How to Save a Wet Cell Phone

One of my students spilled some bottled water on her electronic keyboard.  She asked me if she could save it and I told here what I knew which was basically let it dry out before you turned it on again.  Found this little visual that gives some better ideas.  (Tina this is for you!)

[Image from GeekSauad: http://www.geeksquad.com/intelligence/blog/tips-to-save-your-cell-phone-this-st-patricks-day/]

Make Great Minds

Great website sponsored by Make called Elements of Humanity. They went out and interviewed prominent people in science and technology about what they find interesting. The resulting videos are fascinating.

The one embedded is an interview with Rebecca Moore who manages the Google Outreach Program.

[Image captured from Elements of Humanity: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/10/quick_and_easy_pumpkin_cutter.html]

New phone

I've missed several meetings this past month. I've lost some phone messages. I am getting more absent minded every day.....although my wife may say that isn't a new behavior. This and the fact that my mobile phone is over four years old made me say yes when my wife said she wanted to update our service to iPhones for each of us.

Boy. What a life changer this has been!

All my calendars are synced in one place. I can access all my email accounts. My contact information is exactly the same as what is on my home computer and they both sync every time I plug into my computer. Texting is much easier than my old phone. It has made a big difference in my day to day life. For the better.

The interface took me minutes to learn vs working with the manual for days to learn the features on my last phone. The hardest thing was getting my wife's phone to hook into a joint email account we have through our ISP. A little research on the web and I had it up and running in about 30 minutes. In every other instance, messing around with the interface for a few minutes and I can get it to work. I love that.

The applications available for the iPhone are also eye opening. I can connect to my Facebook account whenever I want. I can get directions to pretty much anywhere using a little app called Touch-n-Go. I've got a compatible copy of MacGourmet on my phones which allows me to carry my computer recipe bank with me to the store. I have a few music apps. But, really for the most part, everything I wanted and needed came with the iPhone.

I was reluctant to make the move up to a new cell. Now that I've had it for a week, I'm sold. My wife who isn't quite the techno-nerd I am probably loves her phone more than I do mine. It is a wonderful little device.

[Image: Captured from http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/mail.html]

World of the Cyborg on its way....or is it here already?

The only human enhancement device I use currently is a pair of eyeglasses. I have friends though with pacemakers, hearing aides and metal hip joints. (You can get a feel for age of my peers by looking closely at those items.) I often imagine what the next generation will have available to help them out.

Heck but why let the next generation have all the fun. Here is a list from Dvice of some other items you could have implanted to improve your biology today. The device shown here isn't implanted but it allows you to control the robot using just your mind. Cool. Kind of bulky for the front room. But, still cool.

[Image captured from http://dvice.com/archives/2009/05/8-body-implants.php]

Aneesh Chopra: New Fedreal Chief Technology Officer

President Obama announced the name of the New Chief Technology Officer: Aneesh Chopra.

"Aneesh Chopra, who is currently the Secretary of Technology for Governor Kaine of Virginia, has agreed to serve as America’s Chief Technology Officer. In this role, Aneesh will promote technological innovation to help achieve our most urgent priorities – from creating jobs and reducing health care costs to keeping our nation secure."

Good overview of who Chopra is and why he is a good choice at this article by Tim O'Reilly.

Aneesh Chopra Facebook page.

[via O'Reilly Radar: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Weekly-Address-President-Obama-Discusses-Efforts-to-Reform-Spending-Government-Waste-Names-Chief-Performance-Officer-and-Chief-Technology-Officer/]

Glide Cylce

I love all the ideas concepts I've seen popping up designed to help people stay active and mobile. The GlideCycle is an invention along these lines. By supporting your body weight, it allows you use your legs to push yourself along either like a scooter or with a running motion depending on your abilities.

I couldn't get any of the videos to embed properly so head over to the GlideCycle web site to see these bikes in action.



[via DVICE]

[Image captured from GlideCycle video:

TED: How my legs give me superpowers

"So people that society once considered to be disabled can now become the architects of their own identities and indeed continue to change those identities by designing their bodies from a place of empowerment."
----Aimee Mullins from her TED talk





[Image captured from http://www.myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?hero=Aimee_Mullins]

Open Source Textbook

Any of you who have ever served on the book committees of your k-12 schools know what a huge item this can be on your budget. Pick the wrong book and you are stuck with it for a long time before monies come available for your department again.

