21apples

21st Century Citizenship

Posted by arvind s grover Tue, 06 Sep 2005 00:01:00 GMT

For a long time I have been thinking about collecting my thoughts on educational technology. About three years ago I was working on a department philosophy with a colleague, and the term “21st century citizenship” came out after much discussion. I am not sure how I got to that term, but a little googling found that the British Government was using that name to reflect a project about exploring who Britain is today. Their focus is not educational technology, but rather on citizenship generally.

My thoughts on 21st century citizenship are directly tied to education. We are at a time where technology and the Internet are rapidly chaging the average daily life in the United States and other first-world countries. As the Internet becomes a social norm for our students, we must find ways to utilize its draw to engage our students. Moreover, the tremendous processing power of computers gives us incredible new methods for students to explore concepts covering all fields of academia. Students will also live and work in a world where technology is all around, and possibly more importantly always shifting. Students will need to be able to adapt quickly to the ebbs and flows of technical development. If there are not adaptable to those types of conditions, they will get left behind, whether in college, or at the workplace.

As an educational technologist in a school focused on using technology to enhance education, I hope to document my thoughts and experiences on this blog. I also want to collaborate and connect information with others working on similar issues around the globe.

You can read more about this blog at about 21apples.

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Don't Lose Your Shirt

Posted by arvind s grover Mon, 18 Jul 2005 23:41:00 GMT

What type of user are you?

A user who has lost all the data on your computer

or

A user who is about to

Yes, those are the only choices. All the documents, photos, songs, videos, etc stored on your computer are stored on your hard drive. A hard drive is a fancy floppy disk that holds more info. Remember floppy disks? Remember what used to happen to them? They stop working. Hard drives like all good hardware will stop working eventually.

How can you protect yourself? Get a second place to store data. The easiest solution for me has been a removable hard drive. I have been using Iomega USB 2.0/Firewire drive. They are reasonably priced and reliable. I have an 80gb drive. That covers all the files on my desktop computer and all the photos, music and documents on my laptop. Just plug it in, it shows up, and drag any files you care about there.

Now your data is in two places. If one goes bad, there is always a backup. Now go out there and backup, backup, backup!

disclaimer: I have no ties to Iomega. In fact, Maxtor makes a great product too.

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Blogs in the classroom?

Posted by arvind s grover Fri, 15 Jul 2005 02:49:00 GMT

On the ed-tech insider blog, Anne Davis tried to answer the question, “Could you explain to me how blogging may be used in the classroom?” It is a short read and gives some simple thoughts and some links to try and answer this question.

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Thoughts on Steven Johnson

Posted by arvind s grover Wed, 13 Jul 2005 17:53:00 GMT

Last night a group of us attended Steven Johnson’s lecture at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in Lower Manhattan. He was the keynote speaker at Cooper-Hewitt’s Summer Design Institute, a program for K-12 teachers to engage students somehow in using “design” for learning.

On to Steven Johnson…while he wasn’t the most dynamic speaker I have ever seen, he presented some interesting concepts. His talk was strikingly similar to David Weinberger’s keynote addres at this year’s National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in Philadelphia. They both waxed on about the power of blogging, and the power of individuals to relay information to the world. I think this concept has long been a promise of the web, democratizing information, but blogging has become one more tool in this process, rather than the ultimate answer.

His talk was titled “The Urban Web” and he really focused on how cities can be viewed through the concept of the Web. I thought the idea of geo-tags that he discussed seemed amazingly powerful, but scary in terms of privacy issues. Geo-tagging will give us the ability to locate people and resources at the push of a button; this may make the search for such things easier, but does not necessarily make life better. Perhaps some of the “fun” of city life is just being able to “swerve” so easily as he put it. Living on the same block for two years and suddenly noticing a falafel shop that you had never come across before because they put new lights in the window, not because you received a text-message on your cell phone that lists every falafel place within 500 feet of you.

I think the blogging tools will give a host of people access to resources that they never have had before – wonderful. But for those who are not on the internet, not computer literate, or maybe just not blog literate, it presents the same types of divides that any new technology brings. Blogging and tagging have yet to show how they can democratize information past priviliged individuals.

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Reinvent Notepad

Posted by arvind s grover Wed, 04 May 2005 03:00:00 GMT

If you work on a Windows-based computer, Notepad should be your friend (find it in Start—> Programs—> Accessories). Easily write yourself text notes, edit web pages, or any type of system files.

But, as with anything, there is a new generation of Notepad’s out there. A few have quickly replaced Notepad for me:

• Notepad2—great enhanced Notepad-esque program. Free.
• Notepad++—more features than you can shake a stick at. Free too.

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"Read" the News through Images

Posted by arvind s grover Mon, 07 Mar 2005 04:10:00 GMT

10×10 is the news, but from a whole new perspective. Rather than reading headlines, see what images are being attached to headlines. This gives you a visual understanding of the news rather than a textual one. Click on an image and see what pops up. Very cool.

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