Blogging@Wharton

I keep thinking about the iPod touch in the classroom and every few weeks or so I Google the topic to see if anything new has been written.  I came across a blog that had been written in March:  iPod Touch in the Classroom.  Even more than the blog itself, the comments took on an interesting discussion of their own.   The author made a comment in his post quoting someone from the presentation he was at:   Now one of the developers is talking, his company located in RTP.  He says that part of the appeal of the iPod T is that a $200 device makes more sense than a $1000 laptop.  “It’s cheap!  It’s out there.” 

This remark sparked a number of people to jump to the defense of the laptop – emphasizing that some notebooks can be as cheap as $250.  Why would someone want a closed platform/small screen/difficult to type on device that is only $50 less than a fully functioning notebook? 

For me, the appeal of the touch over a laptop is … well… I can touch it.  If I have to do a lot of work in a browser or write something that is going to be more than a few sentences, I certainly agree – go laptops!  But I don’t ever intend to use my touch for those things anyway.  I love it for its music applications that make practicing music easy anywhere!  Or its classic novel application that lets me read classic novels during the idle intervals of my life, like waiting for a bus or waiting in a doctor’s office.  Given its size, it’s definitely easy to carry around … but still it got me thinking about how a touch screen laptop would probably just blow the iPod touch out of the educational thought waters. 

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it doesn’t seem that touchscreen laptops have fully made their way into the commercial sphere yet.  I see a few touchscreen options online but the price seems to be just a bit high for the average consumer and especially too high to be given out to every student as a learning tool.

But it will be interesting to watch over the next few years as touchscreen laptops become more commonplace and the prices drop to see if people begin using them heavily in the classroom.  Touchscreen applications hold awesome potential for music classes, laboratory sciences, art classes, practicing investment strategies, and other hands-on classes.  But I still don’t think it’s a replacement… it’s great to learn chords and music theory from my touch… but nothing beats holding an instrument in your hands and making the music yourself.    

On an unrelated note, I was thinking again this morning about the concept of introspection (see yesterday's blog) and then I remembered a quote by Albert Einstein that says something like, “You only truly begin living when you get outside yourself.”  Kind of goes against the whole introspective thinking… but then I thought back again to the recurring theme of my life – balance & moderation.  Introspection paired with getting outside of yourself. 

Today I came across two blog posts that struck me as interesting.  The first, a blog by Janet Clarey titled "Personality type and a learner's success with social media", questioned whether introverted people thrive more in a social media environment as opposed to extroverted individuals.  I tend to always fall somewhere in between extrovert and introvert on the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator.  I'm much more comfortable writing out my thoughts and feelings than speaking them, mostly because my writing tends to be much more organized than my speaking and it makes me feel safer.  I have less fear of forgetting to say something or saying something completely wrong in writing as opposed to speech (not to say it doesn't happen in writing, but the power of editing and re-reading can really minimize this effect).  However, nothing really beats a smooth flowing face-to-face conversation for me.  Regardless, I thought it was interesting to analyze a person's personality type and consider how it could affect their success in learning with a specific type of medium (social media).

The second post, written by Mark Milliron entitled "Explosive Introspection", elaborated on the importance of introspection for learning and life in general.  As always, his blogs are full of great hyperlinks to other useful books, articles, and tools. 

I liked this passage in particular:

These triggering tools, however, must be accompanied by habits that dial down the noise—both the noise of our personal lives and the cacophony of “a world gone A.D.D.,” as Hallowell describes it. An executive in one group suggested, “Do less to do more.” I’ve always talked about reducing variables in a situation—a principle drawn from research design. Hallowell suggests challenging ourselves to reduce the multitasking and move toward a more mindful approach to situations, particularly with people. The Buddhist philosophy on the topic is simple: one. In one moment, focus on one thing, and do that one thing well.

