Trail's End

I have enjoyed participating in GCC's 23 Things program this summer and have learned quite a bit by doing so. While I still don't understand everything about Web 2.0, I now have a much better grasp of what it is and how it can be utilized. My thanks to Christine, Karen, and the FCC for hosting this event and to all my fellow bloggers that participated as well. It was, indeed, a lot of fun, after all :)

However, I wonder if this is really leading us to a better means of education or not ...

In the world of electronic communication, there is a term called "signal-to-noise ratio" that is a measure of how much signal is getting through versus the (obscuring) background interference. In the parlance of teaching, this would be the equivalent to how much information is being imparted amongst the extraneous information that is being presented. For example, if a student can get 15 minutes worth of information by reading 30 minutes in a book, they have an effective signal-to-noise ratio of 1/2. Similarly, if they can get the same 15 minutes of information from a one-hour video, then they have an effective signal-to-noise ratio of 1/4. Granted that all students (myself included) learn in different modes at different rates, some modes of knowledge transference are still inherently faster than others. In a given day, a student can learn twice as much if their signal-to-noise ratio is 1/2 instead of 1/4. The trend to combine knowledge with entertainment in order to make it more fun and enjoyable is laudable, but it progressively decreases the signal-to-noise ratio.

We effectively hold students captive from K-12 ... that's 20,000+ hours of their lives. What signal-to-noise ratio do we want them to have during those hours? As we make things more entertaining and fun, are we diluting the essential knowledge that needs to be imparted over time? How many hours of actual learning are necessary to produce a literate product for the market-place by age 18?

I don't know.

However, I did learn something along the way about podcasts that I thought was worth sharing. If you want to create an audio podcast, simply save it as a MP3 file to a web site (every GCC employee has one or two whether they know it or not). Using iTunes (QuickTime), Windows Media Player, or other MP3 players, anyone can then choose "Open URL" and type in the address to load and play the audio file (example: http://web.gccaz.edu/~jhamilto/deadskunk.mp3 ). Similarly, if you save a video file as an MP4 to a web site, it will not only be very small and compact, but will also readily download using iTunes (think video iPods and iPhones), Play Station Portable (PSP), and many other new-generation portable video players (example: http://www.gc.maricopa.edu/advancement/audio/GCC_REV3.mp4 )

   "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
     I took the one less traveled by.
     And that has made all the difference."

23 Things made a difference to me ... it was a path worth travelling :)

Happy Birthday America!

All across America today, almost everyone celebrated the 231st anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Some held their traditional family get-togethers with fireworks and barbecues while others celebrated in alternative ways; if nothing more than to have a day off in the middle of the week.

And, yes, some unlucky poor sots had to work today ;(

My memory of July 4th, 2007 will forever be linked to this photo:

Joey Chestnut brings home to America our claim on the hot dog eating champion of the world: 66 hot dogs (with buns) in 12 minutes in Nathan's hot dog eating competition held at Coney Island.

Urrrpp.

Short, Shameful Confession

I gathered all of the remote controls laying around the house for a family photo:

For a self-proclaimed Luddite, I seem to have more than my fair share ;)

Image Generators

I have to admit that I had a lot of fun playing with a number of the image generators that I found. Once again, I'm not sure that I learned much, but play I did :)

Below is one of my "creations":

Intelligent Agents

I'm going to digress for a moment and share a learning experience I had about twelve years ago. I had signed up for a non-credit course at Glendale Community College called the Electronic Forum (EF) that allowed its members to post entries on-line and participate with others in threaded discussions. At the time, I firmly believed that humans had evolved considerably over the last 10,000 years and that we are now much different (superior) to our ancestors. As a result of a lengthy electronic debate on the subject, I was finally convinced that humans haven't changed much at all during that time, but it is our knowledge base that has steadily evolved instead. As Isaac Newton noted: "If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants."

I'm going to go long on generalizations here and short on specifics, but ever since humans have congregated into groups, the leader(s) of the groups have always sent out scouts to other areas to bring back information. If knowledge is power, then the gathering of knowledge is a key component to that power. A king might send his agents out, in his stead, to seek new ideas and ways of doing things and then report back to him. Many country's rise to power was accompanied by foreign explorations into the ever-expanding known world. Columbus was an agent of Spain when he "discovered" America in 1492 and his report to Queen Isabella insured many more return trips to the "New World" by many European countries.

The need and use of Intelligent Agents (IAs) has not changed in the last 10,000 years, but it is no longer the province of governments and kings. Today, (almost) anyone can use the Internet to tap into the current knowledge base of all human-kind and have at their finger-tips a veritable cornucopia of information ... so much so that it is no longer reasonably possible for a human to keep up with the data. In a sense, today's IA is needed more for filtering the information than for searching, organizing, and presenting it.

