Technology
Entries related to technology.
A Social Media Year in Review
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 12/30/2008 - 18:49People around the world are looking back at what happened in 2008 and looking forward to 2009 and offering their reflections. I thought I would do it in terms of my online presence.
Back in May, 2007, I did an inventory of some of the social networks that I was active in. Today, I’ve done a similar inventory. Back then, it terms of connections, I was probably most active in Facebook. My number of connections has grown 346% since then. The network with the second highest number of connections was LinkedIn. My number of connections there has grown 189%. Yet both of these have been passed by what had been my third most connected network, Twitter.
The people following me on Twitter has grown 1624%, as Twitter has passed Facebook as the network with the most connections. I have nearly twice as many followers on Twitter as I do on Facebook now.
Other networks that have grown substantially have been MyBlogLog which has climbed past LinkedIn to be my third post connected network, and BlogCatalog, which is similar to MyBlogLog. The other network that has grown substantially has been Flickr which now ranks fourth. Two other sites that I suspect might have some growth over the coming days is StumbleUpon and del.icio.us, both of which people list in their MyBlogLog profiles, and I’m going through the MyBlogLog profiles of friends to see if I should add them on other networks. This gets to the issue of needing a social network relationship management program, but that is more than big enough to require a post of its own.
A few networks that I’m on have seen a decrease in connections. These include Orkut, Friendster and Ryze. None of these were networks that I was very active on, and the decrease isn’t a surprise. In fact, it helps illustrate an important point about social networks, while the number of nodes or connections in a social network may have some importance, what is much more important is the traffic on the network.
All of the social networks are interconnected in one way or another, and from that starting point, I looked at some of the statistics I have about my online activity. During 2008, I received well over 50,000 emails. This does not include spam emails or other emails that have no value and were deleted immediately. It also under counts because many emails that I receive from mailing lists are bundled into digests so I often receive one email that has up to fifteen emails inside of it.
Granted, it is hard to read that many emails and about a third of these emails never were opened. In response, I sent about 3100 emails.
On my blog, I’ve written about 650 blog posts this year, working out to be around 400,000 words. I also sent about 900 pictures to Flickr, 100 videos to blip.tv and over 2300 messages to Twitter, although some of them were automated messages from my blogs RSS feed.
I write about a wide variety of topics and I was interested in seeing which search terms brought the most traffic and which posts people found most interesting. In my case, 70% of the top searches were on peoples’ names. This was also reflected in the most read blog post of the year, which was about Victoria Lindsay, Erin Markes and Avery Doninger.
My second most popular post was about my role in the collapse of Lehman. Beyond that, the posts that got the most traffic, and also ended up having the highest Google Page Ranks were posts about my experiments with various forms of technology such as laconica, FriendFeed, OpenSim, SecondLife and the MyBlogLog API.
What does all of this tell us? I’m not sure, but it does seem like I should do some experimenting with establishing a Social Media Relationship Management (SMRM) system.
I hope you find this interesting. Let me know your social media experiences for 2008 and your thoughts about social media for the coming year.
PC Based Recording Studio
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 12/26/2008 - 13:56This year, Miranda wanted a recording studio for Christmas. That may sound a little more pie in the sky than it really is. What she really wanted was a better way to record her music, typically, her voice and guitar, so that she could more easily share her music with friends and perhaps sell a little bit of it on Snocap.
For those of you who don’t know about Snocap, it is a site where emerging artists can upload their music and then sell it via social networking sites. I learned about Snocap from Maura Kennedy at a panel at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. Maura sells some of her songs on Snocap.
Unfortunately, I didn’t hear about this until it was too late to thoroughly investigate the best solutions and then purchase them. She has been quick to note that I can still find other opportunities to get her better recording equipment, so I’m using this blog post as my first explorations into building a PC based recording studio.
The first thing that is necessary is a better microphone. The built in mics on PCs just don’t cut it, nor do most of the small mics you can buy and plug into the 3.5 mm jack on the site of the computer. I’ve spent a bit of time investigating microphones. The first thing to look at is whether you want a dynamic microphone or a condenser microphone. A great summary of the differences can be found in this article.
Based on this, and other reading, it seems like the best microphone for Miranda, at least right now is the Shure SM58
However, there are a few interesting XLR to USB cables that I’ve been looking into. The cable that seems to be getting the best reviews is the LightSnake USB Microphone cable
It seems like there are two options that people talk about for XLR to USB converters that supply phantom power to condenser mics. The first is the Blue Microphones Icicle XLR Cable to USB Conversion Adapter
For Miranda’s electric guitar, Lightsnake makes a USB Instrument cable
Once all of these devices are connected, how do you record? The simplest is probably to use audacity. Audacity is a ‘free cross-platform sound editor’. I use it to record and edit sound on my PCs. However, Audacity doesn’t seem to have a nice way of recording multiple tracks at the same time, so Miranda would need to mix the audio inputs outside of audacity. Depending on how Windows is set up, you can probably do this with the sound control for windows.
