The “Is Anything Better Than Nothing?” Post

July 1, 2010 by

We’re taking a break from the technical discussions this week and talk about that little white space under everybody’s facebook profile page. I think the original intent was to put a little blurb about yourself, but most people I know have some sort of quote that makes it a bit more interesting. I didn’t say ‘interesting’; I said a ‘bit MORE interesting.’ Important distinction. Oh lets just be honest—the whole idea is weak! It’s Fourth of July week, we’re down a writer and we pretty much got nothing. Feel free to add your own favorite quote in the comments section. A debate on whether or not “nothing” would have been better than this post would also be appropriate and welcomed.


Ted L. has a couple of my favorites: “Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.” Arther C. Clarke. And, “Give a man fire and he’s warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he’s warm for the rest of his life.” from Terry Pratchett

Sunny L quotes David Niven. “It’s not What happened, It’s How you think About What Happened”

I think Woody wrote his himself: “I usually don’t have my cell phone on.”

Jeff G, a fellow Ron Paul fan, has Paul’s “When the people once again regain their confidence in the benefits of liberty – and demand it from their elected leaders – Congress will act appropriately.” All I can say to that is “Ron Paul for President 2012!”

“I hate people but love gatherings.” Is Mike L’s deep thought.

Mark Twain comes up thanks to Tegan. “Life is short, Break the rules, Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly, Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that made you smile.”

“I haven’t slept for ten days, because that would be too long.” Kim S’s homage to the late Mitch Hedberg

Omar tells a bad joke: A blind guy walks into a bar with a seeing-eye dog…He then picks the dog up by the hind legs and starts whirling it around in a circle. The bartender, shocked, says “What the heck are you DOING?” The blind guy replies “Having a look a round”.

Freedom loving Tony M shares Thomas Paine “I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.”

Stribbs goes with Esquire’s Rule #681 “Always the smile, sometimes the nod, but never the wink.”

Mel W went with Bogart, “I was born when you kissed me. I died when you left me. … I lived a few weeks while you loved me.”

My current one is from Thomas Jefferson “But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

The most important one I found though I think comes from my company’s page. “Our mission is to improve learning by providing products and services that facilitate communication between parents, teachers, students, administrators, and the community.” Want to know more?  www.parentlink.net

Click here and select ‘Like’ to follow ParentLink on facebook.com!

Joseph A. Graff
Technology Consultant

All the displays that’s killing print

June 24, 2010 by

“Paper is dying.”

I’m sure we’ve all heard this before. I’ve even said it myself. With my 20 years experience in the publishing and computer industries, I think I can make a fairly good case for that position. And I’m going to do just that—next article.

This time we are going to talk about the actual medium, the display, which is going to replace paper—at least for books, magazines and newspapers. There are two main classes of devices for digital books. The tablet computer—like Apple’s iPad or Dell’s Mini-5; and the e-reader—like the Amazon Kindle or Sony Reader. Currently, these two devices use completely different display technologies. The tablets employ liquid crystal displays (LCD) whereas the e-readers use “e-paper”.

LED-Backlit LCD

It wasn’t too many years ago all computers were hooked up to bulky cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors. To this day, CRT’s provide the highest quality image of any display technology—including LCD and plasma. Some argue reading on a liquid crystal display (LCD) monitor produces less “eyestrain” than on a CRT. This is half true. Reading-induced eyestrain from a cheap LCD versus a cheap (or incorrectly configured) CRT is less. Operative word there is “cheap”.

As a graphics engineer, I always had very high-end monitors. Trust me, there is little to no eyestrain coming from a 1993 circa $8,000 monitor—but who’s buying eight thousand dollar monitors?

Interesting enough, eyestrain from watching video on a cheap LCD monitor can be a problem. We use our eyes differently when reading than watching video.  Slow response times on an LCD can strain eyes as well as make people nauseous. This is most evident while playing games even spawning a new disease, a subclass of motion sickness called “First Person Shooter Sickness”.

At the end of the day, it was really cost and size that drove most computer users to LCD displays.

