Alvin Trusty recently pointed out the inefficiencies of synchronous chat rooms in online courses. The social protocol of the chat room does not always lend itself well to serious discussions. In a chat, people are constantly entering and leaving. Some people try to monopolize the conversation by responding to every comment made. Others take the discussion off-topic by following tangents. The result can be a … Continue reading Inefficient Technology

Last year, I started listening to The Word Nerds podcast. This show examines a particular aspect of our language and culture in each episode. If you know the difference between a mondegreen and a portmanteau, this is the kind of thing you would like. I found it interesting for a while, but after a few months, my interest waned. Recently, the show has shown signs … Continue reading Grammar Girl

Over at TechnoSpud, Jennifer Wagner has been coordinating collaborative projects for nearly a decade. She started by collecting data for a science project, and reasoned that she could use the Internet to collect data from students all over the world. Eight years later, she’s coordinating five projects a year, involving hundreds of classrooms and thousands of students. Registration is now available for the St. Patrick’s … Continue reading Collaborative Projects

I love optical illusions. It’s a lot of fun to see how we can play tricks on our minds by exploiting our understanding of how our brains interpret what we see. Most of the time, I can see right through the illusions. We’ve seen the impossible trident, the Rubin vase, the Penrose Triangle, and the work of M.C. Escher enough to know when we’re being … Continue reading Optical Illusions

Maybe not. It was just the Sound and Video Catalog at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology Macaulay Library. Despite the fact that there aren’t any cheetahs, the catalog does have an impressive collection of animal recordings, some of which date back half a century or more. Many also have video. As you’d expect from a lab of ornithology, there are lots of birds. But I … Continue reading Thought I Heard a Red-Winged Blackbird

The problem with storing information is that the media is always changing. Almost seven years ago, I bought a new computer. This was my first computer without a 5.25″ floppy drive. I reasoned at the time that I could always connect a drive to it if I ever needed the data on those disks. I never did. I have a box full of disks which … Continue reading Print is Dead

A couple years ago, our high school principal purchased some laptops to use in the media center. Our media center is small, and frequently crowded, and there wasn’t room for more tables full of computers. Still, he wanted to accommodate as many students as possible. With the freedom of wireless technology, it seemed like a natural fit. We knew from the outset that we were … Continue reading Working on the Wireless

This week, one of our physics teachers requested that a physics simulation site be unblocked by our web filter. The site is Paul Falstad’s Math and Physics Applets, and it’s classified as a “personal page” and therefore blocked by the filter. Our teachers can request that sites be unblocked. Those requests go to a panel of seven people who evaluate the site based on our … Continue reading Physics is Phun

I have four copies of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. There’s the original vinyl, the vinyl picture disk (unopened, no less), the cassette version that I bought before I had a CD player but after I stopped listening to records, and the CD version. All are original, genuine copies, obtained legally. Why did I have to buy it four times? I didn’t. … Continue reading Managing My Digital Rights

I usually start my tech team meetings with a demonstration of some software, resource, or other tech-related concept. We had a meeting yesterday, but it’s been a busy week, and I was going to skip the demo. I didn’t have time to prepare anything, and there weren’t any resources jumping out screaming to be shown. I arrived a little early for the meeting. It’s after … Continue reading Wink!

In 1999, Sun Microsystems acquired StarDivision, and its flagship product, Star Office. The following year, they took aim at Microsoft’s near-monopoly on the desktop productivity market by offering a free, open source version of the package, StarOffice 5.2. In my December, 2000 technology newsletter, I wrote: Sun Microsystems has decided to play Microsoft’s game [of underpricing their products to force the competition out of business] … Continue reading Is it Time for OpenOffice?

I thought the story of George Vaccaro’s trouble with Verizon was a bit ridiculous. His Verizon Math blog chronicles his struggle to explain to Verizon the difference between 0.002 cents and 0.002 dollars. Apparently, before leaving the United States for Canada, he was quoted a data rate for his cell plan of 0.002 cents per kilobyte. He confirmed this with Verizon, and verified that this … Continue reading Bad Math Hits Home