In my first post I noted that I am event-driven and like to have a goal in mind when learning something. This is why, in my last post, I noted that I have actively resisted using IAs of any sort. It's more of a philosophical view on learning than anything else: given a choice between learning a steady potpourri of information in the event I might need some of it and learning, in depth, specific information as needed to solve specific problems, I will choose the latter. I don't want something telling me what I might need to know ... I want to make the decision myself as to what that information needs to be. The downside, of course, is that I'm lost when I have no problems to solve, but that's what escapist novels are for ;)

My, but I do prattle on ... anyways, I will probably keep revisiting the idea that our society hasn't really changed much in the need for a given service, but that the technology to deliver that service has become faster, cheaper, and available to nearly everyone. IMHO, it is this common ubiquity that will have the greatest impact on society.

RSS Feeding Diet

I have consciously fought against using any sort of Intelligent Agent* for a long, long time, but I broke my vow and added a handful of the blogs from the fcc-23things blogosphere using Bloglines. In the process of doing so, I read all the blogs listed on the fcc-23things main page and noted Marla's tip about using IE7's built-in feed tool. However, I settled on Bloglines since it's easily accessible from any browser I might happen to use and isn't dependent on the individual browser settings and configurations.

Now I'm RSS ready and awaiting new content :)

*My next post will address this more fully - J.

Flickr'ing About

I was taken to task by another blogger for not participating in the Flickr exercises. From what I had read, I didn't feel a need to look any further; but the fact remains that I didn't do my homework ;(

So I spent the better part of three hours Flickr'ing and Mashup'ing and, while I found it highly entertaining, I'm not sure that I really learned much. Bear in mind that if I had something I might actually call a hobby, 2D and 3D image creation and manipulation would have been a substantial part of that for the last thirty years.

My favorite mashup was the one that converts a photo to a mosaic of smaller random photos based on average color values. This was something I had played with in the past, but I had a limited library of images at my disposal. The one below was created with images from Flickr using Image Mosaic Generator (v2.0) found at http://www.adelaider.com/image-mosaic/ and a picture taken with my cell-phone camera last April in Seattle:

Question: If you can have fun without learning anything, can you learn anything without having fun?

What is Technology?

At 16:47:22 (GMT) on June 8, 2007, Wikipedia defined "Technology" as "[...] a broad concept that deals with a species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt to its environment."; Webster provides a simpler definition: "the practical application of knowledge [...]". Note that, by either definition, this differentiates "technology" from the gathering, cataloging, and production of knowledge itself (this is a job for our researchers and scientists). We tend to think of technology as something fairly recent in human evolution and mostly involving electricity and/or internal combustion in some form or fashion. However, when one of our ancient ancestors first used a limb to lift a log to get at some grub worms, he (or she) was clearly using technology according to either definition above. The fact that this is not limited to humans is borne out by the observation of some higher primates using identical technology for the same purpose today. The wheel, the lever, and the inclined plane are three of the oldest technologies known to man, but their current manifestation as a rubber-cladded alloy wheel (with spinner!) and the car jack with which to change it when it goes flat are a result of the improvements in manufacturing technology over the millenia.

It has been said that "Necessity is the mother of invention". Most so-called advances in technology have been the result of pursuing a perceived need for [insert something incredible here] that will [insert incredible functionality here] for [insert list of incredibly grateful recipients here]. At the time that the advance occurs, it may have an adverse effect on some significant portion of the population. Within one generation, however, these individuals will have been replaced with ones who accept the new advance and thus end up living a different life than their fore-bears. The most commonly used example of this is the paradigm shift that occurred in the buggy-whip industry after autos became prevalent; or in the slide-rule business after the introduction of the scientific calculator. It is a fundamental axiom that every technological advance moves someone's cheese ... the advances only differ in how far it's moved and for how many. The fact that these "advances" occur and become integrated with each successive generation does not neccessarily guarantee that they are something that is ultimately "good" for a society or humanity (or "bad" for that matter).

I find it fascinating that a 93-year-old telegraph operator can transmit "Hey, girlfriend, you can text all your best pals to tell them where you are going and what you are wearing.” in eighteen seconds less than a 13-year-old can text message "hey gf u can txt ur best pals 2 tel them wot u r doing, where ur going and wot u r wearing.” It almost begs the question: Have we really advanced in the use of this technology in 150 years? This seemingly rhetorical question is not as easy to answer as it first appears ;)

IMHO, the most efficient means of real-time communication is verbal. There is no substantial lag involved between formulating a query and transmitting it and in retrieving the response. A flow of ideas and thoughts freely occur back and forth. With textual communication, we introduce a substantial lag on the front end by requiring that the query first be transcribed and then introduce a secondary lag on the other end while we wait for the response to be similarly encoded. We shift from quickly asking our questions and getting answers to sometimes getting lost in the encoding / decoding process itself. After you send that text message and are waiting for an answer, does your mind wander away from the topic? Are you already texting the next message? Wouldn't it be more fun to just chat on the phone or have lunch together?