Today’s tablet computers are using “LED backlighting” rather than fluorescent tubes in traditional LCD monitors. This technology provides greater contrast ratios and color gamut, lower power consumption and with it’s smaller size, allows for thinner devices.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_crystal_display
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LED-backlit_LCD_television

Electronic Paper

Electronic paper or e-paper is the display technology used in most e-readers. These include the Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader and the Barns and Noble Nook. E-paper has a paper-like appearance that requires light to reflect off its surface to be seen.  The image is created by an array of spheres, colored dark on one side and light on the other. The spheres are then rotated with electric magnets to change whether each pixel is “black” or “white”. An image is produced much like a newspaper’s “halftone”. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halftone]

E-paper has some clear advantages over LCD displays. E-paper doesn’t need any power to maintain an image. Once a page has been rendered, it will remain unchanged even if the electrical current is removed. Unlike LCD displays, e-paper can also be read in direct sunlight. There is anecdotal evidence that e-paper is less straining on the eyes than LCDs—though I for one and not convinced.  I am starting to see other people question this supposition as well. Some studies addressing the readability and eyestrain issues are needed.

There are disadvantages to e-paper too. Currently, the only commercially available e-papers are monochromatic—black and white. Color is on the way but it will be nothing compared to the vibrant colors of an LED-backlit LCD screen. E-paper is also very slow to draw each page. This means it is not a good display for video, games or anything needing quick refreshes of the screen. And just like a regular book, e-paper needs a light source—so if you like to read in bed before sleeping, don’t throw away your Clapper or Book Lite just yet!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_paper

Hybrid Technology, Transflective display

American display company, Pixel Qi has developed a new kind of LCD display. They call it “Transflective 2.0 technology”. Here’s an exert from their website:

Like standard backlit LCD displays, Pixel Qi displays renders quality full-color images, full-motion video, and high screen brightness.  However, in environments with high ambient light levels, the 3Qi’s reflective mode contributes to the image, allowing the backlight to be turned down or off.  This unique capability delivers significant power savings, an attractive screen and a comfortable reading experience, with very high resolution.  Outdoors, Pixel Qi’s Transflective 2.0 technology comes into play – each pixel is mainly reflective, but has about the same transmissive efficiency as a standard LCD, enabling the user to experience a crisp image with excellent contrast and *brightness* in any light.  This highly “green” LCD consumes 80 percent less power in reflective mode, yet delivers a better contrast ratio and equivalent reflectance typical of the best electrophoretic displays.

It hasn’t been commercially released as of yet, but deserves watching. Their web site has some great demonstration photos.
http://www.pixelqi.com/

Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED)

OLED is one of the newest display technologies. It can be used to create LCD-like displays.  OLEDs have an advantage over LCD in that they produce their own light, thus not requiring a back-light. This display technology has been used in some mobile phones, digital music players and even a small TV. This tech is so new it’s hard to say what place it will occupy in the future, but it might well be what kills the LCD panel.

Wikipedia explains the technology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_LED

These are the main players in the game. At the moment, only e-paper—in e-readers, and LCD displays—in the tablets, are available commercially. Will we see a Kindle with an LCD display? Will Apple make an iPad with e-paper? Will OLED replace LCD? Or will Pixel Qi transflective technology replace them all? What are you thoughts?

Joseph A. Graff
Technology Consultant

Sunday is Father’s Day

June 17, 2010 by

Celebrate Your Dad…with these meaningful quotes, sayings and short poems…

• “My grandfather always said that living is like licking honey off a thorn.” — Louis Adamic
• ‘Honour thy father and thy mother’ stands written among the three laws of most revered righteousness.” — Aeschylus

• “Father asked us what was God’s noblest work. Anna said men, but I said babies. Men are often bad, but babies never are.” — Louisa May Alcott

• “I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.” — Alexander the Great

• “Every mother generally hopes that her daughter will snag a better husband than she managed to do…but she’s certain that her boy will never get as great a wife as his father did.” — Anonymous

• “A father is always making his baby into a little woman. And when she is a woman he turns her back again.” — Enid Bagnold

• “If the new American father feels bewildered and even defeated, let him take comfort from the fact that whatever he does in any fathering situation has a fifty percent chance of being right.” — Bill Cosby

• “A new father quickly learns that his child invariably comes to the bathroom at precisely the times when he’s in there, as if he needed company. The only way for this father to be certain of bathroom privacy is to shave at the gas station.” — Bill Cosby

• “Be kind to thy father, for when thou wert young, Who loved thee so fondly as he? He caught the first accents that fell from thy tongue, And joined in thy innocent glee.” — Margaret Courtney

• “I talk and talk and talk, and I haven’t taught people in 50 years what my father taught by example in one week.” — Mario Cuomo

• “I watched a small man with thick calluses on both hands work fifteen and sixteen hours a day. I saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet, a man who came here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the language, who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work by the simple eloquence of his example.” — Mario Cuomo

“A father is a guy who has snapshots in his wallet where his money used to be.”

