Monday, February 08, 2010

@TimeGlider :: World War I (source: Wikipedia)
Another timeline app is Timeglider. Timeglider seems to show you few actual timelines, the purpose is more to create your own? Not sure yet why they don't publish more.

I point you here to the World War 1 timeline. As you can see, there's a bit of sensory overload here. Which tends to be the problem with many of these. The authors just can't stop! You'll recall HyperHistory, which is now much improved, yet which long suffered the same problem.

Timeglider says it has 12,000 users. They show 4 timelines. Are you a user? What's yours look like?
Capzles
We talk much of timelines and this was presented to me as a timeline app; it's byline is "Time Captured". A quick exploration shows it to be more of a narrated presentation engine. Much of the content reminds one of TV: much self congratulation and omphaloskepsis.

Yet consider Paul Revere's Ride, a reading of Longfellow's The Midnight Ride.... Every student should have heard this poem professionally read, and what a way to do it, with beautiful pictures and maps of the era all available for exploration.

There's a History section, to help get away from the more personal uses. Yu still get James Bond Movie Posters, Helmut Newton, and 2009 Dodge Challenger. Still, 75 Years of the Popemobile perhaps has potential to draw in a young man interested in cars to some connection with the 2000 year old papacy?

Black Death quickly shows learners a map of the plague's spread; the dead, the dead rats, and a contemporary sketch of the ill, with the body parts appropriately censored as the age demanded.

Capsules can be a platform for students to roll their own, and sports a few good themes. Meta-app for showcasing the richer content, anyone?

Sunday, February 07, 2010

The Movie Theater in My Bedroom
"I have like this moovie theater in my bedrooom. I got like the surround sound all set up. Its really cool.

"My Dad's always tryin to one-up me though. Like he has a 65" screen. And I have a hundred inch screen. But now he's tryin to get better than me."

I wouldn't object so much if this were a 23yr old bio-engineer or financial analyst.

The offended party is a teen working at Einstein's bagel, talking about her room in Dad's house.

How do you educate such a youth?

Thursday, February 04, 2010

Last night was a live webinar with Steve Hargadon and James Paul Gee on Video Games, Learning, and Literacy. (Recording to be published).

We've mentioned Gee's books here before, and it was interesting to hear him speak at this later date to a new audience. I didn't feel I learned much, nor did I feel that he convincingly reinforced what I thought I knew. Instead, I felt the opposite, a desire to push against gaming as learning.

Maybe it was Tuesday's Frontline: Digital Nation. Maybe it was because he had no convincing examples.

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Ruh-ro. Blogger says they're going to suspend FTP service, which is how this blog works. Yet another fun computer productivity loss!