For a number of reasons, I feel like my focus has spread thin in a number of directions lately... like a beam of light hitting a diamond.  But how simple of a reminder... "focus on one thing, and do that thing well."  I used to be extremely introspective and found it to provide extreme insight but at times also unsettling sadness and confusion.  It's not an easy task to sit down and ask the big questions: why am i here, where can i be of most use in society, what are my passions, what are my strengths and weaknesses?  I've sort of abandoned my introspective ways in the past year, not for any particular reason but I've noticed that it has resulted in almost no new poetry!  Sigh... why do inner muses thrive off of deep introspection?  I don't think introspection has to lead to sadness though or any kind of judgment passing... I took a meditation-like class once and the teach kept stressing to watch every thought that comes into your mind with the curiosity of a child.  Don't judge it, just watch it curiously.  I think that's where I always went wrong in the past.

Introspection exercises.  They might seem silly, but I really believe that knowing yourself makes you a better all around person and a ready and willing student!!

One of my last poems that I actually enjoyed writing...I was alone in a hotel at a conference == deep introspection.

Riding on Soundwaves

If I could take a piano and change your world I would but my imperfect hands await the messages that come through experience and trials.  Until then, I fake sanity but give real smiles as living proof that I will always hold the optimism of youth in the four chambers of my beating yet immature heart.

Let's collide our worlds – just to see what happens!  Let's cross borders and cross disciplines and cross-pollinate the earth because I've had it with labels and definitions.  To me, they're restrictions and convinctions; unwanted sentences sentencing us to a lifetime of unnecessary solitude.

When I tell you "Life is what you make it" do you feel it and believe it or do you just take it with a grain of salt and a mouthful of pepper?  Do you wish your life away and wish your world apart?  Do you should yourself to death and keep yourself down with the word "just"?  Listen if you want but I'm JUST one girl with no reason to believe that my words are any more or less true than the next.  I write like I breathe – a necessity of the creative mind.   

Reach inside your creative mind, you'll find treasures and pleasures and dark shadows that illuminate your light.  You'll find no boundaries between wrong and right because everything exists together.  And it might seem like a contradiction, but it's just an affliction of the human condition – to separate, to enforce order in the divine chaos.

Because what would happen if we were all FREE?  And I used to say free your mind, but now I see the truth is to become free of mind – like piano notes riding on sound waves.   

Often as I wait for the Broad Street Subway, someone will walk up to me and say something that is completely outrageous.  For example, one time a guy stood about 10 inches from my face and told me that my hair was green.  This was rather uncomfortable, but never for a second did I question my hair color.  When someone says ColdFusion is declining in popularity, an almost fanatical rebuttal follows within seconds.  If there are no concerns about ColdFusion’s developer base moving forward, why not just shrug off the crazy man saying your hair is green?

People consider my opinion skewed toward open source solutions, and they’re mostly correct; however, I did attend the ColdFusion User Group meeting held in Huntsman Hall last month or so.  My goal was to try and understand what I was missing.  Why didn’t I hear about ColdFusion before working at Wharton?  How is it possible that I subscribe to over 80 technology-related RSS feeds, and cold fusion (the nuclear variety) comes up more than the Java framework?  I don’t know if the experience brought me to a definitive conclusion, but these facts remain:

• roughly 12 individuals attended the meeting
• approximately 8 or 9 of the attendees were Wharton employees

ColdFusion has been around for about 14 years, and that day the Philadelphia user group had less than 12 legitimate attendees.

Hopping on the bandwagon of any new technology because it’s “hot” is nonsense.  There is a significant difference between adapting to something because it is attractive, and adapting to something because it actually helps you become more effective.  The highly touted RIAForge site lists 540 ColdFusion projects.  Its Ruby equivalent, RubyForge, has over 8,000 projects with over 37,000 registered users.  Python’s Package Index has almost 7,000 projects.  The fairly new collaborative development and source code hosting service, GitHub, has upwards of 46,000 repositories.  Large quantities (an order of magnitude in difference) of developers are gravitating toward these open technologies because it allows them to become more efficient and effective.  Think these numbers are without substance?  Reach out and touch them.  Click the links, search for projects, browse the source code.