— Unknown

• “A king, realizing his incompetence, can either delegate or abdicate his duties. A father can do neither. If only sons could see the paradox, they would understand the dilemma.” — Marlene Dietrich

• “Lucky that man whose children make his happiness in life and not his grief, the anguished disappointment of his hopes. ” — Euripedes

• “Fifth Commandment: Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” — Exodus 20:12

• “My father always told me, ‘Find a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.’ ” — Jim Fox

• “The father is always a Republican toward his son, and his mother’s always a Democrat.” — Robert Frost

• “You don’t have to deserve your mother’s love. You have to deserve your father’s. He’s more particular.” — Robert Frost

• “A father is a banker provided by nature.” — French Proverb

• “I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.” — Sigmund Freud

• “Any man can be a Father but it takes someone special to be a dad.” — Anne Geddes

• “Fathers, like mothers, are not born. Men grow into fathers – and fathering is a very important stage in their development.” — David M. Gottesman

• “If you think about it seriously, all the questions about the soul and the immortality of the soul and paradise and hell are at bottom only a way of seeing this very simple fact: that every action of ours is passed on to others according to its value, of good or evil, it passes from father to son, from one generation to the next, in a perpetual movement.” — Antonio Gramsci

• “When Charles first saw our child Mary, he said all the proper things for a new father. He looked upon the poor little red thing and blurted, ‘She’s more beautiful than the Brooklyn Bridge.'” — Helen Hayes

• “One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.” — George Herbert

• “If the past cannot teach the present and the father cannot teach the son, then history need not have bothered to go on, and the world has wasted a great deal of time.” — Russell Hoban

• “For rarely are sons similar to their fathers: most are worse, and a few are better than their fathers.” — Homer

“A father is a banker…
provided by nature.”

— French Proverb

• “My father always used to say that when you die, if you’ve got five real friends, you’ve had a great life.” — Elbert Hubbard

• “My father died many years ago, and yet when something special happens to me, I talk to him secretly not really knowing whether he hears, but it makes me feel better to half believe it.” — Natasha Josefowitz

• “The father of a daughter is nothing but a high-class hostage. A father turns a stony face to his sons, berates them, shakes his antlers, paws the ground, snorts, runs them off into the underbrush, but when his daughter puts her arm over his shoulder and says, ‘Daddy, I need to ask you something,’ he is a pat of butter in a hot frying pan.” — Garrison Keillor

• “My father didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.” — Clarence Budington Kelland

• “My father told me that all businessmen were sons-of-bitches, but I never believed him until now.” — John F. Kennedy

• “My father said, ‘Politics asks the question: Is it expedient? Vanity asks: Is it popular? But conscience asks: Is it right?'” — Dexter Scott King

• “His mother called such people ignorant and superstitious, but his father only shook his head slowly and puffed his pipe and said that sometimes old stories had a grain or two of truth in them and it was best not to take chances. It was why, he said, he crossed himself whenever a black cat crossed his path.” — Stephen King

• “When I was a kid, I said to my father one afternoon, ‘Daddy, will you take me to the zoo?’ He answered, ‘If the zoo wants you, let them come and get you.'” — Jerry Lewis

• “I don’t know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.” — Abraham Lincoln

• “Honor thy father and thy mother.” — Matthew 19:19

• “The thing to remember about fathers is, they’re men. A girl has to keep it in mind: They are dragon seekers, bent on improbable rescues. Scratch any father, you find Someone chock full of qualms and romantic terrors, Believing change is a threat Like your first shoes with heels on, like your first bicycle It took such months to get.” — Phyllis McGinley

• “My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it.” — Abraham Lincoln

• “Love matches, so called, have illusion for their father and need for their mother.” — Friedrich Nietzche

