Dr. McLeod explained this as an intersection of commercialism and children. Some of his readers lamented upon how ashamed they were to see the effects of commercialism on Christmas. These were obvious conclusions but not necessarily the only ones.
I don't fully agree with their analyses of the weeping wailers as they screamed, cried and drove their fists into the air in celebration of receiving the Wii video game system. While this video definitely portrays a commercial product that the kids saw on TV commercials that were designed to place the Wii on a holy pedestal to be revered by our digital natives, these reactions are not just a matter of rampant commercialism.
I think that they signify fulfillment of their wishes to have personal access to an environment where their efforts are positively reinforced in an incremental manner that guides them to success. The games were developed to motivate and reward - and they succeed.Image via Wikipedia
I must admit that I have a Wii and I have been using the Wii Fit system for about 10 days. I am TOTALLY HOOKED! I awaken in the morning thinking about weather I will jog or dance or meditate on my Wii. As the system boots up and I identify myself, my cybercoach congratulates me on returning for another hour of physical challenges and accomplishments. . . . and yes, daily I do most of the exercises shown in the Nintendo Wii Fit kick-off video. (Here is an example of the Wii fit exercise session with a cybercoach.)
Besides the the arcade accolades that I receive as I head soccer balls, navigate bubbles down rivers, walk tightropes and spin hula hoops, I have experienced physical developments that benefit my posture and overall well being. I have a great time using my Wii and it makes me feel successful.
The part of our culture that we should question is not commercialism. We should ask why don't all of our students feel this way on their first day of school? How many of them punched the air with excitement as they left their homes to return to school this week? Some of them did and we should identify what their teachers are doing to provide them with the sense of success that invites them back for more.
We should take a lesson in motivation and engagement from Wii and integrate it into our classrooms.
Z
What do you think? Do you used the Wii? Do your students?
I have found some Language Translator programs in Second Life (SL) that remind me of the Universal Translator of science fiction lore (i.e., Star Trek and Dr. Who & ?)
There are two - The Simbolic Language Translator and the Free Translator by Ferd. Let me tell you how I found them . . .
A couple of nights ago, I was exploring in Second Life when I met a gentleman. He and I began chatting (only text). I noticed that it would take as long as 15-20 seconds for him to respond to me. Through conversation I found out that he was from Portugal and that he was using a translator. This translator took what he typed in Portuguese and translated it into English (I could not see his writing in Portuguese.) I would read his message in English and reply in English. The translator would convert my message from English to Portguese so that he could read it.
Pretty Tricky. He told me that this was the Simbolic Language Translator and directed me to where I could download it. I beamed over the Simbolic site and downloaded it. (I must warn you that this site is not in the "best part of SL" so be forewarned that you may see some strange stuff there.) This language translator is a HUD (Heads-Up Display) so I had to "wear" it for it to work. Once I donned the translator, a small control panel appeared in the upper left corner of my screen. It enabled me to select the language that I was speaking and then the language of the person to whom I was speaking. Engaging the appropriate settings, I tested this out with my new Portuguese friend and it worked quite well. There were a few times when the literal translation didn’t work too well but “it’s only a computer.”
Today, I was over at the Simbolic site to find out more about it. There are probably a half dozen avatars speaking an assortment of languages. I realized the primary limitation in the Language Translator. Before I could converse with another person through the translator, I needed to know what language they spoke so that I could make the appropriate settings. Before I had much time to think about this, I met Ferd Federix. Ferd told me that he had developed an even more sophisticated translator. This is the Free Translator.
The Free Translator is a language translator that will scan the area (within 20 SL ft) and determine the primary language of each of the avatars based upon their chat history. Having identified that, it provides a list of the individuals along with their primary languages on my screen. Moreover, Ferd’s Free Translator uses this information to make multiple translations simultaneously to multiple people. This means that when I type “Hello”, it will translate that into each of the primary languages of the surrounding avatars. Secondly, when someone responds in their primary language, it will translate that back into my primary language which is English. WOW!!!