A language breakdown of the source code hosted on GitHub.
In the end, my goal is to explore every avenue of technology available to help keep Wharton at the top of the charts.  ColdFusion may appeal to “enterprises,” but many of them are organized in a way where technology is not a primary concern.  We are an institution of higher education, and Wharton Computing is a branch of Wharton that was assembled to focus primarily on technology.  Instead of distancing ourselves from the vibrant technology community in Philadelphia, I want to embrace gatherings like RefreshPhilly, IndyHall, PhillyCHI, Philly.rb.  I want to attend user group meetings where a variety of topics are discussed, and propaganda is kept to a minimum.  Meetings where the objectives are to spread knowledge and share experiences, not read off a version 8 to 9 change-log.

You say PHP search volume index is declining?  I'm diversified. I have a handful of horses in this race, not just one... Ah, excuse me, sir -- the express train is here.

Really, truly, honestly, I want to say I'm not picking on Hector here -- just riffing on something he's mentioned to me a few times.  That said, one of his favorite things to bring up in a discussion of language popularity is what you see when you search for ColdFusion on Google Trends.

It's true: the search volume for ColdFusion according to Google is decreasing!  It's also true that the search volume for PHP according to Google is very similarly decreasing.  Looking at the graphs next to each other, without clicking the links above, can you tell which graph belongs to which language?

My opinion is that search volume doesn't correlate to number of developers.  Instead, I think that as the language matures over time, its documentation gets better, and developers just don't need to search as much, because they aren't having as many problems.  I think that this is reflected in the PHP search volume, too.  For example, .Net search volume is also decreasing, albeit more slowly -- which I attribute to the relative youth of the language and the fact that they have completely overhauled it, destroying backwards compatability (almost writing a completely new language) from 1.0 to 2.0, and then again to 3.5.

A better indicator of the number of developers working with ColdFusion (or any language) would be to sponsor a study.  Luckily, Macromedia, and now Adobe have been doing just that -- every year.

I snapped this picture during Adam Lehman's presentation at the last CFUG meeting -- please forgive the picture quality, it's an iPhone picture in a dark room, and I wasn't up close to the screen so I had to crop it as well.

Yes, the exact numbers may be questionable because Adobe paid for the research to be done, but the same research company (Evans Data Corporation) has been used every year, and it has to be reasonable to assume they use the same research methods every year (or are improving methods, getting more accurate results), so if nothing else, the trends should be believable.

Adam pointed out a few things that correlate to increases on the graph.  Obviously, the Adobe purchase is clearly marked at 2006.  In addition, 2002 is when CF MX6 was released and the switch was made to be Java-based, 2005 was the release of MX7; 2008 marked the release of CF8, and in case you can't read it on the graph, 2008 corresponds to approximately 800,000 developers.

Just a reminder: 2008 was also the point which Adobe made ColdFusion Enterprise Edition free for educational use, and announced that they were starting to work on curriculum materials. I expect that to increase developer base in the coming years by itself, even if you were to completely ignore other reasons.

There is no argument to be made over which is more ubiquitous.  PHP has always been free, easily available, and cheap -- heck, in some cases free -- to get hosting for.  To see the difference, one only has to search for both at the same time on Google Trends:

This data indicates that there are about 3% as many searches for ColdFusion as there are for PHP.  (Sorry, I just can't resist the urge to say that working with PHP simply requires more searching...)  You can't hope to compete in the same market and make a profit, which is why ColdFusion has been targeting "enterprise" (for lack of a better word) customers, government, and the likes.

However, with 2 new players in the open source CFML market, I think we can expect even more developer population increase -- at least people that know CFML, even if it's not Adobe ColdFusion.  Thanks to the Adobe-formed CFML Advisory Committee, any CFML developer should be able to nearly seamlessly shift from one engine to another (Railo, Open Blue Dragon, and Adobe ColdFusion) with few, if any headaches.  And when we want to hire sombody, do we care if their CFML experience is with another engine?  I doubt it.