• “Life was a lot simpler when what we honored was father and mother rather than all major credit cards.” — Robert Orben

• “People see Archie Bunker everywhere. Particularly girls; poor girls, rich girls, all kinds of girls are always coming up to me and telling me that Archie is just like their dad.” — Carroll O’Connor

• “A wise son maketh a glad father.” — Proverbs 10:1

• “None of you can ever be proud enough of being the child of such a Father who has not his equal in this world – so great, so good, so faultless. Try, all of you, to follow in his footsteps and don’t be discouraged, for to be really in everything like him none of you, I am sure, will ever be. Try, therefore, to be like him in some points, and you will have acquired a great deal.” — Queen Victoria of England

“My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it.”

— Abraham Lincoln

“Sometimes the poorest man leaves his children the richest inheritance.” — Ruth E. Renkel
• “Father taught us that opportunity and responsibility go hand in hand. I think we all act on that principle; on the basic human impulse that makes a man want to make the best of what’s in him and what’s been given him.” — Laurence Rockefeller

• “That is the thankless position of the father in the family-the provider for all, and the enemy of all.” — J. August Strindberg

• “An angry father is most cruel towards himself.” — Publilius Syrus

• “I just owe almost everything to my father [and] it’s passionately interesting for me that the things that I learned in a small town, in a very modest home, are just the things that I believe have won the election.” — Margaret Thatcher

• “A man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and the two become one flesh.” — The Holy Bible

• “It’s only when you grow up, and step back from him, or leave him for your own career and your own home—it’s only then that you can measure his greatness and fully appreciate it. Pride reinforces love.” — Margaret Truman

• “A man’s children and his garden both reflect the amount of weeding done during the growing season”. — Unknown

• “A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty.” — Unknown

• “Small boy’s definition of Father’s Day: It’s just like Mother’s Day only you don’t spend so much.” — Unknown

• “A father is a guy who has snapshots in his wallet where his money used to be.” — Unknown

• “For thousands of years, father and son have stretched wistful hands across the canyon of time, each eager to help the other to his side, but neither quite able to desert the loyalties of his contemporaries. The relationship is always changing and hence always fragile; nothing endures except the sense of difference.” — Alan Valentine

• “By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong.” — Charles Wadsworth

http://www.chiff.com/a/fathers-day-quotes.htm

iPad Interviews Part II

June 2, 2010 by

Next in my interviews, I wanted to talk about the display. Raving about the iPad’s display has been near universal. Some even calling the screen the iPad’s “killer app”. My interviewees concurred. When asked, Lena replied “Oh yeah, movies look great! Music videos on WiFi look good too.”

Bill said the video was “stunning” though he complained about youtube.com not being rock solid—more likely an connectivity issue than anything iPad specific.

Steve and I are both graphic engineers from way back, so pleasing him should be harder than the other two. The lack of full HD resolution didn’t bother him due to the small screen size—but he really complained about the 4:3 screen ratio. Other than that, he too loves the display. It a word, “Wow.”

Steve found an interesting app too. “There is a $0.99 app that lets you stream from your home workstation. It does on the fly transcoding and it looks amazing.” Maybe we’ll get a comment out of him as to the app’s name?

My next question was, What percent of your “notebook computing” will be migrated to your iPad?

My father gets the prize for the most dramatic shift. This was not unexpected as his use of computers is generally more limited than the other two. He said, “Ten percent or less of my computer time is being used on a laptop. The rest, iPhone and iPad.” He was already using his iPhone to read online news—that’s being shared with the iPad. Now he’s doing his casual emailing and web browsing on the iPad too. He summed up, “I’ll never take my laptop on a trip again. What I need for a trip is a communications tool. The iPad is a better communications tool than a laptop.”

Lena has shifted most of her web browsing over to the iPad. She mentioned the lack of iPhoto (Apple’s photo management application) keeps her tied to her Macbook. This raised my ears as I too am an OSX user and rely on iPhoto to post pics both to my personal website and facebook page. With no camera and no way to get pictures from a digital camera directly onto an iPad takes it completely out of the picture management game. “If I could use iPhoto on my iPad I might not need my Macbook.”

