLearning workshop. Maybe I should re-position it... it''s driven by Needs... since we are going to model the use of the tool when conducting the eLearning model in May! So, time to catch up...
• Yeap, "Chat" is one of the most basic collaborative tool when one could not do a face-to-face meet-up. This morning would not be fruitful if without the participation of peers! Thanks, folks! Yeap, something we can't quite experiment on our own... and certainly, it requires people who are game enough to explore to make the experience a good one :D

The experience...

• For a first-timer, excitement and anxiety - the moment when we first got connected to others and start to manage the little icons/hyperlinks in the little dialogue window.
• Impatience - it really goes back to how fast one thinks and how fast one types! hahaha... and especially when we don't 'see' any action from the others. What crossed my mind? "What's happening over the other side?". Do you notice that as far as one types, it is reflected on others' screen that "so-and-so is typing"? It's also exciting to see when more than one started to respond at the same time. It's an indication that one is around. Of course, when there's silence, that doesn't mean the others are not engaged in front of the computer - they could be thinking.
• Oh yes, being away from the office added 'authenticity' to the activity - when one fellow could not do any face-to-face query... all help and guidance has to go through the 'chat'... Can't possibly ask students to do all discussions via the handphone or via mass emails, right? BTW, folks at Level 14 did a good job in saving me handling 3 separate chat windows! hahaha... U made it!

Learning points...

We are able to pre-empt better the kind of problems that one has to look into so that users can emerge in a 'conducive environment' for an activity via the platform. There are at least 2 aspects - the user psyche and the technical aspect.

• For all to participate in such synchronous activity - the first important step is: Coordintation (a) REPORTING TIME to go into the chatroom! How do we know if all's there? Using GMail, the 'presence' will be reflected when one logs in. (b) Who is going to create that Chatroom (ie. who's the one going to initiate and start inviting others). Yes, need someone to initiate and invite. Beware - 1st time users can be so confused and would probably create several rooms and going into the wrong rooms! Hey, this was what we experience!
• The Focus of the discussion - Yes, we're there for a purpose - it's not just casual talk and say hello. We wanted everyone to contribute constructively. To make the session fruitful, we have to define the topic of discussion. It would be even better if we know the topic before the session, ponder over it and start rattling when we meet online. This will also give a better control over the amount of time (for this meeting). In our maiden attempt, setting up a smooth-operating environment is at the top of our agenda since many of us (in the team) are not that familiar with group chat... It took longer than expected (only allocated 1 hour for that). But I thought the time spent is useful, for us to share the experience and "how to overcome these potential hitches" with our participants in the workshop. Of course, the one who gain most ought to be the team, as we go the chance to experience it! Hey, this is experiential learning :D
• We also discover the "log (tracking/recording)" feature - that the dialogue is automatically logged in under the 'chat' page. #1: It captures the learning process! We had a hard time thinking, how online chat can be 'recorded' as an evidence of learning process. When the activity is designed with this in mind, one could easily retrieve segments to illustrate the learning. #2: We can always surface pertinent points in the discussion as follow-up. Of course, as a teacher, to monitor pupils' participation - Ah ha... whether they have 'attended' the virtual class!
• It could be chaotic when there are 'side' conversations in the same chat room. For instance, we might be asking for a response from a particular participant, however, did not specify whom the message is targetted at. The rest may be confused? To answer or not to? So, some kind of norm has to be established.
• Back to reality - all would not be smooth unless all technical issues are resolved...
• Browser - different browsers (Internet Explorer or Firefox) results different 'look' of the platfom. On Monday, we noticed that not all systems support GTalk (oh yes, can't find the icon on Kevin's iBook). Today, we notice that different versions of Internet Explorer also offers different degree of access - IE7 allows the user to initiate a group chat whereas IE6 behaves more passively, waiting for others to invite. See? If all of us acted so quickly to resolve the problem by installing Firefox, then would not be able to tease out this workable way... who knows? our students use different versions/types of browsers - it's obvious that teacher has to anticipate and be able to guide pupils to work around the problem.

The (shared) Calendar...

• The Calendar can help to coordinate - especially when it involves a group of people. Time and date - of course, it's also every participants' responsibility to visit and see his/her calendar, as well as the shared calendar.
• Discovered that we can add others' calendars to ours - so convenient! While we can maintain our own personal calendar, we can also reflect events of others' calendars on ours! Good for planning :D
• There's the "Discusssion" / "Add comment" feature available in the calendar feature, too! That is helpful in disseminating info or inviting inputs/feedback for a particular event.
• Oh! It comes with a 'security' measure - only those who have been invited can add in comments - and of course, it's the login username that's reflected there... so can monitor who have input or not, based on the replies
• Also discover one 'constraint', ie. no one can delete/hind/amend the comment once it's up (even the owner of the calendar). Ah ha! That reminds users to exercise responsibility in speeches!