I wanted to test this out, so:
I traveled through SL looking for non-English speakers. First I met a woman from Brazil. I typed to her in English and her responses returned in English. When I learned that she was from Brazilia, I asked her if she was typing in Portuguese. She was.
I went to a Japanese SL site looking for a Japanese speaker. The woman I met was from Holland. She was speaking English but when I asked her to speak in Dutch, the responses came to me in English. Once she began speaking in Dutch, my translator identified this and began translating to Dutch. Turned out that this woman was a profesional language translator. She said that the translations were pretty good but too literal. Well, “it’s only a computer.”
How do they do this? You guessed it - Google. (Don't they run everything? =-) Ferd told me that both of the language translators are running the text through the Google translator. I don't know much about this but he said that Google offers APIs for developers to use their tool. (You might also notice that I have installed a Google translator for this blog. Look in the right column and you will see a gadget that will translate this page into any of 35 languages.)
This is an amazing advance in SL communication. It builds a language link that can break down the language barriers that get in the way of humans communicating. It IS a literal translation and I wouldn’t use if for international negotiations, but these translators can further connections between people around the world.
SLURLs for the Second Life Translators:
Simbolic Language Translator Remember that this is in the “wrong side of town” in SL. You will land in front of the Simbolic Language Translator board. (You may have to turn around and it might take a little while to appear.) Just click on it and it will allow you to buy it for L$0 (nothing). Click the Buy button and a transaction window will appear. You will now find the Language Translator by Simbolic folder in your inventory. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cupo/104/121/36
Ferd Free Translator Find the Orange Globe (you may have to turn around). Press your up arrow to walk towards the orange globe. Touch the globe (Right/Command click) and the translator will be placed in your inventory. It just happens. There is no text window saying that you have received it. Check your inventory for a folder entitled Ferd's Google Translator Folder. http://tinyurl.com/freetranslator (Updated 1/21/09)
What are your experiences, hopes or dreams in reference to this newly-developed language translator capability? Leave me a comment about your impressions of a second life language translator.
Since then, Angela Maiers used Twitter to share the Skype in Schools wiki she had just found. This directory was developed by Dan Froelich based upon requests from teachers who participated in one of his sessions at the NCETC 2008 Conference. It is designed to provide a place where you can offer your services, post a “want ad” to find other classes to engage in a telecollaborative project with you or for you to share your experiences in collaboration.
Since Wesley brought it up, I have been thinking about how you could contact special people and classes to introduce to your students. I would like to make two recommendations to you about how you might make these contacts:
Conference Programs – Most of you who are reading this posting probably attend at least 1 conference a year. If you don’t, you should. I often pay for conferences out of my own pocket but I learn a great deal and make many contacts. Next time you go to a conference, come home with the business cards of at least 5 people with whom you could work on collaborative projects or have them Skype-visit your classroom. Another way that you can connect with folks from conferences, is to review conference programs and contact the presenters who look interesting:
You might specifically want to contact the people whose sessions were podcasted – this indicates that they are interested in talking about their program.
Podcasts: Speaking of podcasts, you should review the Conference Connections podcast seriesApple Computer) involves interviews with presenters at conferences. They may be technology leaders or classroom teachers or ?? This may be a short 7-minute interview or it might be a recording of the whole presentation. Either way, it is a way to find out who is interested in sharing their ideas. You may find some of them who asked to be paid for a Skype-visit, but you can find someone else if their terms don't meet your resources.
for possible Skype-visitors. This series (sponsored by Global School Network: If you are interested in collaborating with students and experts outside of your classroom, then you MUST visit the Global School Network (GSN). The GSN has been engaging teachers and students in project learning exchanges for a quarter of a century. In 2005, Teaching and Learning magazine identified GSN's predecessor, FredMail Network, as one of the top 15 “Breakthrough Products” since 1980.
GSN provides a Project Registry of over 3,000 telecollaborative projects. These projects may be from across the street or across the globe. They may last a week or be continuous on-going activities. If you want to join an existing project, there are over 3,000 of them. If you want to originate your own project, GSN has developed a time-tested format outline to assist you in making your project successful. Telecollaboration is a deep subject that I will cover more thoroughly in a later post.