In a previous post I referred to myself as a Luddite. As a pacifist, I meant this in the passive sense. I don't condemn technology for technology's sake; nor do I frown on those that seem to do nothing else but want to use it for everything, everywhere. I use what works best for me and, when finally convinced of the benefits, willingly incorporate new technology as needed. Yes, I send text messages when they are appropriate; no, I still don't have cable; but I always keep an open mind and try to envision how my cheese will be better if I choose to change.

In order to fulfill my picture quota for Karen, here's a picture of a vase I made:

Still Life, After All These Years

This was constructed using a 3D modeler called Blender, converted to a U-V surface mesh, mapped 1:1 onto a 24-bit color bitmap, exported and uploaded into a virtual world called Second Life, un-mapped back into a U-V surface mesh, textured with bathroom floor tile, and then finally positioned in front of a virtual river scene for the screen shot.

Dewey Decimal: RIP

I was more than a little disturbed to read that the Gilbert Public Library will open next month and become the first library in the nation to no longer use the Dewey Decimal Classification System. They will, instead, group their material by topic and interests similar to the way it is done in many popular book stores (as well as in the Library of Congress). According to the library: "A lot of times, patrons feel like they're going to a library and admitting defeat because they don't understand Dewey Decimal and can't find the book they're looking for."

Personally, I don't see much of a difference between looking up a book and getting the URL of "621.123a" versus the URL of "SCIENCE PHYSICS PARTICLE" ... it's kind of the difference between using "216.109.112.135" versus "yahoo.com".

That aside, I took the time to read up on the different pros and cons of continuing with the antiquated DDCS and have to agree: Dewey is dead. The decimal triage approach limits the top level classification to only ten categories ... more than enough 100 years ago, but hardly the thing for all the newer science and technology divisions that exist today. The LOC approach (subsetted by Border's and Barnes & Nobles) is more open-ended and user-friendly (just like using "yahoo.com" instead of remembering its IP address).

So maybe doing away with the Dewey Decimal Classification System is not such a bad thing ... after all, if the patrons can't find the books they want, what good is a library in the first place?

The 7-1/2 Lifelong Learning Habits

I can't recall a time in my life when I wasn't learning something new. I don't know if it's genetic pre-disposition or environment, but I have always had a thirst to know everything about everything. When I was twenty, I figured it would only take about five years. At twenty-five, I realized it was going to take me a little longer than that. The happy realization is that I can spend every day of the rest of my life learning and enjoying the discovery of new things and never run out of subject matter :)

I learn best by reading and prefer the old-fashioned paper format, but I have adapted by necessity to the electronic medium. The internet has brought an explosion of data to my desk and I constantly marvel at the information I can find on-line that, a few years ago, would have required waiting six weeks for the manual to arrive in the mail. Historically, I would spend $500-$1000 dollars a year buying textbooks ... now I can access them on-line for free (thanks to the gracious courtesy of my employer).

As a life-long learner, I have developed habits both good and bad ... but they seem to work well for how I learn best. How do I relate to "The 7-1/2 Lifelong Learning Habits"?

Habit 4: Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner

I have always had a lot of confidence in my ability to learn anything I choose. While some things are necessarily more difficult, all can be overcome with enough desire to do so.

Habit 3: View problems as challenges

I like solving problems. Almost every solution requires learning something new. Problems are an excuse to have a reason (or goal) to learn something.

Habit 1: Begin with a goal in mind

I find it almost impossible to learn anything new without some specific reason (I am effectively event-driven). With a clear goal and a road map I can proceed in a reasonably efficient manner to accomplish whatever is sought. No goal = Nothing to seek.

Habit 2: Accept responsibility for your own learning

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. If I don't want to learn anything, you can't make me! I take full responsibility for my own actions and their consequences.

Habit 6: Use technology to your advantage

I believe I do this to varying degrees. I've been a programmer for 35 years and ironically find myself more of a Luddite than anything else. I use technology where it helps me to research, organize, present, and communicate with others but have never had cable TV because I can't find a good use for it. We have become so dependent of technology that our entire lives grind to a halt when the server goes down ... not to mention the panic that ensues if the power goes out. But technology marches on :)

Habit 5: Create your own learning toolbox

I'm not quite sure what's in my toolbox, but it's got a lot of math and science and technology in there that allows me to absorb even more math and science and technology as I learn new things. Libraries, on-line resources, and bookstores are a vast cornucopia of information that is now easily Googleable for our convenience. The more tools in your box, the easier it is to learn a wider variety of things.

Habit 7: Teach and mentor others

I am always willing to share what I know or what I've learned ... however, I'm not a very good teacher. I am a good person to ask specific questions and get specific answers. I work very well one-on-one or in an un-structured ad-hoc environment, but don't fare well in a formal classroom where we have to keep moving along as we leave some individuals behind.

Habit 7-1/2: PLAY!

If you can't have fun doing whatever you're doing, what's the point?