Any of us who ever attended college have experienced the sticker shock of buying our first set of textbooks. The cost of my books approached the cost of my tuition as an undergraduate.


As a student back in the 70s, a used bookstore opened in our college town, we flocked to it's cheaper prices. That bookstore mysteriously closed down after a year of brisk business. I was forced back to the higher priced college bookstore and was always suspicious of why that store closed. Sometimes I did without and tried to make do with the library copies. Understanding instructors tried to help out by picking cheaper books or putting a bunch of copies on reserve in the library.

The last few college courses I've taken have occured during the era of the internet and I've been able to get any books much cheaper. I heard of students going over the Mexican border and copying entire textbooks for themselves and their classmates. I also seem to remember some kids getting busted for scanning in their books and turning them into pdfs that could be shared with their peers. Advances in technology are coming. Access to the tools to easily copy or reproduce books are already here.

The way textbooks are distributed will change. The idea of textbooks online that you subscribe too instead of buy. Digital books that can be read by a device like Amazon's Kindle. Public domain books online. The change is happening right now. So, I found this article about an Open Source textbook fascinating. Virginia has released a physics textbook under a Creative Commons license. It was peer reviewed and put together in less than 6 months. It can be updated on a yearly basis and viewed online. And...the cost is much less than a traditional textbook.

I think radical change is going to come soon. The same kind of sudden change that came with digital music. I wonder if the textbook companies will be surfing that wave or be left sitting on the beach wet and obsolete?

[Image: Flickr: "revision/procrastination": Uploaded on March 26, 2008 by wenday :D: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wenday/2364373936/: Creative Commons]

Aptera Update

Read my most recent Aptera Newsletter today and there is some good video and article links. Company is still saying they will be selling to the public by October of this year. Bad news for us Colorado boys is that it will only be sold in California. They still want to build their customer support infrastructure as they go into production.

Edmunds did an article on the car along with an embedded video. Here's a small taste of what they said:

"With a curb weight of just 1,760 pounds - slated to drop to 1,500 pound in the final production version - and a drag coefficient that's about half that of the most aerodynamic production cars on the market today, the battery-electric Aptera 2e can go at least 100 miles on a full charge with two 180-pound adults and 250 pounds of cargo on board, Wilbur said, That's a fuel-efficiency equivalent of getting 200 miles per gallon.Configure the vehicle as a range-extended plug-in hybrid with an internal combustion engine generating juice for the electric motor once the initial grid charge is depleted and fuel efficiency jumps to more than 300 miles per gallon-equivalent"

The price tag of 25-45 thousand is still a little steep for me and I'd like to read something about how it does on ice an snow. Still, this little vehicle appeals to my inner geek.

[Image captured from http://blogs.edmunds.com/greencaradvisor/2009/02/2010-aptera-2e-a-first-look-at-california-companys-three-wheeled-ev.html]

Science of Watchmen

OK...I admit it. I've been counting the days for the release of Watchmen. I have a couple of students who are Watchman fans and we share stories and hopes about the movie. I won't be at the opening night but will make it to an evening performance sometime this week. Jim Kakalios, the author of The Physics of Superheros was a consultant for the film and this interview about the Science of Watchmen is on YouTube. (Embedded below)

Clever way to move a discussion of the movie into a discussion of science with your students.

If you haven't read the graphic novel, give it a shot. Comic books were my gateway drug into short stories and then to novels. As an adult, I moved away from comics and never got caught up in the graphic novels that started coming out while I was a young man. I resisted the Watchmen for years. Finally, after reading that TIME magazine listed it as one of the best 100 English language novels from 1923 to the present, I gave in and read it last year. I loved it. It's complex and multi-layered. It's the kind of thing you can read over and over. I convinced my wife who never read comics to read it. She was skeptical. She likes science fiction though, so out of love for me and the genre gave it a try. She loved it, too. If I was still in a reading group, I'd recommend it as a novel for discussion. Give it a try and then casually mention to your students that you read it. At least one little Watchman groupie will come up to talk to you about the book afterwards.

