The Gift of the Magi, by O. Henry

This short story that I recently recorded will be published next month in LibriVox's annual Christmas Collection, but it occurs to me that it may be most needed this week, as an inoculation against the more dismal aspects of Black Friday.

So here is O. Henry's gentle anti-materialism manifesto, The Gift of the Magi.  Happy Holidays!

Experimenting with Mozilla's Popcorn Maker (video-annotation toolset)

This is something that may be of particular interest to those of us who use lots of videos in the classroom (or the homeschooling environment):  it's my first experiment using Mozilla's brand-spanking-new video annotation toolset, called Popcorn Maker. I took an educational documentary video that I'm currently putting together, and added a layer of pop-up annotations on top of it that lets a student click on a pop-up to dig deeper into whatever is then being shown in the video. The resulting "remix" of my original video is here:
http://commonvox.org/psa/annotation

I kept my usage of annotations here pretty sedate, because I didn't want to distract from the video content itself. But you could really go to town with Popcorn Maker's other types of annotations that let you embed text and images, and even live twitter feeds, on top of the video. The crucial point (which might be missed) is that YOU DO NOT HAVE TO MAKE THE UNDERLYING VIDEO YOURSELF. In fact, the main point is to take other videos that are out there on the Internet (YouTube, Vimeo) and overlay your own annotations on top of them. It seems to me that the potentials for teachers to "add value" and customize educational videos (or assign their students to add annotations) could be considerable.

BUT -- if you use it NOW, realize that this current "release" is not very stable -- it crashed on me regularly. The good news is that it just runs in your browser -- nothing to install. JUST SAVE YOUR WORK EVERY 30 SECONDS OR SO, and you'll minimize the frustration!!

Advice on computer acquisitions for the upper elementary grades

Recently, the upper elementary teachers (grades 3 through 5) at a nearby international school asked me for some technical advice regarding their plans for educational technology acquisitions, with a particular focus on their classroom computers.  It occurs to me that my reply to them, while it deals with details quite specific to their curricular, technological, and budget situation, might be useful to teachers and administrators in institutions elsewhere.  So, with some minor changes (out of respect for anonymity), here is the text of my e-mailed advice:

Hey folks,

I like what I see in your classroom-computer planning so far:  it comes across as ultimately curriculum-driven and not gadget-driven, which is the decidedly right place to be.  I’ll do my best here to give you the feedback you asked for in an intelligible format, but there is actually a lot to talk about.  I’ll just start at the top of the pyramid (with the big ideas) and work my way down to some details.

Long term strategy:
A big goal I would recommend is this:  to achieve and maintain vendor-independence, OS-independence, and form-factor-independence*.In plain talk, you want to keep your options as open as possible regarding the hardware and software media by which you open up your classroom to educational technology resources.  (But that’s just, like, my opinion, man.)

* form-factor-independence = you can use any kind of device you want (a.k.a. BYOD -- “bring your own device”)

Short to medium term strategy:
Based on what I read in your e-mail, you are looking at (for now) sticking with traditional computer hardware that includes an integrated physical keyboard.  This allows you to (without disruption) continue using those PC-based and web-based resources that you are currently using, and the keyboard is especially pertinent to those resources which require extensive textual input from the student.  It also keeps you on track in the direction of the long term strategy that I recommend (see above), since the current tablet offerings (from Apple, Google, and the new stuff being launched by Microsoft) are highly proprietary – designed from the ground up to lock you into one vendor’s ecosystem.  [Side note:  the understandable reliance on keyboard technology prompts the question as to whether keyboarding should be formally made part of the grade 3-5 curriculum, a question I’ll not get into here.]

Performance
In looking at some of your desired specifications for new computers, I see a couple of items that are performance related:  “fast processor” and “solid state hard drive”, to which you might add “sufficient RAM”.  I have no doubt that an urgent focus on performance is prompted by the dire state of your current crop of notebook computers.  I have shared in the painful experience of waiting 10 minutes (often longer) for those computers to merely boot up, and at the end of the lesson waiting at least 5 minutes for them to shut down, not to mention the achingly slow performance of the machines in those brief moments afforded between start-up and shut-down.  There is at least one additional thing that could markedly improve the performance of a new crop of Windows-based computers:  dump the Symantec anti-virus (which not only costs money, but is a notorious performance-hog if not carefully calibrated) and replace it with the freely available Microsoft Security Essentials (which runs with a nice small footprint [i.e., small usage of CPU resources]).

