And He Blogs

There’s a new technology that will allow more data to be packed onto a hard disk platter, and Hitachi has a new video to explain how it’s done. A nice happy little ditty that turns into a disco spectacular! Am I going to be humming this song all day now? Get PerpendiculAAAAR! Get more ParticulAAAR!! Yaah kick it!!!

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Our session in Second Life yesterday, led by Martha was just what I needed and it’s a terrific example of Situated Cognition in action. The basic idea of situated learning theory is that learning is contextual. It also heavily emphasizes the idea of apprenticeship. Martha, while she wouldn’t call herself a “master” yet, was leading us through the Second Life (SL) world. Our “community of practice” had roughly defined roles of its participants, and I was a definite rookie (inbound? peripheral?). My movement among the SL world was awkward and stumbling until the DTLT folk all got in a room together (in the RL) and entered the SL domain. I was taught how to teleport, how to fly better, and even how to land gracefully. My laptop gave me a bit of a roadblock as 1-2 frames per second (fps) doesn’t allow for smooth movement. That problem will be remedied soon with a laptop upgrade.

For weeks Martha had been telling us about SL, and I would go in and putter around. She would give me tips about how to do things and what to try, but what was needed was something more authentic. Though the idea of all being in the same room is antithetical to Second Life, it was critical having a “coach” there in the room to guide us in our learning of this new world. I had discovered dancing on my own, but now I could dance with others. We were having a mini-party. How engaging is that! The only problem was I couldn’t stop dancing. Seriously, I didn’t know how to stop! People gave me “stop animation objects”, but I couldn’t get them to work. I resorted to exiting SL and coming back in. My backbone was no longer slipping and my Salsa was gone.

Later we went to the New Media Consortium when Rachel Smith found us cooling our feet off in a waterfall after a perilous airship journey. Jerry had crashed us into a wall. We took a brief tour of the NMC campus, but soon after RL reared its ugly head and the 5 o’clock hour was upon us. Time to get back home to my family. Later, I showed my son on our home computer what Daddy did at work. He likes to turn the tables on me and ask “what did you do today”. Oh how I fear he will get the wrong idea about my job based on today’s events. Anyway he was enthralled. He loved the idea that I could fly, and at 40-45 fps, we were smooth sailing. We stopped back at NMC and watched four robots dance. They were pantomiming YMCA. Larry Pixel stopped by to greet us. He is the CEO of NMC. Thanks for saying “hi” Larry. It was nice to meet you.

Again back to RL and getting the boy upstairs for dinner and then later ready for bed. He must have dreamt about it because the first words out of his mouth this morning were “let’s go get into Second Life”. I laughed a very proud laugh.

So here in one day I was living in two communities. One as apprentice to the master, and then at home, master to my apprentice son. Again, it’s classic situated learning. The master/instructor provides the scaffolding. As learners build up their knowledge, the instructor is there to provide the support needed, when it is needed. It was an exciting day in SL and in the RL.

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So I discovered I can do this in Second Life.

Watch Now:

 Dancing in Second Life: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Eamonn Sullivan and I have some similar thoughts about Second Life. Martha is going to be leading a session on optimizing our experience in this virtual world this week. I am looking forward to it. I’ve mostly flailed and stumbled around, but then I discovered something I could do . . .

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OK, now I’ve done it. Two political posts in a row. Actually, this is just funny and it playfully promotes Gore’s new film, An Inconvenient Truth. I actually prefer this type of promotion, as opposed to the website with the “scary” music.

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In this space, I try very hard not to be blatantly political. In Friday’s Washington Post, columnist Richard Morin’s Unconventional Wisdom claims that research shows that The Daily Show is bad for democracy. I’m re-reading it to try to find the clue that this guy can’t be serious. Nothing yet.

Yes, it’s true that we have buffoons running our country and running for office in general, but the researchers and this columnist miss the point of The Daily Show. Listen carefully - IT’S A PARODY OF THE NEWS! The problem is that the people who write and produce the news have become a self-parody. Look, Jon Stewart is a fake news anchor. The realism he injects is being critical and cynical of the way news is covered. How unappealing our politicians are is an after thought, almost a given. If the audience for Jon Stewart is not voting, it’s because they feel that they can’t make a good decision based on the “real” news and because the press are falling down on the job. Another problem with the study that Morin might have missed is that the students were likely already cynical. People are turning to Jon Stewart to laugh. Otherwise we would cry. Richard Morin is bad for democracy! OK, It’s NOT funny.

UPDATE: Here’s a link to the original research.

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I’m still trying to decide whether I would want my home theatre to look like this one, but I decided it was time to at least blog about it. The chap who claims this setup is a retired naturalist who obviously spent too much time talking to bats. I wonder if they pump in some cold moist air for the full effect.

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Nate Harrison recorded the audio for this video in the winter of 2004. This is the story about a 6 second drum “break” in a song from 1969 called Amen Brother. Now known as the “Amen Break”, this snippett of musical history is now used ubiquitously in multiple forms and mutliple variations. The shame is that the original artist, The Winstons, essentially gave away the rights to this section of their song and now the copyright is owned by a third-party drum-loop reseller. Another example of the copyright laws being broken (as in NOT working), and creativity being stiffled.

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I had glimpsed this story on a couple of sites last week but never followed the link. It seems kids are using a high frequency ringtone to signal incoming text messages in class (how pervasive this is, who knows). Well I’m proud to announce that at 41 years old (for another month and a half) I am one teacher who would be able to hear the ringtone! It seems that people over 40 shouldn’t be able to hear this. How old are you and do you pass the test?

Listen Now:

 High Frequency Ringtone: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Just a quickie on a strange phenomena sited last night. Windows computers all around the world restarted themselves yesterday, and this morning, with some “important” updates. At home last week I had my Bluetooth wireless keyboard (Logitech MX500) just decide it was not going to communicate with the computer. The mouse (the matching BT laser one) was still working fine. I did some trouble shooting/restarting and stopped short of re-installing both devices (it was late). I plugged in a spare USB keyboard and lived with the inconvenience, thinking that I would have to eventually tackle the problem. Well, after yesterday’s updates the keyboard sprang back to life, asked me to hit the connect button on the bottom, type the passkey and viola, it works! I don’t know how many times there have been updates so important that it restarts my computers for me, but I am always slightly annoyed that it does, or needs to. Well, here is one instance where something was immediately fixed. Sadly I, like you dear reader, can’t see how they’re related. However, isn’t it a wonderful fantasy to live in that it fixed itself.

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