SD CUE

I had a great time at the most recent SD CUE Fair (San Diego, Computer Using Educators). The cost is reasonable, it's local (no long drives or hotel), they have great local speakers, but most importantly it gives me a chance to connect with some of the most innovative, creative and energetic tech using educators from around the county.

I had a chance to chat with some old friends as well as make some new contacts this time around. In particular, I'm excited about some possibilities surrounding podcasting, blogging, and geocahcing (as they relate to education). I'll keep ya posted!

I also had a chance to sit in on some great sessions. I'm amazed at how often I can get a few "golden nuggets" from any session, even those subjects that I know a thing or two about! I'm always learning how much I don't know, and sharing what I do with others who may have not known what I know ... Did that make sense?! Anyhow, very groovy!

One of the tidbits that I picked up was a site called Bloglines. Essentially it's a service where you can store RSS feeds (such as blogs) to organize and help you read them in a "one stop" way.

Geocaching in Education

Here's a story of how one teacher is using Geocaching in Education! Story

I think this is great! Geocaching can involve a lot more than just “following the arrow to the tupperware”. Although Sandy and I like the cache-and-dash / drive-up style caches that let you quickly boost up your total-find scores, we really enjoy puzzle caches that challenge you in more ways than one.

I truly believe if you can “engage” your students, you’re gonna get them to learn. Geocaching can be a very engaging experience, it has very tangible and definable goals. In addition to getting kids off their GameCube-Butts (don’t get me wrong I’m an xBox owner myself!) and getting excercise, I believe it fosters socialization (funny how you often end up talking and getting to know the people you cache with!) and helps develop puzzle-solving skills.

SD CUE and the Weekend

Upcoming this weekend is the annual San Diego CUE (Computer Using Educators) conference. This is a great resource for teachers who use (or are thinking of using) technology in their classrooms. I've always found that these "mini-conferences" are great ways for local teachers to see, learn and be exposed to ways that technology is being using in classrooms in San Diego.

Here is a link: http://www.sdcue.org/

This is going to be a somewhat busy weekend. Friday night is the Kazakhstan get together for a bunch of us who have been out there. From what I understand there will even be some people from Kazakhstan visiting out here who will also be there! Cool. We are to bring some type of dessert dish. I suggested to Sandy that we should bring something called "eyeball suprise". She was not amused.

I just found an article that is one link between education and podcasting. Cool!

http://tinyurl.com/d84uq

Anniversary in Idyllwild

Just got back from our anniversary weekend up in Idyllwild. That was my first time there. A nice little small mountain town. It was a great get-away, very relaxing. I was actually able to sit and play the uke for a bit too! I had the time to really play and focus. I'm amazed at the depth of that little instrument. Most people think of the Ukulele as a whimsical "toy", but if played well it can be an amazing instrument. Check out music by an artist called Jake Shimabukuro for an example of awesome Uke playing!

Here's a pic that I shot of the local mountains near sunset.

It was nice to get away from the "heavy" tech use for a couple days. I say heavy because there was still a small amount of electronically driven things we had with us. My iPod and a set of small portable speakers is always good for some background music. I carried around the DSLR and had some interesting conversation with some local shop owners about photography and art because of that. We did bring a laptop and watched one episode of TNG one evening.

When we got back home (Jake still has his cathoder and head cone on), Sandy and I recorded show #21: The geocaching proposal story part 2. We haven't gotten a lot of response from our recent shows and it makes me wonder if anyone is listening to us anymore. Sandy and I came up with this idea that's related to geocaching, but we'll have to see if we can make it happen.

TinyURL

Okay I just found this cool site:

http://www.tinyurl.com

Here's what is does: You paste in the URL from a webpage that could be long, huge and complicated and it spits out a simple, compact URL for you to use instead! An important use for this would be when you post a link to a complicated URL in a EMAIL. Many times the links "break" and the user can't get to the page. These won't break and don't expire. Very cool!

The new Mac

We recently received shipment on our new Mac (iMac) the other day. Finally! My old home computer was an old iMac (Graphite edition. See pic on the right) running OS 9. I remember how blazingly fast that computer seemed to be when I first got it. I remember how much storage space I thought I had. I remember how I thought that 128mb of RAM was great and huge! In the last few years, I've run out of space, the RAM is not large enough, it would lock up and crash many times. I was not able to run the latest, programs any longer. Features that I wanted / needed to use were not available for one reason or another. We have set aside the old iMac. We're not sure what we're going to do with it. I'll probably scrub it clean and reinstall the OS to get it up and running, but again, I'm not sure what the best use for it will be.

On the other hand, the new iMac is great. A 17" LCD screen. 2GHZ processor, and 1 gig of RAM. A CD DVD burner combo. We are using an external HD (250 gig) as backup. I've installed the newest version of photoshop and dreamweaver on it. Very nice! The machine is fast and very capable of running the latest software. We have enough space to begin creating files (movies for DVD burning etc.) in the applications. I'm trying to learn as much as I can about the new Photoshop CS2. But it's vast and there is a LOT to learn! Sandy is learning Dreamweaver as she is diving into web design for fun and (possibly) profit!



Back to my thoughts about the "progress" of technology tho: It amazes me how quickly technology can become outdated or falls short of our (new) expectations. You wouldn't think of a computer as a "disposable" item like a lighter or a pair of chopsticks, but in the long run they really are. After using the tool for a given amount of time it simply will no do what you need it to and so you get a new one. The old one has lost so much value and is almost worthless. Almost; some of the heavy ones make good doorstops. I have an OLD toshiba laptop that I still hang on to. I used it in my first years of teaching. It has a monochrome (black and white) LCD screen. VERY dim. And basically all it can do now is simple word processing and a spreadsheet. The problem is, how do I get my work out? It doesn't have USB and if I put the file on a floppy where will I use that floppy elsewhere? The thing is heavy and the battery last just long enough for it to boot up so it can shut down.

I wonder how long it will be before the hot iMac we just bought will be turned into a doorstop?

By the way, since buying the iMac that we did, Apple has come out with a newer, slimmer, faster iMac with built in camera and upgraded mouse. I kid you not.

Vacation Pics

Pics

When you get to the picture set, you can click on "view as slideshow" or simply look at each pic one at a time.