Steve is more “playing around” with his iPad than anything. He put his use into context thusly: “I have been experimenting with the iPad. I attend a lot of meetings and have been using it exclusively to take notes. So far its been performing perfectly. I have even hosted a Slide presentation from it connected to a projector.” This is someone using an iPad where before it was pen and paper. He claims his use of computers has been effected little—but he has several laptop computers and a desktop system, hooked to his large screen HDTV that he can access from his favorite chair in his TV room.

Finally I asked how they saw the iPad and like devices effecting education.  Bill said he wouldn’t want textbooks on the iPad because of no note taking ability. Steve thought he would want the textbooks digitally, “I were a student id be all for this.” Lean wasn’t sure how the iPad was going to effect formal education but she had already purchased some education software for her 21-month year old. She said he can even turn on the iPad and launch one of his games! If I had known toddlers were using iPads I might have interviewed one. Next time.  😉

So there’s three takes on the iPad. For me, I probably won’t be buying one. I already have a MacBookPro, a Windows 7 laptop, a netbook and an iMac. Not to mention my use would be somewhere in between Lena and Steve—which makes me think I wouldn’t use an iPad much. Without iPhoto I can’t use it exclusively on a pleasure trip. For work I need a full powered computer or notebook and keyboard. And for causal browsing and email, two of my computers sit next to me connected to my large screen HDTV, so I’m well covered.

Lena said she would buy the iPad 2.0 upon release if it supported iPhoto. She promised to sell me her current version if that happened. That’s cool. I can wait. 😀

On a side note, I found an article last week about “Android”, Google’s smartphone/tablet computer OS. My favorite part reads, “On the other side, there’s Android — a technically solid operating system which appears to have been designed by folks with minimal interest in issues of usability.”

I could have written that! The user interface, the software, is the key to competing in this market. I am sure you’ll hear me say this again. That’s just how I move forward along a surface by repeatedly turning over…

http://www.pcworld.com/article/196948/android_challenges_iphone_users_win.html?tk=rss_news

Joseph A Graff
Technology Consultant
http://www.joegraff.com

Contemplating the Next School Year…

June 1, 2010 by

As most students’ minds have already checked out for the summer, we are left to ponder this last school year. We’ve survived another year and you have helped make a difference in the lives of more students.

Now is the time for our proverbial “new school year resolutions.” How will next year be different? How will we make a difference and empower the students that occupy our schools? How will we impress upon them the desire for knowledge, the capacity to learn, and the ability to reason? Well, the first step is getting them in the classroom. How will we get our students to attend class?

Student attendance is important no matter the school. Every institute earns government funding based on attendance and enrollment, which is affected by whether or not a student attends class or drops out. Absences are strong predictors in a student’s educational career, and is what helps identify potential drop-out students. No matter how schools earn funding, if a student does not attend class, they will not learn and become contributors to society.

Everyone toots the same horn where student absences are concerned. It’s always the same doom and gloom ending. We focus a lot on the end result of excessive student absences because it is truly a tragedy. Some drop-outs are able to recover their life and fix their mistakes. Yet many do not. I would like to tie this in to a research paper recently released by ParentLink. In this, we discuss the causes of student absence, who can make a difference in each student’s life, and how you can make that difference.

High school dropouts, on average, earn “$9,200 less per year than high school graduates” (Dunsworth and Billings 136). In addition to fi nancial repercussions, the societal costs likewise add up. For example:

  • “Over the course of his or her lifetime, a high school dropout earns, on average, about $260,000 less than a high school graduate.
  • If the male graduation rate were increased by only 5 percent, the nation would see an annual savings of $8 billion in crime-related costs.
  • Dropouts from the class of 2008 alone will cost the nation more than $319 billion in lost wages over the course of their lifetimes.”

(Alliance for Excellent Education 1)

This next year you can make more of a difference. In order to “cure” we must first understand. Download the full white paper here and learn how you can continue winning ground on the fight against student absences.

Hands-on the iPad (Part I)

May 25, 2010 by

Apple Inc released it’s iPad just over six weeks ago. It’s estimated that they sold over one million pads in the first month. It took nearly three times as long for the iPhone to reach that milestone. Only the most diehard Apple-haters would say this wasn’t an incredibly successful launch.