Afrogadget

Don't remember where I saw Afrogadet mentioned but I've been following it for a while now and thoroughly enjoy the articles. It is a "website dedicated to showcasing African ingenuity" and boy have I been impressed by some of the things they've shown.

My uncle is a beekeeper, so I was particularly interested in this post on the blending of a modern beehive with a traditional one made from a hollow log. I'd love to know what my Uncle Ray would think of this?

If you teach Geography, I think you'd find a variety of posts here demonstrating various aspects of African culture. Not to mention some interesting design and technology concepts. Add this one to your RSS reader. I think you will enjoy it.


Let me close with this quote about the gathering of honey from the hives naked:

"The honey is collected at night by naked men (yes totally naked …) they say that this prevents one from getting bees stuck in your clothing… I asked about the possibility of getting stung in sensitive places, they said the bees were far too civilized for that…but yes, people had fallen from the trees and been found comatose and butt naked at the tree base…"

[Image: Captured from http://www.afrigadget.com/2009/03/03/the-beesness-of-honey/]

Best Buy Teach Award

I've been dreaming about a classroom set of inexpensive digital cameras for a couple of years now. A set I could bring into a class, check out to every student and not be too worried about damage or loss. I've had several projects in mind for my multimedia and my web students that would require lots of pictures generated by the kids. So, when my principal asked me to consider applying for a technology grant from Best Buy, I figured this might be the time to ask for the cameras.

I wrote the grant back in the early fall and just last week took the paperwork off my wall where it was hanging and said, "Guess I'm not going to get this one." In a grumbling, crotchety old-man voice. "I never get these dag-nabbed things. Mumble. Grumble......"

Today I got an email announcing that I was one of the winners. I could only say, "Yippee." Still in a grumbling, crotchety old man voice. Cause that's pretty much the only voice I got. Although today maybe with a clear overtone of humble appreciation.

Thank you Best Buy.

Rest of you teachers, if an old dog like me can get a grant, what's stopping you? The application process opens up in July. Be sure to check it out.

[Image: Captured from http://www.bbycommunications.com/crnew/our_programs.asp]

Haptic Compass

I've always been fascinated by the idea of clothing or jewelry that could augment our own senses in some helpful way. I already wear one of these inventions every day. I call them eye glasses. My students call them old fashioned.

"Why don't you get contacts Mr. G? It would make you look so much younger!"

The belt in this article has a series of small vibrators built into it and which are then wired into an electronic compass. If I understand it correctly, the vibrator closest to North is always activated (vibrating) effectively keeping you continuously oriented. I'd love to try something like this out.

I have often wondered if you did use a device like this if it would improve your sense of direction or hurt it when you took it off. Would your body get dependent on it or would it help you to better utilize all your senses? Fun research question.

[via Make]

[Image: Captured from "Haptic Compass": Make: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/02/haptic_compass.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890]

Ethics of DNA

Kevin Kelly recently posted an article, Open Source DNA that has had me thinking all day. The topic is how private should our DNA be? What will be the social consequences as the cost of sequencing drops? (see the chart)

Kelly says:

Because DNA is seen as conveying not only paternity, and sexual activity, but also the blueprints to each person's persona, the idea of someone else "capturing" it feels wrong. We currently perceive our DNA to be a personal code that contains our past, present and future. If we could just unlock it, we'd know our destiny. And at the same time, we'd better understand our current identity. I avidly encourage everyone to get their DNA sequenced, but I think the benefits are not what we currently believe they are, and I think the idea that these codes encapsulate us is close to superstition. For some folks, the fear of having your DNA stolen is akin to the fear by many tribal people of having their soul stolen by photography. I would argue that getting your DNA sequenced is very much like getting your photo taken. The camera takes your picture and not your soul. And your picture is well… your "picture" is not really yours.

This is just a small sample. Take a look and then share it with your students. It should be a good discussion starter. Ask them a few of these questions.

• Should DNA be treated like fingerprints?
• Under what circumstances should someone be able to sequence your DNA? Suspected of a crime? Paternity curiosity? Suspicison of infidelity?
• Should insurance companies be able to deny you coverage because of your DNA?
• You throw away a piece of gum and someone picks it up and sequences your DNA and then posts it on the internet. Should that be illegal? Legal? Why?

