How to build an IKEA bed in less than 2 minutes

April 26th, 2010

Anyone who’s had to assemble a large piece of IKEA furniture knows who LONG it can take. To make things more interesting I decided to capture it and share my IKEA expertise with all. So here’s how to build an IKEA bed in under two minutes:

  1. Get a GorillaPod for your iPhone and download GorillaCam (free) or iTimeLapse (paid).
  2. Set it up somewhere to capture the “assembly zone” and start the capture.
  3. Curse and swear at the IKEA parts and instructions for hours
  4. Stop capture, assemble video and post to YouTube so everyone can make fun of you.

It’s that easy! Here’s the result:

Critical Timezones to Watch

April 23rd, 2010

Will you listen?

July 21st, 2009

listeningSo technically TED Global hasn’t begun but this morning’s first session was part 1 of 2 for TED University, a segment of the conference where “professors” have 6 minutes to give a presentation on variety of topics.  The list of speakers and their presentations were incredible.

We’ve heard amazing talks and ideas already in this first hour… Some that stood out for me were -

Ian Goldin, who presented “6 Things You Need to Know about 2030″ and talked about both the perils and amazing opportunities of continues growth in technology and globalization.

Rachel Pike, who presented “What makes a climate headline”, talked about the massive amount of work that is behind even the tiniest of publications for climate research.

Jim Walker unaided by visuals gave us a great imagining of the future of power controlled by intelligent application of information technology.

Julian Treasure, who presented “Sound Affects”, talked about the physiological and psychological effects of sound.

The list goes on and on…  but what I loved about their presentations is that many of them proposed a strong and viable solution to the problems they discussed.  Their ideas filled me with hope about the future.  So what really struck me was that our key to surviving and thriving as the human race will not be whether we can come up with solutions to problems in education, energy, climate change, globalization, etc…  Many solutions are already there.  The main question is:   Will we collectively listen and act?

So, will you listen?

Unobtrusive technology, the iPhone & iMapMyFitness

May 31st, 2009

iMapMyFitness ScreenshootI’m a big fan of unobtrusive technology -  software, hardware sitting in the background quietly performing some profoundly useful task without blinking, beeping or generally acting like your average 3 year old doing anything to get your attention.  Even in the classroom, I think less is more – smaller laptops, iPods, etc. – devices that don’t make the classroom looks like an aisle in Best Buy but make it look and function like what it’s suppose to be:  a classroom.  I would love to see less devices and more embedded technology like this (though I’d hardly call that “background”).

Now, because of this inclination, I love minimalist interfaces and, of course, the iPhone which has tons of very simple apps that make your life easier, better or generally more fun with very little input.

Lately, I’ve spent a lot of time on my road bike.  I’ve been cycling since I was a teenager and never have I seen a sport so over techno-fied (except maybe golf).  Cycling computers can report all kinds of information these days:  your heart rate, speed (in a million different forms), cadence, power, elevation, grade, etc, etc…. it goes on and on.  This information is absolutely critical to professional cyclists riding in the Tour de France, but I’m definitely no Lance Armstrong.  I mostly enter races for fun and to have a goal to train towards.   I always want to get better but for me that usually just involves getting off my butt and riding more.   But of course I, like many others, just can’t help analyzing every ride to see whether I was a tiny fraction better than I was the last ride no matter how irrelevant that information actually is to my amateurish, squeeze-in-between-wife-3 kids-and-job workouts.  My problem is that if I have all that information constantly being reported to me, I obsess over it and forget about enjoying the ride.   But can I let go of that information?  It is useful and motivating in the long run to see where you were and how far you’ve come.

Enter my trusty iPhone and the app iMapMyFitness.  With this app, you press Start and put it away in your jersey pocket.  You can ride, run, mountain bike wherever and however you want, and it records everything:  how fast you went, what route you took, elevation gains, and all kinds of other tidbits.  This way, I can just ride, enjoy the fresh air, great scenery and general burning of my lungs and legs. :)   Once I get home, I hit Stop and my ride is uploaded to Mapmyfitness.com (a.k.a mapmyrun.com, mapmyride.com) and their legendary training analysis and fitness social networking service.  There I can obsess about it all I want when I’m back in front of my blinking, blipping computer.

2 buttons to press, TONS of value… my kind of technology.

IT Control – Let it go already

March 19th, 2009

This is a message to education IT departments and school administrators everywhere:  Let the reins of IT control out a bit.  Trust me, it won’t spell disaster for your environment.

I’m tired of hearing (mostly on Twitter) about amazing, progressive and innovative teachers having to do their work in spite of their school or district IT departments.  IT departments should be enablers of technology use in a school, not trying to prevent it from happening.

Control, in the sense of school-wide IT policies and restrictions, really means supportability and security. The only reason these policies are really placed is that the less variables you have in a technology infrastructure the less you have to support, maintain and secure. Homogeneous is good in this sense. However, control limits freedom, which limits creativity, and in a time when the world is focusing on how to improve education, is this really what we want to be doing?

In a school setting, locking down teacher and student laptops, filtering the internet, etc. simply means you will not get the net benefit out of your technology investments.  You will not see any improvement in the way teaching and learning happens.  There are amazing creative teachers out there that know far more about using technology in the classroom than IT professionals. 

Standards, supporting and security are definitely important so how do we strike the balance between supportability/security and freedom in a technology infrastructure?  Here are a few points I’ve learned:

  • IT departments must understand that a little user freedom is not the end of the world.  Many colleagues are shocked at the level of freedom we give to our teachers and students at our school.  But they also are shocked that we actually don’t have tons of problems caused by it.
  • Cater to the user’s that need the support and give freedom to those who don’t.  Have a set of applications that are official, supported and promoted but allow people to use others if they desire.
  • If users constantly attempt to go around standards, perhaps the standards aren’t good enough. Solutions provided should provide enough value for people to want to use them. If not, then you need to question whether the value is there and respond accordingly.
  • Use passive monitoring:  If you must, monitor Internet use and applications installed and deal with abusers individually and directly instead of restricting the whole community.  It probably takes less time overall than administering a tightly locked down environment.
  • Instead of forcing, try convincing.  It’s more effort but it’s worth it in the long run.

I am well familiar with the complexities of supporting and maintaining any IT infrastructure.  Total user freedom while maintaining budget and availability is a difficult thing to achieve and many cases may not be desirable.  However, we must understand the negative implications of restrictive IT policies on creativity, innovation and adaptibility, especially in an educational context.

We need to collectively let the reins out.  I’ve been an IT Director in a school for the last decade.  750 students and 110 teachers all with laptops, all with full administrative rights and no Internet filtering.  It is FAR from the total anarchy you might imagine.  Sometimes it might be a little more work, but it’s worth the effort overall.