How do I live without you?

I have an Android smart phone (Samsung Galaxy S) which I use for both personal and business applications. It's been a few weeks without my smart phone (I'm letting my mom try it)... and I'm definitely going through withdrawal.

The funny thing... there are a couple of things in the video that I can actually relate to.

Here’s a typical work day (when I had my phone)

Morning
An alarm app wakes me up in the morning with randomized song played from my playlist to start the day off on a good note. I check my Google Calendar to see what meetings are on my agenda, and to gauge how quickly I need to get ready for work. If I have an early webinar to attend (where I can’t make it into work yet), I’ll tune in through a WebEx app where I can participate just like I could on the computer. While I’m at work, the phone will vibrate 15 minutes before each of my scheduled meetings. During the rare occasion of a not-so-exciting meeting, I might check my email or send a quick text.

Afternoon
If I don’t have home lunch, I would use Yelp to find a new restaurant. Since my fiancee is a foodie, I might take pictures of my lunch and text it to her. During lunch, I might read the newspaper, briefly check my social media accounts, and play a game. After lunch, If I have an off-campus meeting, I’ll use Google Maps or Telenav to get GPS style directions to the meeting. At the meeting, I’ll look at Google Calendar to confirm who should be at the meeting and to refer to notes on the agenda. After the meeting, I might get a notification alarm from a Craigslist Notification app that lets me know that someone has posted something that fits my parameters.

Evening
Before heading home, I might check the sale items and personalized deals at grocery stores to see if there is anything I should pick up. After dinner, if I have additional work, I would connect my computer to my phone’s mobile hotspot. Oh, of course I would a make a few calls and send a few texts throughout the day as well.

Although it is nice, to not always reach for the phone whenever there is a millisecond of boredom...

Only thing constant is change

Apologies for the hiatus, but I'm back in full swing...

The only thing constant is change. The question really is how quickly people can embrace the change that lies ahead. I concur 100% that it's important to think through the pedagogy before just jumping in and buying technology. However, I find that many teachers (esp. the ones in the system for a while) are resistant and even frightened to even learn about technology. I wonder if teachers are required to go through yearly professional development on available technology. Any teachers out there care to comment...

I know that the DOE invested bucks on the Discovery Education online curriculum (which I think is a pretty worthwhile resource). I've heard that there are pockets of use, but not much widespread adoption.

So what can we expect in the future? Maybe students should be doing some training for the teachers to get them up to speed on the potential of technology, so they at least have an idea of what's possible...

There are more and more opportunities for students to be producers (not just consumers) of content which can help their classmates and the teacher. As move to a mobile-friendly, open-source, content creation world, there is a greater opportunity for teachers and students to shape the curriculum to better meet the needs of the local audiences. Can't wait to see what the classroom will look like 5 years down the line!

In the Cloud

Within the few months, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) migrated 25,000 mailboxes to Google Apps for Government, the largest federal agency to do so. At a cost of $11.5 million over 3 years, NOAA expects to realize a savings of up to 50%. From my personal experience, transitioning to the cloud has been a great experience. Let me tell you the ways...

1. Google Docs allows for live collaboration of documents during meetings which has cut down both meeting times and follow up emails for clarification. Everyone can add their 2 cents to the document without the need to keep track of the most up to date Word Document. This can be done both remotely and on government issued Blackberries.

2. Google Calendar lets us more efficiently schedule meetings both within and outside the organization.

3. Google Chat allows for efficiency in getting answers to quick questions without the need for the organization to pay for an out-of-state call.

4. Google Voice allows the convenience of free calls anywhere in the U.S. and Canada.

5. Google Sites allows us to not only share and edit web pages with one another, but to also search all the NOAA Google Sites to get a cursory idea of similar work being done in the agency.

It is interesting that we can give editing privileges to Docs to anyone, but Calendar and Sites are restricted to within NOAA. I'm guessing it's because Docs allows you visit the revision history while Calendar and Sites do not (as far as I know).

I've only been working for NOAA for about 1.5 years, but Google Apps has helped tremendously in sharing ideas and moving toward consensus (which is often needed in the government world). In my mind, the next step would be enabling Google Plus so that collaboration on Google Docs can be combined with the audio and video features of Google Hangout.

What are some innovative ways in which you use Google Docs in the workplace?

Hoover, J. (2011, June 9). From Ocean to Cloud: NOAA Goes Google Apps. Information Week Government. Retrieved from http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/cloud-saas/230500174

BYOD

There is a lot of buzz about the Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD) movement in some of the more progressive school systems as a means to offset technology budgets, and therefore free up technology resources for students without devices.

Unfortunately, Hawaii is not one of the states adopting the BYOD approach. I'm sure there are many issues to resolve in regards to equity, security, IT infrastructure, etc. but more and more students will have access to mobile devices such as smart phone and tablets. Why not at least start implementing pilot programs to see how they can best be utilized in the classroom? Hopefully, this is already happening.

Jim, one of our classmates who's a vice principal, talked about the use of twitter in an humanities class to learn how to type succinctly. What a great idea! This type of innovation should be encouraged and shared in all Hawaii schools.

What are your thoughts on the BYOD approach in the classroom?

Barseghian, T. (2012, February 2). In some cash-strapped schools, kids bring their own tech devices. Retrieved from http://mindshift.kqed.org/2012/02/in-cash-strapped-schools-kids-bring-their-own-tech-devices/#more-18834