Most professional reviews were generally positive but I wanted to hear from some real users. I would have loved to get my hands on one myself, but I currently live in Thailand and Apple has yet to release the iPad here. Since I won’t be back in the States until September, I had to interview some people from back home.

I initially talked with several friends on a causal basis about the iPad. All of those conversations, with the actual purchaser, were totally positive if not raving. Talking to the spouses of those purchasers did not give the same response. I knew I would have to formalize some interviews to get a more accurate and non-emotional biased view. I also thought I would wait a month or so to let the “newness” of the device to wear off.

I chose three people to interview.

Steven G. Willett, a high-end IT professional. Steve has pioneered using mash-up technology in the defense industry. Steve has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal and is quoted in the book “Mash-ups for Dummies”. He was also selected as one of the top 100 Federal Employees in 2008.

Bill Graff, my father and a rather sophisticated end user for his age group of 70 plus. Bill formally published the Washington Business Review. He has been using PCs since the very beginning.

Lastly I talked with Lena Graff, my sister-in-law and holder of one of the most important jobs in the world to me—mother to my nephew! I chose these three not only because I know them well but also because they are three very different kinds of computer users. All three purchased within a day of the iPad release—so have had a similar amount of time using it.

My first question asked about what was their biggest positive surprise, as in what is the one, two or three things you really like about the iPad you didn’t expect. All three remarked about the stunning display watching videos and movies. Steve and Bill were impressed with the amount of free books available. Both Steve and Lena mentioned a longer battery life than expected.

Bill was also really impressed with boot-up speed. He said his Windows notebook takes four minutes to boot but the iPad is up in seconds. In all fairness I want to mention that this is really due to the device being “always on”. The iPad is designed to be used this way where Windows is designed to be shut down regularly. He also liked the small size and discovered it even fit in an inside pocket on his jacket.

Next I asked about the biggest negative surprise. Steve had file management issues. “They sell iWork for the iPad, and it works great—fully featured etc.  But the process to get files to the device is a nightmare.”

Lena was really disappointed that there was no iPhoto on the iPad. She still has to use her Macbook to manage her photo galleries.

Bill didn’t like that no note-taking ability was available for the eBooks. He also said the video wasn’t “rock solid” though I suspect that’s an Internet or provider side problem as opposed to one with the iPad. Bill also strongly disliked the spreadsheet in iWork. He’s hoping Microsoft Office or OpenOffice will be ported to the iPad.

When asked about e-books Bill said “I couldn’t read a book on my iPhone but I can with the iPad. For a novel, the iPad is better than a book. For professional type book, it’s not as good—no note taking ability yet, no comments with bookmarks.” He did mention liking the ability to adjust text size and screen contrast. When asked about periodicals he was positive enough to responded, “It’s the death-knell for newspapers and magazines.”

Lena has been reading the Twilight series on her iPad. She gave me my biggest surprised during these interviews when she said, “Reading a book on the iPad is better than reading one on my husbands Kindle.” I was surprised because though I am sure the iPad is a viable platform for reading books, I would have guess the Kindle’s e-paper technology would be better for reading. I will be doing an article on display technologies and tablet computers in the coming weeks. We’ll examine this issue more closely then.

Steve hadn’t read a book on his iPad though his daughter apparently enjoyed the included Winnie-The-Pooh book.

I am nearing my word limit so am forced to cut this article into two parts. Check back Wednesday for Part II.

Joseph A Graff
Technology Consultant

Happy Teachers Are Effective Teachers

May 11, 2010 by

Amidst the education reforms taking place throughout the United States, teachers are finding their jobs more and more difficult to fulfill to any satisfactory level. Performance-based pay based on student achievement is a highly disputed policy. One could argue either way regarding such policies, but the end result is that many teachers feel like their work is not appreciated or trusted. Job satisfaction among educators is swiftly decreasing with changes meant to improve student achievement. I admit, it’s hard to come to a moot point and please all audiences. The latest MetLife Survey of The American Teacher sheds some statistical light on what seems an undervalued line of work.

For example:

  • Six in ten teachers are very satisfied with teaching as a career.
  • 89% of teachers in secondary school experience career changers.
  • Hybrid teaching roles are particularly appealing to new teachers (46%) and those who are less than very satisfied with their current career (42%).

