Author Archives: admin

What happened to Nintendo? The WiiU’s failure thus far

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President wont resign, stock takes major hit…this is the news today: http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/01/17/nintendo-ceo-iwata-says-he-wont-resign

So what happened? Well the wii u is just not doing well. Why? Well there are a few reasons that I will break down here:

1. Poor Name. Seriously what were they thinking. Wii U? It makes no sense. It does NOT signify that this is a new console. In fact, I had to look it up to really try to figure it out. I thought maybe it was just an upgraded wii. Sure I get that Nintendo wanted to use the same household name ‘wii’ but even wii 2 would have been 10x better. Anything really would have.

2. Games. Where are the big blockbusters? When the n64 was released they had zelda and mario 64 at launch. That is how you launch a nintendo system. Nintendo knows this. Where is the new zelda? Where is mario kart? Where is Super Smash bros? They are coming out over a year after console launch. Bring back metroid, megaman, etc. These games will sell the console. But they needed to be there at launch and over holidays. Too late for Q4 of 2013.

3. Online play. Get with the program nintendo. I know its gotten much better than it was when wii first came online but its now 2014. Check out what MS/Sony/PC are doing with online multiplayer and multimedia and at least make yourself competitive with them.

4. Hardware upgrade. The wii u was not as powerful as old gen xbox 360/ps3. Really? I get wanting to keep prices down and we do not care that much about graphics but Nintendo really needs to step it up here.

The $38 Tablet

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Yes there is an actual tablet for $38 and my initial review is that its actually not that bad. One of my students recently bought one and gave me a few minutes to play around with it. The tablet is a Ubislate. It runs Android 4.2.2. While its not very powerful, as in it has 512 mb ram, it does function as a full tablet. You have access to the android google play store and it has wifi. Honestly it looks, feels, and functions just like any other tablet. Its just has lower end components but for $38 I think its worth it. I would give this a buy for every single person that does not currently own a tablet. Also a quick note – it does ship from over seas and my student said it took her about a week to come in.

Here is the link: http://ubislate.us/

Instructional Design Process – ADDIE

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Each semester, many students ask me about ADDIE, Dick and Carey, Rapid ISD models, SAM, AGILE, Rapid Prototyping, etc. There seems to be much confusion, not just by my students, but in the field as to how ADDIE relates to all of these other models (read about that here). I also see a problem with most instructional models in that they try so hard to be an instructional design process that they leave out how and where they connect within the system. Thus you see them as an isolated system. As a result, my students do not always see this connection. Hence, I am going to be writing several blog posts outlining the instructional design process – what is to be done at each step, how you do it, how does it relate to and effect other systems, and a few other things. This is the first part. This is the instructional design process (ADDIE) within a company (*please note that this will change a bit for each project as this process needs to be adapted to the environment but this is the standard process assuming ideal conditions). I have added extra parts because I believe not adding them has in part led to the confusion that instructional designers have in our field. To read specifics on the steps, click the links below:

Analysis

Design

Development

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New smartband

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I believe this looks awesome and has a lot of potential. Currently it will tell you when you have texts, emails, phone calls, and monitor your workouts and sleep habits. What I am most excited for is for devices like this to really manage our lives. They can tell us what our body temp is, if we have a sickness, what our heart rate is. Eventually we will be able to talk to it and it will respond back. I see these replacing many of the abilities smartphones have as voice technology gets better. That is not to say we wont still have smartphones but both might be very common in the future. Article here

NSA building device that can crack all security and encryption

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I am reminded by the Robert Redford movie Sneakers where they steal a black box that can crack any code. The article about this NSA mission is below. Honestly I think its an impossible task. By the time they figure out how to crack one thing a new one will be out. However, it would be really interesting to see the programming that goes into something like this.

http://mashable.com/2014/01/02/nsa-quantum-computer/

Cyanogenmod hits 10 million users!

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Quite an accomplishment. For those that do not know what CM is, it is a ROM for android devices. What does that mean? It means that the company, cyanogenmod, took the open source operating system Android, modified it, and put it on their website for anyone with an Android phone to download and install. I have used it but I prefer AOKP.

http://www.cyanogenmod.org/

Get texts, calls, and messages from your phone on your internet browser

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So this is awesome. I can now get text messages, calls, and voice mail messages through my computer. I can also send them. So when my phone is in another room I can send and receive texts without having my phone near me. I love it.

Mісrоѕоft hаѕ bееn trying to bring trаdіtіоnаl Wіndоwѕ PCѕ and mоbіlе dеvісеѕ together for a lоng time, and іt’ѕ dоnе a great job wіth Windows 10.

A nеw feature that саmе wіth the Annіvеrѕаrу Update is thе аbіlіtу to раіr your ѕmаrtрhоnе wіth Wіndоwѕ 10, аllоwіng уоu to read and reply tо tеxt mеѕѕаgеѕ dіrесtlу frоm your Windows 10 device, this are great news for those companies that use the messaging service for business.

Yоu саn еvеn dісtаtе tеxt mеѕѕаgеѕ tо Cortana and thе dіgіtаl аѕѕіѕtаnt wіll note them dоwn and ѕеnd thеm.

However, if уоu wаnt еvеn more control оvеr your ѕmаrtрhоnе frоm Wіndоwѕ 10, then the Puѕhbullеt арр іѕ for уоu. It wіll show уоu notifications frоm уоur phone оn Wіndоwѕ 10, lеt уоu rерlу tо mеѕѕаgеѕ аnd ѕеnd аnd rесеіvе fіlеѕ between devices – all wіthоut removing your рhоnе frоm уоur росkеt! Rеаd оn tо fіnd оut mоrе.

Well there are a few options. The best one and one that I am using is called motorola connect and its available here:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/motorola-connect/kigmoblgooahdmdibodmcnffgnejlndh?hl=en

The only problem is that its only available via motorola phones. I assume it will be available to many more in the future.

Designing and Developing Mobile Based Instruction: A designer’s perspective

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Here is my latest publication:

http://ojs.lboro.ac.uk/ojs/index.php/DATE/article/view/1877

Designing and Developing Mobile Based Instruction: A designer’s perspective

Mobile devices are increasingly being used in classrooms
and corporations as a means to deliver instructional
content. Currently, there is limited research on how to best
design and develop mobile based instruction. As a result,
the purpose of this research study was to examine
students’ perceptions of designing and developing mobile based
instruction by a) interviewing instructional design
graduate students in a computer based instruction course
who were given the opportunity to construct mobile-based
instruction and b) surveying instructional design graduate
students to uncover their perceptions of mobile instruction
design, usability, and delivery. Results of the survey and
qualitative data analysis indicated that usability was a key
issue on the mobile device. Users enjoyed quick access,
good organization, user control, single column layouts, and
large links/buttons. These findings contribute to the
literature base on the design and development of mobile
based instruction.