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So last quarter I had an intriguing thought while preparing my Game Theory lectures. Tests are really just measures of how the Education Game is proceeding. Professors test to measure their success at teaching, and students take tests in order to get a good grade. Might these goals be maximized simultaneously? What if I let the students write their own rules for the test-taking game? Allow them to do everything we would normally call cheating? 

Is the take-home message, then, that cheating is good? Well … no. Although by conventional test-taking rules, the students were cheating, they actually weren’t in this case. Instead, they were changing their goal in the Education Game from “Get a higher grade than my classmates” to “Get to the best answer.” This also required them to make new rules for test-taking.

Why isn’t my Facebook Page growing faster? Why aren’t people engaging more?

What Are Your Facebook Goals?

have a clear picture of the desired outcome

A hybrid app is a native, downloadable app, that runs all or some of its user interface in an embedded browser component. To the user, a hybrid app is almost indistinguishable from a native one: it is downloaded from the app store or marketplace, it is stored on the device, and it is launched just like any other app

simply load some pages from their web site as part of the app

many companies are not already jumping on the HTML5 bandwagon is the belief that HTML apps cannot access native device features. Indeed, pure mobile web apps

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a powerful app for handwriting and organizing notes, sketches, diagrams, illusions and drawings. It is the easiest-to-use and going to be the best-selling handwriting app for iPad. With TopNotes you can take notes, keep sketches, record ideas and draw pictures wherever you are.

Teaching with Facebook is a way for me to engage my students, since many of them will be on the site before, after, and during any lecture. More than engagement, using Facebook allows me to build a bridge between my classroom curricula and what my students are doing outside the lecture hall. I must admit that student expertise with digital media often exceeds my own, and my attempts at using Facebook function as a common language that sets up my classroom as an experimental space allowing students to take risks, make connections, and participate with an alternative teaching style. As much as there are a number of other Facebook educators—there is even a Facebook groups for educators—I am certain that on my university campus I am the only instructor using this social network. My university administration has accused me of subverting our institutional course management system. They are correct. Facebook may be a commercial enterprise, but I argue that students can maintain a Facebook identity after they leave university. The work done in our lecture as represented in our Facebook group is something that lasts beyond a typical university course management system. In other words, access to the information, discussion, links, and learning is not cut off once the course is over.

note that many apps will take between four and eight weeks to build, with the average being six weeks. With a full-time developer (40 hours per week) and a part-time designer (20 hours per week), the average man-hours per week is around 60. Six weeks multiplied by 60 hours per week equals 360 hours. Solid designers and developers will charge around $100 per hour, with top talent peaking at around $150 per hour and lower-end U.S.-based contractors charging around $65 per hour. Using the $100-per-hour rate yields a total of $36,000 (360 hours × $100 per hour). That number can quickly fluctuate: if your app took four weeks to build (240 hours) and the average was instead $75 per hour, the total would be $18,000 (240 hours × $75 per hour).

Note: For games, the number of total hours is much higher, and ranges between 700 and 2,000 hours. This equates to three to six months of work, depending on the number of developers working on the game simultaneously.

The problem is amplified when saving for Retina, where there’s twice as many images, and the 1× images must match the 2× images precisely. The best solution I’ve come up with so far is: Build your design at 1×. Use copy merged to save all the 1× images. Duplicate the entire folder containing the 1× images. Use Automator to add @2x to all the filenames. Open each @2x image and run the Scale by 200% Photoshop action. This gives you a file with the correct filename and size, but upscaled content. Scale your main Photoshop design document by 200%. Use copy merged to paste the higher quality elements into each @2x document, turn off the lower quality layer, then save for web, overwriting the file.

CIT used to have an e-Portfolio service that did not have a high take up rate. There are several reasons for this that I can think of: It was provided under the build it and they will come model. I believe not enough was done to convince students and teaching staff about the benefits of building e-Portfolios. Consequently, no one was willing to integrate this into their course, as part of reflective learning. Keeping an e-Portfolio was seen as extra work, which neither students nor staff were keen on. Perhaps the software itself was not very conducive to building e-Portfolios. One key area with users seem to be that the e-Portfolio should have a customisable design and layout (at least on its public face). Our system was not flexible in that aspect. In fact, in the latter years, the option to publish the e-Portfolio was taken away entirely. The e-Portfolio service was a walled garden. It wasn’t easy to bring in digital artefacts, which may have resided on other public services, nor was it easy to repurpose that information into useful formats – personal reference, actual resume, showcase of work. No one figured how students would access the e-Portfolios after they graduated as it was all based on our single sign-on system.

Adding a MOOC layer to a learning program or platform isn’t particularly original these days, as Blackboard and seemingly every player in this space scrambled to become MOOC-capable at about the same time as Instructure

D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. D3 helps you bring data to life using HTML, SVG and CSS. D3’s emphasis on web standards gives you the full capabilities of modern browsers without tying yourself to a proprietary framework, combining powerful visualization components and a data-driven approach to DOM manipulation.

Mobile and smartphone usage is most prevalent in the morning and evening. Smartphone users tend to glance at and skim over emails more than desktop users who tend to fully read emails. Smartphone users around the world tend to use their smartphones at home more than anywhere else. From October 2010 to October 2012, email open rates on smartphones increased by 300%. Mobile email creates twice as many conversions as social and search. The average price of an order placed from a mobile device is higher than the average order from a tablet or desktop. Mobile and smartphone usage is higher Thursday – Monday than on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Social media is win-win.

Everything you say can be used against you, especially if you offend someone.  Be on your best behavior and interact from a professional position, not a personal one.

Interact and maintain dialogue.  If someone messages you, reply – take part in open discussions. Take the time to show appreciate for all manner of feedback, whether it is positive or negative.