Wesley’s question about finding people and classes to work with your students is an important one. The opportunities are there and video conferencing can be used to make your curriculum more relevant to your students by further expanding their learning experiences into the “real world.” What do you think? Do you use Skype in your classroom? How do you find people/classrooms for collaborating.
eBooks provide a venue for distributing your ideas with little or no expense in publishing your ideas. I write a great deal on my blogs and in my teaching. eBooks provide a way to professionally collect and publish your work. It also makes it easy to distribute to your friends and public.
I was just reading about Social Media on Brian Solis's blog, PR 2.0, when he mentioned his eBook, The Essential Guide to Social Media. This is an eBook that he created as a "quick start" overview about participating in the social media world. He collected the most commonly asked questions and answers and turned them into a downloadable ebook. It has a number of good ideas that I will cover later, but the format was what really enchanted me.
The eBook was printed through a website entitled Scribd. A potential author can upload a file/book/set of document to the website where it turns the work into what they call iPaper.11 different formats (e.g. Word, .pdf, Powerpoint, Excel, Open Office, etc.) Moreover, Scribd is building a huge library of resources that can be searched and accessed. iPaper is a rich document format that was built to be displayed through the Web. Originally created with Adobe Flash, it can be viewed through a variety of operating systems. You can upload your document in wide range of formats.
Imagine how this can be used in your classroom. The opportunities are endless in presenting content and publishing student work. Here are a few that I have found:
Publishing student anthologies.
Creating a collaborative publication that is shared and enjoyed between classes.
Providing course content to students in book-like format
Creating brochures
I must admit that I am new to iPaper and Scribd. iPaper appears to me to be an online version of .pdf. One of the advantages that I see is that it allows you to embed articles into blogs (see below) or onto webpages or ???
I just wrote an article for my other blog, Keyboarding Research and Resources, where I discuss the research into the effects of covering a computer keys when learning to keyboard. Just for fun, I uploaded this paper onto Scribd and below I have provided some ways to access it including embedding the file into this posting. Have fun.
Here is the embedded version. I embedded this document by copying the HTML code from the Scribd website and then pasting it into the HTML version of this blog posting. Look at all of the various formats available for viewing this document. Click on the iPaper dropdown menu to see that you can view it in a book, document or presentation format. You can email it to a friend or print it or whatever.
HyperStudio is a program that has enabled students to share their ideas, thoughts and creations through a multimedia for many years. I have had the good fortune to use it with students in my classrooms and share it with educators on 3 continents.
Unfortunately, this wonderful program was sold to Learning.com in 1999 which resulted in a series of flawed updates. Eventually, this lead to the program disappearing from the educational scene about 5 years ago. The originator, Roger Wagner, bought back the rights a few years ago and enlisted MacKiev to completely reprogram the product. The new product was announced at the 2007 NECC in Atlanta but it never shipped. MacKiev showed it again at the San Antonio NECC in 2008 and it began shipping earlier this year. HyperStudio is BACK!!!
I must admit that I haven't had the opportunity to thoroughly examine the new version, but I liked what I saw at NECC. HyperStudio now has the capability to export to self-contained programs, webpages, podcasts and even iPhones. It is fully integrated to share media with iTunes and iPhoto. The opportunities with version 5.0 are great.
As a teacher, you DON'T have to be an expert in using technology before you allow your students to use it.
This is probably the greatest barrier to integrating new technologies in the classroom. Many teachers believe that they must master technologies before allowing students to use them. Teachers often feel that they must be their students' safety nets in case they fail. This is NOT the case. Teachers should be the instigators of thought and investigation, but they should allow their students to explore ways to express themselves through a plethora of new technologies.