So what does it all mean?  Why am I even bothering writing this?

I think it's great that we are able to have open and honest discussion about the direction that we want the department to go in, and I encourage everyone to continue to evaluate what is best for the future of WCIT.  But in all honesty I think that if ColdFusion is working well for us now, it's going to continue to be viable for the forseeable future; because I'm looking down the road ahead of ColdFusion and CFML, and all I see is one good thing after another.

Things are looking up!

With every topic there's a theory, a name, and new vocabulary.  I feel like knowledge is the equivalent of America in the early 1800's ... so much has been acquired and claimed but there's still so much more to explore (and how can one really "claim" land anyway?? oh, but we do it.)  Well apparently adult learning is called andragogy and the man most cited for studying it is Malcom Knowles.  You can find him on pages about How Adults Learn, to teacher guides about the Principles of Adult Learning, to 30 Things We Know for Sure about Adult Learning, to articles with titles like "They're Not Just Big Kids:  Motivating Adult Learners".  Most of those sources are rather old so I might check out a 2009 book on adult learning from the library if I get a chance. 

I thought this page was one of the best as it offers opinions both in favor and against Malcom Knowles' adragogical theories:  Knowles' Adragogy.  It's always interesting to hear both sides.  Here are Knowles' assumptions as taken from that webpage:

Knowles' assumptions

• The need to know — adult learners need to know why they need to learn something before undertaking to learn it.

I might blog twice today because I'm having a lot of thoughts and I want to catch them all before they disappear.  I'm somewhat in shock that I've been caffeine free for about 40 days now and there are still thoughts actualizing in my head.  I have to admit though, this is one of the first days since the caffeine hiatus that I've had this many ideas. 

This blog is a molding together of two things:  One - it bothers me when people label themselves as entirely uncreative because I think one definition of creativity is the ability to solve a problem with a limited set of resources and I think every human being encounters a situation like this at least once in their life.  Two - I've been taking the computer science courses online at academic earth and the course has thrown me back into thinking a lot about the elements of game design.  And those ideas blended together into a blog about providing people with two programs that will allow you to exercise your creativity while also thinking about the elements of game design - these programs are also incredibly fun and engaging for children but please don't let that deter you!!  Go buy a box of fruit-roll-ups, some candy, put on your favorite tee shirt, roll around in mud, and indulge in your inner child for a day. 

Before I describe the program, I want you to think about some things - why games engage us and what might be the elements of a game?  I'm going to quote Marc Prensky from Digital Game-Based Learning (2001) on this one: 

Why Games Engage Us
Games are a form of fun.  That gives us enjoyment and pleasure.
Games are a form of play.  That gives us intense and passionate involvement.
Games have rules.  That gives us structure.
Games have goals.  That gives us motivation.
Games are interactive.  That gives us doing.
Games have outcomes and feedback.  That gives us learning.
Games are adaptive.  That gives us flow.
Games have win states.  That gives us ego gratification.
Games have conflict/competition/challenge/opposition.  That gives us adrenaline.
Games have problem solving.  That sparks our creativity.
Games have interaction.  That gives us social groups.
Games have representation and story.  That gives us emotion.

Six key structural elements of games:
1.  Rules
2.  Goals and Objectives
3.  Outcomes and Feedback
4.  Conflict/Competition/Challenge/Opposition
5.  Interaction
6.  Representation or Story.

Keep those engagement factors and structural elements in mind if you try to design games or if you play the one program that I'm about to describe!

The first program I'd like to talk about is called Scratch.  In the academic earth computer science course, Professor David Malan from Harvard begins the course by teaching his students to use Scratch so that they can become familiar with basic computer programming concepts which are then enforced using C and PHP.  He decided to use Scratch because it is incredibly simple, so the concepts don't get lost in the code itself.  Scratch was designed by Computer Scientists at MIT as a way to get children interested in programming.  Here's a description from the Scratch website: 

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.

Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create and share Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively.