Committing oneself entirely to teaching is becoming noticeably less popular. Hybrid teaching, while not a common practice among many school districts, is starting to grow in popularity. Fulfilling multiple roles in a school increases employee value and allows for more opportunities of outside-the-box thinking. Rather than keeping teachers exclusively in the classroom, administrators are seeing how they perform in regular staff or administrative functions.

As education reform continues to reshape traditional K-12 education, the prestigious position of teaching is likewise adapting to accommodate an increasingly difficult line of work.

Dude, Where’s My Competition?

May 4, 2010 by

Just this past week Apple released it’s 3G iPad. The only difference in this version is support for the 3G (“Third Generation”) mobile communications standard allowing an Internet connection over the mobile phone network. They reportedly sold 300,000 units over its first weekend. This leaves the total number of iPads sold to date north of 1,000,000.  It seems clear that a market for this new type of device exists. Yet just days before Apple’s 3G release Saturday, development on two major competitive products, HP’s Slate and Microsoft’s Courier, was halted.

HP Slate

Just a few weeks ago I wrote an article on Apple’s competition in the tablet computer market. At that time, HP’s Slate seemed positioned as the iPad’s main rival. The Slate had all the things the iPad didn’t: USB and memory ports, Webcams, HDMI out and support for Adobe’s Flash technology. The Slate appeared ready to go. So why did this supposed “iPad Killer” get killed before even being released? We may never hear the whole story from Hewett-Packard, but I suspect the user interface under Windows 7 couldn’t compete with Apple’s OS. HP also just purchased Palm, Inc., makers of a smart-phone OS. HP may feel moving their tablet computer to this OS might be a better option—both because they own the operating system and because Windows 7 may not be a good tablet computer platform.

I do love the title of Tony Bradley’s latest article: iPad Killer? We Can’t Even get an iPad Challenger.
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/195335/ipad_killer_we_cant_even_get_an_ipad_challenger.html

Another article on the death of the Slate: http://www.techtree.com/India/News/HP_Kills_the_iPad_Killer_-_Slate/551-110921-615.html

Microsoft Courier

This past September, Microsoft announced it’s own tablet computer, The Courier–though it labeled it a “digital journal”. This device was going to be two touch-screens connected at the middle like a paper book, with a stylus for handwriting recognition, running a whole new operating system.

I didn’t mention this on in my previous article, as its release date was almost a year away. Now it looks like it will never come to market. Microsoft’s reasoning for canceling the Courier is probably more complicated than HP’s decision. Microsoft already has two operating systems that can drive tablet computers (Windows 7 and the soon-to-be released Windows 7 mobile) so the Courier might just have been test platform. This could also signal Microsoft moving away from handwriting recognition—perhaps towards voice recognition?

For more information see:

“Microsoft’s Courier ‘digital journal’” http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/microsofts-courier-digital-journal-exclusive-pictures-and-de/
“Microsoft cancels the Courier, the Internet sheds a tear”  http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/04/29/microsoft-cancels-the-courier-the-internet-sheds-a-tear/

New Competition

So the iPad has lost a couple competitors  but it’s also gained a few.

FusionGarage released it’s tablet, the JooJoo, just before the iPad. I was aware of it at the time of writing my last article, but it was reviewed so poorly, I chose not to mention it. Since it’s the only competitor actually available, I mention it now. http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/05/fusion-garage-joojoo-review/

AsusTek has announced a June release for it’s netbook based Eee tablet. http://www.channelnews.com.au/Hardware/Mobility/E2E7J5L3

Google has said it will release a table computer to compete with the iPad in the third quarter this year.
http://living.oneindia.in/men/gadgets-gizmos/2010/google-launch-ipad-tablet-soon-280410.html

I haven’t talked much about ebook readers yet, but if that’s your main reason for purchasing a table, you might want to read this comparision of Amazon’s Kindle, Barns & Nobel’s Nook and the iPad. http://i.pdablast.com/articles/2010/4/2010427-Amazon-Kindle-vs-Barnes.html

My next article will focus on the iPad and those who are using it. My father, sister-in-law and a couple collegues have purchased iPads and seem to love them. I’ll interview them for my next report.