[image captured from The technium: "Open source DNA": http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/01/open-source_dna.php]

Introducing the Macintosh (1984)

I fondly remember going with my friend Steve in mid eighties to go pick up his new Macintosh. We both had Apple IIe's and were excited to actually get our hands on this new kind of computer. Steve was (and is a musician) and was buying the Mac because of some of the music software available (maybe Finale.....I'll have to ask him next time we talk). I was excited, well, because even back then I was kind of geeky.

We unpacked it and had it up and running after installing many disks worth of software. One floppy at a time. I was blown away by the graphics. Amazed by the mouse. In love with the simple drawing program (MacPaint) that came with the machine. I left that day wondering how long it would take me to save up enough money to get a Mac.

It's hard for folks who weren't into computers back then or too young to understand what a shift in technology that machine represented. I realized the other day that all of my students have grown up with graphical interfaces. Then I realized how old I was getting to be. Then I had to rest from all the thinking.

Here is a YouTube video of Steve Jobs presenting that Mac 25 years ago.



Here is the famous Mac commercial that aired only once during Superbowl in 1984



[via Free Technology for Teachers]

[Image: Captured from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Macintosh_128k_transparency.png]

Inexpensive kid proof camera

Kids are hard on electronic equipment. Some of it is malicious. I believe most is not. A lot of damage is the result of them learning to use a body that is changing daily. I saw this in my technology lab repeatedly. The worst offenders tended to be my sixth graders. Sometimes it seemed they didn't know their own increasing strength.

Oddly enough, I had more breakage with young girls than young boys. That ratio changed the older they got. In a twisted, hard on the teacher kind of way, breakage was good for the kids. It was good for me as a boy. I learned all about not stripping a bolt by stripping one. Splitting wood by accidentally splitting a board. Structural soundness by building something that wasn't. Why should I deny my kids the wisdom of failure? The trick is to try and build those experiences into your lab in a safe and cheap way. (Good luck!)

So I was always on the look out for equipment that was built a little sturdier than what I might get for myself. I saw this camera by Fischer Price recently and thought that it might make a good classroom camera even for older kids. I don't think my middle schoolers would have taken it out of the room as it looks like a child's toy. But it looks like something we could knock around with in the lab, suspend from the ceiling, attach to a 10 foot pole or build into a Lego robot. Every time a child dropped it I would cringe just a little less knowing that it probably wouldn't break and that if it did the price wasn't prohibitive in me quickly replacing it.

I wish there were a line of cameras designed for kids with a nice balance between price, value and features. I'd spend a little more if I didn't have to plan for a certain number to break every year. Anybody have suggestions along this line for older kids?

[via Gadget Venue] [Image captured from Gadget Venue: http://www.gadgetvenue.com/fisher-price-kid-tough-digital-camera-12172005/]

Work the Information

In a recent post on David Warlicks Blog, he wrote something that struck a chord with me. He was listing challenges (or obstacles) to implementing various technologies in our schools and in response to the often heard comment, "The kids know more than we do", he said:

"No they don’t. They are more savvy at using technology, but we are better at using information. They know how to play the information. They desperately need us to teach them to work the information."

I've been struggling to put this concept into words the past month or so as I work with kids who are tech savvy but are failing in school. They can find their way around a keyboard and navigate the network but when it comes time to apply their knowledge, they choke and burn.

In my classroom, there is always going to be a kid who knows more about a program or piece of technology than me. I have a few advantages though, when it comes to seeing the bigger picture. I have the experience gained from living through previous technology successes and failures. A wonderful kind of learning occurs when student and teacher both accept the other's strengths and recognize their weaknesses. In that place learning can happen.

In my new semester class that starts next week, I'm going to be asking my students to let me show them how to "Work the Information". I'm also building in some time for them to show me what they think I should know. I'll let you know what happens.

[Image: My own attempt to visualize this idea. Don't like this graph as I think it simplifies what happens. Why is it some work feels like play and vise versa? ]

Wired's Top Ten List of New Tech for 2008

I'm not really motivated to come up with a top ten list of any kind. So, I am grabbing one from Wired. Maybe later today I'll pick my favorite 10 posts for the last year or more than likely I will make a tray of my favorite ten foods and lay around reading science fiction. It's a New Year's tradition for me.