List of software
Your list of applications strongly suggests that notebooks running Windows 7 are what is called for.  (And please, if you go Windows, go Windows 7.  Let other early adopters with deep pockets and a devil-may-care attitude play around with Windows 8 for now.)  Regardless of the choice of operating system (which I’ll address in more detail shortly), I would encourage you to take this list and do three things:
(1) prioritize the list into at least two groups – “must have” and “would like to have”;
(2) if a particular application is not free, look to see whether you can find a free alternative that is acceptable for the curricular need being filled;
(3) if a particular application requires local installation on the PC, look to see whether you can find a web-based version of the application or an alternative web-based application that is acceptable for the curricular need being filled.
This third action would serve to put you onto a path of OS (operating system) independence, so that in the next iteration of computer purchases (three years from now?), you are more likely to have the option to shift away from Windows to another operating system (Ubuntu?  Mac?  Chrome?  Something else?), which you might especially want to do if Windows 8 proves to be a total piece of crap.  Besides offering OS-independence, each web-based resource is also something that can be accessed by students from home (for those of you who are into the whole “homework” thing).

Netbooks
What is a netbook?  The concept has become considerably blurred since netbooks were first introduced a few years back.  But it looks like those machines that are still marketed as “netbooks” are very stripped down machines that only run Ubuntu (an open-source Linux derivative operating system that I don’t really currently recommend).  Bottom line -- the least expensive Windows-based machines are going to cost at least 500 dollars (barring any educational or bulk discount you might get), and will not have a solid-state drive.
However, a potential alternative has just popped up on the market this very week.  Samsung announced the availability of its third-generation Chrome-based netbook with not only some nice performance and feature improvements, but also with a potentially game-changing price-tag of $249.  Lora and I have been keeping an eye on these Chromebooks (Google’s term for a Chrome-based netbook) for some time, but were always turned away by the then-prevailing price of at least $450 to $500.
If you’re not familiar with it, Google’s Chrome is a very stripped-down operating system that does little else besides run a browser, with which you can access any web-site or web-based application.  It reportedly boots up in less than 10 seconds, and shuts down even more quickly.
But crucially for you folks – no applications can be installed locally, so if you wanted to immediately go with a Chromebook strategy, you would have to successfully complete step 3 in my recommended action items above (i.e., find workable web-based alternatives for all your vital applications).  However, the strategy might be worth at least considering, because besides making boot-up nightmares a thing of the past, it would allow you to purchase perhaps three times as many Chromebooks as you could Windows-based notebooks.  That was the game-changer offered by Samsung this week – it seems to offer the potential for fiscally feasible one-on-one computing in each of the grade 3, 4, and 5 classrooms.

Here is your current list of applications, with some possible web-based alternatives:
1. Reading counts --> ??
2. Microsoft office - Word, excel, PowerPoint -->> Microsoft offers web-based version of these via subscription; Google offers free alternatives to Word and Excel.
3. Movie-maker -->> One True Media, YouTube editing tools
4. Comic Life -->> Pixton
5. Kidspiration -->> Webspiration (offered by the same vendor)
6. SRI/scholastic -->> ??
7. Logo-paths -->> ?? (This looks like another company that Pearson bought and buried in its vaults somewhere – my Google searches for it were not fruitful.)

Given the low price tag, Lora and I might consider buying one of Samsung’s new line of Chromebooks for her to use as an extra classroom computing resource.  In any case, I strongly recommend that you get your hands on one and give it a pretty extensive shake-down before even seriously considering the purchase of a cartload (or three cartloads!) of them.

Or, if you don’t have time to consider any of this stuff, the more conservative option of going with a single cartload of Windows 7 notebooks is not a bad one (but I'm pretty sure you would have to forego the solid-state drives).

Cheers,

Dan

After I sent the above e-mail to the upper elementary teaching team, I received a follow-up query, which I answered as follows:

 

Hey folks,

You asked:  ...how important do you think a solid-state drive is?

With regard to a solid state drive (SSD), it would seem that you're currently in a position only to strongly desire it (for the sake of ruggedness and speed) and not to insist upon it.