The next step up the ladder is probably n-track studio. This allows you to record multiple tracks at the same time, set levels for each track, and mix them appropriately. It is shareware, but the full version is only $64. I’ve started testing it, but without any good audio devices to play with my tests are a bit limited.
The Lightsnake cable also comes with 30 day trials of various Sony programs for recording, but the full version of these programs cost $300 or more and probably aren’t necessary for the first phase of a PC based recording studio.
Part of the reason I dug into this is that I’d like to play with some of these myself for podcast. In addition, when I’ve covered political events there have often been XLR boxes that I suspect I could tap into with my laptop, if I had a good XLR USB connector.
With all of this, the question then becomes, could I connect multiple XLR to USB connectors to a PC to be able to record many tracks? How many connectors would a PC support? It seems like this depends on the USB hubs you get, how many USB controllers you have, and whether you want the USB devices to be powered or not.
Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to test some of this and perhaps both Miranda and I can end up with professional quality recording capabilities on our PCs. I realize this is all PC centric and Mac owners might be saying, hey, we can do all of this sort of stuff much easier on a Mac. I don’t have any Macs, so that isn’t an option for us.
However, I would love to hear any experiences that any of you have had, especially in terms of hooking up XLR audio equipment to PCs.
Woodbridge CT Snow Cam - UStream Version
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 12/19/2008 - 13:39The snow has finally started here in Woodbridge, CT. I sent a message out on Twitter to see if people wanted a snow cam, and if so, what format.
@sheilamc7 suggested UStream, so here it is as an embedded stream (Hopefully):
@AlanGayandStr suggested veodia.com, and I may try that next.
Update:
After streaming for a while, I cleaned the window and adjusted the settings, so the video got a little better later in the day. It is now dark outside, so I've stopped streaming, although if it is snowing in the morning, I may try to restart the stream below.
Above the fold, I replaced the live stream with one of the videos that I captured.
Updated 2:
In the evening, I switched over to Fire Cam, using the Adobe Flash Media Encoder. Now that it is day time and snowing again outside, I've restarted Snow Cam.
Here is a clip from Fire Cam
Bowling Again; Rebuilding Our Civic Infrastructure
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 12/18/2008 - 09:54In 2001, Robert Putnam published a seminal book on the decline of civic engagement. Entitled Bowling Alone, it traced the decline in participation in a wide range of community organizations, from voting and church attendance to bowling leagues. The election of Barack Obama with massive citizen involvement and the hope for more involvement during his administration may end up being viewed as a key turning point returning our country to greater civic engagement. However, it is useful to look at issues that may affect such involvement.
My own re-energized community involvement started with Gov. Dean’s 2004 Presidential bid. We held parties in our homes, met in local restaurants and traveled the state and beyond. Afterwards, Kim ran for State Representative and we started getting involved with the local political machinery. We were not always welcome.
Perhaps some of this is understandable. People who have been toiling away in various organizations when no one else seemed interested may be distrustful of new people with new ideas and new enthusiasm. They may be dubious that this new energy goes beyond one or two new people. After years of trying to bring in new people, they may be reluctant to reach out, yet again, for new activists.
Yet many that became involved in Gov. Dean’s 2004 Presidential bid have remained involved. They have played important roles in President-Elect Obama’s campaign. They have worked on other campaigns and run for office themselves.
Much of this can be attributed to the use of the social media tools on the Internet to help connect people. However, people have asked, can this ePolitics energy be transformed into good eGovernance? Will people that have been involved via the Internet in national campaigns become involved face to face on local issues? The Obama transition team is working hard to help facilitate this by naming the day before the inauguration, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2009, a National Day of Service.
Local organizations would be wise to actively reach out to Obama inspired volunteers. Yet I fear that the same reluctance that local political organizations showed to newly energized political activists after the 2004 election may happen with civic organizations this time.
I have run into a little bit of this myself as I have attempted to become involved in the technology planning committee in our school district and to encourage others to participate.
The State of Connecticut requires each school district to prepare three-year technology plans and every school district in the state should be embarked on that effort right now. It would seem as if all of the energy and knowledge about technology that people gathered from the 2008 elections could be used to move this process forward. Yet it is hard to find out how to get involved.
In the current process, last summer each superintendent was contacted by the Commissioner of Education about the new technology plans. There have been meetings in each of the Regional Education Service Centers to talk about the plan, and they were well attended. However, as best as I can tell, this has done little to increase community involvement or sharing of ideas between committees.
A key objective that is often talked about in education is whether or not standardized test scores are increasing. While this is a laudable goal, it is also a bit short sighted. Yes, higher scores on standardized tests are a good thing, but they are but one result of other factors. Independent of standardized test scores, we need to look at students’ abilities to innovate creatively and cooperatively. Technology could help in this area, but there are other important factors. One of the most important factors is the level of parental involvement. Discussions with parents about how technology can be used to facilitate education might even be more important than the technology itself.
So, what is your involvement in your school district? If you live in Connecticut, are you aware of the technology planning process going on right now? Are you aware of the school budgets being considered right now? Are you going to be involved in the National Day of Service? If so, what projects are you going to work on?
