Richard’s Educational Technology Blog

This semester I’m taking an Instructional Design class at BYU. As part of the class we had to create a proposal for an ID project and write a reflection on the process. Even though I still have a lot to learn about creating proposals, the following are some reflections I’ve had about the process…
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After describing some work that he had done to help a school in Ndengele Villege, Tanzania, Curt said that at first it can seem like a daunting task to help improve education around the world. On his trip, Curt brought solar powered calculators, coloring books, and chalk to the schools in Ndengele.
“Once you’ve done it,” said Allen, “you think ‘why can’t everyone in the world do it - it’s not that hard’”

Google, who has recently been proving itself as the only true competitor to Microsoft in the internet industry (with it’s products like gMail, Froogle, web search, and soon to be released IM application, blowing the Microsoft equivalents out of the water) has just declared a new competitor - Amazon.com. Google’s product Google Print scans publisher’s books and includes the content of the book in the results of web searches. So when you perform a Google search you will not only get matching results on the internet, but in thousands of print books. After “browsing” through the book, should you want to purchase a copy you will be transported directly to an online bookstore. Google has made the internet like Christmas morning, I just can’t wait to see what’s under their next brightly wrapped package.

In the movie Sneakers, Martin Bishop (played by Robert Redford) is trying to steal a little black box from professor Gunter Janic who felt there were too many secret codes in the world. In fact Bishop discovers that the name of Janic’s fictitious company, “SETEC Astronomy”, is really a scrambled version of “too many secrets”. That’s kind of how I feel about Instant Messenger programs. Everyone has a service they prefer (Yahoo!, MSN, AIM, ICQ, etc) which takes away some of the practicality of using instant messenger software in the first place. It is kind of like saying you can only send e-mails to other people who use your same e-mail service. In the movie Sneakers, Janic’s solution to the too many secrets problem was the invention of the little black box that could decoded any encryption on any online system. Wouldn’t it be great if Janic had created a little black box to get all of the instant messenger programs talking to each other? Well even though he was killed by Cosmo before he had the chance, fortunately someone else has done it.

Using the XML protocols established by Jabber, several companies have made Instant Messenger programs that will let you see all of your buddies from all of the major chat systems. And best of all, it’s free! Many free instant messenger apps can be found at www.jabber.org/software/clients.php. Rumor has it that Google will soon be releasing their own Jabber-based IM software as well, which will undoubtedly be the best on the market (if it is consistent with their other products like gMail). Until then, my recommendation is Fire by Epicware - that’s for Mac OS X, but there are a ton of Windows clients too for you PC users on the Jabber site.

So bring all of your buddies together and have a grand old IMing time, and if you haven’t seen Sneakers yet, go to Blockbuster ASAP.

One of the great things about blogging is that it gives everyone an opportunity to have their voice heard. You never know who will be interested in what you have to say. To quote Strongbad, “Maybe tomorrow you’ll be really big in Pakistan… Or at least with some guy named Stan”.

Anyway, to prove my point, take a look at this blog from Freddie…
I particularly enjoy his most recent blog called, “Ruff, ruff ruff.”

I have always sort of laughed at the idea of “blogging”. The “like anyone else is actually going to care what I have to say” mentality rings loudly in my head as I write. However, in a conversation with Paul Allen, he suggested that it isn’t always that way. Paul is one of those people who I admire becaue of his willingness to share pearls of wisdom with those around him. And because of his success, you tend to listen to the things he says. I’m not pretending that I’m going to have 400 readers a day, as he does, but I think it’s worth starting somewhere.
My experiences are mostly lumpped in 2 major categories: multimedia (web) design, and educational technology. Because of that I have created those two categories for my blog. Since I too hope to be able to share useful information with those who are working on related projects, I’m just going to start by blogging about some of the tricks that I’ve used over time in my design work that have saved me tiime and made life better and if anyone actually reads it, bless you for making this all worth it!