Over at the AMX blog, Lane Shannon writes about an experience he had with one of his kids asking to play a video game he was unfamiliar with. Even though video games are getting more and more mainstream, it’s hard for parents to stay fully in the loop of popular games, especially if they themselves are not gamers. See the link to the article after the break, and comment below whether you’re a parent who struggles to see value in video games, or one who fully supports video game play of their children.

http://blog.amx.com/2014/08/22/overprotective-dad-realizes-educational-potential-minecraft-game/

How big is New York’s Central Park, really? If you’ve ever been there, it’s quite impressive–you can spend hours walking trails only to see on a map later that you only covered a very small portion of the park.

I wanted to put things in perspective, so I used Google Earth to measure and take a screenshot of Central Park. It turns out that it is roughly 2.57 miles long and .54 miles wide (Wikipedia reports roughly the same size). I then placed that image in central Wichita, Kansas to see how big it really is.

I placed the southwest corner of Central Park at the intersection of Kellogg & Broadway (the old highway 81). That puts the eastern border of the park just past Washington Ave., and the northern border between 17th & 18th streets (the southeastern tip of the new NoMar district). Click on the image at left to see the full-size image of the map.

Activities like this engage students’ higher-order thinking skills and puts geography in a “real-world” context. The Great Pyramids at Giza seem like something out of a history textbook, but you could ask your students to plop the 3D model of Khufu’s monument right next to Century-II to get a sense of scale.

If you haven’t already seen it, also take a look at my downloadable Google Earth “tour” of the Santa Fe Trail.

What are some other uses of Google Earth that you might find to engage your students at a deeper level?

I have also recently been working to digitize my entire history–CDs, tapes, DVDs, etc. A big part of that digital archiving project is Evernote. Tonight, I had an epihany of using Evernote to record little audio snippets/snapshots of my son or other things that happen throughout the day. There are little things he says–and more importantly, how he says them–that I just want to be able to remember forever. And as we all know, Evernote’s motto is, “Remember Everything. Because Forgetting Sucks.” Or maybe that’s just what the T-Shirt says.

Without any further ado, I give you your daily cuteness: my son answering the question, “What does a bubble say?” Below the audio is a link to the actual Evernote, just so you can see how it saves and shares. Enjoy!

If you’d like to learn more about how to record audio into Evernote, see this knowledge base article.

If you’re like me, you often get buried in your email inbox. While I’m still working on my personal email account, my work email is now fully under control, and I have been able to maintain “Inbox Zero” status. If you’re not familiar with “Inbox Zero,” it is a buzz word that’s been going around the Internet since the dawn of the GTD (“Getting Things Done”) movement. The concept is that you work to keep your email inbox empty just as you would your physical US Postal mailbox. Think about it–you don’t leave hundreds of letters/magazines/junkmail in your physical mailbox, do you? Then why do you let that stuff clog up your email inbox?

I have put together an infographic about how I achieved and maintain Inbox Zero status (linked at right). Basically, my workflow is this–when an email comes in, I go through the following thoughts & actions:

• Is this something I need to act on?
  • If yes, then can I act on it in the next five minutes (or whatever available time I have right now)? If yes, then I do it. If I can’t act on it now, I add it to my asana.com project list.
• Is this an event or calendar item?
  • If yes, I either use a Quick Action I created in Outlook to automatically create a calendar item and archive the original email, or I use my Doodle.com account to schedule a meeting or request a meeting.
• Do I need to keep this because of the information in it?
  • If yes, I do one of two actions:
    • If it’s something I just need to archive for possible retrieval later, I file it in a folder in Outlook. I can always use Outlook’s search to find the email at any point later.
    • If it’s information that has value outside of this specific email, I add it to my Evernote account using Evernote’s Outlook plug-in (Windows only for now).
• Are you sure you need this? Or, you need this, but you can’t do any of the first three actions:
  • If no, delete the item. Now. Don’t wait. If you’re the paranoid type, then just create a folder in Outlook called “Archived Items” or something and mark the email read and move it to that folder. You will have a large .PST file if you keep every email, though
  • If you need to keep it, but none of the three previous actions work for you, then use something like Boomerang for Outlook or ClearContext to have the email returned to your inbox at a time where it will make more sense for you. Also, use this option for emails where you’ve replied and are expecting a response. Set your Boomerang to bring the original email back to your inbox when the time comes that you should follow up for that response.