I do hope that we are at a turning point in civic engagement. I do hope that those who have been so involved for so long will welcome the newly engaged. I do hope that they will see this as a great time to reach out, yet again, to the broader community and help rebuild our civic infrastructure.
(Cross posted at Greater Democracy.)
Connecticut Schools’ Three-Year Technology Plan
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 12/15/2008 - 13:15After the 2008 Presidential Election, an election that saw great citizen involvement and use of technology, people are watching the Obama transition team and sites like Change.gov to see what sort of citizen engagement will emerge. However, there are important opportunities for citizen engagement available locally that too often get too little focus. An example here in Connecticut is the efforts by school boards across the state to form their new Three-Year technology plans.
My understanding of the process is that technology committees are supposed to meet in each school district with representatives from the school and from the community. I’ve had the opportunity to serve as a community member of the technology committee for the Woodbridge School District. It has been very challenging for me since some people seem to feel very uncomfortable with the openness that I believe is imperative for such a committee, especially given my approach to involvement as a blogger. It has also been very challenging because I’ve spent a lot of time focusing on technology and have viewpoints about technology and education that seems to be considerably different from that of some members of the committee.
Yet for all my disillusionment with the committee and how technology is and isn’t used at the school, it appears as if they are doing a laudable job compared to what I’ve seen searching the web for what other school districts are doing. I did find the agenda for the Canterbury Public Schools November 20th technology committee meeting.
A. Review of current Technology Plan
B. Brainstorm of possible additional committee members
C. Next steps
Hamden is the other school that stood out. They have version 1 of their 2009-2012 technology plan online.
Some schools had their 2006-2009 technology plans online, like Greenwich, Cheshire, and North Haven. Madison’s 2003-2006 technology plan is also online as well as other resources.
One of the best resources I found was the CT Educational Technology blog. It had links to some very interesting articles, such as a blog post about S.1492: Broadband Data Improvement Act, which includes Title II, “Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act.”. This section, which the blogger notes has implications for e-rate applicants.
Specifically, Section 215 imposes an additional CIPA requirement for E-rate applicants' Internet Safety Policies. Such policies must include "... educating minors about appropriate online behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social networking websites and in chat rooms and cyberbullying awareness and response."
The blog also includes a link to an acceptable use policy that addresses Web 2.0 issues. The Franklin Parish, Louisiana acceptable use policy which includes
Teachers may allow individual students to use email, electronic chat rooms, instant messaging, social networking sites (I. E. facebook and myspace) and other forms of direct electronic communications for educational purposes only and with proper supervision.
I’m very interested to hear how school districts will educate students about appropriate online behavior on social networking sites, especially in districts that don’t allow students to access these sites.
It seems as if the blog and the online technology plans would be a great way for school districts to gather and share information to create better technology plans. Yet since the plans are mostly older plans, they may be of limited value.
More significantly, it seems to me as if there are a number of significant problems with many of the plans. Often the person representing the community is yet another teacher or aide at the school. I’ve been frustrated that the Woodbridge technology committee seems dominated by employees of the school district, yet the committee has more PTO members, Board of Educations members and simple parents like myself than any other committee that I’ve seen. If you want citizen engagement, these committees would be a great place to get involved.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been concerned that the Woodbridge plan seems much more focused on buying new hardware and software than on professional development and changes to the curriculum. Yet again, it seems like the Woodbridge plan is doing a much better job of this than many of the plans that have almost no money set aside for professional development. Some of this may be because I’ve mostly found older plans and perhaps this will change.
Yet trying to find resources on technology related professional development for educators also is a challenge. CT Kids Link has a policy brief on Technology Professional Development for CT Educators, but it is from 2000.
With this lack of focus on professional development, it seems as if many plans end up being shopping lists for hardware and software being pushed by educational technology corporations, and often the technology plans focus of specific brands of educational technology instead of getting to the underlying issues.
What are these issues? The template for technology plans has a great phrase, “The locus of control for learning must shift from teacher directed to student directed learning”. It seems as if this shift is very slow in coming. Woodbridge would seem to be well positioned maximize this shift.
According to the PTO site, The Woodbridge school policy focuses on resource based learning.
"Resource-based learning places students at the center of the learning environment which uses as many resources as possible, including teachers and textbooks." - Carol-Ann Haycock
The following statement, RBL - A Workable Comprehensive Definition, was developed by Beecher Road staff on November 30, 1996.
Students learn best through a wide variety of primary sources, personal relationships, cooperative explorations and print/non-print media. The Resource-Based Learning program at Beecher Road School is a system of study that encourages inquiry and enables learners, both students and teachers, to acquire and use information from multiple sources.
In this area, the Woodbridge Board of Education was forward thinking. Resource based learning seems like the logical basis for twenty first century learning and helps focus on the phrase about the shifting of the locus of control for learning that the State’s template provides.
I have much more to say about my thoughts about school technology plans. I hope many of you do too. Technology was a key factor in driving citizen involvement in the 2008 Presidential Campaigns. Let’s hope that it can be a key factor in driving citizen and parent involvement in the schools of our state and our country.
