Author Archives: admin

Google App Inventor moving to MIT Media Lab

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For those wondering about this transition, here is a link to some good info from MIT.

Here is some of the main info:

When will the Google App Inventor service shut down?

Google support of App Inventor will end on December 31, 2011.

When will the public MIT App Inventor service be available?

We MIT anticipate the public instance of App Inventor will be available for the general public to access some time in the first quarter of 2012.

Will my current App Inventor projects transfer automatically to the MIT service?

No, legally Google is not allowed to give your project data to MIT. You will need to download your projects to your computer and upload them to the MIT service when it becomes available.

What do I need to do to preserve my projects when the Google service shuts down?

You will need to download your projects to your computer. The “Download all projects” button will create a zip file of all your projects. Unzipping that will produce a folder with all your projects (each project itself is a zip file) and you can upload them individually to a new App Inventor service when it becomes available.

Link to the rest:

 App Inventor transition to MIT

 

What is Dual Coding?

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The following video describes dual coding theory as well as cognitive load. The point of the video is briefly explain the main concepts around this theory. For more in depth analysis I would suggest the literature and in fact I will post some that I have written. Also, here is the image I used in the video if anyone would like to use it (for educational purposes citing me of course).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwHaq3xlNdA]

dual coding

 

 

Is Google taking over the world?

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I have mentioned this before, but yes, I believe Google is taking over too much. I love their products, and I love the fact that many are free but I wonder if they are doing too much without putting focus in certain areas. Here are some of main things google controls/owns:

Google Search
Youtube
Android/Droid
Google+
Google Maps
Google Docs
Google Wallet
Google Earth
Google Scholar
Blogger

Now there are many more. But how many of you can say you are not using at least one of these? Every one of us is using a Google product in our daily lives. Do I get scared when a company has this much control? Yes. Do I like what Google is doing? Yes. So having said that I think it’s good to keep an eye on Google’s motives and make sure they keep a good course as they currently are.

How to use HTML5 to publish mobile apps to apple and android app stores

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Yes it is possible use HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript to make mobile apps that are published to Apple and Android app stores. I have mentioned it before. However, it is not as seamless as one would like. You unfortunately have to use 3rd party software to do it.

However, the great thing is that the 3rd party software is pretty good, and opensource. One such software and probably the most popular is called Phonegap (http://phonegap.com/).

Now the main question is when will Apple and Android support HTML5 and allow everyone to publish these kind of apps without using 3rd party software? As of right now both google and apple are hard at work pushing their own agendas and leaving HTML5 is the dust – and yes I am aware that both companies say they support html5 but until they stop pushing C/C++ and Java as the only way to build their apps then I will argue they are not pushing HTML5.

PHP Contact Mail Form

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I know I have another of these posted on my blog however that one assumes that php global settings is OFF and many servers have it set to ON. So here is one that should work regardless of your server settings. To see an example of this working, just click on the contact page of my website in the links above.

Code:

<html>

<body>

<?php

//if submit button pressed

if(isset($_POST[‘submit’])){

//sending to my email
$name = $_POST[‘name’];
$email = $_POST[’email’];
$comments = $_POST[‘comments’];
$subject = $_POST[‘subject’];
$sql = “‘$name’, ‘$email’, ‘$comments'”;
$em = “‘$subject'”;
mail(‘enterYourEmailAddressHere’, $em, $sql);

echo(“<p>You message has been sent!” . “</p>”);
}
?>

<form name=”form1″ id=”form1″ method=”post” action=”<?=$PHP_SELF?>”>
<p align=”left”><strong>Name:</strong>
<input type=”text” name=”name” />
</p>
<p align=”left”>&nbsp;</p>
<p align=”left”><strong>Email:</strong>
<input type=”text” name=”email” />
</p>
<p align=”left”>&nbsp;</p>
<p align=”left”><strong>Subject:</strong>
<input type=”text” name=”subject” />
</p>
<p align=”left”>&nbsp;</p>
<p align=”left”><strong>Message:</strong>
<textarea name=”comments” cols=”60″ rows=”3″></textarea>
</p>
<p align=”left”>
<input name=”submit” type=”submit” id=”submit” value=”submit” />
<input type=”reset” name=”Submit2″ value=”Reset” />
</p>
</form>

</body>

</html>

Are we overestimating technology use in younger generations?

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For this piece, I am speaking about the current undergraduate – 18-22 year old in college, and not computer science majors. My experience is mostly with education and communication majors. Having taught at two different universities in the last several years, and teaching many technology classes, I have had a lot of experience with students of this age their perceptions and experience with technology. So…

I think we believe these students are inundated with technology, are experts, and all have new iPhones. What I am finding in my classes is quite the opposite. Here are my observations:

The students are not inundated with technology in their classes. In fact, many come to my technology classes with a little anxiety because they are going to have to use the computer in new ways. What I find is that many of my students are comfortable using Word and Powerpoint. They can check email and do basic web searches using Google. When I ask who has heard of Google Docs, maybe 1% of the class raises their hands. And this isnt just Google Docs, this goes for many Web 2.0 technologies with the exception of Facebook. Do these students all have new iPhones? I find that in general, less than 50% of my students have smartphones.  In fact, some have hand me down smart phones from their parents. None have ipads but a few have used them because their parents might have one. All of my students have laptops. None have standard desktops. This is not surprising as the cost of laptops has decreased a lot in the last few years. A portion do have Macs which are more expensive.

So what does this all mean? I believe it means that these students are not using every new gadget that comes out. They do not have the money to buy the latest smart phones. And they are not tech experts, in fact, they are just as nervous about new technology as older generations in my opinion. Now will this change? I believe so. I have observed the current elementary/middle school students doing significantly more with technology in the classroom. So I believe in the next 5-10 years the undergrads will be much more technology driven than the current generation.

Having said all of that, there are the students that remind me of myself. They make it a priority to have the latest and greatest. They can recite every popular web 2.0 technology and read blogs such as mashable daily. But these are not the norm. These are the techies:)

HTML5: When will it be ready for prime time?

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At this point, HTML5 is not ready to be used, which is why pretty much everyone is NOT using it. I recently did a test of a few of the major HTML5 tags, such as the video tag, one that will be most common, and it failed on more than 50% of the browsers I tested it on. I tested this on firefox, IE, Opera, and Safari for the mac and pc. Then on mobile devices including ipad, iphone, and android froyo. You can test the page yourself by clicking this link. Check to see where it works and does not.

So at this point, I would strongly recommend NOT using HTML5 until is becomes more standardized. Its just full of too many holes. As new browsers get released these holes may become larger or smaller so you really need to just pay attention. W3C has said the standards would be ready by 2014 and you currently can ‘trick’ all browsers into working but honestly I am not going to write code for every browser possibility. That is not the point of HTML5 and if that is the case I might as well use a plug in.

Anyone interested in learning html5 should check out: http://www.w3schools.com/html5/default.asp

And anyone interested in learning more about why HTML5 is not ready for prime time should check out this link. This site describes why youtube is continuing to use flash player and not HTML5: http://www.streaminglearningcenter.com/articles/what-is-html5.html