With the exception of Boomerang for Outlook and ClearContext, all of those tools have some kind of free option for you to use. There are ways of using Outlook exclusively to do all of these things, but this just the way that I have tackled my own inbox.

How do you maintain Inbox Zero? Use the comments below to share your own strategies.

First things first–please note my badge bling in the picture to the left. I was the first #sloancninja of the 2013 conference! Basically, that just meant that I was the first one to Tweet, Instagram, Vine, LinkedIn, and post on my blog all either about the conference, or with the hashtag #aln13. I’m a big gamification fan, so when you give me an incentive to do something that I probably would have done anyways, it’s a no-brainer!

Anyways, on to more important matters. I went into day two expecting another day of the same. I was very wrong. In both good ways and  bad, the second day was almost a completely different experience than the first.

I attended a couple of sessions that were complete duds, and a couple of outstanding ones that I believe I made a valuable professional contact with the presenter to hopefully explore more of their topics with them further down the road. Even in the dud sessions, however, I was able to sneak out the back of the room with a few other like-minded attendees and share a minor bonding moment over how bad the session was, what we had actually been expecting from the session, and then each share our own reasoning for choosing that session in the first place. If nothing else, the bad sessions were an ice-breaker to the real discussion that happened in the “backchannel.”

[pullquote align=”right” textalign=”left|center|right” width=”30%”]The Twitter chat was a very live and active community, bridging both time and space….[/pullquote]Speaking of the backchannel, I experienced a similar situation as I did yesterday with the very active Twitter chat going on. During both last night’s keynote from Hal Plotkin, and this morning’s keynote from Coursera founder Daphne Koller, the Twitter chat was a very live and active community, bridging both time and space to break down what would have been an 80-minute lecture into smaller, digestible discussions. Presenting about the amazing wonders of MOOCs to a room full of 2500 instructional designers and online course instructors is not necessarily going to always go over well. While there were a few positive comments, most of the backchannel chat was cynical, or at least doubtful, about the MOOC’s efficacy. My own personal stance–embodied by the tweet posted below–is that MOOCs are yet another tool for the educational community to take advantage of. The question becomes: without a competency-based educational system, will MOOCs ever be able to find their solid foothold in the American academia?

Finally, I do think that while these types of conventions are tremendously helpful, I can’t help but wonder if some of the confusion in our field comes from listening to how others have solved problems that we either don’t have, or have other roadblocks in our place from implementing the same solution. A small, private college in rural Pennsylvania will solve not only different problems, but also solve those problems in a very different manner than would the University of Georgia, in urban downtown Atlanta. Your own network of schools or programs with similar issues and goals may often be the best resource to draw upon for guidance and feedback.

@clairemoane EDUCATION is desperately necessary. MOOCs are one method of delivery. #aln13

— Ryan Corcoran (@rgcorcoran) November 21, 2013

My university has graciously sent me to the annual SLOAN-C conference this year, hosted in Orlando, FL. SLOAN-C is an organization whose primary focus is the advancement of online education and distance learning. It’s been a wonderful experience so far, and I’d like to share just a few random thoughts from the first full day of the conference.

First, some general thoughts: it seems like everyone here is passionate for what they do. They don’t do online learning because they “fell back” on it, or because it’s “just a job.” These people–presenters, vendors, and attendees alike–love online education and are hungry for ways to improve themselves and their sphere of influence.

Second, in regard to implementing quality standards for online education, while it may feel like we are behind the times, we’re not alone. Even those who have cut through the red tape jungle with their bleeding-edge education machetes are experiencing issues with implementing quality standards and enforcing faculty development and other aspects necessary for accreditation.

[pullquote align=”left|center|right” textalign=”left|center|right” width=”30%”]It seems like everyone here is passionate for what they do.[/pullquote]Thirdly, everyone struggles with creating engaging discussion boards online. There are probably more sessions devoted to asynchronous discussion than any other singular topic available for these attendees. Some takeaways I found today are: create pre-defined roles, include argumentative statements in your instructions, and focus on real-world experiences.

Finally, these folks are in love with social media (mostly). With the exception of a few luddites, everyone I see is tweeting, Instagramming, Vine-ing(?), and making new LinkedIn connections. Even people who have rarely (or never) participated in the social media waters are dipping their toes in. The conference has even gamified the act of participating in the social sphere by offering “badges” (in the form of stickers) for people who tweet, post Instagram photos, comments on LinkedIn, YouTube videos, etc. [Yours truly is earning his “Sloan Ninja” badge by completing this very post.]