Following that I will talk more about e-readers. My initial article in this series focused on how the iPad, tablet computers and/or e-readers will replace printed books. In David Morgenstern’s article titled “E-Readers next?” he says:

“A prediction: When the dust clears and the sales figures are finally known, we will discover that in a short time frame, perhaps in the span of a few months, Apple will have sold more e-book readers than have ever been sold in the history of the category (I saw my first reader in the late 1990s). And by the end of the year, Apple will have a similar market share in the e-reader category that it has with the iPod and iPhone, in the 60 to 70 percent range.”

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=6778

I agree with him—but “why”? That’s another article…

Joseph A. Graff
Technology Consultant

Humorous Communications

April 26, 2010 by

The field of communications is perpetually changing. Five years ago, most of us never heard of Facebook; ten years, Wikipedia; 15 years, cell phone; and 20 years, the Internet. Yet these mediums and tools have become part of our everyday life. Even with the advantage of countless tools to communicate, we still find ourselves struggling to get the right message out.

At church

Some of the following were spoken from the pulpit. We can only imagine how long it took for someone in the congregation to start giggling:

  • “Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our church and community.”
  • “For those of you who have children and don’t know it, we have a nursery downstairs.”
  • “This afternoon there will be a meeting in the South and North ends of the church. Children will be baptized at both ends.”
  • “Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. there will be an ice cream social. All ladies giving milk will please come early.”
  • “This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. Lewis to come forward and lay an egg on the altar.”
  • “The service will close with Little Drops of Water. One of the ladies will start quietly and the rest of the congregation will join in.”
  • “Next Sunday a special collection will be taken to defray the cost of the new carpet. All those wishing to do something on the carpet should come forward and do so.”
  • “The ladies of the church have cast off clothing of every kind. They can be seen in the church basement on Saturday.”

Resource: http://www.hodu.com/bloopers.shtml

In addition, I found this neat PowerPoint at: lessons.ppt
http://www.businesscommunicationblog.com/blog/2008/08/01/bloopers-in-english/

Enjoy your bloopers. If you come across any, please share them with us!

Building Achievement through Communication

April 19, 2010 by

Several weeks ago we looked at the first part of the latest MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Collaborating for Student Success. This week we will look at the second part of the study: student achievement.

The obvious starting remark is that teachers, whether they are in K-12 or higher education, have an impact on student achievement. Teachers have a strong influence on the direction students take in their lives. I am reminded of an article posted several weeks ago that discussed how female students were discouraged from entering the STEM fields by their professors. Our responsibility as parents, educators, and mentors is to facilitate a student’s success rather than impede it. Yet, as is the case in all things, our perceptions of students’ abilities influences the effort we make in enabling students to succeed.

Among the findings on the survey, the following was discovered:

  • Nearly nine in ten teachers (86%) and principals (89%) believe that setting high expectations for all students would have a major impact on improving student achievement.
  • Only 36% of teachers and 51% of principals believe that all of their students have the ability to succeed academically.
  • Just over half of students (53%) strongly agree that all of the teachers in their school want them to succeed.
  • On average, teachers expect that 50% of their students will attend a two- or four-year college, and principals expect 57% of their students to attend.
  • Eight in ten students (79%) plan to attend a two- or four-year college after high school, but only about half of students (55%) are very confident that they will achieve their goals for the future.
  • Nine in ten teachers (88%) and principals (89%) believe that strengthening ties among schools and parents is very important for improving student achievement.

As evidenced by the first part of this survey, the first two points emphasize once more that there is an obvious disconnect between how teachers and principals perceive student ability and how students believe teachers perceive their own abilities. This is further illustrated by how many students teachers and principals believe will enter a two- or four-year institute. Students have high expectations of themselves, which, if coupled with teachers expecting more of their students, would result in even higher student achievement.

Once more, the underlying message to all of this is two-way communication. Communicating consistently with students and their parents allows for reasonable expectations to be set and a student’s abilities to be stretched appropriately. Opening a channel to reach your parents and allowing them to likewise reach you allows for a better understanding of students’ circumstances, their abilities, and how you can extend growth experiences from the school to their home environment.

http://www.metlife.com/assets/cao/contributions/foundation/american-teacher/MetLife_Teacher_Survey_2009_Part_2.pdf

Third installment to come!

Ryan Goodrich
Communications Specialist