Wired list from bottom to top

10. Flexible Displays
9. Edible Chips (electronic chips not potato......that was on the top ten list of 1853)
8. Speedo LZR (has to do with reducing drag not a new fashion trend for fifty year old men going to the gym....thank God!)
7. Flash Memory
6. GPS
5. Memristor (memory transistor not a new Marvel superhero)
4. Video Capapble SLRs
3. USB 3.0 (4.8gigs per second......ooooh baby!)
2. Android (The phone protocol not the cool creature that follows you around and does all the hard stuff like pick up the wet towels on the bathroom floor and bringing you tasty hot nachos to the couch where you are all warm and cozy. Maybe that will be next year?)
1. Apples App Store

[Image: Captured from http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/news/2008/12/YE8_techbreaks]

Pop rivet ice tires for your bike

I wrote last week about trying to figure out a way to put spikes into my bicycle tire in an effort to make it more snow worthy when I was a kid. As it turns out, someone else had this idea and put up a set of instructions as to how it might be done.

I was born 40 years too early or the internet came along 40 years too late. Not sure which it is yet?

Read the comments after the instructions and there is one person who gives a link to a place where you can buy studded tires for your bike. Another gives a picture of tank like treads.






[Image captured from http://www.instructables.com/id/Pop_Rivet_Ice_Tires_for_Your_Road_Bike/]

I call it the StompCycle

Somehow I missed this Botjunkie post in time to put on my Christmas Wish List. It would have been right at the top. My "Too Cool" rating at school would move up from the 2.5 it's been hovering at for the past two years to a 10 plus.

We start school before the sun comes up and I can only imagine the sight of me coming down the dark suburban road riding my two legged, fire breathing machine that escaped from a Tim Burton remake of Star Wars. I'd build in two honkin big speakers and play Flight of the Valkyrie. Full Blast. Cars would pull over and mothers would shield their children as I stomped by.

I'd cut my hair into a Mad Max style Mohawk. Trade my corduroy in for distressed leather and rivets. Rivets on my black jacket. Rivets on my over sized Doc Marten boots with the unnecessary but oh so menacing extra straps. I'd even have specialized rivets on the flye of my fire retardant canvas jeans. Rivets that would require a special motorized Black and Decker power tool to open. I'd have to a take tool box with me to the restroom that would send the normal, non-scary teachers running from the stalls with newspapers in hand muttering, "I think I'll just save my business for later."

Most likely, I will change my name to Dragon Lord as Mr. G doesn't sound mean enough. I'd walk into the classroom smoke still curling around my head and shoulders."Get to Work!" Is all I'd say and the children would rush to their tasks. Tasks and assignments they would create their own selves. Because they wouldn't dare bother me for anything as mundane as classwork or homework. It would take all responsibility for learning off my shoulders. My principal would bring me cups of coffee and tasty little finger sandwiches for lunch. In fact, she would offer to do my lunch duty for me as my presence in the cafeteria would cause the children to lose their appetite and the milk to curdle.

Daily I'd stand in front of the room with my arms crossed. Probably because sitting with rivets in one's pants might be slightly ouchy. Staring straight ahead as though I could see into the depths of a smoldering underworld where Hephaestus himself hammers out machines such as the one I ride. My portable music system built into the head of a rhinoceros skull would sit at my feet and belt out the harsh sound of obscure European metal bands until it was time for me to stomp home. In the twilight. Shooting flames.

Discipline problems? None. (Did you not see my StompCycle?)
Evaluations? Perfect Scores. (My principal brings me coffee and I evaluate her!)
Parent Conferences? Perfect. (I tell my parents to fix their wayward children and they do.)
Early Retirement with a generous buyout? Likely. (My methods work but are a little overwhelming for the timid of spirit.)

Watch the video and live in fearful anticipation for the day that Mr. Dragon Lord gets his own pimped out StompCycle!


Watch Robo Dog in Game Videos | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

[via Botjunkie]

[Image captured from Botjunkie: Robodogoflameocycle: http://www.botjunkie.com/2008/12/10/robodogoflameocycle/]"