See you tomorrow for Day-2!

Thanks to all the vendors at #SloanC #aln13 https://t.co/NrtX9G36FH

— Ryan Corcoran (@rgcorcoran) November 20, 2013

I realize I’m about a week late here, but I have honestly struggled with what to write about last week’s Apple announcement. To say that the announcement was “underwhelming” is accurate. I wasn’t truly disappointed, necessarily, but the event truly lacked the “magic” that we have come to know and love from Apple.

Let’s start with the best parts and go down from there–

OSX Mavericks Free

By far, the most exciting announcement was that the newest release of Mac OSX, “Mavericks” would be free (Free Mavericks). I’m a little surprised this hadn’t happened already, because the trend had already started. First, it was a $20 price for 5 licenses, then $10, and now free (so number of licenses is irrelevant). This is pretty huge, as it means that users of any Mac laptop or desktop made in the last 6 or 7 years (roughly) can all have the newest version of their operating system. This means that developers can focus more on making quality applications that work on the latest release of the system without worrying too much about backward compatibility.

This also means that for schools that are dedicated to Mac computers, the cost for upgrading just plummeted (to zero!). No more do students have to complain about systems that are years behind their personal machines simply because the school can’t afford to put a $20 system on hundreds of machines across campus. As long as the hardware supports it (which my 7-year old iMac is running Mavericks just fine), they can all be upgraded to the latest and greatest. The TCO for Apple machines just went even lower (especially if you include iWork, also now free; more about that below).

iWork Now Free

Not to be outdone by its host operating system, the OSX-only productivity suite, iWork, has also just been made free for all new Mac owners. Again, this is pretty huge for schools. I won’t try to argue that iWork is better than MS Office. It’s better for some things, worse for others. But Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are solid productivity applications that produce some very attractive documents and presentations. If Microsoft came out tomorrow and said that Office is now free, that would be way huger, and this little announcement would be forever forgotten.

That said, I don’t see Microsoft doing that anytime soon. So again looking at Total Cost of Ownership, Mac computers are looking a lot more attractive for schools and large businesses.

iPad Mini with Retina Display

The main reason this item isn’t higher on my list is that it’s a year late. This should have happened at launch, but I think that Apple was nervous that they wouldn’t have any new major updates for their 2nd generation (they were right). The iPad Mini is a wonderful tablet, which it outselling most competitors in a big way. This just should have been the unit that premiered the device. Same price point as before, but better screen and a faster processor.

iPad “Air”

Really, Apple? Just “iPad” wasn’t enough? Why are iterative numbers like “iPhone 4, 4S, 5, 5S” all acceptable, but iPad 5 unacceptable? You didn’t call your newest iMac the “iMac Razor” or something stupid like that. Sorry… off my soapbox. The newest iPad features a change in form factor (the first since iPad 2), resulting in the crazy-light one-pound device. It is indeed the lightest full-size tablet on the market. Early consumer reviews are very positive and love the new form factor. The benefits of a 64-bit processor in a tablet this size are still in question, but many believe it to be the first step down a longer product evolution roadmap.

[pullquote align=”left|center|right” textalign=”left|center|right” width=”30%”]I’m concerned about the ability of Apple to remain competitive if we have to wait another year for major innovation.[/pullquote]Beyond those two features, there’s not much in the new iPad Air to get excited about. The price is the same, the camera is virtually the same. In my opinion, if Apple truly wanted an iPad in every classroom the way they claim, they would not only lower the education price, but also make the camera better. Why should the top iPad model not have the same camera as their flagship iPhone? And please make the Facetime camera full HD.

Summary

I realize that we can’t be blown away every six months by the newest Apple announcements, but this one seemed to be the most iterative one I can remember. I’m very appreciative of the gift of free software, but I’m concerned about the ability of Apple to remain competitive if we have to wait another year for major innovation. (Free skateboard stickers are great, but where’s my Hoverboard??)

I just wanted to share an ULTRA quick review for TweetDeck, which I installed as a Chrome extension to help me stay abreast of the #HumanMOOC Twitter dialog. It’s a great tool for setting up custom searches to view right along side your regular timeline. I may come back and do a full review a little later. Check it out!