But if you have narrowed things down to taking one of two paths, either getting Windows 7 equipped notebooks or Chromebooks, then the question of drive type is largely out of bounds for your consideration, anyway.

If you go with Windows 7 notebooks, then you will need sufficient storage not only for any applications to be installed, but also simply for the care-and-feeding of the operating system.  This means that an affordable small-capacity SSD is not a feasible option for a Windows 7 machine.  So if you get Win 7 machines, you will almost assuredly be getting machines with traditional standard spinning disk drives.

And if you go with Chromebooks, you automatically get 16GB SSDs - a spinning disk drive is not an option there.

So you only have to worry about the question of drive-type if you open up consideration to some option other than Win 7 machines or Chomebooks.

(Side note:  There is a whole other category of machines, called Ultrabooks, some of which have a hybrid setup -- SSD for quick boot-up AND a standard disk-drive for apps and files; but these generally cost upwards of a thousand dollars, so at the moment would seem to be out of consideration.)

Have a good weekend!!

Dan

Musings on Metaphors

These are some notes that I virtually-scribbled for myself into a Word document a few summers ago, just as I was about to commence on the fulfillment of an assignment (in one of my classes leading to my M.Ed. degree) that was to be conceptually built around one or more metaphors. There's nothing profound here, but it provided me some useful epistemological sparks for the particular fire I was kindling at the time, and since it also might prove useful to somebody else, I'm posting it here (for what it is or isn't worth).

Before we launch into a project on “metaphor of learning” or “metaphor of teaching” or “metaphor of education”, we need to as powerfully as possible define our terms, in particular establishing the contextual meaning of the word “metaphor”.

Metaphor:  “My love is a red, red rose.” -- My love is a red, read rose.  Red only for me.  Read only by me.

Do we, as infants, start out inherently drawing metaphors, only not initially realizing they are metaphors.  We learned the concept “bird”, and we see something flying and say “bird”.  This is actually deeper than metaphor – the flying thing IS “bird”.  At some point we make the jump to simile, “Oh, the flying thing is not 'bird', it is LIKE 'bird' because it moves like a bird.”

We also move on to further master groupings with “a” and “the”, with “a” referring to one of many, and “the” referring to some singular instance, perhaps a thing in a special category by itself.
This would seem to be one way of visualizing a person's knowledge base:  mental buckets of “things”, qualified by “a” or “the”, and held together by a latticework of metaphors and similes.

A new, modern English translation of "Letter to Menoeceus" by Epicurus

While I'm a firm believer that all anyone could ever need to know about philosophy can be learned by watching "The Big Lebowski" (the Dude abides!), it's sometimes interesting to go back to the primary sources.  Here is a fresh, modern English translation of one of the VERY few extant writings of Epicurus, a letter in which he proffers some straightforward advice to a young protege on how to live a fulfilling life.

Curiously, Epicurus's own words seem to contradict the common notion that he is an atheist, a lush, and a hedonist.  He simply advises his young friend (1) to think properly "godly" thoughts about God, (2) not to waste time and energy fretting about death, (3) to get a grip on the possibility that "not every pleasure is to be chosen" and "not every pain is always to be shunned", and (4) to consider that a simple life (eschewing excess) is probably the best life.  So, you can see that the same messages are there: you can either read/listen-to this letter from Epicurus, or ("if you're not into the whole 'brevity' thing") you can watch "The Big Lebowski" a few times (properly stocked up on unexpired half-and-half, Kahlua, and vodka).  Either way, the wisdom of the ages is yours!

Thanks to Peter Saint-Andre, for creating this new translation of the "Letter to Menoeceus", and for placing the translation into the public domain!

A Lincoln Triptych

In preparation for next month's Lincoln-palooza (the release of Steven Spielberg's new movie), I made a contribution of the three defining speeches of the Lincoln presidency to the next LibriVox "Short Nonfiction Collection" (vol. 27, which will be published to the LibriVox catalog soon).

I think it safe to say that we'll be treated to the full Daniel Day-Lewis rendition of the Gettysburg Address, and probably get some major chunks of the second inaugural.  But I found it fascinating to go back and study the complete first inaugural address, which starkly shows us Lincoln the pragmatist, making a desperate pitch to avert war and save the Union, to the point of not standing in opposition to a constitutional amendment formally codifying the rights of states to permanently maintain within their borders whatever "peculiar institutions" they might be sustaining there.