Scratch is available free of charge and available for both Mac OSX and Windows.  If you want more in depth instructions on how to use it, check out Professor Malan's lectures on academic earth.  Otherwise, check out the projects and galleries to get an idea of what people are making with Scratch.  It's an easy way to exercise your creativity and try your best at creating a simple game with rules, goals, feedback, conflict/competition/challenge, interaction, and story. 

The second program would be considered a puzzle-like game.  It's called The Incredible Machine (TIM).  In TIM, you are given a certain amount of supplies (such as ropes, balls, balloons, hoops, generators, outlets, etc.) and you're given an objective (ie. make the ball go through the hoop).  It then becomes your challenge to make the ball go through the hoop with the limited amount of supplies that you are given.  When you master the interface of TIM, you can also choose to play the game in "free form" mode which allows you to create your own contraptions using an unlimited supply of parts.  It was an old DOS game and I'm pretty sure there are newer versions available now, but here's a link to an old version and a review of the game.  It was one of my favorite games as a child and I think it really enhances creative thinking and problem solving skills.

My next blog will be about how to motivate adults to learn... but maybe I should have written that one first so that I'd know how to motivate people to actually try out these programs?? 

During my vacation I began reviewing guitar lessons at www.justinguitar.com.  I think his site is well organized and you can tell that he's genuinely passionate about teaching people how to play the guitar.  But beyond that, I really liked his teaching philosphy:

My teaching philosophy is to teach a student how to learn forever. To guide and show them the available paths toward expression of emotion through music. It is easily possible to teach a student to teach themselves as long as some basic skills are taught. Understanding why and how music "works", learning to transcribe music and self awareness of technique are for me the basic threads that are needed the weave a musicians expression.

A desire for knowledge should also be sown in the students mind for without it the enthusiasm to learn and improve rarely sprouts.

It is important to introduce students to creativity through practising the most useful and enjoyable techniques. I believe that people learn and want very different things from a guitar teacher. But I also believe that there are many common needs and the solutions are in the explanations, making the same information clear to a beginner and showing the path for exploration to those who wish to follow it.

This led me to wonder how people can instill the desire for knowledge in another human being?  I figured that this "desire to know" could be considered a form of motivation - the motivation to seek knowledge.  So how do you motivate other individuals when motivation seems like such an intrinsic characteristic? 

Here are some sources that I came across in my search:
Top Tips on Leadership: dsicusses Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. 
Psychology 101 - Motivation:  also mentions Maslow as well as some other principles of motivation in Pscyhology. 
Motivation to Learn:  an article by Connie Frith from the University of Saskatchewan -- this one was my favorite to read so I will try to summarize it below.

Components of the Motivation to Learn:

1. Curiosity - "People are naturually curious.  They seek new experiences; they enjoy learning new things; they find satisfaction in solving puzzles, perfecting skills and developing competence.  A major task in teaching is to nurture student curiosity and to use curiosity as a motive for learning."
2.  Self-Efficacy - "Students that harbor doubts of their ability to succeed are not motivated to learn.
3.  Attitude - "If a person is induced to perform an act that is contrary to that person's own attitude, attitude change will result."
4.  Need - "The needs of individual students can vary greatly.  The most well known and respected classification of human need is Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  There are five levels of need in this hierarchy:  1. Physiological (lower-level) 2. Safety (lower-level) 3. Love and Belonging (higher needs) 4.  Esteem (higher need) and 5. Self-Actuatlization (higher need)."
5.  Competence - "Competence is an intrinsic motive for learning that is highly related to self-efficacy.  Human beings receive pleasure from doing things well.  Success in a subject for some students is not enough.  For students who lack a sense of efficacy teachers must not only provide situations where success occurs but also give students opportunities to undertake challenging tasks on their own to prove to themselves that they can achieve."
6.  External Motivators - "Active participation provides a stimulating environment and combats boredom.  Learning strategies should be flexible, creative and constantly applied.  Stimulating learning environments provide variety in presentation style, methods of instruction and learning materials." 

