Richard’s Educational Technology Blog

Earlier this year we heard about AMD’s announcement of the Personal Internet Communicator aimed to provide technology access in developing countries.
Now, MIT is discussing the possibility of providing laptops for $100 to improve educational opportunities in developing countries.

Check out the story: Christian Science Monitor

If you search for PageRank indicator for Macintosh, or just PageRank for Mac on Google, you will find a whole bunch of sites telling you that such a tool doesn’t exist and that Google doesn’t support PageRank for the Mac. However, this is NOT true! Any Mac user who wants to have the Google Tooblar or the PageRank (PR) indicator need only go to the www.prgooglebar.org and download it. It works as well as the PR toolbar that you can download from Google for Windows.
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The plans for Adobe to acquire Macromedia have some potentially huge impacts on the design industry. The transaction, valued at approximately $3.4 billion, combines the two largest developers of multimedia software in the world. The danger of the merger is that Adobe sheds itself of its only true competitor (scary thoughts of another Microsoft come to mind). However, there are some major benefits we can expect to see from this change as well - here are some examples…

More Stability
Since Adobe’s software is consistently more stable than Marcomedia’s, once the Adobe engineers get a hold of Marcomedia’s products we can expect to see many bug fixes.

Improved Usability
When it comes to insuring great usability in their products, Adobe ranks right up there with Apple. Macromedia, on the other hand, has not always been as successful (as products such as Flash and Dreamweaver have proven). Adobe’s influence on Macromedia’s products is sure to produce improved usability.

A Killer Web Authoring Application
For years designers have said that they wish they could take the best features of Adobe GoLive (such as the user interface and multimedia tools) and combine them with the site management and template tools from Macromedia Dreamweaver. Now, it looks like the engineers at Adobe will do it for them! As soon as this happens, the new product will be THE industry standard for web development.

This is an exciting time in the design industry! Combine Adobe’s acquisition of Macromedia and Apple’s release of Tiger and their Production Suite, and we begin to see some of the most significant software advances that we’ve seen in years.

> For more information, visit Adobe Systems and Macromedia.

> For more information on Adobe’s aquisition of Macromedia, visit Google News.

I have very few complaints with Google. However in their attempt to not look like a portal, it is hard to actually find Google’s tools. Clean and simple sometimes gets in the way of functionality. If you don’t know the URL of your favorite Google tool, it takes several clicks to get there. Is there a solution? I think I just found one on googlex.jayssite.com. By using this site, not only can you see all of your favorite Google tools, but you can click “more” and customize your Google search. You can also remove Google tools that you don’t use like on the Macintosh OSX dock. Worth checking out!

Watch out MapQuest, Google has done it again! Google maps provides driving directions and maps, just like MapQuest does, however there are some great advantages. For example, the maps are easier to read and scrolling around a map is MUCH easier (the page doesn’t have to reload with each movement like it does on MapQuest). There are still a couple of little usability issues (like quickly being able to return to the US map, but these are things that I’m sure they will take care of. To try Google Maps, just go to maps.google.com and be glad you bought stock in Google!

In theory, the idea of convergence is great – take several similar tools and combine them into one tool with multiple functions. However in reality, almost every time this happens, it is not very successful. Here are some familiar examples…

* Converge shoes and rollerblades and you get a crummy pair of shoes and a crummy pair of rollerblades.

* Converge a printer, scanner, and fax, and you get a device that doesn’t do any of the above very well (even though HP is trying to fix that).

Yet in the midst of all of these bad examples, I am always hopeful that some of the products that I use will converge - because I hate carrying around so much stuff. Currently, there is an item on the horizon that I think will actually be a successful example of convergence: the Motorola iTunes Phone. Motorola really knows how to make good phones (although some GUI experts may disagree with me on that one), and iTunes is quickly becoming the standard music library application. In addition, both your phone and your music library are things that you want to have with you at all times, so why not make them work together. And since Apple is involved I can assume they will make sure it is compatible with my Mac! Anyway, keep your eyes open for the new generation of iTunes phones. If you want more information, take a look at Gizmodo

When I first found Alexa.com I though “oh boy, what a great way to see how much traffic is coming to my sites!” Unfortunately, as I’ve used it I’ve found that it is not very reliable. For example on one of my sites, www.OrtizPots.com, I have been working on adding new content. As I have done that, I have seen a steady increase in traffic. However, Alexa shows that it is steadly decreasing. In all fairness, Alexa is probably working - HOWEVER it is important to remember what Alexa does:
* it gives you the amount of traffic of people who have downloaded the Alexa toolbar (which is not everyone)
* it only tells you the PC users who have visited your site (Alexa does not count Mac users)
So, if you do use Alexa, just be wary of the results and check everything against the stats on your webserver.

Recently I heard that television watching in young children is strongly correlated to ADHD and other related problems. This is an important question as we consider the place for non-interactive media in our society. An interesting article called Effects of Electronic Media on Children Ages Zero to Six: A History of Research is available for anyone interested in learning more. The article, from the Kaiser Family Foundation, summarizes the effects of electronic media, such as television, on children ages zero to six years old. “Recent studies indicate that even the youngest children in the United States are using a wide variety of screen media. Some children’s organizations have expressed concerns about the impact of media on young children; others have touted the educational benefits of certain media products.”

>View the full article .

This week we added some new content to The Violin Site. If you haven’t checked it out yet, then take a moment. This is one of the most useful resources for violinists on the internet.

Today I had the opportunity to listen to Ignacio Garcia, professor at BYU. He spoke on the missing pieces of the educational experience for Latino students. The most important missing piece, in Garcia’s opinion, is “the intellectual piece”. As an example, he told a story about a time when he was serving as an advisor for a university Latino club. Garcia was received a call from a student who was organizing a campus multicultural week and wanted the Latino club to participate. Garcia’s answer was, “Yes, but won’t sing, we won’t dance and we won’t feed anybody.” The student never called back.

If we limited the US culture to square dancing and country music and told Anglo students that was their culture, it would embarrass them, said Garcia. The same thing happens with Latino students when we reduce their culture to Mariachis and burritos. Inspiring Latino students to do something with their life, requires something intellectual to motivate them. “Inspiration ought to come from beyond forming another Mariachi group in another school. . . We want [the Latino] community to be collectively responsible for themselves, but they have to be armed to do it.”