My first posting to a Librivox project

Here is my first submission to a librivox.org project that I've become involved in to make an audiobook out of Volume 7 of Sir Richard Francis Burton's "THE BOOK OF A THOUSAND NIGHTS AND A NIGHT" (a.k.a. "Tales of the Arabian Nights").  The three evening's tales that I'm reading here (nights 667, 668, & 669) revolve around a love story between an Arab king and a Persian princess, and include magical flying genies and horrific battles between Arab and Persian armies.  Buckle your swashes, crank up the Rimsky-Korsakov, and have a listen, if you like.  Note that you might want to first read the synopsis that I wrote (see below), because it's a little hard to follow, since you're jumping right smack into the middle of a multi-entanglement soap-opera, already underway.

Summary of night 667's tale:

King Gharib, an Arab monarch, is journeying west back into his lands after considerable adventuring in Persia.  He asks the two Marid genies that are in his service to fly back east to the Persian realm of King Sabur, especially to find out how all is going with his beloved -- King Sabur's daughter, Fakhr Taj.  While flying east, the genies (Kaylajan and Kurajan) pass over a large army headed west toward the Arab lands.  They investigate, and learn (much to their surprise) that the massive army has been sent by King Sabur "to slay [King] Gharib and all who company him"!  The Marid genies wait for the army's general, Rustam, to go to bed in his tent, and then magically transport him and his bed without waking him, delivering the sleeping general before an indignant King Gharib.  Rustam is submissive, calling for the blessing of the Persian sun-god to be upon Gharib, whereupon Gharib quickly accomplishes the conversion of Rustam to Islam and grants Rustam the post of a generalship in his army.  Rustam then delivers the news that King Gharib's beloved, Fakhr Taj, was secretly ordered to be put to death by her father, the Persian King Sabur, after Sabur had flown into a rage at the fact that the princess had been deflowered by Gharib.

Summary of night 668's tale:

King Gharib immediately leaps into vengeful action, engineering an invasion of Sabur's lands to "lay waste his realm!"  He sends Rustam ahead with an army to begin the fight against the invading Persian forces that had so recently been led by Rustam himself.  Rustam completely routs the Persians in a surprise midnight attack, and some Persian troops survive and flee back to King Sabur.  When Sabur hears what has happened, he puts his son, Ward Shah, in charge of leading an offensive against Gharib's army.  But the next morning, before the Persian army has been set in motion, King Gharib and Rustam instead mount an attack on the Persians.  A bitter conflagration rages between the two armies until day's end, when the Persians retire to a defensive position at their city gates, and the Arab army arrays its tents just outside the city in preparation for the next day's battles.

Summary of night 669's tale:

The engagement of the next morning is begun by Rustam himself, who rides out in between the armies and challenges the Persians to produce their best fighter to have at him, one on one.  After Rustam dispatches the Persian champion (in a particularly messy fashion), the Persians fully engage the outnumbered Arabs.  King Gharib and his two Marid genies then take things personally in hand, leading the Arab forces to an overwhelming victory, which ends with the conversion to Islam of all the people in the conquered Persian city.  King Gharib has the defeated King Sabur brought before him and tortured, and Sabur confirms that he ordered the secret execution of his daughter, the Princess Fakhr Taj.  But when the two would-be executioners are brought before Gharib, they confide that they disobeyed Sabur's order to kill the Princess, instead setting her free out of pity and bidding her to flee.

AT LAST: An update to "The Rubik's Cube Cookbook"

In the process of working with my fourth grade math students (at Osaka International School) I've had the opportunity to do a couple of brief lessons focusing on solving the Rubik's Cube. This is by no means a part of the standard math curriculum, but it is great to give those students who are more adept at spatial reasoning a chance to shine, while also providing a special challenge to those whose eye-hand coordination and spatial perceptions might not yet be quite up to the demands posed by the Cube.

These lessons gave me the chance to pull out my document, "The Rubik's Cube Cookbook" that I wrote a few years back and update it. In working with the fourth graders, both individually and as a class, I realized that some of my original explanations were lacking, and needed to be made more explicit. So, here is version 2.1.1 of "The Rubik's Cube Cookbook":

UPDATE - May 6, 2012:  For the time being, The Rubik's Cube Cookbook will be exclusively available as a Kindle e-book.