Group items tagged

I use Evernote, Everywhere: Android (phone and Tablet) Windows Web Clipper (Chrome)

1. Evernote for staying focused

2. Evernote for getting organized

In the industry right now – as we see in the Social Media for Learning report research data – there is considerable use of social media tools in instruction delivery efforts. But there’s less evidence that people are using the tools to support social learning. Often, people use social media tools as another means of delivering content. For example: Publishing the training department newsletter on a blog uto-scheduling tweets about class assignments from a Twitter account that does not otherwise engage with the learners or ask them to engage with each other Hosting a software application development course, in tutorial format, on a wiki By contrast, using social media to support and extend social learning invites learners to contribute, engage, and participate with one another online. For instance, when: Setting up a wiki for those in a new-hire induction program to work together to edit a FAQs page for use by the next group coming to the program Having managers-in-training use a microblogging tool for a leadership book-club discussion Helping to support and participating in a community of the organization’s customer service reps, to give them a place to share war stories and strategies for dealing with challenges           So just using the online tools to deliver content doesn’t support “social learning;” that happens when you use the tools to invite interaction from and between the learners. It’s about social, not media, and it’s about shared learning, not just pushing content.

Exporting & Saving One thing that SVG can’t do is save the resulting image as a bitmap. It’s easy for <canvas> because the element is already a bitmap in the first place! The canvas can export its image to a data URL (e.g., data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGg...). This data may then be rendered in the browser, which could then be saved or dragged to the desktop, used in a new canvas, and so on. The browser must support PNG images, and it may have varying support for GIF and JPG. For our example, we’ll stick with PNG since it supports alpha transparency, and where we haven’t drawn on the canvas, it’ll be transparent. To get the data URL, we simply call canvas.toDataURL('image/png'). Note that we’re calling toDataURL() on the <canvas> element, not on the 2D context. This is because we’re getting all the pixels in the canvas, not just the pixels in a particular context. So taking the example we’ve put together already, we’ll make the browser redirect to a PNG version of the image when a user clicks on the <canvas> element (a contrived example, I know!): canvas.onclick = function () {  window.location = canvas.toDataURL('image/png');};

So can computers actually help improve our concentration and contemplation, instead of leading us into distraction? The problem, as Pang puts it, is that "Technologies that were supposed to help us think better, work more efficiently, and connect more meaningfully with others now interrupt us, divide our attention, and stretch us thin."

In the paper he outlines give principles of contemplative computing; Build awareness through DIY and self-experimentation Recognize that we are cyborgs, and humans Create rewarding challenges Support mind-wandering Treat flow as a means, not an end

Pang suggests that we don't have to choose between information technology and contemplation, and suggests contemplative computing as a new way forward. He describes contemplative computing as something you do, not a product. But the principles of contemplative computing could be extending to application design. "The problem is that today's information technologies are often poorly-designed and thoughtlessly used: they're like unreliable prosthetics that we have to depend on, but can't quite control or trust," Pang says.

Not only is the creative services software shop closing down the Creative Suite version numbers and branding; it’s getting rid of the entire paradigm of old-school, cereal-box* software.

No more waiting for your design software’s features to catch up with what the web guys have been doing for six months

new purchasing paradigm for the entire creative industry. Every ad agency, every magazine, every indie design firm and print shop — they will all be transitioning from bought-and-owned software at $200 or $700 or $2,000 a pop to the Creative Cloud subscription model, which can cost as little as $20 per mont

Rethinking data in the classroom

Adaptive learning algorithms

Experimentation with new learning models (including flipped classroom, sync learning, blended learning, etc.)