 Connie proceeds to summarize Keller's ARCS Model of Motivational Design 

"You first gain the attention of the learner, then provide relevance of what you are teaching to their personal goals and needs.  The learer gains confidence as the learning process unfolds.  The satisfaction of the new knowledge provides motivation to continue learning.  Discroll (1994)."  --  ARCS = Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Success

One of the last topics she touches on is the characteristics of a motivating learning environment.

"Spitzer's (1996) concept of supermotivation puts emphasis on the activity rather than the individual.  Comparing learning to sport, he acknowledges that most activities are inherently boring.  The activity of golf for example is rather repetitive and boring if taken out of the context of the game.  The motivating contexts of the game include:  action, fun, choice, social interaction, error tolerance, measurement, feedback, challenge, and recognition.  These factors applied to a learning situation are motivating for students."

I thought this paragraph was directly in line with all of the research on educational games and simulations. 

In today's Adobe Systems Q2 earnings call, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said that Adobe is seeing "tremendous adoption" of Flash across not just PCs, but all kinds of devices.

Narayen stated that Adobe has ported Flash Player 10 to multiple smartphone platforms, including Google's Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and Palm WebOS. A beta release of Flash Player 10 for smartphone platforms will be available to developers at Adobe's MAX conference this October.

In response to a question specifically about the Apple iPhone, Narayen declared that Adobe is "absolutely committed" to bringing Flash to the iPhone but went on to state, "We need more APIs and cooperation to bring the capabilities of Flash to the iPhone."

"We think it is in Apple and Adobe's best interest" to make Flash available on the iPhone Narayen stated, adding "We are constantly reaching out to them."

Updated 8:52 PM to add links and make minor corrections to quotes based on audio released by Adobe from the session.

The migration of the “Files” service has been completed.  If you have any questions or concerns, please contact core-systems@wharton.upenn.edu

 

SYSTEM MAINTENANCE ANNOUNCEMENT:

Saturday, June 13th , 4:30pm – 6:30pm

NOTE: The all clear will be sent out via e-mail & by blog announcement on the downtime blog: https://blogs.wharton.upenn.edu/downtime/

Services Affected:

· All access to the FILES.wharton.upenn.edu File Sharing Service

Procedure Description:

We will be migrating the FILES service to a new machine running Windows 2008.  We are hoping to also upgrade to the low-level SMB protocol, which will have a tangible effect on performance and stability (for Windows Vista clients & Beyond).  We apologize for the short notice; if you absolutely need us to reschedule, please email core-systems@wharton.upenn.edu or myself directly.

While we will probably be done in less than the scheduled outage, we reserve the entire window for testing.

Administrators On-Site or On-Call:

Michael Adelman & Joe Cruz

Thanks,

Core Systems

As noted previously, IMAX is extending -- some would say blurring -- the IMAX brand by retrofitting existing multiplex theaters with larger screens and upgraded sound systems. The Wall Street Journal reports that competitors are moving into the territory of what might be termed "low-end large screen" cinema projection.

The converted IMAX theaters have generated a considerable criticism since, while their screens are larger than those of the typical multiplex, their dimensions pale by comparison to traditional IMAX installations. Confounding the issue, the company doesn't communicate that difference in their marketing, branding both types of installations simply as "IMAX." (See "The IMAX Conundrum.")

According to the Journal, other companies are following IMAX's lead and are introducing larger screens -- and charging a premium ticket price. Cinemark Holdings has introduced their Cinemark XD -- Extreme Digital Cinema -- with large screens and an enhanced sound system. And AMC Entertainment has introduced their ETX, or Enhanced Theatre Experience, in IMAX's home turf in Toronto.

The article doesn't include information on the dimensions of screens on these new systems, so it isn't clear how they compare with IMAX's retrofits.

But this underscores the brand dilution peril IMAX faces if the company fails to differentiate its original IMAX format from the newer, smaller format upon which competitors are now encroaching.

The photo illustration above is based on the IMAX logo, the copyright for which is most likely owned by IMAX Corp. It is believed that its use as modified here for critical commentary qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law.