This attitude is something that is explained through a slideshow created and displayed by Mike Fisher in the 1 Thing project that Clif Mims is running over at his blog, Clif's Notes. JustOneThing
You might notice that Mike Fisher created this slideshow using MyPlick. This is a site where you can upload your slides, synch them with your voice and then share them with friends. It is REALLY easy to share them with friends. I just use their embed feature to transfer this file over to this blog posting - no muss, no fuss. You will probably see me begin to use this in the future. It is Tres Cool!! Tags: Web2.0classroomtechnologytoolsapps
Inspiration HAS DONE IT!!! The folks at Inspiration have developed an on-line version of their prize-winning software gem and named it Webspiration. Thinkers, large and small, have huddled around computers for almost two decades using Inspiration to help them organize and develop their ideas. They have worked alone and in groups but the limitation has always been that they could only diagram their ideas on a single computer at a time.
Webspiration elevates Inspiration to the level of online collaborative work tool. Students create an account and then can create diagrams/outlines that are saved on the Inspiration server. Having these maps online makes them accessible from any computer. This is handy for students who want to work on their diagrams at school, home and ??
Collaborative? Yes, the creator of a diagram can share it with collaborators by sending invites to friends who have Webspiration accounts. Collaborators can sign onto Webspiration and work on common diagrams whenever they are interested. Multiple collaborators can also be online simultaneously and work together on the diagram. The only limitation is that the they can't work on the file at the same time. As the video shows, one person works as the editor and the other collaborators are spectators until the active editor passes control over to the next person in line. This makes it less collaborative than Google Docs that allows multiple collaborators to work in a document simultaneously. Is this a problem? It can be. I found that some of my students were OK with waiting in line but others became quite frustrated when they had to "holster" their creativity until it was their time to emote.
Watch this short Jing video that I created to demonstrate Webspiration in my ISTE Webinar.
What's it cost? Right now Webspiration is free! The folks at Inspiration have identified the present version of Webspiration as a Beta Version and they want you to get online and give it a try. They even provided a place where users can provide feedback (although I couldn't find it just now when I checked the most recent version.:-)
I was just reading Scott McLeod's blog, Dangerously Irrelevant. He shared a video that was a compilation of kids opening their Wii Christmas presents. The unique thing about these clips is the incredibly over-stated show of emotion. Girls are crying and dancing and screaming. Boys are driving their fists into the air and shouting. They were obviously enthused!!!!![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_twkHcZr58BqFV-sfYUshTDLCdbpzq5gCFphrGa5u88Oect7jcPD-AI0Fln3m_K0SdOnBsylQYRxSQzTUOdEyLdczilgzxfGPSPUroYaozGheJAVSeIS0cA3iMsTV0EUUVvJurH4hMRJ6VH4mMYBJHa=s0-d)
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I don't fully agree with their analyses of the weeping wailers as they screamed, cried and drove their fists into the air in celebration of receiving the Wii video game system. While this video definitely portrays a commercial product that the kids saw on TV commercials that were designed to place the Wii on a holy pedestal to be revered by our digital natives, these reactions are not just a matter of rampant commercialism.
I think that they signify fulfillment of their wishes to have personal access to an environment where their efforts are positively reinforced in an incremental manner that guides them to success. The games were developed to motivate and reward - and they succeed.
Image via Wikipedia
I must admit that I have a Wii and I have been using the Wii Fit system for about 10 days. I am TOTALLY HOOKED! I awaken in the morning thinking about weather I will jog or dance or meditate on my Wii. As the system boots up and I identify myself, my cybercoach congratulates me on returning for another hour of physical challenges and accomplishments. . . . and yes, daily I do most of the exercises shown in the Nintendo Wii Fit kick-off video. (Here is an example of the Wii fit exercise session with a cybercoach.)
Besides the the arcade accolades that I receive as I head soccer balls, navigate bubbles down rivers, walk tightropes and spin hula hoops, I have experienced physical developments that benefit my posture and overall well being. I have a great time using my Wii and it makes me feel successful.
The part of our culture that we should question is not commercialism. We should ask why don't all of our students feel this way on their first day of school? How many of them punched the air with excitement as they left their homes to return to school this week? Some of them did and we should identify what their teachers are doing to provide them with the sense of success that invites them back for more.
We should take a lesson in motivation and engagement from Wii and integrate it into our classrooms.
Z